Three Strikes against atheism, materialism, and humanism.

POINT 1
Atheism, humanism, and materialism do not teach the values needed for human beings to live successful and happy lives.

The other day I was meditating on some biblical truths when I thought about this.

We must learn to govern our own lives unselfishly and love others before we try to govern others." Athesism, humanism, and materialism will always fail because these philosophies do not understand how to love human beings as a special creation made in the image of God.

Vaclav Havel former president of the Czech Republic, a survivor of a communist culture that earnestly tried to live without God, stated the problem:

I believe that with the loss of God, man has lost a kind of absolute and universal system of coordinates, to which he could always relate everything, chiefly himself. His world and his personality gradually began to break up into separate, incoherent fragments corresponding to different, relative coordinates.

Havel saw the rape of the land as a direct growth of atheism.

I come from a country where forests are dying, where rivers look like sewers, and where in some places citizens are recommended not to open their windows. The cause of this he said, Arrogance of new age human beings who enthroned themselves as lords of all nature and of all the world. Such people lack a metaphysical anchor: I mean a humble respect for the whole of creation and an awareness of our obligations to it….. If the parents believe in God, their children will not have to wear gas masks on their way to school and their eyes will not be blinded by pus.

Philip Yancey says, We live in dangerous times and face urgent questions not only about the environment but also about terrorism, war, sexuality, world poverty, and definitions of life and death. Society badly needs a moral tether, or system of coordinates, in Havels phrase. We need to know our place in the universe and our obligations to each other and the earth. Can we answer these questions without God?

POINT 2
Atheism, materialism, and humanism fail to see the beauty of the creation is because of the loving and intelligent design of a creator.

Psalm 19:1-2 (KJV)
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork. [2] Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shoes knowledge.

Science studies the universe like it is machinery in a factory rather than see the beautiful products the owner has designed and created. " P.S.

The founder of the Sierra Club John Muir wrote this, Oh these forest gardens of our Father! What perfection, what divinity in their architecture. What simplicity and mysterious complexity of detail! Who shall read the teachings of these sylvan pages, the glad brotherhood of rills that sing in the valleys and the happy creatures that dwell in them under the tender keeping of a Fathers care?

Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion but not of stillness….
Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? T.S. Elliot

Today scientist dare not mention God. In their absurd logic they perceive of nature as thinking, a materialistic machine with intelligence that made itself ready for mankind this is called the Anthropic Principle. One scientist made this statement, "Nature is exquisitely tuned for the possibility of life on earth." When science replaces God we know our future is in trouble. The Bible says, Thinking themselves to be wise they became fools. The height of this absurdity was written by Freeman Dyson, The universe knew we were coming.

POINT 3
A society that denies the supernatural and God usually ends up elevating the natural to supernatural status.

Man has become the new God and pleasure the new mistress and goddess. P.S.

We must not elevate natural things to replace God and the things of God that are truly sacred. Nikita Krushchev hailed communism as a success and its tenants sacred. Breshnev the president of Russia said everything pertaining to Lenin and communism is sacred. Man tried to put his intellect as a substitute for God and His word.

A.N. Wilson wrote, Dethroning God, that generation found it impossible to leave the sanctuary empty. They put man in God’s place, which has the paradoxical effect, not of elevating human nature but of demeaning it to the depths of cruelty, depravity and stupidity unparallel in human history.

In the Old Testament God foreseeing such events spoke through the prophet Jeremiah these words.

Jeremiah 2:13 (KJV)
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Science instead of seeking to learn the heart behind the universe have made nature the author of the universe and man is now its God. Mankind has risen to the throne by chance by the rolling of the cosmic dice. Today science seeks to discover the origins of the human race in vapors and explosions that authored themselves eons ago.

Man as God is now redefining his moral universe. Man is seeking His pleasure right now right here. All borders and all boundaries are relative. Spirituality is no longer a valid or legitimate pleasure of the soul. In rejecting spirituality we are failing to grasp eternity is in the human mind and heart. All that we are left with is Hopelessness as we fail to see there is a world to come.

Religion has failed to grasp the imagination of man with its rigid rules and regulations. Only Biblical truth liberates man revealing natural desires are not as Philip Yancey says, The enemy of the supernatural and repressing desires not the solution. Rather to find the path of joy by connecting it to its other and ultimate source God, and heaven. The earth is the place of choice choosing perfection over imperfection. Earth is the place where we choose, good over evil. We will then live in these choices for all eternity.

What humanity needs to discover is heaven is earth magnified, sanctified, glorified, and expanding in endless joy, godly creative delights and the diversities of God expressed through the creation and His people. The ultimate delight is in discovering God and His vastness. The author of all things is more interesting than the what he created. The painter is far more satisfying to know than the painting. Idolatry whether of pleasure, power, wealth, travel, or whatever takes the place of God is a poor substitute for discovering the depths of God and His love.

The supernatural and the natural do a cosmic dance that only God has the music for. Saint Augustine was right when He defined the whole of life as living in "holy desires." He believed we as human beings could live life joyfully because of God's generosity. In explainig this generosity he used the Latin phrase dona bona meaning good gifts. Jesus said, Your heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts. Saint Augustine defined God in another Latin word largitor which means lavisher of gifts. Saint Augustine said, I had my back to the light and my face turned toward the things upon which the light fell. He said this of the desires he felt during his days as a pagan. Only as he turned to face the light could he see the generous source of all good things. Dear heart God is in the process of redeeming His creation and will reclaim, art, music, nature, and culture back to God’s original intent. This is why Apostle Paul said,

Col. 3:1-2 (KJV)
If you have been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. [2] Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Life is like road signs pointing and giving directions to a spiritual destination. So the road to heaven is marked. We cannot see heaven but the signs to our destination are clear the journey you take is up to you.