Post 79 - Dazed and Confused: Quotes from Ignorance

In the last post I presented some of my favorite Christian quotes from some truly inspired and inspirational Christian thinkers. If you didn't catch the blog last month, here is a link: Post 78 - Wisdom & Insight: Some of My Favorite Quotes

Sadly, in a world that is (temporarily) governed by the "prince of the power of the air"(Eph 2:2), the "god of this age" (2 Cor 4:4), the "ruler of this world" (John 14:30), many things are said that reflect an unfortunate ignorance of the Christian faith and of spiritual things in general.

Today, I thought it might be of interest to explore some quotes from some well-known skeptics who, sadly, reflect an incomprehensible ignorance and hostility toward the Christian faith.

No Great Expectations

There is no shortage of highly respected people who love to besmirch both the Christian faith, its God, and its followers. There are many atheists, agnostics, and Christ-deniers who have cashed in on mocking the faith and bashing those who believe. The Bible warns us to expect such opposition.

Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked, and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations, with which your enemies mock, O LORD, with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. (Psa 89:50-51 ESV)

In other words, we should expect skeptics to say things like--

"Religion is arrogance parading as humility.” --Bill Maher, late-night TV host

First, sadly, there is some truth in Maher's statement. I believe we have all encountered such people--"sanctimonious" virtue-signalers whose Sundays-only demeanor is a charade designed to impress their fellow churchgoers, or those who feign humility while falsely believing to be a better person than their neighbor, favored in the eyes of the almighty God--people who have perfected that art of "humblebrag".

The Bible clearly warns us to be on the lookout for fake Christians--"wolves in sheep's clothing", pretenders in the faith, "double-tongued" people who have learned to fake sincerity & talk the talk, self-promoters who seek praise from other people instead of the honor that comes from God alone (John 5:44).

Yet, I believe that such people represent a small minority of professing Christians. Most true Christians--having experienced the power of God in their lives to encourage, to strengthen, to comfort, to redeem--have a profound sense of gratitude for the grace that God has shown in their lives, resulting in a genuine humility and a sincere desire to share God's grace with others.

Maher's statement not only denies the sincerity of a believer to be truly humbled by the overwhelming power of God, but by implying that such a display of humility in all believers is really a deception is an offense to all true Christians whose lives have been changed by a personal encounter with their creator, the God of the universe.

And we should expect atheists so say things like--

"Christianity is obsessed with sin." --Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist

This statement was made in a recent debate/discussion with Christian apologist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who graciously responded to Dawkins with this beautiful retort, "Christianity is obsessed with love." Indeed, the Christian gospel is really the story of love's power to overcome sin.

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. (1Pe 4:8 ESV)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in strict Muslim family in Somalia. After personally experiencing the horrors of Islam, Hirsi Ali became an outspoken critic of the Islamic faith and turned to atheism where she befriended Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world's most renown atheist and author of the book, The God Delusion.

In 2023 Hirsi Ali announced that she had become a Christian, saying in part, “I have turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable—indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?”

Hirsi Ali found meaning and purpose in the Christian faith. God is now using her painful testimony in a very powerful way to spread the Christian gospel and to encourage others to put their faith in the only God who can save.

(BTW - I've added, "Christianity is obsessed with love." to my list of favorite Christian quotes! :-))

Finally, we should expect the spiritually ignorant to make statements like--

"Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.” --Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

The implication is that Christianity bears most of the responsibility for the ills of the world; war, terrorism, general indecency among people. (I'm not sure where the suicide bombers, genital mutilators, masked decapitators, hostage torturers, etc. of radical Islam fit into Nietzsche's calculus, but... oh well.)

Many critics of Christianity like to point out the atrocities in history carried out in the name of "Christianity", and indeed, there have been some shameful barbarities perpetrated in the name of the Lord. Yet, when compared to the horrors perpetrated by godless dictators, the results are shocking.

For example, during the 350-year span of the infamous Spanish Crusades, there were approximately 2000 deaths. That's about six deaths per year. Such unjustified killing was certainly a horrible blight on the name of Christianity.

Yet, by comparison, in a span of about 70 years, the godless regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler killed nearly one hundred million people! That's well over one million deaths per year! And that's just the tip of the ungodly iceberg. Pol Pot, the leader of the Kamere Rouge in Cambodia, killed about 2 million people in a span of three years and if we add Lenin, Brezhnev, Ceausescu, Castro, et.al. to the evil mix, the "misfortune" to humanity is incalculable.

Final Thought

The ignorance of non-Christian skeptics shouldn't surprise us. We need to see these people and others like them as victims of the enemy's deception and we should pray that God will reveal himself to such people, freeing them from the devil's web.

However, I believe that the damage caused by such misinformed people pales in comparison to the harm that can be generated by well-known and highly respected "Christian" scholars, theologians, pastors, etc. who, in my opinion, have "swerved from the truth" (2 Tim 2:18) and who promote unbiblical concepts within the church, sowing seeds of division in the hearts and minds of those sincerely seeking the true God.

That's what we'll begin to explore in the next post.

Next Post: Bad "Christianity" - Part 1 -

Here's a link: Post 80 - Bad "Christianity": Part I