Atheists us and Hell...Professor Richard Dawkins was recently cited as Britain’s top intellectual in an independent Poll carried out by Prospect Magaz

Professor Richard Dawkins was recently cited as Britain’s top intellectual in an independent Poll in Prospect Magazine.

A quick glance at the Professor’s CV would seem to confirm that Mr Dawkins is indeed an impressive individual.

In edition to his own qualifications Professor Dawkins is the holder of 5 honorary degrees from countries across 3 different continents. He isn’t just a professor at any old university but occupies one of the ivory towers at Oxford.

He is a past winner of the Times Literary Prize, the Michael Faraday award, the Humanist of the Year Award, the Shakespeare Prize for his contribution to British culture; he is also a member of the Royal Society.

Since 1979 he has delivered 65 keynote lectures and addresses around the world. He has penned 8 best selling books and his latest book ‘The God dilemma’ is perched at the top of the UK best sellers list where it will probably stay until well after Christmas.

Richard Dawkins is not very complimentary about God or indeed God’s word, in a recent interview with the BBC he described the bible as being

‘just plain weird… a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.’

In the same interview he goes on to say

“This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird volume that religious zealots hold up to us as the inerrant source of our morals and rules for living. Those who wish to base their morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not understood it…’

It is equally true that the bible is not very complimentary about Professor Dawkins for it says in Psalm 14:1

'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."’

Yet, to be fair to Richard Dawkins and his fellow atheists it isn’t really God that they have a problem with it is his followers.

God is love and his latest encounter with humanity (the death and resurrection of Jesus) is an act of almost unbelievable and unmerited generosity. Yet in spite of God’s new covenant of grace the adherents of the world’s three main religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism (all of whom claim to follow the God of Abraham) very often remain characterised by intolerance, sectarianism, cruelty and self-righteousness.

The following quote from Professor Dawkins addresses the recent rise in religious fundamentalism and its political impact upon the contemporary world.

‘Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and instead characterise their battle as a war against 'terror', as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of its own. Or they characterise terrorists as motivated by pure 'evil'. But they are not motivated by evil. However misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian murderers of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.’

It is of course true that no one who calls himself a Christian has a biblical right or a divine mandate to murder anyone – not even those who perpetuate abortion - just as a proper understanding of the Koran cannot provide similar divine authority for suicide bombings. Yet the devotees of the three main Abrahamic religions continue to give their God a bad name.

There are some within the religious right who have already consigned the likes of Richard Dawkins to hell (in spite of Christ’s absolute prohibition on judging others set out in Mathew chapter 7). Yet the bible teaches that Professor Dawkins, like the rest of us, will be judged according to the light that he has received. Again, there are many within the church that will see the Professor’s lack of illumination as being self-inflicted and that he is still therefore likely to burn forever for his militant atheism.

However, can the likes of Richard Dawkins be blamed for possessing a definition of religion which has largely been determined by the behaviour of the religious? In recent years Christianity has excelled at hating the ‘sin’ and miserably failed at loving the ‘sinner’. Adjectives such as intolerant, belligerent, judgmental, homophobic and arrogant have all been accurately used to describe a faith which ought to be more closely associated with words like, humble, loving, inclusive, forgiving, gentle and kind. Are we not called to love the unlovable, to bring the invisible into sight and into mind?

In light of the growth in atheism and indeed the growth in all kinds of immorality and moral anarchy we would all do well to remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:14-16.

“"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

If Professor Dawkins and others like him blame their blindness on the evident inability of God’s people to shine then it may well not be him who finds himself on the downward path to damnation. Didn’t Jesus say something about the last being first?

Yours set apart by Christ, for the lost, in the Army!