The evidence clearly shows that many of our institutions of higher leaning are cesspools of atheism and hotbeds of radicalism, including sexual radicalism. It's as though we're reliving the pre-French and pre-Bolshevik revolutionary eras.

Prior to the French Revolution, atheism was rampant throughout the nation along with the sexual radicalism of the Marquis de Sade, Mirabeau, Jean-Paul Marat and the Jacobins, Robespierre, etc.

The same was true during the years preceding the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Communism was founded on the atheism and socialism of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin with Darwin's evolutionary theory thrown in for spice. Remember that it was Marx who wrote Fredrich Engels saying, "During…the past four weeks I have read…Darwin's work on Natural Selection…this is the book which contains the basis in natural science for our view."

Now we are being assaulted with what is sometimes labeled "New Atheism." Paul Kurtz's Center for Inquiry, for example, is conducting a summer institute for young atheists entitled "The Journey From Religion to Science." One of their course descriptions reads, "Contemporary issues in secular studies; multisecularism, desecularization and the 'new atheism.'"

In reality, however, there are no new arguments for atheism. Unless "new atheism" means "new atheists," it's a misnomer. The arguments that the French and Communist atheists had in their quiver generations ago are the very same arguments Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris (DHDH) have in their quiver. It seems each generation is called upon to face the same issues, and the question of God's existence is a perennial. It wasn't too long ago that Richard Bentley (1662–1742) was invited to give the first Boyle Lectures on Natural Theology.  His lectures were entitled, "Confutation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World."

Because we, too, must face the issue of atheism head-on, let me recommend the four books listed at the top of this article by Aikman, Berlinski, Day, and Lennox (ABDL). These authors handle all the major arguments, accusations, and assertions of the new atheist crowd. Indeed, it's as if we have two law firms bidding for the hearts and minds of this generation. And so they are because ideas have consequences. Theism and atheism have consequences.

Let's begin with David Aikman, who summarizes the case against these famous four theologians of atheism. Analyzing their writings, he says their errors fall nicely into three major categories: (1) their assertions are too wild to be taken seriously (e.g., "religion poisons everything" or "better many worlds than one god" or "Jesus was born in 4 A.D."); (2) they stray into unfamiliar territory (Biblical studies, theology, philosophy) and prove they are wading in way over their heads; and (3) their view that somehow science invalidates religious truth is far from historically true and certainly not scientifically true since religion birthed science (see Berlinski, p. 46). Berlinski goes so far as to state that the faith necessary to do coherent scientific work is debauched by a complacent atheism.

So let's be blunt for a moment. For all the hype given over to the atheists' charges, claims, pronouncements, and fairy tales, I can't think of one thing that Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, or Harris preaches that isn't answered in a scholarly, even "fair and balanced" manner, by Aikman, Berlinski, Day, and Lennox. No Christian need be embarrassed by the avalanche of atheistic propaganda, believing that their arguments are really too profound and powerful to challenge. ABDL challenges every one of them with reason, logic, science, common sense, and yes, a sense of humor, too.

Atheists, by the way, seem to lack a sense of humor (although Hitchens has far more than the others combined). Case in point: Harris wants to put to death those he considers truly harmful to society (Aikman, p. 32). I'll let his words speak for him: "The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live" (The End of Faith, p. 52).

And these are our modern-day tolerant atheists! Can you imagine if they were the Communist variety that slaughtered millions (see The Black Book of Communism by Courtois). Even one of their own, Theodore Dalrymple, remarks that Harris' statement is "quite possibly the most disgraceful that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist" (City Journal, Autumn 2007). Surely the "new atheists" have lost touch with reality.

Hitchens was probably not trying to be funny when he remarked, "We do not rely solely upon science and reason because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors." Berlinski's response is facetious, yet utterly reasonable—"If Hitchens is not prepared to 'rely solely upon science and reason,' why, one might ask, should anyone else?" (Berlinski, p. 5). Hitchens also reasons (in all seriousness) that his belief in the nonexistence of God is not a belief, but my belief in the existence of God is a belief. Go figure!

A question worth asking is this: What triggered such a sudden onslaught of hard-core, mean-spirited atheistic propaganda? Why now?

Some suggest that perhaps it was George Bush and his administration that riled up the godless with his evangelical Christianity clearly on display. I personally think the answer is much closer to the atheist camp itself. One of their very own (and not just one of their lightweights) decided after looking at the scientific evidence that atheism is untenable, indefensible, and yes, false! The gang of four (DHDH) decided that such a gap in their Secular Humanist worldview armor needed to be plugged, and since Antony Flew is a heavyweight, so, too, the humanists had to call their remaining heavyweights to arms. Hence, this massive flood of atheist books and TV appearances, college lectures, and radio call-in programs.

DHDH could not stand back and fail to challenge Dr. Flew's admission that it was his study of science and philosophy that actually led him out of atheism, not theology and evangelism! In his book There Is A God (also highly recommended!), Flew begins with his early life as an atheist, explaining his reasons why God could not exist, and then moves to his later life and why he changed his mind. He now concludes that indeed there has to be a God, or there would be no universe. Sounds like Genesis 1?

Since the flurry over Flew's conversion to deism, a bit of calm has descended and a lot of research and writing has commenced. The authors answering the four purveyors of atheism are handing them their heads on a platter! Regretfully, atheist heads on platters is not graphic enough for coverage on the evening news.

Any fair-minded reader of Aikman, Berlinski, Day, and Lennox will recognize that the atheists' thrusts and daggers have been brilliantly and convincingly defeated.

Berlinski and Lennox, for example, take on the atheistic notion that somehow science proves the nonexistence of God. After examining the scientific method and its various ramifications, Berlinski concludes that he has yet to see how science disproves the existence of God. He notes that physicists seem "remarkably unenthusiastic about welcoming philosophers as fellow scientists" (Berlinski, p. 58). Richard Feynman observes, "The philosophers are always on the outside making stupid remarks." Saying that science somehow proves the nonexistence of God is a stupid remark! Another stupid remark is Dawkins' theological/philosophical claim that "Better many worlds than one god." Equally stupid is his "many worlds" or multiverse theory of not one universe but an infinite number of parallel universes. Such "science so-called" or better, "scientism" is merely Dawkins' atheism and materialism coming to the fore.

Berlinski's comments about "faith" and "science" are also worth examining. He quotes Stephen Hawking to the effect that "so long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator." It takes faith to accept the proposition that science has discovered a beginning to the universe. In fact, in takes faith in reason to even reason logically about it. Vox Day points out that faith is not the opposite of reason; the opposite of reason is irrationalism.

Berlinski contends (p. xii, xiii) that there have been four profound scientific theories since the great scientific revolution in the West—Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetic field theory, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanicsand none disproves the existence of God. Stated another way, none proves the atheist claim that science has buried God (note the title of Lennox's book). Einstein said it like this, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Dawkins, who claims Einstein as one of his own, should listen to his scientific superior.

Berlinski insists that "no scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses" (p. xiv). In fact, he says science has "nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love, and meaning." On the other hand, the religious tradition "has formed a coherent body of thought regarding these subjects" (p. xiv). Berlinski further notes, "Science does not harbor the slightest idea of how the ordered physical, moral, mental, aesthetic, social world in which we live could have ever arisen from the seething anarchy of the world of particle physics."

Aikman, Lennox, and Day do not in any way disagree with Berlinski, but rather add to his basic arguments. Day, for example, addresses in some detail the charge that religion is an enemy of science. He proves why the charge is false and quotes from Feynman to the effect that "[s]cientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad--but does not carry instruction on how to use it" (Day, p. 52).

Both Aikman and Day cover the area of atheism's practical outworkings in society. And their examples do not edify the atheist cause. For example, few atheists wish to discuss the relationship of Darwin to Hitler or atheism's role in the former U.S.S.R. Day quotes Lenin and Trotsky to the effect that "atheism is a material and inseparable part of Marxism" and the "very essence of religion is the mortal enemy of Communism" (Day, p. 243).

Day's chapter entitled "The Robespierre of Atheism" is an insightful look at Michel Onfray, the French atheist and hedonist and far-left Nietzschean. Nietzsche, of course, was not only an atheist and nihilist (life has no meaning), but also a warmonger. His famous statement on war: "War is an admirable remedy for peoples that are growing weak and comfortable and contemptible; it excites instincts that rot away in peace." Not surprising, Onfray, although a historian, has nothing to say of the "fifty-two atheist mass murderers of the twentieth century" (Day, p. 202). But he has plenty of nasty things to say about the American Secular Humanists for accepting way too much of the Judeo-Christian morality (e.g., Paul Kurtz says he can accept the Golden Rule in spite of its religious connotations). Onfray, however, would banish Christian morality on the basis that "it is anti-social." Translation: It is anti-Darwin's natural selection/survival of the fittest. Christian morality cuddles the weak, the sick, and the helpless instead of allowing them to die (or even assisting in their death), thus enhancing the evolutionary process.

Day's chapter entitled "The End of Sam Harris" is worth the price of the book. He especially takes Harris to the woodshed for his statement that "some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them" (Day, p. 129).

John C. Lennox's powerful defense of the Christian perspective will be hard to dismiss by any atheist. His overall thrust is to prove that theism as a worldview "sits most comfortably with science." His argument is that the scientific evidence moves toward theism, exactly opposite the argument of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris.

In fact, Lennox points to immunologist George Klein, who "states categorically that his atheism is not based on science, but is an a priori faith commitment" (Lennox, p. 34). Statements like this are bad news for the fearsome foursome of DHDH! Lennox also points to former atheist Antony Flew, who admits that his "whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates [to] follow the evidence wherever it leads." Following the evidence led him to remove himself from the atheist camp (Lennox, p. 38).

Much of Lennox's book covers the issue that "the genetic material DNA carries information" (Lennox, p. 54). Read it to be fully informed on why the existence of "information" spells death to the forces of HDHD! (Hint: Information is a form of language, and language implies an author.)

I now return to David Aikman, whose chapter entitled "The Christian Worldview Is the Foundation of Liberty" is priceless! Aikman begins by quoting Michael Novak: "Can an atheist be a good citizen? That has been done, many times. Can American liberties survive if most of our nation is atheist? The most common, almost universal judgment of the founders was that it could not" (Aikman, p. 135).

Aikman moves to more fully answer the question of the survivability of freedom under the atheistic worldview. He comes to the founding fathers' conclusion, but offers his analysis in a most interesting way. In fact, Aikman quotes Hitchens, one of the fearsome foursome, to the effect that "secular totalitarianism has actually provided us with the summa of human evil"(p. 98). However, this same Hitchens concludes the founding fathers were not "men of faith" because "almost to a man, none had a priest at his deathbed" (Aikman, p. 137). Aikman replies tongue-in-cheek, "Dying Protestants don't make a habit of calling on priests to attend their departure from this life."

Aikman's comments on Thomas Paine are also worth noting. Though Paine was one of the very few true Deists (most of the founding fathers were either Christian or Unitarian), when he returned to Paris following the American Revolution he went there to "fight against atheism." Paine fought against atheism because he held the atheists of the French Revolution era "responsible for the massacres" (Aikman, p. 141).

Aikman also quotes John Adams (a Unitarian) answer to the French atheist Marquis de Condorcet who was arguing for morality without religion: "There is no such thing [as morality] without the supposition of God. There is no right and wrong in the universe without the supposition of a moral government and an intellectual and moral governor" (Aikman, p. 152).

Not one of the fearsome foursome (DHDH) comes close to challenging Aikman's argument that the founding fathers were in no way establishing an atheistic commonwealth. All of America's founding documents were theistic in one way or another. Thomas Jefferson said, "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?" Our founding fathers knew that atheism could not be the foundation of a free, democratic republic. Dozens of their statements prove this point.

Aikman finds it significant that after atheistic Communist regimes have historically "wrecked suffering and chaos" on a national basis, "it is the secular rationalism of the atheist worldview that is being challenged." In China, most Chinese have lost faith in Marxism-Leninism, sensing that Marxist philosophy is chained to "the iron ball of state atheism, [which] has left it in a moral wasteland" (Aikman, p. 167).

Let me conclude by examining the observations of a former atheist—Sir Fred Hoyle (who, incidentally, was skeptical about Darwin's theory of evolution). Hoyle understood that for life to exist on earth, lots of carbon (C and atomic number 6) is needed. He understood how carbon was formed (combining three helium nuclei or combining helium and beryllium). He also understood that for any of this to happen "the nuclear ground state energy levels have to be fine-tuned with respect to each other" (Lennox, p. 69). If the variation were more than 1 percent either way, the universe could not sustain life. Hoyle says nothing challenged his atheism more than "this scientific discovery."

Physicist Freeman Dyson sees it nearly the same way: "The more I examine the universes and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming." Paul Davies likewise concludes, "It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe." (See also Hugh Ross, Creation as Science, p. 96[f] for additional examples of a finely tuned universe.)

Let's hope and pray that DHDH will reach the same conclusion. Let's pray earnestly that they cease and desist their atheistic propaganda machine that weakens Western Civilization's attempt to survive the current onslaught of Islam in its westward march, convinced that the time is right to demolish the decadent "Christian" West. As George Gilder says, "A culture that does not aspire to the divine becomes obsessed with the fascination of evil, reveling in the frivolous, the depraved, and the bestial." (See Gilder's review of The Devil's Delusion in National Review, May 5, 2008, p. 58.) Indeed, let's pray for a revitalized and rededicated Christianity that can again be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world," reflecting its founder and Master--Jesus Christ. Thus ends the homily!

These words of betrayal popped into my head the moment I read that the president of the United States had stabbed his long-time friend and fellow Republican Senator James M. Inhofe right in the softest part of his abdomen. It didn't kill him, but the damage is done.

Senator Inhofe (Oklahoma) has been a loyal Republican, but instead of extolling him in his attempt to expose Democrat Al Gore and his wild-eyed "global warming" scheme (now called "climate change" since the earth hasn't been warming since 1998), George W. Bush decided to throw his lot in with the Gores of the world and other leftwing, socialistic, international elitists and paint Inhofe as a buffoon or social dinosaur. As the Washington Times editorial put it, Bush was "kicking the intellectual legs out from under a defensible conservative position on climate change" (April 17, 2008).

Listen to Senator Inhofe, and then tell me the president of the United States shouldn't be in his corner: "The American people are fed up with the media for promoting the idea that former Vice President Al Gore represents the scientific 'consensus' that SUV's and the modern American way of life have somehow created a 'climate emergency' that only United Nations bureaucrats and wealthy Hollywood liberals can solve."

Isn't this exactly the situation we find ourselves in?

Listen to Christopher Booker, writing in the London Sunday Telegraph (April 20, 2008): "As President Bush finally caved in to international pressure last week and committed the US to spending untold billions of dollars on 'the fight against global warming,' I happened to be in Washington at the same time, talking on the same subject to more than a dozen very lively and opinionated radio shows. I was there with my co-author Richard North, at the invitation of an enterprising Washington think-tank, the Independent Women's Forum, to launch our book Scared to Death."

Booker says the highlight of his trip was meeting Dr. S. Fred Singer, who has taken on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their hysterical reporting over the years. Singer recently organized a scientific conference in New York on the subject of global warming. The conferences materials can be obtained by googling "sepp" and "NIPCC."

According to Booker, the NIPCC report's most startling passage, however, "is one that examines the 'fingerprint' of warming at different levels of the atmosphere which the computer models come up with as proof that the warming is manmade. The pattern actually shown by balloon and satellite records is so dramatically different that, even on the IPCC's own evidence, the report concludes, 'anthropogenic [manmade] greenhouse gases can contribute only in a minor way to the current warming, which is mainly of natural origin.'"

The significance of this, says Booker, "can scarcely be overestimated. At just the moment when, thanks to the overwhelming pressure generated by the IPCC, the world's politicians, led by the [socialistic] EU, are committing us to spending untold trillions of pounds, dollars and euros on measures to 'mitigate' the claimed effects of manmade warming, here is a galaxy of experts producing hard evidence that—if the problem exists at all—the official explanation for it is oriented in wholly the wrong direction. Furthermore, the consequences of that warming and of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have, on balance, been wholly beneficial, by increasing plant growth."

Even the pope seems to have it right. Pope Benedict XVI, according to Simon Caldwell, "has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology [spelled Al Gore]. The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering." The German-born Pontiff said "it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement." Why couldn't President Bush have said something rational and conservative like this instead of jumping with both feet into the Gore camp along with all his international, socialistic brethren?

In case you think I am stretching the facts, please listen to Dr. David Deming, a geophysicist teaching at the University of Oklahoma in the Arts and Sciences Department, as he speaks up for and defends his senator, James M. Inhofe.

In a report to the U. S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (epw.senate.gov), Dr. Deming said this: "Around 1996, I became aware of how corrupt and ideologically driven current climate research can be. A major researcher working in the area of climate change confided in me that the factual record needed to be altered so that people would become alarmed over global warming. He said, 'We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.'

"The Medieval Warm Period was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the 'Little Ice Age' took hold in the 14th and 15th centuries. The warmed climate of the Medieval Warm Period was accompanied by a remarkable flowering of prosperity, knowledge, and art in Europe. But the existence of the Medieval Warm Period was an 'inconvenient truth' for true believers in global warming. It needed to be erased from history so that people could become convinced that present day temperatures were truly anomalous. Unfortunately, the prostitution of science to environmental ideology is all too common."

Instead of knifing Senator Inhofe, Dr. Deming praised him, saying, "Sen. James Inhofe is not only correct in his view on global warming, but courageous to insist on truth, objectivity, and sound science. Truth in science doesn't depend on human consensus or political correctness. The fact that the majority of journalists and pundits bray like sheep is meaningless. Galileo, another 'social dinosaur,' said 'the crowd of fools who know nothing is infinite.'"

Why couldn't President Bush eulogize his fellow Republican instead of making headlines in the Washington Times with "Bush prepares global warming initiative."

Tony Blankley, a longtime Bush supporter, can hardly believe the news. "Oh dear," he says. "Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists, and just as a building body of evidence and theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories—President Bush takes this moment to say in effect: 'We are all global alarmists now.'"

Quoting Chris Horner, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming, Blankley notes how the Democrats desperately want Bush and the Republicans to "take ownership of the global alarmists" issues before he leaves office.

Why, you ask? Listen to Horner/Blankley: "Whatever restraint likely to be exercised by the Democratic Party majority next year will be induced by the political fear that the Republicans would be able to say I told you so, if their policies contract the economy and put yet more people out of work. That will give them political cover for the entire program, which, whatever it may try to do regarding 'global warming,' will certainly give governments and international organizations vastly more regulatory and tax control of the U.S. economy."

They are right on target. They continue, "Of course, the proposed carbon taxes will subtract hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars from productive private-sector economic activity and transfer it to 'our friend the government' to spend 'beneficially' for us all."

Blankley rightly concludes, "The liberal world order will not let go of their global warming assault on free economics until hell freezes over—by which point, obviously, the global warming theory will be visibly disproven."

President Bush needs to invite Lord Christopher Monckton to the White House for a chat. Glenn Beck interviewed Lord Monckton (a former Margaret Thatcher policy advisor from 1982-1986 and a graduate of Churchill College, Cambridge) on March 4, 2008, and allowed him to state the following: "What happened is that I looked at Al Gore's movie with mounting horror and identified three dozen scientific errors in it. So I had a weather mate of mine who takes an interest in these matters and also had the money to pay for a court case and I said I thought this film was rubbish. Two weeks later he rang up and said he wanted to do something to fight back against this tide of unscientific freedom-destroying nonsense, which is what global warming is really all about."

To make a long story short Lord Monckton took the case to court because Al Gore's unscientific movie was being required in all British public schools. Monckton won his court case. The court decreed that if Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is shown, then The Great Global Swindle must also be shown.

Not a timid soul, Lord Monckton is also going after NASA's James Hansen for being in bed with Al Gore both "politically and financially." Both stand to cash in on their alarmist gospel (someone called it "garbage in and gospel out"), and the present-day Braveheart has written to the administrator of NASA, asking for a full investigation. If he gets the brush-off, he plans to appeal to the Office of the U.S. Attorney General!

Al Gore might think "the debate in the scientific community is over," but he hasn't seen anyone like Lord Monckton on this side of the Atlantic. Lord Monckton is presently placing catchy ads in American newspapers, asking Gore to debate him in public. As of this writing, Gore hasn't responded. If and when he does, he needs to have W in his corner with a towel and a bucket of water. Senator James M. Inhofe will be in Lord Monckton's corner with crumpets and tea. Stay tuned—this could be a rematch of a Joe Louis—Max Schmeling fight.

To close on a positive note, President Bush's Proclamation for the May 1, 2008 National Day of Prayer is superb!

I'd like to address the question of whether or not Intelligent Design is science by first quoting a theoretical physicist claimed by all sides of the argument (theists, atheists, agnostics, pantheists)—namely, Albert Einstein. Richard Dawkins, for one, claims Einstein as a fellow atheist, so he and his followers should pay special attention to what Einstein actually says: "I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human beings toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations" (Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion, 48).

Doesn't Einstein's quote mirror ID? Aren't arrangement and order in the universe the topics that ID addresses? ID is a quest to discover why the universe "appears to be designed" (which Dawkins admits) and what language speaks to that appearance. The language of the universe appears more and more likely to be the language of mathematics.

Martin Rees, a Cambridge University astronomer, wrote a book entitled Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe. Rees argues persuasively that six numbers define and explain the whole universe, and if these six numbers vary to any significant degree, there would be no physical universe.

For example, the number 10 to the 36th power is the number that describes the strength of the electrical forces that holds atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them. If that number were to vary ever so slightly, there would be no physical universe. The number 0.4 describes the actual density of matter in the universe to a critical density. Rees says if the number were 0.3 or 0.5, there would be no universe.

Rees also insists that these numbers are scientific! In fact, he says, "Astronomy is the oldest numerical science.… [It] is still the science of numbers, and this book is the story of six that are crucial for our universe, and our place in it" (from the preface).

If mathematics is indeed the underlying basis of the laws of the universe, why shouldn't a discussion ensue in a science class that perhaps a brilliant mathematical Mind stands behind these numbers? Yes, a Mind that even thought up these very numbers as a portion of the logic of God (John 1:1–3). Certainly the notions of number, logic, law and causality are well within the scientific vocabulary!

In fact, 40 percent of the membership of the National Academy of Sciences sees no problem with this very discussion in science departments. For example, Harvard University's Owen Gingerich says that the universe was created "with intention and purpose, and that this belief does not interfere with the scientific enterprise."

If it were scientifically determined that a Supreme Mind is behind the whole universe, atheism would suffer a crushing setback. Yet this is exactly what the psalmist insists: "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1).

The British mathematician Alfred North Whitehead makes a point about science that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and all atheists might want to consider. Whitehead says, "In the first place, there can be no living science unless there is a widespread instinctive conviction in the existence of an Order of Things, and, in particular, of an Order of Nature." All the early scientists believed in this order of nature. Its modern name is Intelligent Design!

Paul Amos Moody, a superb scientist, wrote Introduction To Evolution published by Harper and Row. In it he admits to his students that the more he studies science, the more impressed he is with the thought that "this world and universe have a definite design—and a design suggests a designer." He goes on to say, "It may be possible to have design without a designer, a picture without an artist, but my mind is unable to conceive of such a situation."

Michael Ruse, editor of the Cambridge Series in the Philosophy of Biology and founding editor of the professional journal "Biology and Philosophy" is a hardcore Darwinist. Yet he considers both Dawkins and Dennett "dangerous." Ruse is worried that if Dawkins and Dennett make evolution and atheism one (they do!) then Intelligent Design advocates will have a legal basis for its discussion in science classrooms. Why? Because teaching Darwinian evolution in the classroom as equal to atheism would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ruse has a valid point. Sooner or later Secular Humanism as a religion will be in the courts, and atheism will be a key element in the discussion. Already the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has declared atheism a religion.

But Ruse, who teaches at Florida State University, is even more direct than Dawkins and Dennett, who equate atheism and evolution. In a telling article published in the Canadian National Post (May 13, 2000) he writes, "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality…Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."

Secular Humanists generally deny their worldview is a religion. Their opponents, however, argue that Secular Humanism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, et al, and, therefore, should not be the religion of American public schools. Ruse gives the whole Secular Humanist case away when he says, "Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitution for Christianity. It stressed laws against miracles and, by analogy, it promoted progress against providence.… One of the most popular books of the era was Religion Without Revelation, by the evolutionist Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley."

Intelligent Design is not only a scientific concept along with number, causality and laws of nature, but also explains the appearance of design in nature (the starry heavens that intrigued Immanuel Kant along with the metamorphous of the monarch butterfly that intrigues me) better than any explanation involving chaos theory, multiverse theory or plain-old chance. There are intricate designs in nature from the smallest particle in the atom through every cell in our bodies to the vast expanses of the starry heavens because a Designer was involved. Isn't that why the Psalmist proclaimed, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).

All in all, the Ben Steins, David Aikmans, Vox Days, Alvin Plantingas, Alister McGraths, John Lennoxs, Jonathan Wells, William Dembskis, Michael Behes, Phillip Johnsons, Duane Gishs, Andrew Snellings, Hugh Ross', and David Berlinskis of the world are more than an equal match to any and all bricks and barbs thrown at a Creator and His created order dripping in orderly arrangement. But then this is indeed the precise meaning of Cosmos (Gk, orderly arrangement)!

Rev. Dr. Newdow argues that since the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, making reference to the Deity in any governmental decrees or in any affairs directly related to the Federal Government is therefore unconstitutional. But since the U.S. Constitution doesn't mention any of the 50 virtues either (honesty, patience, humility, etc.), are we to conclude that no Federal proclamations can ever mention any of them?

Further, Newdow used the Establishment Clause—"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (Bill of Rights, Amendment I) and the fact that Article VI states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" to bolster his case. But again, the Establishment Clause says "Congress" shall not establish a religion; it doesn't prohibit the President or the Courts from mentioning God! In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court begins each session with its marshal proclaiming, "God save the United States and this Honorable Court."

Dr. Leland, on the other hand, argues that the U.S. Constitution needs to be studied in its context as one of our founding documents among The Declaration of Independence, George Washington's Farewell Address, and the Northwest Ordinance. While one of the four may not make an explicit reference to God per se, it too mentions "In the Year of our Lord" in Article VII and it exempts Sunday as part of a 10-day modus operandi for bills becoming law (Article I, Section 7).

Rev. Newdow did his best to separate the U. S. Constitution from the Declaration of Independence whose language includes "the Supreme Judge of the world," "Divine Providence," "endowed by their Creator," and "nature's God." Newdow never touched Washington's Farewell Address or the Northwest Ordinance, no doubt because they contain language that does not support his argument. Washington, for example, specifically mentions "religion and morality" as indispensible supports to political prosperity. And the Northwest Ordinance says, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Dr. Leland, however, cleverly connected the Constitution to the Declaration over the issue of liberty. The Preamble to the Constitution specifically mentions the securing of "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The Declaration places the notion of liberty within the following context: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Strangely, neither Newdow nor Leland mentioned Thomas Jefferson's most famous quote chiseled into the Jefferson Memorial: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God."

This debate was co-sponsored by Focus on the Family and the American Humanist Association and the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs. The bulletin handed out to attendees introduced Newdow as the "Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow…minister of the First Atheist Church of True Science (FACTS)…working to grow that Atheistic religious organization." If he wants to grow his atheistic religion he would indeed want to delete any mention of God from our coins and our pledge. Any good atheist would want to do the same. But note that Newdow is using the Courts (in this case California's most liberal Ninth Circuit) to further his cause, rather than the legislative approach through which the representatives of the people of the United States would make any decision to rewrite the pledge and retool our coins.

Note also that Newdow admits his humanism is a religion, verifying my contention that the American Humanist Association is a 501-C-3 tax exempt religious organization. We document this fact, of course, in the Revised Third Edition of Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism.

On page 159 of Clergy in the Classroom, I state, "On April 5, 2007, I called the IRS (toll-free) number 1-877-829-5500 and spoke to an agent in Cincinnati, Ohio. The agent verified that the American Humanist Association at 1777 T. Street N.W., Washington, DC 20009 is listed as a 501-C-3 tax exempt organization with a group exemption (meaning any other organizations under its umbrella name are also exempt). It is, the agent said, 'classified as a church.' Its Federal identification number is 94-6168317."

But Rev. Newdow is a bit ingenious. He wants the vast majority of believers in God (over 90 percent in the U.S.) to somehow accept his radical interpretation and never mind that we live in a democratic republic where there is "majority rule" in matters that its citizens consider important and fundamental. He continues to press the matter of "equality." But there already is equality before the law for believers and unbelievers alike in the United States. If 90 percent of the population is against rendering the notion of God obsolete from our country's founding documents and principles, changing them based on the principle of "equality under the law" cannot be a valid argument. God is as much a part of our heritage as any natural or supernatural being. All the founding fathers, including Thomas Paine (a true Deist), believed in the existence of God. (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were Unitarians.)

It is true that Newdow can draw some support from Thomas Jefferson. For example, Jefferson refused to issue any Presidential Proclamations because he did not want to mention God in any Federal decree. But it is also true that Washington, Adams, and Madison had no difficulty in doing so and these presidents were all involved in one way or another with the establishment of the Establishment Clause. This clause was never construed to outlaw the mention of God, but to insure that Congress would never establish and fund an official Church of America.

Madison's proclamation of March 4, 1815, asked the people of the United States "with religious solemnity" to observe a day of thanksgiving and of devout acknowledgements of Almighty God for His great goodness manifested in restoring to them the blessing of peace." (See Robert L. Cord, Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction along with David Barton's Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution & Religion for a point by point refutation of every argument offered by Newdow.)

In truth, there is absolutely nothing new in Newdow's argument. A generation ago, Leo Pfeffer argued every one of his points. Pfeffer was an ACLU lawyer in those days and wrote in the Journal of Church and State (1977) that Secular Humanism would some day triumph over Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism. He placed Secular Humanism squarely in the camp of the religions of the country. (See Robert L. Cord's refutation of Pfeffer in his chapter entitled "Resurrecting Madison and Jefferson.")

Remember that it was Pfeffer who "won" the 1961 Supreme Court case Torcaso v. Watkins, but in reality that case has been a drag on all Secular Humanists since. Why? Because the Supreme Court stated, "Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others."

Paul Kurtz, editor of Free Inquiry magazine, recognized immediately that if Secular Humanism were a religion along with Christianity, Judaism, even Islam, he and his fellow atheists would have to remove their humanistic agenda (atheism, naturalism, ethical relativism, biological evolution, political world government, global warming propaganda, sex education with emphasis on homosexuality, abortion, women's studies, gay studies, black studies, undermining of the traditional family, perverse artistic freedom, embryonic stem cell research, federal control of education, anti-ROTC propaganda, etc.) from tax-financed public schools. Of course, Kurtz has no plans to change course until the U. S. Supreme Court rules against Secular Humanism's constant flow of liberal leftwing brainwashing and we re-establish fair and balanced public education.

One small step in the right direction has been accomplished. Because of the Torcaso v. Watkins decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Chicago) decreed on August 19, 2005, that atheism itself is indeed a religion, finding, "The Supreme Court has recognized atheism as equivalent to a 'religion' for the purposes of the First Amendment on numerous occasions."

But now because Rev. Dr. Newdow, minister of the First Atheist Church of True Science, has declared that he is working to grow his atheistic religious organization, we don't have to go much further with the argument that Secular Humanism is indeed a religion.

If Newdow succeeds in deleting "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God" from our coins and our pledge, his atheistic religious organization will grow. But only if 90 percent of the American public sleep at the switch and allow such a misreading of our history. I don't think the present Supreme Court will concur with Newdow. In fact, with one more conservative judge on the Court, we plan to bring the issue of Secular Humanism as a religion before the Court for a final decision on whether or not that religion can continue being taught as gospel in America's public schools. The fact that it is taught is covered in detail in my book Understanding The Times: The Collision of Today's Competing Worldviews, 2nd edition.

Soon after announcing his promising and highly doable anti-malaria campaign he tells the world that global warming "could lead to cannibalism." His answer—stabilize the population! "We've too many people, that's why we have global warming. Too many people are using too much stuff." Ted's way to stabilize the population—have couples pledge to have only one or two children.

Mr. Turner may wish to volunteer his services to Barack Obama if he becomes his party's candidate for the U.S. presidency since BHO says one of his first cabinet appointments will be Al Gore. He wants Al to take charge of climate change. Al's first fact-finding trip may be to the sun (at night, of course) to find out why it's allowing humankind to do its job of heating up the earth. He may include side trips to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn to see why they're also warming even without the help of SUVs or too many children breathing out CO2. (We have to maintain a sense of humor in our discussions on climate change with the likes of Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Ted Turner, and Jimmy Carter lest we plunge into the abyss with them!)

What drives me close to the edge of that abyss is seeing the contradictions between the alarmists, the climate scientists and the regular guy or gal on the street. While reading Ted's 10- to 40-year projection on the fate of this miserable planet, I'm also reading the following:

• U.S. National Climatic Data reports average temperature of the global land surface in January 2008 was below the twentieth century mean for the first time since 1982. (London Telegraph, Feb. 26, 2008 article by Catherine Elsworth)
• Temperatures were colder than average across central Asia, the Middle East, western United States, western Alaska, and southeastern China. (Ibid.)
• The largest January snow cover extent on record was reported for the Eurasian continent and Northern Hemisphere. (Ibid.)
• Snow fell for the first time in recorded history in parts of China and central Asia. (Ibid.)
• In Yushu, Guoluo, and Huangnan Tibet Autonomous Prefectures, most of the grassland was covered by snow, usually 16 to 32 cm thick, bringing great losses to local animal husbandry. (China View, March 2, 2008 at news.xinhuanet.com/english)
• A month-long cold spell in Vietnam killed tens of thousands of cattle. (World, March 22/29, 2008)
• Record snowfall in Juneau, Alaska. (Juneau Empire.com, April 19, 2008)
• Sweden records coldest Easter in more than 100 years. (John Ray, Greenie Watch, March 29, 2008)
• A violent cold front moved down from the Arctic upon places like Nikkaloukta, Northern Lappland that experienced 41 degrees below zero temperatures. (John Ray, Ibid.)
• Greenland's last decade was no warmer than several decades in the early and mid-20th century. In fact, the period from 1970–1995 was the coldest one since the 19th century. (Patrick Michaels, Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2008)
• For the contiguous U.S., the average temperature for January was below the twentieth century mean and the forty-ninth coolest January on record. (London Telegraph, Feb. 26, 2008, op.cit.)
• Much of North America suffered the heaviest snowfalls since the 1960s. (Ibid.)
• The January 2008 Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent was significantly above the 1979-2000 mean, ranking as the largest sea ice extent in January over the 30-year historical period. (Ibid.)
• Canada's National Post reported that there were so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec that the property market suffered because buyers did not want to go outside. (Ibid.)
• The Arctic winter has been so severe that the ice has not only recovered, but is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than it was at the same time last year. (Ibid.)
• In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabbibullo Abdusamaatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, who advised the world to stock up on fur coats. Sorokhtin, who calls humanity's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond. (Daily Tech, Feb. 9, 2008 article by Michael Asher)
• Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, meaning that global temperatures have not risen since 1998. (BBC News U.K., April 4, 2008)
• Most of Antarctica is cooling, though the newspapers somehow won't be telling you that. (Lord Monckton, Science and Public Policy Institute, March 4, 2008)
• For the last seven years temperatures globally have been falling at a rate of nearly 1 degree F per decade and I bet you haven't heard that on CBS. (Lord Monckton, Ibid.)
• The planet has not warmed appreciably since 1998…eight of the last ten years have not been the hottest in history. (Lorne Gunter, National Post, April 21, 2008)
• Physicist Phil Chapman said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 C. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrument record and it puts us back to where we were in 1930. (Fox News, April 23, 2008)
• The United Nations World Meteorological Organization is reporting that global temperatures have not risen since 1998. (International Business Daily, April 4, 2008).
• Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate…the average temperature of the sea remains unchanged. (U.K. Telegraph, May 5, 2008)

What's so frustrating about the findings listed above is that so little of it gets the attention of the national news media. I read that CBS News reported 38 stories on why human activity (driving that SUV, smoking, eating beans, breathing out CO2) is causing global warming and only 1 on the other side.

In an article published in Canada's National Post (Feb. 25, 2008), Lorne Gunter maintains that the issue we'll be facing before too long won't be global warming, but "a new ice age." He writes, "And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its lowest levels on record. Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past. The ice is back." (According to the March 8/15, 2008 World, "polar ice levels…have roared back over the winter to near their original size.")

He quotes Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council, who is convinced that we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon. Tapping maintains that the last time the sun was this quiet, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted for five centuries, ending in 1850.

Nicola Scafetta and Bruce J. West, research scientists at Duke University, published a paper in Physics Today (March 2008) and agreed with Tapping. According to Scafetta and West many solar researchers are predicting a significant global cooling due to the sun's slow down in activity. (World, March 22/29, 2008)

And this morning (April 2, 2008), the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that a "nongovernmental panel of renowned scientists recently concluded that not only is the slight warming of the atmosphere in recent decades insignificant, there now are signs of cooling, and even so, temperature fluctuations most likely are naturally occurring, and a resumption of warming would even be beneficial."

Let me also mention that "all four major global temperature monitoring organizations (Hadley, NASA, UAH, and RSS) have released data documenting that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C to 0.75C. This is the single fastest temperature change ever recorded--either up or down--for all four organizations" (see http://epw.senate.gov/public). Such contradictions should drive us to reread Michael Crichton's insightful book State of Fear.

Listen as Crichton explains the situation in down-to-earth language:

Drake paced. He looked unhappy. "But it just doesn't make sense," he said. "It's not logical to say that freezing weather is caused by global warming."

"What's logic got to do with it?" Henley said. "All we need is for the media to report it. After all, most Americans believe that crime in their country is increasing, when it has actually been declining for twelve years.… There is no greater proof that all reality is media reality."

"Just think how far we have come!" Henley said. "Back in the 1970s, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. They thought the world was getting colder. But once the notion of global warming was raised they immediately recognized the advantages. Global warming creates a crisis, a call to action. A crisis needs to be studied, it needs to be funded, it needs political and bureaucratic structures around the world. And in no time at all, a huge number of meteorologists, geologists, and oceanographers suddenly became 'climate scientists' engaged in the management of the crisis. This will be the same, Nicholas."

"Stop whining. Don't you remember how long it took to establish the global threat of nuclear winter, Nicholas? It took five days. On one Saturday in 1983, nobody in the world had ever heard of nuclear winter. Then a big media conference was held and by the following Wednesday the entire world was worried about nuclear winter. It was established as a bona fide threat to the planet. Without a single published scientific paper."

"Five days, Nicholas, five days!" Henley said (pp. 315–316).

Let's look at this scenario another way. If the earth is experiencing man-made global warming, that proves we desperately need world government. And if the earth is experiencing global cooling, that also proves we desperately need world government! World crisis requires world government! World government requires United Nations. United Nations requires a worldwide tax scheme to fund the battle against global warming.

Every liberal leftwing socialist is preaching the gospel of global warming with global governance embedded in that gospel. For example, Paul Kurtz, editor of Free Inquiry and head of a major Secular Humanist organization centered in Amherst, New York, pontificates in his Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call For A New Planetary Humanism, "Global warming is probably on the increase, in part as a consequence of deforestation in poor countries and atmospheric carbon-dioxide emissions, especially in the affluent nations." His solution: "Nation-states must transfer some of their sovereignty to a system of transnational authority. . . . The world needs at some point in the future to establish an effective World Parliament.… We recommend an international system of taxation in order to assist the underdeveloped sectors of the human family and to fulfill social needs not fulfilled by market forces."

Tony Blankley put it like this: "The liberal world order will not let go of their global-warming assault on free economics until hell freezes over--by which point, obviously, the global-warming theory will be visibly disproven." (Washington Times, April 16, 2008)

So ask yourself if you'd mind a temperature increase of 1or 2 degrees F or C over a 100-year period which is what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data at the University of Alabama in Huntsville predicts. (See Baptist Press, March 20, 2008 article by John R. Christy.) And while the global warming crowd preaches "hardship on the poor" as an excuse to take away your SUV and allow you to bathe once a month, ask yourself this question: Wouldn't it be better to eradicate malaria, treat a host of other diseases, and dig 10,000 water wells for the poor than to spend hundreds of billions of dollars (some estimates put the figure at trillions by 2050) fighting climate change that won't make even a minor dent in the global temperature? It's not difficult to answer this question!

Let's also ask ourselves who really benefits from the sale of carbon footprints. It's not the poor! It is Al Gore! Gore, along with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, propose furthering the "New Baptist Covenant," a fresh split off the Southern Baptist Convention, to "pool their resources and voices to push for things that really matter, like universal health coverage and fighting global warming" (First Things, April 2008, p. 71).

But this isn't the end of the matter! In fact, it's not even the beginning of the end. Let's say for argument's sake that after spending hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' dollars, they accomplish their objective--they stop the rise of global temperature in its tracks. In stabilizing the weather, they also stabilize the population (a University of Texas professor insists the world needs to find a way to deplete itself by 90 percent). They send our dirty, filthy, God-fearing capitalistic system of greed, arrogance, violence, hard work, and lack of vision back to the dustbin of history so they as socialists can fulfill their promises of a new heaven on earth. Maurice F. Strong, senior advisor to numerous U.N. Secretaries General, states it clearly: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring it about?"

Strong served as the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He merits 11 pages in Wikipedia! He's a major player in trying to achieve the above-mentioned goal, along with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). It is reported that "poor countries want firm commitments of billions of dollars in aid from their rich counterparts," and they want this aid sent through the UNFCC! (Reuters, April 5, 2008). Global warming is a scheme to transfer wealth from the West with a modicum of freedom and education to poor countries kept poor by their lack of freedom to excel and lack of education, countries even more Marxist and corrupt than the U.N.!

But I wander. At Jane Fonda's celebration party for stopping global warming in its tracts, the news comes over her green-powered plasma TV that a volcano, the equivalent of five Mount Pinatubo's, erupted in an explosion of cataclysmic violence and covered the globe while at the same time a number of volcanoes under the ocean erupted as well, spewing out greenhouses gases that make all the efforts of the human race to deplete such pollution pale into insignificance. You say, "no way!" Al Gore and Bill Clinton (or his wife) can certainly wrestle volcanoes to the ground and stop their corrupting the atmosphere and the very air that women and children so desperately require.

Well listen and listen hard...the Colorado Springs Gazette (March 30, 2008) reported, "A cloud of sulfur dioxide gas and ash [is] rising from the Halemaumau crater of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Wednesday [March 26, 2008]. Big Island Mayor Harry Kim says it may be necessary to evacuate some areas around the volcano because the release of 2,000 tons of toxic gas into the air every day is causing concern for the health and safety of nearby residents" (p. A17).

Instead of trying to manage the weather to fit their definition of warm and cool, hot and cold, why don't the global warming quartet of Gore, Clinton, Turner, and Carter fly to Hawaii in Al's private gas-guzzling jet to help Mayor Kim put a halt to the 2,000 tons of toxic gas being emitted into the atmosphere every single day, surely raising global temperatures astronomically! Why isn't the global warming crowd doing something, anything, right now about mini-Mt Pinatubo?

You and I know the answer! It's because they can't do anything about it just as they can't do anything about the weather. It's called nature, Al, Bill, Ted, and Jimmy! A recent U.N. report included a whole section about human activity ("vehicles of selfish genes," according to Richard Dawkins) creating global warming, yet not a single word was said about the sun or its activity. Why is it so hard to admit that God's sun (see Genesis 1) is responsible for keeping the Earth warm and livable?

But since I've come this close to looking into the abyss, my new philosophy is fast becoming, "Who cares what CBS News reports!" I'm going outdoors to enjoy some warm weather.

Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was convinced that there were some twenty to thirty "predominate currents of thought or attitudes of mind" that provided for the structure of history "and held the key to explaining it." Most of these ideas or thoughts were "either religions or substitutes for religion" (Robert Schuettinger, Lord Acton: Historian of Liberty, p. 174).

At Summit, we want to provide our students with "the key" to explain history in this century and believe that the six worldviews listed above, along with their accompanying ideas, do as well as any to provide an understanding of exactly what is transpiring before our very eyes. Lord Acton was right. The ideas that contain the key to explain history are indeed religious or substitutes for the religious. In other words, ideas do indeed rule the world, and as we know from the experience of history, ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad consequences.

The Secular Humanist worldview is one that we explain in some detail (primarily because it has America's public education from kindergarten to graduate school by the throat). We present secular humanism to our students using a baseball metaphor. This opposing team consists of John Dewey pitching, Isaac Asimov catching, Paul Kurtz holding down first base, Corliss Lamont at second base, Bertrand Russell covering third base, Julian Huxley roaming at shortstop, Richard Dawkins fielding left, Margaret Sanger playing center field, and Carl Rogers holding down right field. (In reality, they're all in left field with Dawkins, but to make the game work, we spread the players around.)

In past years, we assigned Ted "Christianity is for losers" Turner as manager. That is, until this summer. Now we need a change of management because Ted has changed his mind. Let me explain. According to the Associated Press (April 2, 2008), "Ted Turner who once called Christianity a 'religion for losers' launched a $200 million partnership with Lutherans and Methodists to fight malaria in Africa, apologizing for his past criticism of religion and calling faith a 'bright spot' in the world."

Ted Turner now apologizes and says he regrets anything he said about religion "that was negative." Now I don't know if he needed to go that far (religion has caused its share of misery), but I've decided to replace him as manager of the Secular Humanist ball team with Christopher Hitchens, author of god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Chris will appreciate this new role although I'm not quite sure where he stands at any given time. His latest article in Free Inquiry magazine (April/May 2008) is quite good—he takes on "the fastest-growing dictatorial system in the modern world"—Putin's Russia!

But just a few articles past Hitchens' is one by Shadia B. Drury, rebuking Hitchens' claim that "religion poisons everything." Drury says that Secular Humanists are "often tempted to ally religion with all the evils of the world." Well, that sounds like Hitchens, all right! But the truth is, says Drury, "Some religious people live decent and upright lives. Some people have been inspired by their religions to do great things, such as fight against slavery, promote civil rights, create the Red Cross, or establish the Social Gospel movement. William Wilberforce (1759–1833) was a British politician who was inspired by his faith to abolish slavery; in 1833, a month after his death, Parliament passed a bill that ended slavery throughout the British Empire." She goes on to mention James Shaver Woodsworth (1874–1942) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) as further examples of religious leaders who did not "poison everything" they touched. She concludes, "As these examples show, religion cannot simply be dismissed as pure evil or the ally of all evils in the world. Life is not that simple."

But let's admit it, atheism is on a roll, and Hitchens, Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and others are all in favor of throwing Christianity overboard and painting Christians as war-mongers among other things. And this in spite of the fact that of the world's nearly 1,763 wars in recorded history, only 123 can properly be labeled "religious wars." (See Phillips and Axelrod, Encyclopedia of Wars) That's a mere 6.8 percent of the total number of wars recorded in all of human history. And the secular wars of the secular governments upon their own people just within the past century count the dead in the tens of millions! Unfortunately, Dawkins and Hitchens want their atheist church to believe that the Joseph Stalins and Adolf Hitlers of the world were Christians. Atheism, not Christianity, is the culprit as recorded by R.J. Rummel in Death by Government. The human propensity for myth making is indeed a deeply fixed human condition.

But I digress! Let's get back to Summit's "key" to understanding history. If you investigate the ideas promulgated by the six major [proselytizing or missionary] worldviews, you will achieve a good understanding of what makes our world go around. And isn't that exactly what we want Christian young people to grasp? Unfortunately, most young people (and I'm referring primarily to the evangelical community) have no understanding of these competing ideas.

Christian young people need to know how to respond to the charge that "there is no God" (Psalm 53:1). They need to know that the world's number one atheist, Antony Flew, is no longer an atheist, and they need to read his explanation of why he changed his mind (There Is a God: How The World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind).

They need to know that Richard Dawkins is pulling their leg when he claims that Albert Einstein was an atheist when Einstein himself said, "I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws" (Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology, p. 48).

Once again this summer, these ideas from the six competing worldviews will be the focus of Summit's Student Conferences (7 sessions in Colorado, 2 in Tennessee, 1 in Ohio, and 1 in Virginia). Our approach is instructed by St. Paul's goal of "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" so that we are able to overthrow the reasoning of those who argue against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Summit Ministries also conducts Summit Semester, a more in-depth three-month academic camp in the fall. Summit Semester is geared to prepare recent high school graduates intellectually and spiritually for the Secular Humanistic college experience.

New this fall (September 2008) is Summit Oxford, a semester-long study experience at Oxford University (U.K.) for qualified college juniors and seniors and college graduates.

Visit the links in this article or call 719.685.9103 for further information and dates for all Summit Ministries programs.

The doctrine of "survival of the fittest" or "natural selection" has become a telling weapon in the hands of the militant atheists in their quest to subvert and ultimately destroy Christianity. "This century," writes Robert Ingersoll, "will be called Darwin's century. . . . Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity" (World magazine, November 17, 2007, p. 38).

Instead of orchestrating a funeral dirge for Christianity, however, Darwin's theory fueled Hitler's ovens and stoked Stalin's communist empire to the tune of millions dead and missing—quite a record for a simple theory of "survival" and "origin of species." (Incidentally, Darwin never did reveal the origin of species in his 1859 work primarily because he knew nothing of DNA, cells, and genes. (See Geoffrey Simmons' What Darwin Didn't Know.)

According to Darwin, three ingredients guarantee survival and multiplicity: vigor, health, and happiness! These three are responsible for the survival and reproduction of all life. Conversely, species that are weak, unhealthy, and unhappy are eliminated in the battle for survival.

With this in mind, have you ever wondered how atheists (who embrace Darwinian evolution) measure up to being happy and, therefore, fulfilling their part in the evolutionary scheme? Are atheists living up to their end of the bargain in propagating and improving the human species? And are atheists, with their doctrine of "no god," offering humanity more happiness than religious believers in God?

Two recent studies confirm the fact that religious believers in God are happier than their atheistic "religious" counterparts who believe in "no god." (I contend that Secular Humanists are just as religious as I am.) If the conclusions of these two studies are valid, then atheists need to explain why they themselves won't be eliminated as part of the unhappy throng who won't succeed in the battle for survival.

The first study I will highlight is a special Mind and Body issue of Time magazine (January 17, 2005) entitled "The New Science of Happiness." In an article entitled "The Power to Uplift," the author concludes that "[r]eligious people are less depressed, less anxious and less suicidal than nonreligious people. And they are better able to cope with such crises as illness, divorce and bereavement. . . . Studies show that the more a believer incorporated religion into daily living—attending services, reading Scripture, praying—the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall sense of satisfaction with life." The article also says that "[s]tudies show that those who believe in life after death, for example, are happier than those who do not" (p. A 46).

The second study I draw from is a University of Chicago study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center in April 2007 that found the following: "Clergy ranked tops in job satisfaction and general happiness." The very group that atheists feel "poisons everything" turns out to be the best friend Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest has. In contrast, I don't recall ever seeing a study that holds up atheists, atheistic philosophers, or scientists as models of happiness. Christopher Hitchens, for example, although even-tempered, seems angry and mean all the time!

My hope is that this University of Chicago study on happiness will give modern-day militant atheist like Sam Harris second thoughts about eradicating the clergy. In his book The End of Faith, Harris actually says, "The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them." Harris may honestly believe that some of these dangerous propositions include: God exists, God created the heavens and the earth, God created Adam and Eve, Jesus saves, and so on.

Fortunately, a fellow atheist evaluated Harris' Bolshevik threat as "quite possibly the most disgraceful [comment] that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist." We can almost hear in the shadowy distance—Ready, Aim, Fire! Have we forgotten that Columbine High School's two killers were wearing t-shirts celebrating "natural selection." And Pekka-Eric Auvinen, an 18-year-old student who murdered eight fellow students at a school in Finland, wore a t-shirt emblazoned with "Humanity Is Overrated." He is quoted as saying, "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection." (World magazine, November 17, 2007, p. 20)

Richard Dawkins, like Sam Harris, regards faith in God as an evil to be eliminated. According to Dawkins, "It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow' disease and many others, but I think that a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn't based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion." (If Dawkins had simply read John Warwick Montgomery's work Faith Founded on Fact, he would not have defined faith as belief based on lack of evidence!)

Harris and Dawkins remind me of the radical Muslims who identify all non-Muslims as infidels and then call for their demise! (See William J. Federer's What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an.)

But let's continue evaluating why atheists are less happy people than religious believers in God and why atheists, therefore, have a diminished chance to survive and propagate themselves. In his own words, Darwin clearly says in hisThe Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, "The vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply" (Vol. 1, p. 96 in the D. Appleton and Company 1898 edition).

Atheism mandates that humanity was born without design or purpose out of some blue-green foamy algae, the result of some chance explosion of non-living matter, finally settling on a god-forsaken planet in an accident-prone universe or even multiverse (an infinite number of universes). Further, this evolving speck called life ultimately has absolutely no purpose—it is a mere piece of protoplasm floating in a sea of nothingness heading nowhere. Its end is again nonexistence from which it came originally. In the meantime, its present existence (DNA) is no better or worse than a head of lettuce or a bunch of carrots, and none of mankind's ideas (which include atheism) is any better than a chimp's ideas (if we were only clever enough to decipher Bonzo's ideas!). True to form, Christopher Hitchens in his recent debate with Alister McGrath at Georgetown University referred to human beings as "little more than quasi-chimpanzees."

On the other hand, the traditional theist (the God believer) looks upon the human race as something very special because we were created in the very image of an infinitely wise and powerful God who actually loved us so much that He was willing to give up His only begotten Son in order to give us eternal life (John 3:16). Life is a precious gift from God, planned and perfectly executed (finely tuned) in order to do what the Creator has given us to do--take care of a privileged planet called earth, take care of each other, and take care to pass on the good news of redemption to each generation.

Dinesh D'Souza, in his powerfully argued work What's So Great About Christianity, suggests we "imagine two groups of people—let's call them the secular tribe and the religious tribe—who subscribe to these two worldviews. Which of the two tribes is more likely to survive, prosper and multiply? The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose. The secular tribe is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. The secular tribe is made up of matter that cannot explain why it is able to think at all" (p. 16).

And since recent studies (mentioned above) conclude that the religious tribe is much happier than the secular tribe, it should not surprise anyone that the religious tribe is surviving and multiplying while the secular tribe cannot even reproduce themselves.

D'Souza cites sociologists Norris and Inglehart who contend that secular [humanist] countries (i.e., Europe and Russia) are "producing only about half as many children as would be needed to replace the adult population." D'Souza concludes "the consequence, so predictable that one might almost call it a law, is that 'the religious population is growing fast, while the secular number is shrinking.'"

Therefore, according to D'Souza, "It is not religion but atheism that requires a Darwinian explanation." Atheism can't provide the means for the survival of the fittest to do its duty and move us from fish to Gish! All atheism is capable of doing is to bemoan the fact that the religious tribe is increasing while the atheist tribe is decreasing. Little wonder that out of a population of 6.5 billion human beings, only 2.36 percent are atheists (see the CIA's web site World Factbook 2006).

Szostak, a professor of genetics at Harvard University, says he is trying to imagine the simplest possible system that could get life started, and then make it in his lab.

Instead of heading for the world of the nonliving, however, Szostak has hit upon the idea that the best candidate for the first organism is "a bit of ribonucleic acid (RNA) enclosed in a plain capsule."

That sounds so scientifically romantic—just a bit of RNA and a plain, simple capsule. The article fails to mention how immensely complex both items are! For the incredible complexity that accounts for these "simple" building blocks of life, see Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism.

In fact, Szostak doesn't hint how such items were originally found in nature to begin the process of creating life from nonliving matter. RNA is not exactly nonliving matter and the "plain capsule" is not exactly nonliving matter. The capsule is a protective sheaf that allows good things into that first speck of life; and disallows bad things to reach that same speck. Its name is complexity—designed complexity!

The Cromie article admits that Szostak plans to skip the hard part of creating those original living molecules from plain old dead chemicals and instead start with "trillions of pieces of RNA in a solution." Is this a cop-out or not? Can someone explain to me in very short sentences how anyone would believe that trillions of pieces of RNA were just lying around along with a jar of the perfect solution at the very site where life was about to be born?

Instead of taking seriously the nanotechnology (machines made from molecules which make life possible) involved in such an undertaking, the genetics professor decides to skip that part. But isn't that the heart of the issue before us. Hear the counsel of Francis Crick: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going." Or how about the counsel of the president of the National Academy of Sciences who stated, "the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered."

In other words, within the same article we are told: (a) a Harvard professor is going to show the world how to make life from nonliving matter, and (b) how this same professor is going to begin his proof by bypassing nonliving matter and going directly to living matter. Am I missing something here that any semiliterate person should find suspicious?

The article concludes with Szostak's parting shot—"If we make something everyone agrees is alive, that would provide a plausible scenario for the great event [creating life from nonliving chemicals]."

Well, not exactly Dr. Szostak! When you cash in your bits of RNA and its rich bed of information for good old dry, nonliving chemicals then we'll tune you in again. When you explain where you found that "plain capsule" to protect that first speck of life we'll think more seriously of your efforts.

Now this brings up another question that demands an answer. Does this whole process of creating life from nonlife require only an intelligent Harvard professor and a lab? Don't we need to add something else to this equation, i.e., intelligence? Aren't we getting awful close to the biblical declaration that the God of the universe (the intelligent portion) "created them male and female" (Genesis 1)? And would this not be a trillion times more difficult than creating a mere first speck of life?

David Berlinski makes this very point in his excellent response to his critics (Commentary, September 1996). Upon quoting from Raff and Kaufman, who insist that the "central and still unsolved problem is, how do genes direct the making of an organism," Berlinski writes, "Until we know that, I, for one, would hold off on claims that 'the origin of life and its myriad of forms must be recast as the origin of biological information.'"

But Szostak isn't the only one seeking to create life from nonlife. In a more recent article entitled "Scientist to Create Artificial Life" (Press Association Ltd., October 7, 2007) we are told that Craig Venter, a DNA researcher, has built "an almost entirely new life form for the first time."

What nonliving chemicals did he use? Listen carefully to the explanation—he built a "synthetic chromosome" and "implanted it in an existing living cell." And Venter is asking this already existing, living cell to host his chromosome in order to reproduce this new life form.

Would we be downright mean to ask Venter to place his synthetic chromosome into something nonliving and then show the world how a newly created life form really looks and functions?

Now it's true that the article says the DNA researcher was creating "artificial" life and not life itself, but the impression is certainly given that life from nonlife is right around the corner.

However, we can still safely say that nonliving chemicals without intelligence equal nonliving chemicals. We could just as honestly say that nonliving chemicals with human intelligence equal nonliving chemicals. Life comes only from life according to the Law of Biogenesis, and this demands what materialists are reluctant to admit—a living and wise God!

Behe quotes from a National Academy of Sciences booklet entitled "Science and Creationism" that admits that "many scientists" believe that God created the universe including life on Earth. That's good! What isn't so good is that many of these same scientists still argue that Darwin's natural selection and genetic mutations can get us from that first speck of life to that first cell, from that first cell to multi-cells, and from multi-cells to Richard Dawkins. I don't believe that's possible, and it's never been empirically proven to be possible. It is a load that natural selection and mutations cannot handle. It's what 500 PhDs were trying to say when they did say, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life" (see "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," also, for readers seriously interested in this particular aspect of the subject please consider Stephen C. Meyer's well-written article "Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information").

Those who argue for a materialistic interpretation of life, however, have to square their position with Michael Denton's observations that life depends on the integrated activities of hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules. And that's just the start. This organic book of life is written in a distinctive language—a genetic text. The late Carl Sagan, a committed materialist, admitted that each cell contains more information than the Library of Congress. Will the materialists please tell the waiting world where this genetic text came from? The Christian explanation is that it came from the mind of God. And no nonliving chemicals have yet shown us such a written text.

It should also be noted that a living being does not develop simply because of its genetic code "but because of the mysterious force we call 'life.' It is 'life' that grows and animates the being in accordance with its genetic endowment" (see Dean Davis, In Search of the Beginning).

But those seeking to create life in their labs have an additional problem. According to John Sanford's classic Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome, this problem is not just creating life from nonliving matter, but halting the decay of information that makes life possible.

If, as Carl Sagan admits, each cell contains more information than the Library of Congress, then obviously some of the information had to be available in that first speck of life as well. In fact, at one level life might well be defined as information. The book of life is the book of genetic information plus the breath of God.

But that information decays. Genomes decay. Life goes downward (the Second Law of Thermodynamics), not up, up and away toward multi-specks of life, cells, multi-cells and evidentially Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins.

Life is complex in all its aspects. There really is no "simple" speck of life or "simple" cell. There is also no empirical evidence that life emerged from nonliving matter apart from the very intelligence of God in the equation. That translates into my parting statement: spontaneous generation is a fairy-tale for grown-ups!

Well, evolutionists (those who believe humankind evolved from bacteria through fish to Gish via natural selection and mutations) are playing the same kind of game with the lowly appendix. The game is called "Heads I win; tails I win, too."

Just a few generations ago, the evolutionists decreed the human appendix a vestigial organ (i.e., a useless organ we inherited millions of years ago when it was a rabbit's useful organ) and hence proof of evolution. But now, when the appendix is shown to be indeed a useful organ to us, that is also proof of evolution, or as Brandeis University biochemistry professor Douglas Theobald puts it, "It makes evolutionary sense." Heads I win; tails I win, too!

In other words, deeming the appendix a useless organ proved Darwin was right; now that scientists have discovered the appendix actually has a function, Darwin's right again. What a country, I mean, what a theory! It never loses.

I admit, however, I was intrigued when the October 6, 2007, daily newspaper ran the following headline in the Health section: "Appendix Apparently Really Is Useful: It Makes Good Germs."

After dusting myself off from hitting the floor and taking a Tylenol to slow down my heart rate, I proceeded to read the article: "Some scientists (from Duke University) think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous."

"The appendix 'acts as a good safe house for bacteria,' said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker. . . . The worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory, cultivating the good germs, Parker said."

You've got to be kidding! How many naïve Christians threw their faith overboard because the theory of evolution (only the Lord knows) but this little appendix (along with the tonsils) surely was used effectively by the evolutionists to prove their point that humans are merely evolving fish, etc. And because rabbits have an appendix, too, they must also be part of our ancestry.

Vestigial organs have been a powerful arrow in the evolutionists quiver. When the argument was initially made, the German anatomist Robert Wiedersheim insisted that there were at least 180 such organs and structures (e.g., gorilla ribs) in a human being. As Bolton Davidheiser says in his excellent Evolution and Christian Faith, "The human body came to be thought of as a walking museum of antiquity."

However, over the years the 180 figure has been pared down as certain organs were deemed not only useful, but vital. I've sometimes wondered if any evolutionist ever thought of having the 180 carved out of him (or her) so he (or she) could speed up his (or her) evolution. We'll probably never know, but if any of them did, they surely realized, although maybe a bit too late, that they had removed a few too many parts.

Of course, biology textbooks for our innocent students still portray Ernst Haeckel's photos, and I'm sure vestigial organs still merit some room, but the list has now been pared to 3! You read that right—3! And one of the 3 has just been eliminated. In fact, in the same newspaper account, I read this: "The theory [that the appendix is useful after all] led Gary Huffnagle, a University of Michigan internal medicine and microbiology professor, to wonder about the value of another body part that is often yanked: 'I'll bet eventually we'll find the same sort of thing with the tonsils.'"

You mean to tell me we are now down to 1? You mean to tell me all our body parts are important? You mean to tell me that we are wonderfully made (Psalm 139)? It surely looks like it, but don't hold your breath and expect to read about that in any biology textbook soon. In them, we are just evolving fish, or as Harvard professor, William Howell, puts it, "Man . . . is a modified fish."

He's the one who also said, "We can plainly see that a tree shrew is a hairy, four-footed, air-breathing, warm-blooded, live-bearing, tree-going fish." It appears that fish play a large role in the evolutionistic scheme of things.

Of course, professor Eiseley tells us confidently that when our ancestors came down out of the trees the first time, they were chased back up again by the rodents! Those must have been silly-girl ancestors!

I will be kind. Well, I will at least try to be kind! This isn't science. This is science fiction. Just as the vestigial organ theory has gone up in smoke, so has the oxymoron evolutionary "science."

And let me predict that the latest concept of "junk" DNA will turn out to be science fiction as well. Because there is so much in our cells that we don't understand, the parts we don't understand have been labeled "junk." Any takers who want their junk parts removed so they can get on with their evolution? I'll bet when the day is done, we will discover that all parts of a living cell are vital to its life and survival.

The sad fact is that now conservatives are being asked to buy into Darwin's theory of natural selection and mutations (amoeba to fish to rabbit to monkey to man). In the October 8, 2007, issue of National Review I read the following disturbing nonsense: "Relying on this deep intellectual heritage, most major denominations in the Western World have accepted evolution as fully consistent with theistic religious faith. Thoughtful conservatives would be wise to agree."

What this writer fails to mention is the fallout of such a stance. For example, the priest to the Queen of England at the Chapel Royal in London says, "The laws of nature working on the materials created in stars with the opportunities offered by chance, given time, generate the human soul." Is this part of our rich intellectual heritage? This priest also said that "mankind is just one of the accidental products of an aimless process . . . a by-product of an unfolding purposeless accident."

Why would conservatives "be wise to agree" with Darwinian evolution when they already know that Hitler, Stalin, and a host of other participants in the slaughter of human beings have also done so? Have we so soon forgotten?

I read somewhere many years ago that Bill Buckley, when asked if he stood with Genesis or Darwin, replied "Genesis."

Did I misread him?

Prager suggested that Islam is being spread both peacefully and violently, Secular Humanism is being spread peacefully, and Christianity is not being spread!

In fact, Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Asia and Africa, so I do not take Prager's point literally.Nevertheless, we cannot deny that Europe has abandoned Judeo-Christianity in favor of something resembling Secular Humanism.

Paul Belien, editor of the Brussels Journal and adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute, outlines the fall of Western Europe to the forces of secularism and socialism in an article entitled "Europe's Culture War: Secularism on the March" (The Washington Times, May 23, 2007). His analysis is so compelling for the Christian community that I quote freely from his article.

"Europe," says Belien, "is in the middle of a three-way culture war, between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism.

"In Western Europe, the fight between Christians and secularists is all but over. The secularists have won. Now, the religious vacuum left by the demise of Christianity is being filled by the Muslims. Since one cannot fight something with nothing, the European secularists are no match for Islam."

Before returning to Belien's article, allow me to repeat a similar observation I have been making for a number of years: if Christianity succumbs to Secular Humanism, the Muslims would march into Vienna without a struggle because Secular Humanists are not willing to die for their faith in atheism, naturalism, relativism, or evolution, etc. Men and women die for their flag, their country, their fellow warriors, and their God (as C.S. Lewis notes in The Abolition of Man), but not for a compilation of unbelief's that run counter to their very nature. The vast majority of us still cannot bring ourselves to believe that the universe is the result of chance and accident, as Secular Humanists would have us believe. Hence, Islam will ultimately triumph as Secular Humanism continues to marginalize God, Christ and Christianity.

Now back to Belien: "Meanwhile," he says, "the dark forces of secularism, such as the European Union (EU), are waging war in Central and Eastern Europe, where they target countries such as Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic states.

On April 25, 2007, the European Parliament (EP), the EU's legislature, adopted a resolution condemning 'homophobia.' With 325 votes against 124 and 150 abstentions, the EP warned Poland that it will face sanctions if it adopts a law barring the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Churches, too, were reprimanded for 'fermenting hatred and violence [against homosexuals].' Poland's prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, commented on the resolution: 'Nobody is limiting gay rights in Poland. However, if we're talking about not having homosexual propaganda in Polish schools...such propaganda should not be in schools.'

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice retorted: 'There is no homophobia in the Catholic Church and it is time that all this [recrimination of Christians in the European Parliament] ended.'

"It is not likely to end. The fight against 'intolerance' - i.e., adherence to traditional Christian morality — is intensifying. On May 3, 2007, the European Court of Human Rights found Polish President Lech Kaczynski guilty of violating human rights because he banned a 'gay pride' parade in Warsaw in 2005. Last March the same court ordered Poland to compensate a woman who was denied an abortion. Last year, Poland was denounced by the Council of Europe because it prohibited the distribution in schools of a leaflet about homosexuality.

And so it goes! Secular Humanists are using "sexual preference" as a weapon, portraying Christian morality as an intolerant religion. Ironically, in one sense, homosexuality has been promoted by the perversion of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church throughout Europe and the United States (see Randy Engel's The Rite of Sodomy in the Roman Catholic Church) so in this sense the chickens are coming home to roost. Indeed, Engel (a Roman Catholic) doesn't see how the present Catholic hierarchy can clean up its mess since the infection of perversion reaches Rome itself.

Incidentally, Engel's well-documented, 1,318 page book contains, among other things, biographical data on homosexual prelates, detailed case studies on homosexuality and pederasty, and an examination of the role of Pope Paul VI in the rise of homosexuality within the church. Many of Engel's readers will be offended by descriptions of the homosexual lifestyle. Protestants, unfortunately, are neither immune nor innocent in this matter since among their ranks are those denominations that allow and defend the ordination and employment of openly homosexual clergy! Some even permit their bishop's to divorce their wives and marry their "significant other."

Poland's resistance notwithstanding, Secular Humanism is slowly but surely subverting all of Europe (West, Central, and East), and it is only a matter of time before Christians in America will begin to experience the repercussions. As in Europe, America's public schools embrace a Secular Humanist curriculum (funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations among others). And much like their counterparts in Europe, American Secular Humanists use sexuality as a weapon to portray Christian morality as intolerant.

One of Secular Humanism's early battle plans was to infiltrate the public school curriculum with so-called "sex-education" classes. This plan of attack was championed by Lester Kirkendall, Sol Gordon, and Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood [funded by the Department of Health Education and Welfare], Mary Calderone's SIECUS, as well as other programs such as Family Life Education Program, Project 10, etc. The underlying goal was to subvert traditional moral absolutes and supplant them with the humanistic concepts of ethicalrelativism, situational ethics including redefining the family, values clarification, students deciding what is right and what is wrong. Sidney Simon labeled it "the immorality of morality" — in other words, a complete repudiation of Christian values.

Today, the world's rejection of and indifference to Christian values brings to mind Luke's words of warning about Christ's return: "When I [Jesus] return the world will be as indifferent to the things of God as the people were in Noah's day. They ate and drank and married - everything just as usual right up to the day when Noah went into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot: people went about their daily business - eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building - until the morning Lot left Sodom [because of the perversion of the city - Genesis 19: Jude vs. 7]. Then fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. Yes, it will be business as usual right up to the hour of my return." (Luke 17:26-30, Living Bible)

Might this come to pass even i