Secularists love to claim neutrality with regard to religion. They want to claim that all religions are bad and, according to Richard Dawkins, worse than child abuse. Most western nations have removed any reference to God, the Bible or anything overtly related to Christianity from the state schools. However, other religions (including atheism) are apparently just fine. In fact, any religion other than Christian is being encouraged in school systems across the world.
In Australia, atheism dominates the school system. Evolution is taught as fact in the school system and Christianity is almost completely banished from the public square. However, this does not mean religion has been banished. Far from it. In fact, recently, in the name of tolerance and inclusivity, instructors at an Australian public school have received a directive. The directive commanded the teachers to begin teaching the Australian Aboriginal creation myth as an alternative to the standard evolutionary model. The reasoning behind this decision was to make the aboriginal students feel more included and accommodate their “racial” history. As Ken Ham pointed out in a facebook post about the article
“If these academics were to actually read Darwin’s ”Descent of Man” and study the history of the shocking treatment of the Australian Aboriginal people based on Darwin’s evolutionary ideas, they would ban teaching Darwinian evolution, as it is inherently a very racist philosophy.”
I couldn’t agree more with Ham on this. Stephen J. Gould pointed out that Darwin prompted racism, albeit by accident. “Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.” Gould was a committed evolutionist but even he could acknowledge the inherently racist elements of Darwinism.
Ham did not mention it, but the logical question to ask the people pushing this promotion of Aboriginal legends in the classroom is as follows: Would they also teach the Biblical account of Genesis in that classroom? I think everyone knows the answer to that question.
This phenomenon is not limited to Australia at all. It has made headway in the United States as well. A recent legal case made ripples due to the claims at issue. While atheists pooh-poohed this as nothing, it represents a broader trend across the nation in numerous public schools. According to the student, she was forced to write out the Islamic conversion prayer as part of an assignment, including the words “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” If this was a Bible verse, atheists would be outraged and would be claiming the state was establishing a religion. Unsurprisingly, the same rules do not apply to Islam and the court ruled that this was not a violation of the absurd “separation of church and state” idea.
You would think, a statement like this would absolutely infuriate the internet atheist community. After all, they claim to be opposed to any state-sponsored religion. Yet perhaps the most well known of the internet atheists wrote an entire blog post portraying the Islamic indoctrination as a normal part of the curriculum and that the Christian was simply being bigotted and Islamophobic. And there was complete silence from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) which vehemently attacks any hint of Christianity in the public schools, including threatening to sue a school because they had a canned, innocuous Bible verse about food in their cafeteria. It’s almost as if, maybe, that they aren’t actually opposed to religion.
Despite all the public posturing, many atheists are not actually opposed to religion. If they were, they would be screaming about the Islamic indoctrination in American public schools, or the Aboriginal legends being taught in science classes. No, the only religion they seem to be opposed to is Christianity. This begs the question why? Why is it many of these atheists are only opposed to Christianity in the public sphere? (Note, obviously not all atheists believe this, but many do.)
I think Romans 1:19-22 answers that question for us. “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” In other words, they know God in their hearts but are only interested in serving themselves, and darkened their hearts against Him. This is why atheists focus their attack on Christianity. They know the truth….and also hate it. Thus they must attack it to convince themselves it is not true.
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