I continually have to remind myself (on my less patient days) that not every Christian or religious person thinks this way, but I do get discouraged sometimes.

Actually, I’m not sure if the content of this article is more discouraging than the fact that the article was written by a ‘public high school government teacher and radio talk show host’. You would think that a government employee and educator would know better, but I guess not.

Anyhow, the article is titled ‘As atheism rises, America declines’, but as you’ll see in a second, the author doesn’t just target atheists but people who are popularly known as the ‘nones’.

The nones are a group of people who profess no religious affiliation. A recent Pew study found that this group is on the rise in America. The thing to remember about the nones is that just because they describe themselves as unaffiliated with religion, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re atheists. They could be agnostics, deists or people who don’t attend church regularly and don’t think of themselves in religious terms.

Okay, so on with this guy’s article.

Basically he starts off with the same old crap that many other evangelical articles start off with – society becoming less religious is leading to the downward spiral of the country…blah, blah, blah.

But then he pulls off a number of stunts that were painful to read. Here’s stunt number one:

Granted, the number of "nones," as these trendy hipsters like to call themselves, is not overwhelming, but it's certainly higher than it should be if we were still a humble and rational people. The inversion of those two principles (humility and rationality) is one of the most stunning things about the atheist. They claim to be people of reason, yet eschew and despise its very foundation. They fail to grasp that apart from the eternal consistency provided by the biblical God, they would have absolutely no basis for reason at all.

So because you’re not religious or don’t affiliate yourself to a particular religion, you’re not rational. Or at least, societally you’re not rational.

But then he starts to attack atheists directly by saying that atheists despise the foundation of reason because they don’t believe in his brand of religion or any other brand for that matter.

And what is this internal consistency of the Bible he’s talking about?

The Bible was written by several different men. It’s been translated several times. Hell, whole sites are dedicated to the inconsistencies and contradictions found within its pages. You don’t even need those sites. You could merely read the Bible in its entirety and see the abrupt changes between the New Testament and the Old Testament. It’s like the books were written about two different Gods.

Stunt two:

The very fact that an atheist can argue about the laws of science "proving" there is no God, is actually proof in and of itself that He must exist. Perhaps this is what Scripture means when it states, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Surely there is no better description of the American atheist.

Science doesn’t prove there is no God. It does go directly against some of the things said in the Bible and other holy books, but you can’t prove a negative.

Science not proving there is no God is NOT proof that God exists. What a lame freaking argument that is.

I have an invisible glowing green snowman sitting at my feet right now, Peter Heck. Can you prove it doesn’t exist?

No…

Well…that’s proof that it does!

A five year old could formulate a better argument than that. Give your head a shake, man!

Stunt three:

And let's not forget arrogance. One of the funniest accusations to hear come from the lips of a rabid, evangelistic atheist is the one that goes like this: "You Christians are so arrogant to think that you're right and everyone else is wrong."

Alright, he’s got us there fellow atheists. Seeing no evidence of a supernatural being and so not believing in that being is utterly arrogant.

Far more arrogant than say:

-Believing you’re the center of the universe

-That the universe was constructed just for your enjoyment

-Thinking you’re above every other mammal or species of animal on the planet

-Thinking that this deity came here to get hung on a cross to forgive your sins

-Believing you're going to a supernatural paradise, while many are not. You're just that special

-Believing that this all-powerful being cares so much about little old you that it KNOWS how many hairs are on your head at any given moment, is listening to your every utterance or thought and cares about who you sleep with, when, how and for how long

-Believing that if the majority of the population doesn’t believe in your deity, that the whole country will fall apart

Just to name a few. I hope I don’t need to point out the sarcasm inherent in the above list.

Moving right along to stunt four:

It is the arrogance of the atheist mind that believes every man and woman who has, throughout history, placed his or her faith in the existence of a Supreme Being or beings has been 100-percent, totally and utterly wrong on that most fundamental question.

I write about this in my book BELiEVE: A Confrontation with Christianity's Biggest Challenges. Imagine a four-lane highway full of traffic all traveling in one direction. Then suddenly, one singular car traveling the opposite way down the same roadway appears, heading into oncoming traffic. While it's possible that the driver of the one car was the only one who knew the right way and everyone else was just mistaken, logic and rationality would suggest otherwise. It would take an extremely arrogant driver to stick his head out of his sunroof and start screaming at all the other drivers about how dumb they were, without ever pausing to consider he might be in the wrong.

For crying out loud. For hundreds of years we thought that slavery was cool, that the Earth was flat, that you’d fall off the edge of the planet if you travelled too far, that where you lived was the entire Earth and that the sun circled us and we were the center of the universe.

Clearly, there is not always a correlation between the majority of people believing in something and it actually being true.

All you have to do to get the atheist on board, Mr. Heck, is produce some proof that not only a deity exists but that your version of that deity is the correct one!

Christianity has only had a few thousand years to produce it but still nada, zip and nothing.

The second part was even more ridiculous than the first paragraph. Even if we were to grant that every time a majority agrees on something, then it must be true, the metaphor still fails on an epic scale.

Think about it – there are about 7 billion people on this planet. Roughly 2 billion of them are Christians. On this metaphorical highway, 5 billion cars are going one way and 2 billion the opposite way. Tons of accidents already, folks! But break it down even further; you have multiple faiths, no faith at all and several sects to Christianity.

This metaphorical highway has turned into a nasty crash em’ up derby! Christians can’t even make up their collective minds about what this deity wants or expects.

He ends his article by saying:

Such is the worldview of the atheist ... or "none." So pardon my lack of excitement at the fact that such an irrational, arrogant and foolish worldview is becoming more common in American culture. It says a lot about who we are becoming and where we're going as a people.

I’ll end mine by saying that if you want to believe in your religion, knock yourself out. I’m not going to join you, especially if these are the best arguments you can put together. It’s nothing more than a hodgepodge of logical fallacies, tired arguments and personal beliefs that aren’t backed by a single shred of evidence.

Just stop it already! You do your religion an injustice. No wonder the rate of 'nones' is rising. With nonsense like this article, who can blame them for remaining unaffiliated with a religion?