Thanks, MaryAnn, for your defense. Yours too, Angel. But I think what I say and what I don't say stand on their own merits. Your replies were much appreciated all the same.
Mr.(?) Stix, I'm rather reminded of Louis Armstrong's famous comment about what jazz is: "If you have to ask, you'll never understand." I am tempted to say, if you have to ask where I would agree with Mr. Hitchens and why, or why I am a theist and not an atheist (or worse, a "materialist magician"), then you'll never understand. But it would help if you understood that people of my own faith - genuine, original, apostolic Christianity, even by the reckoning of many historians - suffered even more than the Jews did during the ascendency of the medieval Catholic Church. Oh, we suffered our share of the things you mention, trust me. We never caused any of that, save for one discredible time when some of us (some of the Paulicians and Bogomils of history) thought it would be better to take up arms against our enemies for the sake of temporal security and position than live and die for our faith as we should have. Well, as Jesus warned, those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword -- and many of the warmongering apostates did, messily, at the hands of the Muslim Turks.
But to take a cue from Dr. Geisler, I don't have the faith to be an atheist (although I do have the self-willfulness). I'd have to be in constant denial of every application of Occam's Razor that I know of. I'm not about to do that. I really would be an idiot if I did. But why argue with me? Others much more learned than I have answered your questions very well -- not perfectly, but enough to get the truth-seeker thinking. Spend a little time and money and seek those sources out. Don't waste your time (or occupy mine, which alas I don't have to spare) calling me names. Besides, if you push my hot buttons hard enough (as many a Frayster has found out), you may get more than you bargained for...and a servant of God is not to strive in that way.
No indeed, I sought to convert no one in posting Psalms 24. My responsibility ends with giving a witness, a testimony, of where I stand, and then helping those who are open-minded enough to respond. But Psalms 24 is what it is; it speaks for itself -- and that can offend people, like any poem or song with a strong message. It drove a lesbian harpist I know crazy, so to speak, with its sheer masculinity. But it demonstrates something (only one basic thing) about what the God of the Bible really is by nature -- and He's nothing like what the negative examples of false religionists have made Him out to be (examples, by the way, that He warned many centuries ago would arise).
And incidentally, there is not one negative example in your reply (as cited by MaryAnn) that atheists aren't responsible for doing also, just about every day. (The Voice of the Martyrs could tell you much about what atheists and others do routinely to professing Christians.) Human beings are human beings, and if we limit ourselves to our own capacities, then whether we're theistic, polytheistic or atheistic in our worldviews, we're going to fall short sooner or later in the same ways and for the same reasons. The Bible says the whole world is deceived. I'd say that humanity proves the point every day. We act like chickens running around with our heads cut off by the very axes we hold by our wingtips.
And all the time, the joke is on atheists along with everyone else, because all human beings naturally prove the truth of Paul's comment that "the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8, Revised Standard Version). And I'm speaking as someone who knows what such hostility is.
Not even you could outmatch me for natural independent-mindedness, I am pretty certain. Not many people rate so highly on psychological tests in objectivity and subjectivity and rigor. Being on yet another test of a particular temperament, mine is considered as naturally the rarest and most independent-minded personality type of all. That fits with what I observe in myself too. I can lead and I can follow, but I prefer to stay out of the way. I live inside my own head to an extent that few people you will ever meet do. I am not even speaking of other, clinical things that make theistic faith anything but natural for me to gain and maintain. There but for the grace of God, I would have remained...or in other words, if I'm an idiot, then I am one contrary to every natural tendency I have. It would be a whole lot easier to be otherwise; in fact my faith has cost me literally everything I really wanted for thirty years, and only recently has that begun to change. So go figure. If I could bottle that kind of delusion, then I'd make a killing on the black drug market.
But back to the Psalm. Suzanne Haik-Vantoura's early recording of this Psalm (1976) could be improved. Even the demo recording of a group I know of in Colombia is a considerable improvement (and I happen to sell it). But the "darkness" of the Psalm comes out of a sense of awe for the Eternal God which is sorely lacking in many who claim to worship Him today. That sense of awe may offend you. It has taught me much. So there you are.
I hope you will consider my reply a gentle one. It was meant to be.
Best wishes,
wr ()()
