"The group's attorney, Patrick Elliott, said that for a state-run university to provide a Bible to guests, 'that policy facilitates illegal endorsement of Christianity over other religions and over non religion.'"
My question is: How does the individual work of Gideon's, on behalf of this non-profit Christian organization of the same name, get described as the work of the university itself? Since when are the actions of a few lumped in with an official, state-sponsored endorsement of any one faith over another?
Answer? When it suits your purposes.
My desire was to make this clear, so I engaged in an exercise of futility, contacting the FFRF and leaving the following letter to report an abuse of this "constitutional separation of church and state."
This problem will never end. Do you know why?
Because we are all sinners. Every single one of us.
I don't care if you don't believe in sin, if you don't agree with Christianity, if you don't think the life of Jesus is factual (After all, where are the nails? Where's the wood from the cross? Where are the photographs of these events, for heaven's sake?!). I'm not here to convince you if you already don't take the testimony of those contemporary with the time of Jesus. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm only saying that whether you like it or not, or agree with it or not, history and our own lives prove that not a one of us is perfect. And after your mouth is shut to every objection you can possibly drum up to reject what God has done for you in Jesus, you have to admit that: you're not perfect, you're not even perfect in your intentions: you're a sinner, period.
The heart of Christianity is the message that we cannot be good enough to earn the favor of the God who created us all, so we need to come to God on His terms, not ours. Scripture tells us that you cannot even understand this concept without the Spirit of God (), and you can't get that Spirit without believing He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him (). What does that mean? If you don't seek God, you're not going to find Him. He won't force Himself on you, but there are plenty of ways He makes Himself known in your life. And since He makes Himself known to you, He also holds you accountable for your rejection of Him. You can't ask Him for a mulligan because you "didn't like the person" who was telling you about Him; or because He didn't prove Himself to you "by showing up in the sky" or killing you when you chose to make fun of Him. He could have killed you on the spot, but that wouldn't have proven anything to you--you'd be dead. Anyone with you probably would've immediately repented (or even likely searched for the naturalistic explanation for your death, with no thought to the timing), but it wouldn't have done you any good at all. And God doesn't do that frequently because He doesn't want ANY to perish. WE chose that in the garden when we chose to go our own way instead of God's, and we've been doing it ever since.
See, God doesn't just dance for you when you give Him your conditions. It's that whole "He's God and you're not, so you don't get to make the rules" thing. Sure, you can be bitter about it and reject it, but then what sense does it make to be angry with a God you don't believe in when bad things happen? Be consistent at least. If God's not there in the good times, then you can't use Him to support your point in the bad times. In fact, you can't even gripe about the "problem of evil" if there's no objective, outside yourself, unchanging reality from which to draw the judgment of what is, or is not, evil. You may not like something but before you go passing some kind of arbitrary judgment on what you dislike, you've got to come from your anti-god foundation.
It just is.
Like it. Don't like it. Makes you angry. Makes you happy. Doesn't matter. Not to you or to me. It simply IS, so don't bogart the concept of God to make your anti-god conclusions about God. 'Cause I'll call you on it.
I hope that doesn't make me intolerant.