Atheists Take a Leap of Faith With Religious Beliefs...

There was a recent story that I came across where a group called American Atheists erected a billboard in Alabama that claims all religions are scams.  Here's an image of the billboard and you can click the link below it for the full story.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20110103/atheists-declare-religions-as-scams-in-new-ad/

The spokesperson for the atheistic group goes to great lengths in the article to define its intent for this billboard and its claim that ALL religions are scams,

"Billions of adherents, many of whom are preachers themselves, are all victims of this Great Scam. Some know it's a scam, yet defend religion because they like the lies. They like the fraud. They like the false sense of security. Unfortunately, no matter how much you like a lie, it doesn't make it truth. It DOES make religion a great scam if victims are willing to defend it, even in the face of truth."

What I find particularly interesting about this story is that there have been several federal court decisions during the past 40 years that have given atheism legal status as a de facto religion in this country. The precedent setting case went before the Supreme Court – the highest court in this land – in 1961 (Torcaso v. Watkins) where the court defined "secular humanism" as a religion, which paved the way for several other solidifying case law decisions that include high-profile rulings in 1997 and 2008.

Apparently, oblivious to the law of the land and the case-law definition that a formalized non-belief in God is itself a religion by default, the American Atheists group forges ahead in the article to define its version of truth that, "…ALL religions make money and power from their flock and that all religions make lots of promises about an afterlife that doesn't exist."

Hmmm. If that's the case, then I wonder which “flock” members from the United Religion of American Atheists paid for this billboard, which was intended to increase its power base by raising awareness of the atheistic cause as it proselytizes its own claims regarding the afterlife?

This is a common logical fallacy that situational ethicists and atheists fall into. By claiming there is “no absolute truth” they are making a claim of absolute truth in their very statement – resulting in a self-defeating argument. By legal definition, atheism is a religion and by maligning ALL religions – “all” is their word not mine – the American Atheists are maligning themselves and negating their very argument.

While I personally believe in the Christian faith tradition, I accept the reality that reasonable people have differing perspectives on the very deeply personal issue of belief. However, if atheists, skeptics and the like want to try and undermine the collective tenets of the varied belief systems – they might want to think it through before taking such an illogical leap of faith.