On Christmas, Einstein And Atheists

It's that time of year when secularists and atheists join forces to eradicate all signs of Christmas from the Christmas season. Thus Christmas trees become "holiday" trees and timid Christians swallow the attacks on their faith and their intelligence. It's become second nature for secularists like Bill Maher to mock Christians as fools for believing in intelligent design and something as ridiculous as the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. Many atheists claim that Albert Einstein, reputed to be by some the smartest man ever, was an atheist and the recent sale of his 'God' letter in which he said the bible was a "collection of primitive legends" seems to boost that claim. But Einstein was not an atheist and debunked that opinion often. He said:

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

Essentially, Albert Einstein was an agnostic and intelligent enough to know that while he did not believe in a personal God, he recognized that the world's amazing design demanded belief in a creator god. He recognized the remarkable order of the cosmos but could not reconcile that belief with the evil and suffering that he found in human existence. How could an all-powerful God allow such suffering? How could a God who created such beauty allow the slaughter of innocents? How could a loving God allow the incidents that occurred last Friday in Newtown, Ct. or in 2004 at Beslan, Russia where terrorists killed 186 children?

These are questions that even people of great faith have been pondering for centuries but the answer for many may lie in the Old Testament. Here's a quote from the Book of Wisdom of Solomon (1:13-15): "because God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them; and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For righteousness is immortal."

People of faith have no problem believing that there is evil personified in the Devil but the way more 'intelligent' secularists think he's a myth. Christians have been taught to regard Satan as an entity that loathes humanity and delights in our anguish and unlike the Rolling Stones; I have no sympathy for him.

While I was at Mass on December 8th, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I listened to a reading from Genesis and another reading was about the angel Gabriel visiting Mary telling her she would become a mother and I thought, "Boy, is that hard for some to swallow." Such a fantasy - a virgin birth - a legend and yet, one that is the core of my faith. It then occurred to me that belief in the supernatural and otherworldly events requires one to be humble. Humility is probably the hardest virtue and Pride probably the most deadly sin. To surrender to a higher power and feel its love is a gift that is there for us all and it is in the Christmas season that we are reminded that God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son.

Atheists have closed their minds to that love and reveal a blindness that is self-inflicted and prefer to live in a world of superficial emptiness. When my son Matt was only six, he asked me about a word he heard on TV, "What's the Big Bang?" I told him that's how some people believe that's how the world began. He looked puzzled and said, "But what caused the Big Bang?" That seems to be the question that no atheist can answer definitely but a child has the wisdom to seek that answer.

What is ironic is that atheists of some renown suspend belief in religion yet consider the possibility of alien intervention in our existence plausible. Richard Dawkins, the British scientist, joined Christopher Hitchens in 2010 to attack the Pope's visit to England. He may be a well-regarded atheist yet he has no idea how the world began and posited the following idea in an interview for the film, 'Expelled':

"Well ... it could come about in the following way: it could be that, uh, at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization e-evolved ... by probably by some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto ... perhaps this ... this planet.... You might find a signature of some sort of designer ... m, and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe. But that higher intelligence would itself would have to come about by some explicable or ultimately explicable process."

So much for Dawkin's alleged brilliance. I prefer the simplicity coming from the composer/musician Moby Feat, who confesses to disliking conventional Christianity, who has said: "In about 1985 I read the teachings of Christ and was instantly struck by the idea that Christ was somehow divine. When I say I love Christ and love the teachings of Christ, I mean that in the most simple and naïve and subjective way. I'm not saying I'm right, and I certainly wouldn't criticize anyone else's beliefs." In an interview with Amazon.com, Moby said, "I can't really know anything. Having said that though, on a very subjective level I love Christ. I perceive Christ to be God, but I predicate that with the knowledge that I'm small and not nearly as old as the universe that I live in. I take my beliefs seriously for myself, but I would be very uncomfortable trying to tell anyone that I was right."

Although there are many who share his disdain of organized religion, I would like to suggest that had there not been a church, Moby would not have had the gospels of Christ to inspire his spirituality. Nevertheless, I much prefer Moby's humility and simple faith to the conceit of the secularists who wage their pitiful war against religion and Christmas.

There are no words of comfort I can offer to the grieving families of Newtown, Connecticut that would mitigate their sorrow. They will remain in my prayers always and to all others, I wish you all the love and comfort of a benevolent God, in this blessed season and in the year to come.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com