The oldest and most pervasive sin of humankind was the first sin mentioned in the Bible. It was the desire of Adam and Eve to have the authority of God when it came to their opinion about right and wrong.

This has expressed itself in history either by humanity inventing religions that they can use to control God… or deciding they didn’t need God at all. In recent years, Western civilization has largely chosen the latter.

The philosophy used to promote the conviction that there was no God was provided by Democritus who lived around 400BC. He was the father of atheistic scientism. Atheistic scientism says that we should not look at creation and ask why it exists and who is responsible for it; we should only ask how it works—and get on with life without any thought of God. As such, scientism shuts people down from asking the really interesting questions regarding reason, identity and meaning. It is actually a very shallow, two-dimensional way of thinking… and it is one that results in communities living without purpose and without a moral bedrock. Plato was dismissive of such thinking and said that no atheist could be trusted because they had no god to whom they were accountable.

Democritus’ atheism was rebadged as Epicureanism and found its way to France, Germany and England—largely through the rediscovery of Lucretius atheistic poem De rerum natura. This was taken up by philosophers during “The Enlightenment” and spread throughout Europe.

America’s contribution to the spread of atheism came from fuelling into flame the idea that religion was at war with science.

And now this atheism has trickled down through history to you… and been spruiked by the likes of Richard Dawkins.

So, what on earth are you going to do with it? Atheism is a fabulous tool for giving yourself a philosophic mandate to “do your own thing,” to do what you like, to be your own king. This mandate for self-obsessed autonomy is, of course, particularly attractive to the young. Only later do they discover that it turns to ashes in their mouths, leaving them with the taste of meaninglessness and lack of hope. Their suicide rates have risen alarmingly.

So, be careful with atheism. God has revealed his glory in the cosmos, and revealed his love in Jesus.

In the light of this, here’s a word for the self-styled urban literati. It is directed at the deistic priests of our time who tell us what is permissible to believe. It’s a message for trendy libertines who have a monopoly on our media –who huff and puff their political correctness and atheistic convictions. The message is this:

Hands off our children. Don’t you dare damage our children by imposing atheistic meaninglessness on them in the guise of secularism. Don’t rip their value and their sacred identity from them. Don’t rip away their ground of truth and leave them floundering in shallow hedonistic, self-obsession. Your legacy to them is one of meaninglessness and lack of identity…a meaninglessness and lack of identity that helps fuel the statistics of their suicide.

Don’t you dare damage our children with your atheistic, values free convictions and claim you are being rational. You are not being rational. To claim that everything came from nothing as a result of nothing through a mechanism that has never been discovered and for which there is no precedent, takes a staggering level of faith. It certainly fractures the laws of cause and effect – the basic principle that undergirds science.

God came in history as Jesus – a verifiable fact – to die for our sins and rescue us back to God. This is a life-giving, hope-giving, value-imputing act that stands in stark contrast to the illogical meaninglessness you are seeking to impose on our children.