True believers trump non-believers every time

The Jesus Indians of Ohio by Craig Atwood

Don't let atheists fool you.  They like to proclaim variations on 'Oh, I don't believe, I just don't have a belief', when it comes to religion.  Had they been born and raised on a deserted island with no contact with humanity, and then had no religious belief, it could be argued that theirs was simply the result of having no belief about religion. But in our world, there is this thing called religion, the belief in supernatural and divine forces, and most atheists are aware of this and simply choose to believe those religious explanations for what atheists don't know are false. 

Despite their little verbal sleight of hand, however, many modern atheists are rather zealous and fanatical about their belief that no non-material explanation exists for what atheism can't tell us.  So much so, that in most cases today, atheism is calling the shots about how we understand reality, God, religion, morality, humanity, history, and almost any other subject under the sun.

So yesterday was the memorial of Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf, priests and martyrs and companions in this, the New World.  That's back when we remembered both sides in historical conflicts typically give as good as they get.  Here is that ursine blogger St. Corbinian's Bear, reminding us that if you have time to read this, you have time to pray the hours (and if you have to give up reading me to do so, I'd say you should choose the more important thing - and it ain't reading me).

But I thought of their martyrdom.  I thought of the fact that Christians in America, including the Catholic Church, have adopted the very atheistic understanding of events from that period.  For the push to eradicate  the heritage of the Christian West and the United States is predicated on two fundamental beliefs: 1) that through the prism of multiculturalism, there is no culture or civilization that is in any way inferior to the West, and the West brought nothing particularly special to the world table (if, in fact, it wasn't the true and sole cause of all evil and suffering in the world), and 2) Religions are false.  They aren't real.  They are lies.  There is no God or eternity to speak of.  Perhaps there is some parallel universe or some extra-material energy field when we die, but none of the world religions are right, nor did they happen.  They are false.

Therefore, the two reasons why we could mourn the atrocities of the past while still celebrating the best of those who brought the civilization of Western Christendom to the new world have now been dashed on the rocks of a post-Christian, atheist worldview.  The Western colonizers, immigrants and pioneers brought nothing, zero, nada to the new world.  Anything we could call good - notions of democracy or freedom or equality or liberty, however poorly lived out - were probably here all along anyway.  Some argue that we even stole our ideas of democracy and equality from the Indians Native Americans.

Certainly appeals to the indigenous practices of human sacrifice, child sacrifice, matricide, patricide and infanticide, in addition to slavery, war and even genocide, don't cut it.  Only white Europeans can be racists and therefore guilty of genocide.  Slavery is only bad when done by Europeans.  And in a country where our womenfolk have aborted over 50 million unborn children in barely four decades, I don't think we'll sweat the pre-Columbian practice of human sacrifice and infanticide.  

But then, most Indian activists have no problem unqualifiedly praising their ancestors and cultures.  No apologies for anything their ancestors did, or any practices we might condemn today.  Heck, they can actually come out and say they oppose open borders and end up being quoted with respect, not as obvious racist supremacists that are usually the type who oppose open borders.  But then, I can watch a PBS series about the history of Africa, and see Muslim scholars praise the history of Islamic conquests of other people because of the boon their superior Islamic culture brought to the conquered.  See?  That's a true believer. 

Likewise, to the second point, since religions are obviously false anyway, there was absolutely no reason to think there was a net positive for the indigenousness peoples where their contact with Christianity was concerned.  Since Christianity is no different, and no more true, than indigenous religious beliefs, there was nothing gained by us coming here, and nothing that could possibly outshine the atrocities and evils that did occur.  After all, nothing they did in their own cultures was bad anyway (multiculturalism), so tearing down those cultures for a lie and a falsehood was altogether a net-negative.  

And the Catholic Church, with recent apologies, grovelings and even removing the celebration of martyrs and saints who ministered to the native populations, appears to agree.  Once again it accepts the premise of the non-believer, the ungodly, and the secularists, and then turns around on a Sunday and says 'but show up to Mass and give to the Bishop's annual appeal!'.  You can see the disconnect here, can't you?  

That's because the true believer always beats out non- or un-believers.  Those with no belief, or no real investment in their beliefs, will lose to the zealot, the fanatic, the true believer every time.  As we watch the secular, the Marxist, the leftist, the atheist, the non-Christian, the anti-Westerner, the anti-American, and every other force score one victory after another, and see those who proclaim faith in the God of history revealed through the Gospel of Christ surrender one hill after another, it makes you wonder which ones really believe, and which ones became unbelievers long ago.