Do you know?

This shocking billboard, sponsored by American Athiests, showed up this season at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel in New York.

You may not think its a myth, but do you know how to converse with someone who does?

Every Thursday morning at 6:00 AM, 30 men and I have been grappling with how to do that using Tim Keller's The Reason for God as a guide.

(I wish I could get every person in our church to thoughtfully read this book from cover to cover!)

In chapter 9, entitled "The Knowledge of God", Keller argues that any discussion of human rights (and everyone argues for human rights) is based on an assumed knowledge of God. . . .

All of nature is based on violence. Yet we inescapably believe it is wrong for stronger human individuals or groups to kill weaker ones. If violence is totally natural, why would it be wrong for strong humans to trample weak ones? There is no basis for moral obligation unless we argue that nature is in some part unnatural. We can't know that nature is broken in some way unless there is some supernatural standard of normalcy apart from nature by which we can judge right and wrong. That means there would have to be heaven or God or some kind of divine order outside of nature in order to make that judgment.

There is only one way out of this conundrum. We can pick up the Biblical account of things and see if it explains our moral sense better that a secular view. If the world was made by a God of peace, justice and love, then that is why we know that violence, oppression, and hate are wrong. If the world is fallen, broken, and needs to be redeemed, that explains the violence and disorder we see.

If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists. This leads to a crucial question. If a premise ("There is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ("Napalming babies is culturally relative) then why not change the premise?

Man, I dig that! We've somehow got to learn to have conversations like this with folks we know and love.