Dear Billy

DEAR DR. GRAHAM: I want to make myself clear: I have no interest in God or religion, and I don't care who knows it. As far as I'm concerned, God doesn't exist, and this life is all there is. Don't even bother to write me back, because I'm not interested. -- G.P.

DEAR G.P.: To be frank, it sounds to me as if down inside you actually do know that God exists; otherwise, why would you be fighting so strenuously against Him and trying to keep Him out of your life? Or why would you even bother to write me?

After all, why fight against something (or Someone) that doesn't even exist (as you claim)? If you were really convinced God didn't exist, the logical thing for you to do would be to ignore Him. But you aren't ignoring Him -- and the more you fight against God, the more you are in danger of persuading yourself that He actually does exist.

Have you ever honestly asked yourself why you don't believe in God? I'm sure you could list many "reasons" why you've rejected Him; most professed atheists can. But are they the real reason? I doubt it. I suspect the real reason you've rejected God is because you want to be free to run your own life -- and you know that won't be possible once you admit God exists.

You may have rejected God -- but He has not rejected you! He loves you and yearns for you to come to Him and discover the peace and hope that come from knowing Christ. Jesus was God in human flesh, and He came to show us what God is like. The Bible says, "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (Son), who is at the Father's side, has made him known" (John 1:18).

I can't tell you how many times I have heard this: "If you don't believe in God, then why are you wasting so much of your time arguing about it? Why don't you just leave us alone?"

Hilarious, I know. Leave them alone?

First off, religion is clearly a huge influence in world events. All one needs to do is turn on the news to see that. Religion affects everyone, whether we want it to or not.

Religion is what keeps people like Michael J. Fox hopeless, because he knows that it is too late for him because people with religious agendas have prevented scientists from finding cures to diseases.

Religion is what results in our country's teens having high numbers of pregnancies and STD's. Their insistence on abstinence only education is seriously harming our youth.

Religion is what keeps sticking its nose into other peoples' bedrooms, a place where nobody has any business but the consenting adults inside.

Religion is what fights to teach pseudoscience in a classroom, and constantly argues against science, which has resulted in the majority of our country disbelieving in the fact of evolution, and thinking that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old.

I'm sorry, Dr, Graham, but there are many reasons for atheists to actively speak out against religion.

SeattlePI.com