Massive Atheist Demonstration at San Jose AiG Conference!

Dr. Jason Lisle and I are in San Jose, California, for an AiG conference at a Calvary Chapel church. Before the conference, I noticed that one of the atheist blogs was calling for atheists to cause problems and/or demonstrate against us at the conference.

The atheists turned up to demonstrate against AiG outside the church on Sunday morning. Here is a photograph of the massive protest:

Well, maybe it wasn’t a massive protest, but atheists represent such a small percentage of the population. So compared to the number of Christians, this was a massive protest! Here is a photograph taken in the auditorium at the same time the two atheists were protesting:

Note the signs the atheist were holding:

One of the signs reads, “THE ANSWERS ARE IN REASON.”

This really represents the culture war—the battle. This is the same battle that began in Genesis 3, and this battle is between God’s Word and man’s word—where man wants to be his own god. Inside the church, I was teaching that our thinking starts with God’s Word, and outside the church, the atheists were claiming that our thinking starts with man’s word. This is a battle between two religions.

It was interesting that an AiG staff member, who obtained the permission of the atheists to take their photographs, asked if they had heard me speak before. They said no. So he invited them to hear what they were protesting against, but they refused. He then asked them how they could protest something that they did not know about. At that point, the lady looked uncomfortable and did not have an answer, and then she looked at the man. The man said he did not want anything to do with religion. Now that was an interesting response, as they were holding signs showing clearly that their religion was to trust man as god. They were there promoting their atheist religion—that man was god. Well it had started raining. The two atheists then left.

On Sunday evening, we found one or more people (maybe atheists from the same group) had placed a flyer (which was in a plastic bag because it was lightly raining) on each of the cars in the parking lot of the church. A church official had someone collect all the flyers!

The flyer began with the following, “Creationism is Pseudoscience ... Answers in Genesis is lying to you and your children.”

Further on, the flyer states, “Another common creationist claim is that evolution hasn’t been proven. This is just rhetoric. Evolution hasn’t and can never be proven.”

However, the flyer also states, “Evolution is a fact, as real as gravity,” and it states, “Scientists no longer question whether evolution is a fact because the evidence supporting the idea is overwhelming. There is no doubt or debate in the life-sciences community as to the fact of evolution.”

On the back of the flyer, there was a cartoon giving the message that Christians start with the Bible (start with “conclusions”), but evolutionists start with facts. This is absurd.The secularists (like these atheists) start with the belief there is no God, the Bible is not true. We both have starting points—starting with God and the other starting with no God. The demonstrators sign, “the answers are in reason,” illustrated this point—starting with no God and man on his own determines “truth.”

What is interesting to note is that these atheists are really intolerant; why are the ones that are so intolerant have to demonstrate against Christians? Well, Paul makes it clear in Romans 1:18 that they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The Bible tells us the knowledge of God is written on our hearts (Romans 2:13–15). There are no true atheists. They know there is God, but they so hate God that they have to work hard to suppress the truth.

When you think about it, if there was no God, why would they even care what other people believe—why bother? However, on their blogs, on these flyers they distributed, and on the signs they used in the protest, they are showing that they know that the Creator God is real. And since they don’t want to submit to their Creator and don’t want to acknowledge they are a sinner, they have to work hard to suppress what they know is true. Though in their actions, they are not demonstrating against us but ultimately shaking their fist at God.

Recently, an atheist blogger was very upset with us because he saw children in a photograph taken at an AiG conference, and he was claiming we are “abusing” children by teaching them creation and so on. Well, here are just some of the children who attended the sessions on Sunday hearing the truth of creation:

Today, I will be speaking to hundreds of children at the special school assemblies as part of the AiG conference.

Here are some more photographs taken yesterday:

Our volunteers

People were excited with the resources

Be thou strong and very courageous

(Joshua 1:7) Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

Standing up for the Lord Jesus Christ and obeying Him is not for the cowardly, as it takes strength and courage to not go along with the world.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken