Northern Kentucky Schools and Atheist Books

According to an atheist blog, an atheist group in northern Kentucky (where the Creation Museum is located) has received permission to hand out an atheist book to students in a number of Boone County public high schools on the last day of the school year. The local atheist group involved states the following on its website:

Boone County High Schools have been passing out Gideon Bibles. They will be doing it again this year on the last day of school. This time however the Tri-State Freethinkers are requesting the same access. We have partnered up with Hemant Mehta The Friendly Atheist & The Secular Student Alliance for this distribution. We have raised a decent amount of money to purchase books . . .

We need volunteers to pass out the books. Boone County has 6 high schools and the distribution will happen all at the same time. We will be allowed to be present at the distribution. We are looking for 12 volunteers total (2 at each location) Be aware that the press will most likely be at some of the locations. (http://www.meetup.com/Tri-State-Freethinkers/events/177275642/)

As is typical of these atheist groups, they are misrepresenting the situation. The schools themselves do not pass out Gideon Bibles! Gideon policies forbid this. Rather, Gideon use volunteers, with the permission of the schools, to pass out the Bibles. School teachers and administrators are not distributing the Bibles.

From what I have read, it appears the book the atheists will be handing out to students at Boone County high schools is one titled The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide, by atheist school teacher Hemant Mehta. Mehta is a high school math teacher in Illinois. He also has worked with the Center for Inquiry and the Secular Coalition for America, and he currently serves on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief. He’s a very active atheist.

On his blog, Mehta states, “I suppose we should all also thank the Gideons [sic] folks for giving us the opportunity to cleanse people of whatever the Bible is supposed to teach them (though I would be much happier if they just stopped the public school distributions altogether).”

In other words, the reason for handing out this atheist book is to attack the Bible and the Christian faith—and the athesists really just want Bible distribution by volunteers to be stopped all together. And of course, atheists do not ultimately have any positive message to give. What can someone who says there is no God, and declares that when you die you cease to exist, really offer people except some subjective opinions for living in the here and now? Many atheists, though a small minority, will complain, and eventually Bible distribution at schools will probably be stopped. This of course is the ultimate aim of these atheists. As Mehta states, “If any Christian parents or administrators have a problem with that, there’s a simple solution: Just don’t give the Gideons permission to distribute the Bibles. Say no to all religious and non-religious groups that want to leave material for students.”

If you think about it, atheists don’t care if no Bible or books can be distributed to students because students are already taught the atheist worldview anyway in their classrooms. Public schools textbooks define science as only being able to explain the universe by natural processes—that is, naturalism. Naturalism is atheism! Atheists just don’t want students even knowing about the Bible or having opportunities to read one. Just like they don’t want students even being taught problems with evolution, they want students indoctrinated in the atheistic evolutionary belief and to have it be taught as fact!

Now regardless of whether one is a Christian or not, the Bible is a historical document that had great bearing in regard to how the Founding Fathers of the USA acted and formulated the Constitution. This is very different to an atheist book written specifically to attack Christianity.

The Boone County school board members probably don’t realize the sorts of ideas the atheist author of the book has stated publicly. Here are just a couple examples:

1. In regard to a comment about the Pope, Mehta states, “The idea of being ‘saved’ or ‘redeemed’ thanks to Christ’s death is all made up.” In fact, many of these atheists spend a lot of time mocking prayer, the Bible, and Christians. They make many blasphemous statements and often use expletives. They primarily attack Christianity and use ad hominem attacks against Christians.
2. Mehta is also obsessed with attacking Answers in Genesis. He has made numerous derogatory comments about me such as the following:

   Creating a child-friendly version of Noah’s Ark with the intention of convincing kids the story is true is detestable. Instead of opening kids’ minds with science, Ark Encounter is attempting to turn them against evidence in favor of faith. It seems like Ken Ham just wants to take children’s minds, minds that are malleable and easily persuaded, and warp them before they’re old enough to know better. He’s like a Christian version of Joe Camel.

   He went on to say,

   So I’ll summarize it in a sentence: Ken Ham is ignorant. Really ignorant. (Ok, two sentences.) He’s so ignorant, in fact, he actually criticizes [Bill] Nye for failing to teach people to think critically. I repeat: A Creationist just criticized somebody else for not teaching people how to think critically. I was going to call Ken Ham a liar, but he’s not a liar. He’s just so self-deluded that he actually believes his own tripe. He really believes Genesis serves as credible science text.

   He continued,

   Ham’s goal is to brainwash children with cute little sayings because those are easier to remember than the complex truths that explain evolution. Ham, more than anything else, is a marketer. He knows [expletive removed] well that if he keeps telling kids that all the answers to Creation are in Genesis, they’re going to grow older and realize he’s full of [expletive removed]. But if he hides that fact in a short, memorable line, they’re less likely to question it at all because they’ll assume all the truth they need is in the saying. The kids who are forced to watch Ham speak deserve better than that.

It’s time for Christians to realize that the secularists have been progressively eliminating any vestige of the Christian worldview from the public schools. These secular schools are increasingly atheistic in their philosophy (despite the fact there is a small minority of Christian teachers in the system).

As the Bible states, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30).

The point is that secular schools are not neutral. There is no neutral position.

When secularists work to get anything Christian thrown out of public schools, they are not getting religion out. They are forcing Christianity out so they can replace it with their own religion—the religion of naturalism or atheism.

So what can Boone County students in our area expect to read in this atheist book they will be offered by the local atheists?

Well, one reason I presented the quotes from the author above is that his book the students will receive (if they want one) is made in a supposed effort to make atheists out to be “friendly” people, who are just wanting what they consider to be the “best” for the culture. However, if after reading this book from a “friendly” atheist, students who go to atheist blogs and websites such as the author’s will often read blasphemous statements and ad hominem attacks that are rife through atheist writings.

In this book being offered to students, one section is titled “Have an Atheist Bible Study.” So what is the purpose of that? Well again, if the students go to the atheist websites and blogs, they will use such a “Bible study” to attack Christianity.

I had to smile at one section in the book with the heading, “Teaching Critical Thinking Skills.” It states, “This is something one would hope students learn to do in their classes, but atheist groups are especially adept at getting students to examine some of their most cherished beliefs, to question authority when its [sic] warranted, and to demand evidence when someone makes an unrealistic claim.” What a hypocritical statement! When it comes to origins, atheists try to use legislation and the courts to stop students being taught critical thinking skills, as they don’t want them to question evolution in any way—and they don’t want them taught about creation so they can critically analyze the issue of origins. Atheist activists are out to impose their anti-God religion on students.

Certainly there is freedom of religion in this country, so atheists are free to hand out their religious books to students. However, parents and students need to be warned that the ultimate motive of these secularists is to eliminate Christianity from people’s thinking. Their message is a negative one—and it’s ultimately one of hopelessness and purposelessness.

But what a wonderful message the Bible gives to students: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken