Romans 1:16-32 seems pertinent to this:
I think he is referring to idol worshipers, but the argument would apply even more strongly to those who worship self or nothing.
The passage you are discussing is the one the CCC points to that indicates man may “reason” his way to God. It doesn’t immediately follow from the passage of Paul that an Atheist in the modern sense on the word is the target of the discussion.
Let me bring out some of the elements I see in the passage that your comments bring to mind. I think you have begun to analyze the scripture – but perhaps your thoughts need more development to be understood well by me or others…
Faith is spoken of as a “grace”; and as I have been discovering and exploring on another chirstian forum (eg: “worthy” forums – which are mysteriously blocking my thread’s access to cousins of mine of a different faith that I long to enter a full discussion with – interestingly enough the “worthy” forums appears to be tied to a bible college …
… and perhaps I actually made someone
THINK)
Grace, means both “please” and “thank you” in Greek; The Catholic prayer before a meal is quite correct in being called “grace” since we are thanking God and
asking for a blessing at the same time.
Notice Roman 1:18 talks about “detaining” the truth in “injustice”; followed by Roman 1:21 which says “or given thanks”. So that the rejection of the relationship called “grace” is exactly what Paul is speaking about.
I think you are correct, Joe, in your assessment – although it isn’t obvious how no belief in “God” can be equivalent to believing an “animal” is God…
Until we recognize that atheists believe man is nothing
MORE than an animal that dies in the end…
The idea of the Idol, Roman 1:23, would apply even to Marxist theory of “God” which is that God is a formula, a law of the universe, a thing to be manipulated and conquered. Marxism de-personalizes God in order to “rape” him. They worship the death of God! Such ideas are pragmatically identical to the reaction of Sodom which in the bible was first saved BY God through Abraham, and in place of “thanks” they attempt to rape God which causes their own destruction. (perhaps, preparing for war, they had a few sympathetic pitch and sulfer targets around…)
The beginning of the book of wisdom says, “they have made a covenant with death”. That alone is enough to say that the atheism envisioned in Wisdom and by Paul is one that is equivalent/vocative of Idol worship. Something which is made by man, whether an “idea” (formula/law) – object (Idol/magic control/aquisition of power); all of which are simply attempts to replace God by something that wishes to access his power – but not his person.
Pornography with respect to women, defaces them. It seeks to emphasize the body – and to exploit it for pleasure – but to ignore the human person which is intuitively seen in the “face” and the “eyes” which look back out at the person beholding.
For this reason, the face is usually hidden, eyes closed, etc. so that the person indulging in this sin of de-humanization can avoid thinking about the one thing that makes a person human – and not just an animal.
I think that Atheism, in the modern sense, is really attempting to do the same with God; derive pleasure from “conquest” of the universe, but hiding that there is anything like true “logic”, “reason”, or a “person” that makes it all “Go”.
Perhaps the atheist believes that “death” is what makes everything happen in a scriptural sense.
What do you think?
We also see here a prediction or expression of how atheist like to try and bash us over the head with out own teachings. Seems like very little changes in a few thousands years haha.