Atheist, Mark D, stated: “Faith,” declares Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene” (1976), “seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.” “It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness,” agrees Sam Harris in his 2004 bestseller “The End of Faith,” “than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.”

Why isn’t Christianity a kind of mental illness, since much of what the faithful believe is not in touch with reality?

Christian response to the Atheist…

First of all, “faith” (or the lack thereof) is irrelevant concerning the facade of Atheism. Our Creator has placed irrefutable, extant, empirical evidence for His reality before our eyes via what He has made in Nature (Romans 1:18-32). Though the Atheist, by rejecting our Creator’s reality and His authority, may be seeking to justify sexual perversion, antisocial conduct, rebellion to authority, the typical Atheist is NOT stupid or blind nor do most lack at least a modicum of discernment.

Faith is NOT required to acknowledge the necessity of design in Nature and therefore a Designer. The Atheist, consumed by the deceit of Naturalism, lies to them self and to the World when they deny what they intuitively know exists. Though the Atheist may not know the Designer’s Name, they intuitively know He exists because the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth, the complex human genome, mandate our Creator’s reality; therefore, every Atheist will be “without excuse” when they stand in the Judgment before Jesus Christ in Eternity (Romans 1:20).

Christian faith and acknowledging our Creator…

Christian “faith” is not blind faith but reasonable and logical. Christian faith has nothing to do with acknowledging the reality of our Creator because faith is not required to substantiate empiricism. The Christian approaches creation with their eyes wide open, not seeking a prejudicial perspective nor do they seek to justify a particular worldview or ideological predisposition or justify/rationalize a particular aberrant behavior. Christians simply seek Truth.

The Christian seeks Truth, reason, logic, causation, practicability, purpose in reality. When the Christian observes a clear night sky, observes the supernatural Moon, Stars, the Sun, the Earth, the incredible harmony that exists and teeters on a precarious tolerance between life-giving elements balanced between heat from the Sun mandated at very specific distances; photosynthesis providing life giving oxygen; the Moon commanding the seas to stop their roar at a given point; the incredible complexity of the human genome; knowing that these supernatural phenomena mandate design, purpose, causation; therefore, a Designer…the Christian logically seeks this Designer and His Name due to the empirical nature of Creation.

As articulated by Ravi Zacharias, “Christianity is the only coherent worldview with corresponding truth that defines origin-meaning-morality-destiny and directly answers with logical consistency, empirical adequacy, experiential relevance.” When one seeks knowledge of our Creator, if they study the Vedas, the Quran, the Egyptian gods, the Holy Bible, commonsense and reason mandate that Elohim-Yeshua is God, Creator, Messiah, Judge and there is no other God like Yeshua. The simplistic process of elimination mandates that only Jesus-Yeshua is the God of this Universe and Life.

Faith and its place in Christianity…

Faith, for the Christian, becomes relevant in believing that Jesus Christ is God who manifest in the flesh some 2019-years ago and walked among us for 33.5-years explaining, defining, demonstrating, God the Father to everyone-anyone that would receive His Good News of the Gospel. Faith for the Christian is believing in your heart, confessing with your mouth, that Jesus is God who died to pay for the sins of mankind and that He was resurrected from the dead for our justification leading to eternal life (Romans 10:9-10).

God the Father has set-forth ONE-Standard by which He will forgive sin thereby providing mankind access to the Eternal Kingdom subsequent to death of the body constrained by Time; that One-Standard is grace (unmerited favor) by faith (trusting-believing) in Jesus Christ as Lord for the mediation of sin (Romans 10:8-10; John 14:6).

In closing, allow me to plead with everyone and anyone who listens to the demonically-based rhetoric of foolish men like Dawkins and Harris. If you permit these emissaries of Satan to point you to the Portal to Hell through their insane rhetoric, not only do you make yourself “the fool” of Time and Eternity, you will suffer a fate similar to these prolific enemies of God in Hell and not see life in God’s Kingdom (Psalm 14:1).