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Health & Fitness

Is God Dead or Alive?

It’s impossible to prove God does not exist. One can’t prove He exists, either, but there is ample evidence for it: the order and beauty in the universe, the natural law He has written in every human’s heart, the ability to appreciate beauty, to love, etc. Plenty of deep thinkers have moved from skepticism or atheism to belief in God. Professor J. Budziszewski, a former atheist, professor of ethical and political philosophy at the University of Texas, is now a believer in God.

Take time to read his essay “Escape from Nihilism” before dismissing all Christians as “brainwashed from a young age” or “having hit rock-bottom as adults”, as one Patch critic said. Professor Budziszewski puts the lie to that theory.

God is Not Dead movie review

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I recommend the movie “God is Not Dead” for encouragement for Christians and other religious believers in an increasingly hostile world, but also for thoughtful skeptics. Some atheists are former believers who are angry at God. But how can you be angry with a divine being who doesn’t exist?

Some Christians liked it; e.g., this generally favorable review from the Christian PostAnswers in Genesis pointed out some of its flaws compared to the Bible. The movie critics largely panned it. Take your pick of the Rotten Tomatoes reviewers; some liked it, some thought it heavy-handed.

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I thought it was good, for several reasons. It dealt honestly with the problem of why there is suffering in the world. If there is a God, how can He let people suffer? This movie deals honestly with it and attempts to answer it.

It also deals sensitively with the issue of people wanting to change their religion and the rejection they receive from well-meaning family members – similar to Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

It has a few scenes that are unrealistic, but what Hollywood movie doesn’t? Perhaps the overall premise that a professor would be a tyrant in his classroom, forcing students to sign the piece of paper “God is Dead”, is overblown. But there is subtle and not-so-subtle opposition to those who bring their religious beliefs into the public square in America (unless they happen to be politically correct ones, of course).

Michigan Connection

Newsboys lead singer Michael Tait is from Detroit, and keyboard player Jeff Frankenstein is from Sterling Heights. Click to see them performing the song God’s Not Dead. They perform it on a college campus near the end of the movie after talking with a formerly hostile news reporter.

If you see the movie, stay for the credits. It was inspired by court cases defended byAlliance for Defending Freedom at many college campuses, including Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University. See an earlier blog post about some of their cases here.

No Maverick Molecules

God is great and God is good. I believe from personal experience that the child’s prayer is true. No maverick molecules. He brings the good and the suffering that everyone goes through at one point in their life. For me, living in a fallen world with a good and gracious God makes more sense than the thought that sickness and death, which come eventually to everyone, are completely random or instigated by the ruler of this world. As Martin Luther famously said, the devil is God’s devil.


And yes, God does exist, making a difference in people’s lives. Children, hurting adults, and intelligent people of all age groups and eras who are wise enough to hear Him knocking on the door of their hearts, all decide to follow God, not just the first two categories, as was alleged by a critic.

Hyperbole from an Atheist

The same Patch critic later claimed that “For every one deep thinker who went in that direction, there are 69 thousand who went in the opposite direction, that is, they overcame their brainwashing to think rather than believe, to think rationally and objectively instead of superstitiously.”

69.000 is a bit hyperbolic. There are 99 total on Wikipedia’s list of atheists who became Christians. It’s far from a complete list: includes former University of Texas professor Marvin Olasky, C.S. Lewis, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Francis Collins (director of the Human Genome project), but not St. Augustine of Hippo, or Prof. J. Budziszewski.

Wikipedia listed 90 converts to nontheism, and six who left Christianity, some to other theistic religions.

When I posted this, of course there was no list given of 6,900,000 “rational and objective” thinkers who “overcame their brainwashing” to stop believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Atheists suppress their knowledge of God by denying natural law (quite unreasonably). 

But at least they are consistent; agnostics think one cannot know. To each his/her own. For those who are interested in reading more on natural law, I suggest reading Professor J. Budziszewski’s What We Can’t Not Know.

If you buy it through the Amazon link on our USA Melting Pot website, the club gets part of the proceeds. Thanks for your support.

Conservative columnist Dale Murrish writes on historytraveltechnologyreligion and politics for the Troy Patch. You can read his articles on other topics by clicking on the links. 

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