To Believe Or Not To Believe, This Is Not The Question

Whether intentionally or not, our choice of words can be deceiving. Since words are the material out of which we construct our thinking, the wrong material can cause a wrong thought.  We can see how this is so in the words we use to discuss our belief, or "non-belief", in God. We tend to categorize ourselves like so:

"Some people believe in God, and some people do not believe in God."

But this statement is deceptive.  The choice of words persuades us to think in terms of beliefs and not facts.  some do believe, and some do not believe. Belief is the constant in both cases. Whether or not belief is happening is the variable. It subconsciously suggests that those who don't believe in God don't "believe" anything. But nothing could be further from the truth. To explain let's look at the same statement rearranged:

"Some people believe there is a God, and others believe there isn't a God."

As we can see, this is the more accurate way of expressing the truth.  

So why is this important? Well, for two reasons: First, to speak in terms of "believing or not" is, as I've mentioned deceptive. But it's not only deceptive for the hearer, it's also deceptive for the speaker because it frames our thoughts in a deceptive fashion. In the end, we are all ultimately "believers" and are distinguished only by what we believe.

Second, this statement secretly opens the door for special pleading. Special Pleading is the act of making a value judgment about the actions of others while allowing that the same action is fine for oneself.  To demand that society be conducted according to the belief that there is no God based on the assumption that His existence is unprovable, while at the same time ignoring that His non-existence is unprovable is Special Pleading.

This may seem like a small thing but it by no means is.  It puts one side of the cultural wars at an advantage by allowing that it is based solely on science, which it is not.  Science cannot prove the non-exitence of God, and since it cannot prove God's nonexistence it should not be allowed to claim "science" as its foundation for disallowing the existence of a creator.

Ephesians 6 admonishes us that we do not war against flesh and blood, but against the powers, the principalities, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Christians should not be mislead into believing that Christianity is not reasonable and is unable to stand the onslaught by those who hold to the weak faith that there is no God, and the just-as-religious belief systems posing as science that are being preached from the pulpits of the institutions of academia.