Today, as I write this (May 7), is the National Day of Prayer. Each year, this day is celebrated in our nation’s capitol and in state capitols all around the country. The one in Florida was held on the 22nd floor (top floor) of our state capitol. There was a standing room only crowd, and among the people on the program were the governor of the state, Rick Scott, and the Commissioner of Agriculture, Adam Putnam. The program included a time of worship in song, a special musical presentation by children from a nearby Christian school, a couple of short speeches, and prayers for our nation by pastors, government leaders, other officials, and even some of the children in attendance.
You would think that this kind of event would go off without much fanfare, but that was not to be. Believe it or not, there were some militant atheists who showed up to try and disrupt the prayer meeting. Fortunately there were too few to cause any large scale disruption, but these three people were sitting right behind me and I got to be the recipient of all of their rudeness. At one point they yelled out, “Separation of church and state” loud enough for all to hear. The rest of the time they didn’t shout that way, but they did make disparaging comments to each other, loud enough for those around them to hear, while people were praying, during speeches and at other times.
While it was going on, I couldn’t do anything but shake my head at the rudeness. Here were people who came into a religious service for the very purpose of causing disruption because of their own faith.
Based on my own interaction with militant Atheists, I feel quite certain that these folks did not realize they were acting based on their religious beliefs. In fact, if they were accused directly of this, they probably would have been incredulous and asserted that they do not even believe in religion. But make no mistake about it, Atheism is a religious belief. It is based on faith in the idea that there is no supernatural existence.
You see, Atheists try to define religion in a way that excludes themselves so they can say they are not religious. But religion is nothing more than a set of beliefs which are based on faith. And Atheism is just such a belief system. They insist that Christians, and others who believe in God, prove their belief using empirical methods. But if belief in God fails based on that requirement, so does their belief that God does not exist. They cannot prove empirically that it is possible for the material universe to even exist based on empirical methodology. They must believe what they believe by faith.
So this brings us back to the question as to why these Atheists felt the need to try and disrupt a prayer service. Simply put, they are religious zealots who cannot tolerate people who believe something that goes against their religion. Once again, the ones screaming “intolerance” are the most intolerant of all.