Speaking of Audacity

“A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God, Are You?”

"Atheism is coming to the NY subway system

[so reports the NYT]

Starting next Monday, a coalition of local groups will run a monthlong advertising campaign in a dozen Manhattan subway stations."

An audacious organization called Coalition of Reason is the home for this idea, plus the subway campaign is timed to a new book by a Harvard University 'humanist chaplain'.*

HOWEVER, ALSO THIS WEEK:

Religious Jews around the world read Parshas Noah this Shabbat. It’s the account of one man, at the instruction of God, who spends 120 years building a Teva (an ark) to carry him and his family, and many animals, while the world is being deluged by a flood, to be brought by God, because of the decadence of the society of man on earth. It seems these people didn’t believe in God, Who was warning them that He was going to destroy the world and its inhabitants because of their perverted lifestyles.

“...now the descendants of Cain and of Seth began to intermarry, and then there sprang up a race distinguished for their ungodliness. Men became more and more corrupt, and God determined to sweep the earth of its wicked population (Genesis 6:7). But with Noah God entered into a covenant, with a promise of deliverance from the threatened deluge. He was accordingly commanded to build an ark for the saving of himself and his house. An interval of one hundred and twenty years elapsed while the ark was being built, during which Noah bore constant testimony against the unbelief and wickedness of that generation …”

FROM THE FIRST CENTURY HISTORIAN, JOSEPHUS:

But when Monobazus was grown old, and saw that he had but a little time to live, he had a mind to come to the sight of his son before he died. So he sent for him, and embraced him after the most affectionate manner, and bestowed on him the country called Carra; it was a soil that bare amomum in great plenty: there are also in it the remains of that ark, wherein it is related that Noah escaped the deluge, and where they are still shown to such as are desirous to see them. However, the Armenians call this place, (Apobaterion).The Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day.

—Complete Works of Josephus

IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ARARAT

"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen." (Genesis 8:4-5)

"Originial discovery made from an airplane by a Turkish army captain: a boat-shaped form about 500-515 feet long."*

FOLLOWING THE FLOOD is the story of the Tower of Babel:

"The whole earth was of one language and of common purpose ... And they said one to another: '...Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the entire earth.'

"And G-d descended to look at the city and tower which the sons of man built, and G-d said, '...Shall it not be withheld from them all they proposed to do?...' G-d scattered them across the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city."

Is this what the Coalition of Reason wants to organize and build, a coalition of unity and purpose in the denial of the God of the Universe? Do they really want to bring disaster upon the world?

One language, one idea, fueled by "private funds", in the spirit of "unity" and "purpose". Where have we heard these campaign promises?

Additional reading:

* What to do with our Traitors, read here.

* Moving Forward with Unity and Purpose United Coalition of Reason.

* For great pictures and a video: Noah's Ark Discovered.