Atheist Utopia

[wyguy]

I first heard of this a few weeks ago while listening to a Christian radio program. I never heard about this place before! What makes the whole thing so interesting is that atheists LOVE to claim they can be moral without God. Well, they had their chance by forming an all atheist town and this is how it turned out:

Liberal, Missouri

[Believer1997]

and the good news.... it still stands and around 774 people live there...

Christians Send Missionaries

Christians, of course, found in Liberal a perfect mission field.

As news spread about Liberal, Christians came to convert the town. Walser tried to keep them out by posting his followers at the Liberal train station to tell passengers that if they were Christians they were not welcome, according to an 1896 article in The Kansas City Star. They came anyway. Some Christians quietly bought homes and began holding religious services. Walser would interrupt them and even put a stop to it after he proved to a court that the services were being held on properties he still partly owned. The Christians then bought land next to Liberal and moved more than a dozen houses there from Liberal. The last building had a sign attached that said: "And the Lord said: Get thee out of Sodom." Walser then built a barbed wire fence to keep them out of Liberal. It was time to fulfill the original aim of the town to "enjoy the full benefits of free American citizens without having some self-appointed bigot dictate to us what we should think." (Kansas City Star on Saturday, December 22, 2001)

[MorningGlory]

Contemplating a totally Godless society is like contemplating a decaying cow carcass. Disgusting and better left to those who aren't looking UP.

[wyguy]

I just find it so telling about the atheists harp about being moral without God - but when push came to shove and they formed a whole town of atheists that forbid any Christians to live there, their "morality" bubbled to the surface:

"The boast about the sobriety of the town is false. But few of the infidels are total abstainers. Liquor can be obtained at three different places in this town of 300 inhabitants. More drunken infidels can be seen in a year in Liberal than drunken Christians among one hundred times as many church members during the same time. Swearing is the common form of speech in Liberal, and nearly every inhabitant, old and young, swears habitually. Girls and boys swear on the streets, playground, and at home. Fully half of the females will swear, and a large number swear habitually.... Lack of reverence for parents and of obedience to them is the rule. There are more grass widows, grass widowers and people living together, who have former companions living, than in any other town of ten times the population.... A good portion of the few books that are read are of the class that decency keeps under lock and key....

These infidels...can spend for dances and shows ten times as much as they spend on their liberalism. These dances are corrupting the youth of the surrounding country with infidelity and immorality. There is no lack of loose women at these dances.

Since Liberal was started there has not been an average of one birth per year of infidel parents. Feticide is universal. The physicians of the place say that a large portion of their practice has been trying to save females from consequences of feticide. In no town is slander more prevalent, or the charges more vile. If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that its inhabitants are the devils."

And what also is interesting is that the atheist founder became a believer and even wrote a book about Jesus!

[wyguy]

Contemplating a totally Godless society is like contemplating a decaying cow carcass. Disgusting and better left to those who aren't looking UP.

[MorningGlory]

And what also is interesting is that the atheist founder became a believer and even wrote a book about Jesus!

Seriously? Was that in the article? I missed it, if it was, but that's great to know.

[Believer1997]

Contemplating a totally Godless society is like contemplating a decaying cow carcass. Disgusting and better left to those who aren't looking UP.

I never thought of it that way - but you are absolutely correct....

[wyguy]

And what also is interesting is that the atheist founder became a believer and even wrote a book about Jesus!

Seriously? Was that in the article? I missed it, if it was, but that's great to know.

Yep. Here's the book:

The life and teachings of Jesus

And this is from the Dec. 22, 2001 Kansas City Star Newspaper:

"When he died in May 1910, the funeral was held at his home and there were remembrances and music. Then there were excerpts read from a book titled The Life and Teachings of Jesus. It was published in 1909, and the author was Walser. He was, he wrote, a converted infidel. By surviving accounts, he didn't try to push his new beliefs on others. But he did write the book, a remarkable document from someone who once said that Christianity and the Bible were the crude reasoning of primitive man. He had searched for hope during his life through materialism, atheism, agnosticism and spiritualism but had found none. Walser wrote in the book that he had "wandered in the desert of disbelief, waded in the river of doubt, and in the sands of desolation." But near the end of his life he found hope. Jesus was the son of God, Walser concluded, and the Holy Ghost was the infinite spirit of our maker. "We should study the chart which Jesus has given us," Walser said."

http://www.angelfire.com/home/wliberalmiss...yofliberal.html

[jsca777]

Being able to live a good life without Christ is such a deception from hell itself. Many sinners call themselves "a good person." But the bible says otherwise. They are good in their own eyes. Even though they cuss, swear, get drunk, look at pronography, watch dirty movies, listen to godless music, commit adultry, etc, they still call themselves "good people."

[MorningGlory]

And what also is interesting is that the atheist founder became a believer and even wrote a book about Jesus!

Seriously? Was that in the article? I missed it, if it was, but that's great to know.

Yep. Here's the book:

The life and teachings of Jesus

And this is from the Dec. 22, 2001 Kansas City Star Newspaper:

"When he died in May 1910, the funeral was held at his home and there were remembrances and music. Then there were excerpts read from a book titled The Life and Teachings of Jesus. It was published in 1909, and the author was Walser. He was, he wrote, a converted infidel. By surviving accounts, he didn't try to push his new beliefs on others. But he did write the book, a remarkable document from someone who once said that Christianity and the Bible were the crude reasoning of primitive man. He had searched for hope during his life through materialism, atheism, agnosticism and spiritualism but had found none. Walser wrote in the book that he had "wandered in the desert of disbelief, waded in the river of doubt, and in the sands of desolation." But near the end of his life he found hope. Jesus was the son of God, Walser concluded, and the Holy Ghost was the infinite spirit of our maker. "We should study the chart which Jesus has given us," Walser said."

http://www.angelfire.com/home/wliberalmiss...yofliberal.html

Amazing story. This proves, once again, that even the most hardened can come to God.