You won't find an atheist

Secular prophets have proclaimed the death of God for centuries, citing the injustices of man claimed in God's name, but recent scholarship analyzes the danger lurking in the nostrums that seek to replace religious faith. Winston Churchill, with an eye on Nazism and Communism, observed: ''You leave out God, and you substitute the devil.''

Revolutionaries of the '60s counterculture often replaced religion in their own lives with touchy-feely mumbo jumbo. Modern environmentalists sound like either Old Testament doomcriers or New Age missionaries, worshipping nature as if it were a wholly benign force, a veritable Garden of Eden threatened only by human snakes in the grass.

Now the God-deniers are not even getting good press in the liberal publications, mostly because they're woefully ignorant of what they rage against. The Bible Literacy Project exposes how illiterate most Americans are about Biblical imagery. But that's changing. There are potholes aplenty in the road to the White House, and maybe even a few foxholes, but you won't find an atheist in any of them. Contact Suzanne Fields at sfields1000@aol.com WASHINGTON TIMES Tallahassee Democrat