Monday, April 20, 2009

Atheists oppress British Christians

Every Easter, with the media spotlight on religion, there's always a long line of apologists waiting in the wings to tell their tedious and often melodramatic story about how religion is great and noble, religious people are horribly oppressed by our tyrannical secular society, and that common, god-fearing Brits ought to rise up against these smug, vile atheist elites (BYOP - bring your own pitchforks). This piece by the Daily Mail does the hat trick and brings all three.

After an utterly uninteresting introduction and personal rumination, it finally cuts to the chase:
Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.
As delicious as that may seem, I heartily doubt the truth of it. Christians in the US are always playing the same game, playing the victim and lamenting our "secular society" but the sad truth is that religion still plays a large role in society (and regrettably, our political policies) and that they disguise their privileged position as one of a downtrodden underdog to garner every drop of sympathy and support that they can get. And I shudder to imagine the rationale for the incessant painting of the secular voices as totalitarian overlords silencing the faithful (who inexplicably, manage to ceaselessly broadcast their tale of secular oppression from all the major media) .

But speaking of secular voices, the article holds nothing back to these atheist jerks (and noticeably fails to support exactly why they are jerks). In argumentum ad adjective fashion, it lamblasts Britain's atheists as "anti-God fanatics", "mockers", "scornful", "smug", "self-satisfied". The hatred just goes on and on, and I'm not entirely sure that it's the atheists who are the actual producers of it.

Apparently, Richard Dawkins thinks that religion is the source of all evil in the world (protip: just reading the titles of people's work isn't the same as knowing the arguments contained therein), Polly Toynbee spends her Sundays sneering at meek pew-sitters, and the tieless, foul-mouthed Jonathan Ross (who for some reason, is wearing a tie in the accompanying picture) is mean to Christians somehow.

Jeez. Even I'm starting to hate atheists!

An observant reader may remark, "Okay, we've had enough two minutes of hate, where's the case for faith?" Well, it turns out that part was mostly ditched in favor of hunting down pics of these vile atheists and the barrage of clever adjectives to demonize them with. It's there, sort of, but it's not really worth commenting on.
As a matter of fact, I am sure the opposite is the case and that materialist atheism is not merely an arid creed, but totally irrational.

Materialist atheism says we are just a collection of chemicals. It has no answer whatsoever to the question of how we should be capable of love or heroism or poetry if we are simply animated pieces of meat.

Take that, materialists!

I mean seriously, how could anything feel emotions or have deep thoughts if it's building blocks are just stupid cells? It's preposterous. It's like saying that a lovely painting could be "just" paint on a canvas or that the Eiffel Tower is "just" a hunk of metal. Obviously, it makes no logical sense to say that a wondrous thing could be made from building blocks that aren't themselves magical in any way.

The rest of the arguments are equally bad, including the not-so-subtle argument from popularity that most of the greatest thinkers of the past 1,500 years believed in Christian dogma.

How'd the thought process get this bad? Well, there's a clue in the author's journey to belief. Apparently, he drifted away from the faith because it struck him as "uncool" and found it again when he made the startling revelation that people often die while still believing in supernatural things.

Seems to me like the journey was merely from one poorly-reasoned position to another.

I'm reminded of this quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind"

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

If atheists ruled the world

Hilarious deadpan reenactments of classic FSTDT quotes:



The sad thing is that I saw a couple of those firsthand (truly a milestone in underachievement) at some christian sites. Like the 3 words: "evolution is a lie" LOL!

As a quick stroll through my posts can attest, it's a hobby of mine to collect the paragons of stupidity, frequently with a mocking retort. I guess it just makes me feel good about myself to know that even my tragically mediocre intellect is greatly superior to these ideological wastebaskets. Or maybe I just think it's funny when people do intellectual pratfalls. Either way, these collections of religious craziness are priceless.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Nightline's Satan "debate"


PZ's initial reaction was right, this piece is utter drek. But don't take my word for it, watch some of it yourself. It's a trainwreck.

The rational side is represented by some Christian bishop and New Ager Deepak Chopra. It's sad, really really sad, when I have to root for Deepak Chopra as the voice of reason; when the people he's arguing against are even more delusional than the guy who says that "consciousness may exist in photons, which seem to be the carrier of all information in the universe." The ex-prostitute he argued with seriously believes that she was held down and raped by demons - beings with red eyes and black faces. Seriously.

I just don't understand why they couldn't get an actual skeptic or two for this stuff.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Atheists are brainless

Via Triabolgue

I have to admit, this is one of the more clever putdowns of atheists I've read. And yet, it fails miserably at understanding even basic atheists arguments.

Atheists often argue that they don't "deny" or "reject" gods, they simply don't believe in them, just like most Christians simply don't believe in Zeus or Vishnu or Amun-Ra, etc. It's an attempt to counter strawman arguments about atheism as well as communicating to theists that the burden of proof is on them to explain why people should believe in their god, rather than on atheists to make the case that every god concept is false.

It's not complicated. It's not difficult. Any reasonably intelligent person could understand these concepts.

Yet, theists (and more specifically, Christian apologists) either genuinely don't understand this or are simply being dishonest and are intentionally mischaracterizing the position in order to curry Amens from their flocks. (which of course would be tantamount to lying and prohibited by their Ten Commandments)

They do things like quibble about whether or not babies are atheists, sometimes even going so far as to consider inanimate objects as atheists in the vain attempt to construe a simple, straightforward statement of disbelief into some absurd (and therefore false) conclusion. They often times don't realize that their logic inevitably caves in on itself. One could also argue about whether or not one's chair is an undecided voter or a neutral party in some war, but all that does is reveal the intellectual confusion of the author - it never negates the meaning of terms like undecided voter or neutral party.

Instead of pwning atheism, it's self-pwnage. It's declaring to the world that you don't have a clue what you're talking about and encouraging people not to take you seriously.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Future Weapons: Zen Buddhism

Like most Americans, I love guns and I love explosions. Personally, I'd never actually use a gun on anything living, of course, but I can't get enough of watching inanimate objects get blown up in increasingly effective and creative ways. (even though I'm pretty sure that the only reasonable use for some of the more sci-fi weapons would be interstellar war, which I don't see as likely any time soon) It naturally follows that I love watching shows about all the futuristic weapons and military-related technologies being developed.

Stuff like:
MOAB
Railguns
Anti-missile lasers (USA Air hehe)
Zen Buddhism

Okay, which one of these things is not like the others? The juxtaposition is just so absurd, it makes the segment sort of bizarre to watch.