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"

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.

Islamic Examiner needs his head examined, part 2

Part 5

It's mostly a rehashing of his previous claims as if no one ever demolished them in the comments.

He claims that atheists aren't really atheists, atheists never criticize "pagan creeds and other ridiculous mythologies" (I suppose it would be futile explaining to him that many atheists oppose all sorts of wacky cults like Scientology), etc. The ignorance is just exasperating.

A good analogy of Atheist opposition to the Law and Authority of religion is the way anarchists resist law and order in civil society.

So now atheists are equated with anarchists. I'm sure that in his warped mind, that actually makes sense, but over here in Reality Land that is a complete and utter non-sequitur.

And here's the double-whammy.

There is no guarantee or statistic which proves that in the absence of a central government an Atheist is more likely to obey civil and criminal laws than a Monotheist. Ouch.

Okayy...let's say that that's true and that in some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario where law enforcement has collapsed, atheists aren't any more likely than theists to follow the law. So what?

This guy acts like it's some devastating argument against atheism and practically does a victory dance in the margins. I don't get it.

As for the morality part, Atheists giving charity and all that stuff, I have a simple question. Where did you get these teachings from? You don't believe either in God or in revealed Texts, remember?

Gee, I don't know. Maybe *gasp* atheists feel sympathy for other human beings and want to help them.

He ends with a bizarre assertion that the above sort of reasoning is "pathetic" and ends with another self-congratulatory declaration of victory. But he never really clarifies why that it is so. He seems infatuated with delusions of pwnage and uninterested in making a coherent argument.

Part 6

Got the Tuesday morning blues? Have no fear, simple arguments against Atheism is here!

Uggh. Make it stop.

You know it's rather entertaining reading the colorful comments from some readers. Somewhere in there is a rather grave accusation that I would order the execution of Atheists if I could. Yikes!

That sort of thing would be strange if he didn't assert that his morality comes directly from the Quran and the Quran mentions just that. Personally, I'd rather not find out.

Seriously buddy, should you expect mass executions and genocide from a Muslim? Nope.

From one of your own secular, freethinking ilk like Josef Stalin? Maybe.

Case closed.

Uggh. I can't believe he said that. Because when I think of secular, freethinking atheists in places like the United States and Europe, people who adamantly oppose totalitarianism, my first thought is to consider them friends of Stalin, one of the most brutal totalitarian dictators to ever exist. Makes perfect sense.

However this is exactly the point. On many, many occasions blanket accusations of intolerance have routinely been made against Religion.

Probably unintentionally, he actually makes a good point here. You shouldn't make blanket assertions about large groups of people - not every atheist is like Stalin, not every Christian is like Fred Phelps, and not every Muslim is like Osama bin Laden. That kind of message I could support. Too bad he's too busy making hateful and piteously inept condemnations of atheists to notice.

Instead, he goes the No True Scotsman route and declares to a co-worker that it's not religions that cause wars but the misinterpretation of religion. Her blank stare speaks for my reaction as well.

Oh, and then he implies that WWII, a completely secular conflict in his estimation, is somehow connected to godlessness.

Part 7

Don't you just love propaganda?

I'm reading your column, so apparently I do.

He complains about atheist intellectuals and scientists, derides the apparent common wisdom that most smart people are atheists while "the simpletons seem to gravitate toward Monotheism". It's certainly an apt assertion in this case.

Here are a couple of quotes, albeit unsourced:

“There is too much order in the universe for it all to have been created by accident.”

“To allege that the universe and everything in it accidentally created itself is to claim that a tornado tore through a junk yard and left behind a Mercedes Benz.”

Is it really too much to ask for you too get real quotes that people have actually said rather than just pull them out of nowhere?

The first one is a common argument from design, and the second is a paraphrase of Fred Hoyle's argument against evolution, comparing the emergence of simple cells to "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." It's mainly used by Christian creationists.

So he goes from there to assert that most scientists are not atheists. So let's take a look at some data and judge for ourselves:

Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample [1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively.

Source

Other polls get different results. But the facts of the matter remains the same: scientists tend to be less religious than the general public, and certainly far more say that they don't believe in a God than the general public.

Next, he brings actually sourced quotes to the table - Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur believed in God. Shocking stuff. Apparently, us atheists were under the impression that no scientists were religious at all. Thanks for clearing that up.

Islamic Examiner needs his head examined, part 1

In his now 7-part series criticizing atheism, Yusuf Khan's arguments still come up far short, not just horribly wrong, but also lacking a grounding in even the basics of common sense, logic, and the fine art of knowing what you're talking about.

In part 1, he wrangles with understanding even the most basic definitions of atheism in an incredibly condescending and patronizing way (which by the way, is my job).

He starts out with calling atheism a "belief system" and can't figure out why atheists would object to that (or at least, feigns that he can't). Looks like someone needs to take Atheism 101.

Have it your way. Because if that's the case then I don't know why Atheist propaganda is always found in the Religion section of most publications, including this one.

That was, by the way, a classy reference to the website's Atheism examiner.

Okay, so he doesn't understand why atheist books could possibly be categorized in the religion section of a bookstore. I have a wild idea about that: maybe because they're about religion. It's not hard to figure out.

Next, he makes the brilliant assertion that atheists (people who don't believe in a god) believe in a god, it's just that they oppose God's authority. The whole argument is just pure, unadulterated genius. (And possibly a copyright violation. Last time I checked, Dinesh D'Souza had a lifetime patent on that incredibly ridiculous claim)

In part 2, he kicks it up a notch. The stupidity, that is.

He repeats the bookstore claim and suggests that all atheist books ought to go in the philosophy section. My local Barnes and Noble does just that - the philosophy section is a single bookshelf, waist-high at its height and consists almost entirely of Aristotle, Plato, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and philosophy"-type books with a small smattering of old and unpopular atheistic books. Plus, it's at the very back of the store. Meanwhile, there's a bewildering array of religion, Christianity, Christian fiction, and Bible bookshelves. These sections combined make up a large chunk of the store. They added a small display near it with some of the Four Horsemen books (Dawkins, Dennet, Harris, and Hitches) and this guy practically has a heart attack. Heaven forbid such aggression!

Next, he says Buddha mentions God so Buddhism must be theistic, not atheistic. Again, genius logic. And once again, he's wrong. Buddhism itself is by and large about eliminating suffering and achieving enlightenment and not about worship of a supreme creator.

When this topic comes up, many buddhists respond with the arrow parable:

A man lies dying with a poisoned arrow in his side, but rather than removing the arrow immediately before he dies, he wants to know who shot the arrow, whether the person was tall or short, where they are from, what kind of bow was used, the kind of string used for the bow etc.

The arrow represents our present state of suffering, and while we trouble ourselves with endless questions about this and that, our life slips away and we get no nearer to solving the problem of our suffering.

The moral of the story: wrangling about whether or not a god exists is pointless and merely distracts from the more pressing concern of human suffering. Once again, a quick google could have saved Yusuf much embarrassment.

In part 3, he explores common atheist arguments against traditional religion and almost has a salient point. Almost.

First, he complains that atheists always attack Christianity and occasionally, Islam. There are pretty good reasons for this: Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world, atheists tend to live in countries that are predominately Christian, Christianity and Islam tend to be politically mobilized much more than other religions - attempting to force their views on society at large. And obviously, the specter of Islamic terrorism certainly doesn't help the public image of Islam one bit. Plus, I do have this nagging impression that Muslims and Christians as a whole (especially the more conservative-mined believers) really are more aggressive and ill-mannered than their fellow coreligionists. Maybe I'm just leading a sheltered life, but I simply don't see the same sort of pushy and domineering behavior from Jainists, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, or Deists.

Next, he makes the strange claim that "ancient mythologies and pagan creeds are never attacked by Atheists". Once again, the explanation is fairly obvious: there's really no point in beating a dead religion.

Myth: Established religion is cruel and oppressive.

Fact: The above conclusion is derived from a singular bitter experience: medieval Europe.

Err...no. Christian scandals continued well beyond medieval times (the European Wars of Religion, the Salem Witch trials, etc) extending to present day foibles and missteps like creationism, prop 8, and "sinful" birth control. Plus, I would be remiss to talk about cruel and oppressive religion without including present day Islamic theocracies.

The remarkable progress in science and technology that was sparked in Asia, North Africa, and Eastern Europe was a direct product of Islam, not a pre-Islamic phenomenon.

This historical testimony serves as clear-cut evidence that the presence of monotheism in a society in no way hinders scientific progress. In fact the above example taken from Muslim history proves that in fact it fosters education and encourages development.

This lovely delusion of a universally pro-science Islam is falsified in only two words: Harun Yahya. Turkey is the only country on the list that's actually worse than the United States with regard to accepting evolution. Islamic beliefs can and do spread pseudoscientific beliefs.

Part 4, more confusion about the definition of atheist. Particularly, he's fond of using the dictionary definition of atheism, where it is as synonymous with wickedness, to imply that this is somehow actually true and gets indignant that people pointed out the gaping flaw in that logic.

Then he just flies off to cuckoo land:

Contrary to the dictionary definition, below is a series of quotes made by Atheists that don't deny, rather affirm the existence of God.

He really seems to think that Lucretius quoting Epicirus's famous riddle that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the idea of a benevolent deity somehow indicates theistic belief. He quotes a satirist (a satirist!) saying "thank God I'm an atheist" as proof positive that he believes in God. Holy smokes, this guy is thick! If I said "By Jove, I've got an idea!", he'd think that I worship Jupiter.

And he just goes on and on. I'll cover part 5, 6, and 7 later. Preferably after I stop laughing and banging my head against the wall from the sheer idiocy of it.

They'll really let anyone be an examiner these days, don't they? Apparently, they do. (They changed it from anti-atheist examiner to creationism examiner, but his first choice certainly says a lot about his mentality.)

20 Feet of Respect

Interfaith relations have apparently progressed to the point of Christians and Muslims arguing about whether or not the Quran gets the top shelf at libraries. I'm having a hard time imagining how this could really be a pressing issue for any sane person. Even an insane person would have better things to do, like wall-scribbling or knitting. I know people can be petty and concerned with frivolous things, but this is really taking it to a whole new level.

Fortunately, I have a solution: 20-foot-high bookshelves. Everybody's holy book can go right up top, where they can enjoy all the undisturbed respect they deserve.

Distort, lie, rinse, repeat

It must be hard being a professional religious apologist. You essentially have swallow an entire belief system whole and defend its every questionable claim, gloss over its troubled history and current difficulties. There can be no doubt. No concession. No change of mind in response to new facts or new perspectives. It's simply you and them. They are wrong and you are right. And not only that, but "they" are vile, sinful people who stubbornly refuse what is so obviously true and good. Debate is not about figuring out truth but about winning, and you frequently have to be able to willfully misrepresent your opponent's position (i.e. lie) to win.

Enter Dinesh D'Souza, the Ann Coulter of religion. That is, if Ann Coulter weren't already the Ann Coulter of religion.

He's was interviewed by Salvo, and a quick glance at their about page ("blasting holes in scientific naturalism, marveling at the intricate design of the universe, and promoting life in a culture of death", published by the St. James fellowship) gives you a little hint about which side of the debate the fall on. So after a shamefully sycophantic introduction (he's the smartest person ever, annihilator of atheists, "intrepid intellect", p.s. did we mention that he's smart?) they stand aside and hand him the mic, which is probably just as well.

At first glance, (aside from the perennial "who has the bigger membership?" spat between Muslims and Christians) he initially comes off as relatively coherent and makes fairly reasonable summaries of positions that many atheists actually do hold - arguments that religion is divisive, that religious zealotry is a potent source of violence, the viral meme idea, the idea that religion may have had in role in social cohesion - including such "noble projects" such as the "crusades" (the dissonance involved in using those words in the same sentence must be formidable).

But it's not long before he drops the charade and starts good ol' fashioned vilifying: Satan, "the atheists' hero". Yeah, that makes sense. And while we're at it, we can talk about Loki, the Christian apologist's BFF.

His idea is that God is interfering with the way he wants to live his life. He simply doesn't like this Christian God with all of his commandments, the demand for complete allegiance, and his divine observance and scrutiny.

By the way, it's a constant theme with this guy that atheists really do believe that God - the Christian God - exists, but they're just too wicked and love the sinful lifestyle too much to be saddled down with piety. I don't get what all the fuss is about, it's not like public piety ever stopped many of the most devout religious men from putting in a little carnality (including the diving-suit variety) on their off time.

Hitchens asks, "If I play by the rules, what's my reward? Well, I basically get to be a servant boy in heaven. I don't want any of that. It sounds terrible."

Indeed, this is a common atheist objection. When you have preachers condemning everything from rock and roll to Dungeons and Dragons to video games, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that their version of paradise, cleansed from the sin of such delightful and utterly harmless activities and replaced with an eternity of mindless religious chanting wouldn't be very appetizing.

What D'Sousa doesn't get is that atheists obviously don't consider such fanciful claims to be probable in the slightest. It's not that we really know that heaven and hell exists and that we're all dying to get into hell to party it up with Darwin, Mark Twain, and George Carlin. It's that we don't believe in such things to begin with and we try to point out that the internal logic of that belief doesn't hold water - you waste so much time pining for a heaven that would be absolutely dreadful if it did exist!

Then he attacks caricatures of Dawkins' claims. Dinesh darts after the religious indoctrination as child abuse angle, chalking it up as evidence of a tyrannical, nigh-totalitarian, attempt to deny parents authority over their own kids even though Dawkins himself long ago dismissed this (deliberate) misunderstanding of his remarks.

Personally, I think that parents forcing religion on their children (complete with all of Johnny's non-Christian playground friends burning eternally in hell, evolution denial, and the imminent rapture) might be a tad harmful on the young tyke and that it would be better to simply teach him about religion and let him make up his own mind when he's older. I guess I'm the next Stalin in Dinesh's mind.

The entirety of his next paragraph is this seething, jealous rant about Dawkins. His pity would be much better spent on himself. Next.

I don't believe in unicorns, so I just go about my life as if there are no unicorns. You'll notice that I haven't written any books called The End of the Unicorn, Unicorns Are Not Great, or The Unicorn Delusion, and I don't spend my time obsessing about unicorns. What I'm getting at is that you have these people out there who don't believe that God exists, but who are actively attempting to eliminate religion from society, setting up atheist video shows, and having atheist conferences. There has to be more going on here than mere unbelief.

Exactly. The atheists doth protest too much! Who, in their right mind, would possibly oppose a belief that isn't true? Some of these same atheists use plenty of ink attacking creationism, homeopathy, and astrology and these are all credible beliefs.

The real reason, of course, is that atheists want tons of immoral sex and oppose God because he frowns of that sort of thing. "To get rid of God, then, is to remove the shadow of moral judgment." He's like a broken record with the whole atheists-are-in-it-for-teh-morality-carte-blanche thing.

If you really look at the motivations of contemporary atheists, you'll find that they don't even really reject Christian theology. It's not as if the atheist objects to the resurrection or the parting of the sea; rather, it is Christian morality to which atheists object, particularly Christian moral prohibitions in the area of sex.

Actually, I'd like to go on record that yeah, I do object to claims of raising the dead and parting of the Red Sea.

But yes, now that you mention it, the no-condoms-let's-get-pregnant-unexpectedly-and-maybe-pick-up-a-few-delightful-STDs-on-the-way thing is quite objectionable too. I'm not too fond of needless rashes and shotgun weddings, and I don't see how driving without a seatbelt is a moral thing to do.

The atheist looks at all of Christianity's "thou shalt nots"—homosexuality is bad; divorce is bad; adultery is bad; premarital sex is bad—and then looks at his own life and says, "If these things are really bad, then I'm a bad guy. But I'm not a bad guy; I'm a great guy. I must thus reinterpret or (preferably) abolish all of these accusatory teachings that are putting me in a bad light."

Or I could just look at homosexuality as not applicable, divorce as better than a lifetime of marital misery if you're in that sort of situation, cheating is bad for obvious and completely non-religion-related reasons, and premarital sex is awesome.

And to wrap it all up (at least, the portion of idiocy that I have the patience to wade through), he declares that atheism is dying out. It's the apologist's version of constant creationist claims that evolution will be dead in a week. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem backed up by the facts at all (almost as if it was an outright lie) - Christianity in general has declined in America and the No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic category has seen huge gains. I'm sure it's all part of atheism's death throes.

Darwin Day craziness

Intellectual fallout from Darwin Day. Enjoy.

First up, Egnor (a professional IDiot, and one of the dimmest of the bunch) whines about how people objected to his Darwin Day smear piece. The first line is "Why I don't believe in atheism's creation myth". It's not terribly surprising that someone would object to such drivel.

The rest of it is typical creationist talking points: evolution is poorly supported dogma (and conveniently, never trying to support that claim beyond the mere assertion), he humorously states that he figured out the flaws in evolution by reading creationist tracts (garbage in, garbage out), arguments from incredulity, etc. He finishes off his masterful defense of his idiotic editorial by derisively calling it "Happy Atheist Day". Real classy.

Second, a letter to the editor with the breakthrough announcement that "evolution theory is flawed science". ORLY.

His reasoning: we don't have strong AIs yet - specifically, a computer that can contemplate its own existence. Gotta love the creationist tendency to grab anything not relevant to evolution to attack evolution. Perhaps it's because the relevant fields clearly show that evolution occurs.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: he says evolution is atheism. I'm sensing a theme here.

Third, and this is more of an unintentionally hilarious comment than outright idiocy:

In India, Darwin is not the bogey man as he is in the West. The Indic tradition which accommodates both atheism as well as a well-stocked pantheon of 33 million gods (including a monkey god) should have little problem playing host to evolution.

I know it's supposed to highlight India's religious diversity as a barrier to the religious dogmatism that provides breeding grounds for creationism, but I can't help seeing it as an admission that India hosts such a panoply of odd beliefs that evolution doesn't even attract notice.

Religion in Brief

• Martin Luther spins in his grave - indulgences are back, limbo is out. Latest patch for Catholicism buggier than ever.

• Astrologer does a reading for James Randi and surprise surprise, thinks he might be a skeptic. What a prediction! Oh yeah, and he used the wrong birthdate on the first attempt. And we're not talking about a day or two - it was off by 20 days - not even the correct zodiac sign. /facepalm. (Watch Randi's response over at Bad Astronomy. It's priceless!)

• Crazy pastor says that abortion caused Australia's wildfires, apparently forgets how weather works. (hat tip to Dark Christianity)
  

• Forever in Hell atheist blogger mocks some idiot's anti-atheist site. Hey! That's my schtick! Heh, there's plenty of idiocy to go around, so I guess we can share. *gives EAC salute*

• And in other news, Ray Comfort is still an idiot.

Superbowl atheist

Well, today's the big day. Very soon, I shall be amongst the masses on this most holiest of Sundays: Superbowl Sunday.

It's a whole day dedicated to crass consumerism, pathetic drunkenness, and big, burly men jumping on top of each other in an inevitably homoerotic fashion. And boy, do I despise it.

Gamer/nerd that I am, I'm not a big sports fan in the first place and couldn't care less about which team wins what. That's fine, people have different interests and that's cool, but I resent being harassed by strangers who really seem to care about this stuff to something bordering on clinical obsession, assume that I do too, and are very anxious to bombard me with the details of the games - and not just today, but every single week. That's not cool. Even the door-knocking Christian solicitors aren't that evangelical. If I really cared about the game, I'd be at a sportsbar somewhere getting blasted and yelling at the TV with the other knuckle-draggers. If I'm just out and about doing my own thing - gassing up the car and buying some groceries - this is not an invitation to bother me.

It's strange that sports and religion are some of the few things that it's socially okay to shove down strangers' throats. If you stopped some random stranger on the street to discuss some Soulstorm skirmish in excruciating detail, you'd get locked up in a padded cell.

I'm sick of I'm sick of nodding my head and pretending that I care about this drek. It's just dishonest.

So I'm going to start a new tradition - I'm going to be honest about this stuff from now on. The next time I get bothered by some overzealous sports fan about which meaningless team I want to win the meaningless game I'm simply going to respond that I'm not a fan and that I really don't care which team wins.

*UPDATE*

Honesty really is the best policy. The diehard fans politely dropped the subject after I fairly politely showed that I was uninterested and a few people even expressed similar sentiments.

Atheists are Insane

Via Catalyst

Oh man, you're definitely going to need a padded cell after this anti-atheist diatribe is over.

First, let's raise a toast to one brave soul - an Amazon forums spiritual warrior named Paul. Hallowed be his crazy rants about atheists quoted with admiration from the next cell over.

First up, atheists only talk about God because they hate God. They're mini-devils who apparently aren't as even-minded as the devil, who himself believes in God.

They hate God. It is very clear. Oh, they hate Christians too, and the Bible and the church.

Well said, Paul. You truly are a fountain of wisdom.

The atheist responses? What nuggets of madness do they bring? What evil, Satanic hatred will they inflict on these poor, persecuted believers?

Well, it turns out they just dislike believers who define moral goodness through religious affiliation, thus condemning atheists as evil. Awkward...

From that short pit stop at sanity, we just hang a right on the Damascus road straight to crazyville.

Every tenet of Christianity is just assumed to be true, complete with frequent bible verses, and therefore atheism is only explicable through insanity or outright malevolence. Why else would someone reject an obviously true deity?

Read the whole thing, it's great. It's essentially a few sentences worth of actual thought stretched out to a couple pages worth of how evil and crazy atheists are for not believing in the author's God.

Many Christians think that atheists are fools. Rightly so for so does God. “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psalm 53:1) In fact I call it a conscious and deliberate insanity. Perhaps that’s fair, because many atheists think that Christians and theists are fools as well.

I'll give it the author one thing, deliberate insanity is certainly in the air.

The fact is the depravity of the human heart proves that all sinners hate God more than anything else. There is no REAL CAUSE for their hatred still they hate Him. Every hatred has a cause, but in their case it is a falicy and a myth. They think it very real and reasonable, but it is evidence of their hatred and insanity. They ought to love Him. Yet they hate Him. And so store up more and more wrath for that day of judgment.

Quick question: I was sort of under the impression that everlasting torment is pretty much the maximum possible punishment. Explain how more wrath is supposed to make that worse.

Well this is definitely shaping up to be fstdt material, because it has requisite ALL CAPS and egregiously misspelled common word, "falicy".

Okay, now that we've established that there is no REAL CAUSE for atheist hostility towards God/goodness/Christianity/puppies, let's go ahead and pretend like we know the cause. It's a breeze - all you have to do is apply armchair psychology to millions of people. Ready?

The insanity of the atheist is all to clear. No doubt they hate Him for He is holy and they are not and darkness always flees at the entrance of light. He is pure and they are not. He is altogether lovely and they are not. He insists on their obedience but they will not. Therefore they hate Him. This is insanity!

The real reason atheists hate on God/believers: they're jealous of our freedoms holiness. That's right, "The atheist hates God because He is so good."

Most atheists are usually avid evolutionists for all they have is eternal matter. There is no eternal God. Self is of supreme importance

Those crazy evolutionists, believing in that pseudoscientific hooey about how the world and all life wasn't poofed into existence by an intelligently designing God 6,000 years ago. How gullible! And they actually believe that their self is of supreme importance. How self-centered! They should totally have the God of all creation come down to Earth and get murdered for their sins.

The atheist thinks all Christians should be placed in a mad-house, an asylum for the insane, for they believe in God, in Jesus, in Sin, in Heaven, in Hell, in Angels, in Demons etc. etc.

Atheists think all Christians are insane? Strawman ahoy! Palin 2012 crazy, maybe. Clinically insane and in need of a padded cell, no.

the atheist is supremely convinced of his reality - so very much so. Look at all the websites and books by skeptics and atheists.

Yay, atheists genuinely, sincerely don't believe that a god exists.

There's just one problem with that: you just said that they somehow "know" that God exists ("While they inwardly know he is their real friend") and simply choose to hate him.

My dear atheists, does your own moral course commend itself to your conscience and your reason? If not, what are you but a moral maniac? Atheist man, atheist woman, must you in truth write yourselves down as moral maniacs?

Uggh. Nope, can't say mounds of drivel are very convincing. Berating the kids for not believing in Santa Claus isn't a very good apologetics technique, but it's painfully common and the endless froth gets lots of laughs. Thanks for the entertainment, I feel sorry for you if you're serious.

Jesus appears in lava lamp

Australia man finds Virgin Mary and baby Jesus in his lava lamp, the latest in a long line of nuts who claim to see religious figures in such unlikely places as toast, a concrete underpass, floor tiles, even road rash.

“This is a true, tangible miracle that is not just an optical illusion", he exclaims. Because you know, if I were a deity, I'd choose to broadcast my presence by gracing an assortment of mundane objects in a manner that's utterly indistinguishable from pareidolia (and therefore supremely unconvincing) rather than actually trying to interact with people in a normal manner. That makes perfect sense.

Christians fast for the new year

Christian Post

You guys know we're already hip-deep in January already, right?

Over 300 churches are hoping to make a tremendous impact on the body of Christ and throughout the world through 21 days of prayer and fasting.

For 21 days, thousands will be going without food, certain meals, television, Internet or "anything that feeds your flesh-man."

"It’s really not about the food. It’s about denying your flesh-man the things that feed it," Chris Hodges of Church of the Highlands Birmingham, Ala., stressed.

21 days? That's not a very good symbolic number. If you really want to please the guy upstairs and usher in the new year with a *reads from the pamphlet* "supernatural, miraculous tone", I think ya ought to go at least 77 days without consuming any health-sustaining organic matter. It's either that or the flesh-man wins.

God wants you weak, poorly nourished and on the verge of hallucinating, otherwise this revolution around the sun (which have been happening like clockwork since time immemorial) might potentially be less than supernatural or not very miraculous. And we wouldn't want that, now do we?

Creepy PSAs

I love the government. From the earliest days of my childhood, I will forever remember it as an often efficient purveyor of grade school food-like products - grade F meat parts with a side of some kind of preternaturally green lettuce-like plant and a brownish milk pouch labeled "skim" that totally didn't look like a reused hospital blood packet.

Well, it turns out that they do something useful on the side - pumping out clever, completely factually accurate, and totally not permanently traumatizing ads to inform us dumb citizens who otherwise wouldn't be able to grasp complex and difficult issues of not standing on train tracks or not eating paint chips. Behold their genius:

Anti-atheist blog makes a factual error, film at 11

Good catch from Friendly Atheist.

Hehe, confusing Africa with a country, those silly apologists. But that's orders of magnitudes less stupid than their usual fare. (A lot of the same people run Atheism Sucks and Atheism is Dead, as well as the now-defunct pre-internet site: "Ye Atheism most foul art mortally wounded, my good sirs", distributed with free copies of the Malleus Maleficarum)

Screw going after trivial slip-ups, there are failboat fleets out there just waiting to be photographed and archived for posterity.

Here's one of my personal favorites: a linkstorm of "excellent" anti-evolution resources. And there's a twist! These aren't your (relatively) high-class AIG or DI sites, we're talking links to sites that are low-quality, even by creationist standards. (the first link is to Conservapedia for crocoduck's sake) All with the author's glowing approval. D'oh!

And let's not forget this example of superb logic: Logic exists, therefore God exists. Seriously.

Geographical errors are the least of their concerns.

Pope: Discriminating against gays just as important as the environment

Reuters:

Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

Wow. I'm speechless.

My faith in my ability to dodge Poe's Law has been shattered. It is now officially impossible to tell conservative Christianity from its many parodies, as well as real church leaders from your average sign-wielding, Westboro-esqe fundamentalist. Heaven help us all.

The Shoe Terrorist

Originally, I wasn't going to talk about this, but apparently throwing a shoe at the President has suddenly become a big deal. Go figure.

The latest news is that the Powers That Be are trying to tie this guy to terrorism. Seriously.

Apparently, this dastardly "assault" on the President was orchestrated by none-other than an anonymous freedom-hating and allegedly throat-slitting terrorist. Right. Because otherwise, no one would ever consider vocally displaying their anger and contempt of Bush's administration and its misadventures in Iraq. Seriously, the guy is universally adored in a country he invaded.

Pop quiz time - can you spot the terrorist?

And where did this whole terrorism thing come up from? Turns out it might have been coerced under torture:

He said he visited his brother in jail on Sunday and found him with a missing tooth and cigarette burns on his ears. Muntadhar al-Zeidi told his brother that jailers also doused the journalist with cold water while he was naked, Uday al-Zeidi said.

Thanks guys, that makes this whole incident so much better! So let me get this straight: you "liberate" a country to "spread freedom" and then when an Iraqi journalist exercises that freedom in an admittedly aggressive way (but on my side of the world, throwing a shoe at somebody is an extremely minor misdemeanor at worst) you torture the him and fabricate some terrorist connection. Basically, responding to an act of protest with torture and distortion, angering not only the Iraqi people (whose representatives vote on whether or not American forces stay or go) but also all Americans who value justice. What a disaster.

New Poll: Americans believe in God, UFOs

New poll results under the unintentionally hilarious headline: Belief in God, UFOs prevail

• 80% believe in God (98% among regular churchgoers; not too many atheists in the pews)

• 75% believe in miracles

• 73% believe in heaven

• 71% believe that Jesus is the Son of God

• 71% believe in angels

• 70% say Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that the Bible is, all or in part, the "Word of God."

• 68% believe in the "survival of the soul after death"

• 62% think that hell actually exists

• 61% believe in the Virgin Birth

• 59% believe that the devil exists.

Essentially, 60-75% of my fellow Americans are completely out of their gourd. I can see the God stuff - belief in God is relentlessly indoctrinated and also has the advantage of an (incorrect) association with goodness. But Hell and Satan? That's just plain crazy. People who truly believe that there's some horned demon prancing about, tricking poor souls into believing the great lie of evolution (a joint atheist-jewish-communist-nazi conspiracy, so I'm told) - that's insane.

Now we get to the bumpy part of the ride, the (unbelievably popular) fringe beliefs:

• A third are evolution denialists (compared to 47% who aren't creationists and 22% who apparently haven't figured it out yet)

• 40% believe in creationism, though the question did not elaborate on exactly what that term meant.

• 44% believe in ghosts

• 36% believe UFOs are real (trick question: UFOs are known to exist; alien spaceships aren't)

• 31% believe in both witches and astrology.

• About a quarter believe in reincarnation, or "that you were once another person,"

Wow. Witches and astrology? That's quite the combination. Great, so out of the aforementioned 65-70% crazy religious people, I have to deal with the ~30-40% crazy supernatural/superstitious people. I'm sure there's a substantial amount of overlap, but still, that doesn't leave many level-headed people left.

Gays welcome, just not at the chapel

Well, today was Day Without A Gay (so I had to come to work sick lest rumors abound, thanks a lot guys :P).

In the wake of Prop 8, the religious backers of this blatant attack on equal rights, the Mormon and Catholic churches, are certainly feeling the backlash.

That's why a handful of Catholic clergy recently put out letters assuring gays and lesbians that they are "cherished members of the church". The priest added, "who can't get married because our religious belief is that gays are perverted, child-molesting abominations who will surely be tossed into the everlasting fires of Hell by God. Oh yeah, and we think other countries executing gays is just fine. Be sure to toss a 20 in the collection bin on your way out, thanks."

And I thought politicians were two-faced! Yikes.

But it gets better, one priest's open letter tried to defend his pro-prop 8 stance:

"Religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy," Niederauer wrote in a statement posted on the archdiocese's Web site. "Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith."

By all means, talk about whatever you want (heaven forbid infringing on someone's rights), but what you're actually doing isn't teaching the faith, it's imposing the faith. There's such a huge difference between the two concepts that you can have fleets of aircraft carriers do doughnuts in the gulf between them.

Mahony and Niederauer said their support for Proposition 8 was intended to preserve the traditional definition of marriage, not harm gays or lesbians.

Exactly. No harm was intended. They just don't want your kind to have the right to marry. That's all. Jeez, you guys make it sound like it's bigotry or something (which you seriously need to stop doing, let's have a little respect around here).

Have no fear, gays and lesbians, your church is here for you. They were here for you you on 11/5 and they're here for you now. And, God willing, they want to be there for you on ballots across the country for years to come.

Pope prays for the poor and jobless

Pope starts Rome holiday season, prays for jobless

Pope Benedict XVI is praying for those who lost jobs or are struggling to pay bills as Rome's holiday season began with a traditional appearance by the pontiff near the Spanish Steps.

This holiday season, the guy swimming in money wants to let you know he really sympathizes with the plight of the poor. So when you cut him a check this year for 10% of your earnings, know that he feels your pain.

And by the way, he condemns love of money and power (one cannot serve both God and Mammon), so on behalf of over 1 billion souls, he's praying to God for your financial security.

...

I just don't understand how people can compartmentalize like this. It's ridiculous.

Vatican says that cell phones and Internet are bad for the soul

Link

In yet another slide into both irrelevance and absurdity, the Catholic Church is now against "excessive" cell phone and internet use, claiming that it's harmful to one's spiritual life.

In a way, that's quite absurd ("souls" don't really exist and however annoying your Bluetooth habits are, you can sleep easy knowing that you're only harming the peace of those around you and gradually turning yourself into a mindless gabaholic) and untrue (in the US, Jesus is our Facebook buddy).

But on second thought, it does make some sense. The Catholic Church is an organization that (desperately) needs the attention of its members and every Sunday, and their Mass services compete with all other ways people could spend their time. (I heartily recommend sleeping in) People who are doing other things aren't attending Mass and therefore aren't getting brainwashed getting their weekly dose of Jesus. So naturally, it's in their best interest for such organizations to prohibit competing activities (which is one of the wonderful reasons why drunks can't buy alcohol on Sunday). To sum it up: more iGod = less God.

But the funny thing is that on this issue, I don't think they've quite figured out how to keep their story straight yet (unlike rock music, condoms, atheism, and enjoying sex) :

“Nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture,” he told a recent assembly of the Synod.

However, Pope Benedict has embraced many aspects of modern technology in order to convey the Catholic message to a young, tech-savvy audience.

Hilarious. So they like it when it spreads the meme but don't like it when it hurts the meme. Gee, who could've seen that coming?

Bonus! Moment-of-zen style picture:



Awwww. He's pretending to have a job that's valuable and useful.