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The “Rightosphere”, which was so squishy-right that it fell in love with Rudy Giuliani and rejected Ron Paul, isn’t exactly enamored with John McCain:

1) Do you intend to vote for John McCain in November?

A) Yes: 40 — 75%
B) No: 13 — 25%

9) How enthusiastic would you be about actually having John McCain as President on a 10 scale? Think of a score of 10 as being extremely enthusiastic and excited and 1 as being about very upset and unenthusiastic.

Average score: 4.7

And I didn’t even vote in this one. I think he’ll be destroyed by the Lizard Queen; in the unlikely chance that the Magic Negro’s scheduled political demise does not take place in the next month, I expect he’ll walk right over McCrazy too. On excitement, however, I’d rate the three thusly:

9 – Obama. His presidency would be MUCH crazier than now imagined.
7 – McCain. Hey, I’m a wargamer. Seeing him try to fight wars on four fronts while simultaneously pursuing Osama bin Laden TO THE VERY GATES OF HELL would be intriguing, if nothing else.
3 – Clinton. She offers nothing more than the boring and predictable march of the blackskirts. For, you know, the children.

EN doesn’t see peace ahead:

Pay attention to Pakistan. I don’t know anyone in the country these days, but Paki expats living in Fremont, CA have been telling me all along that Bhutto was assassinated because she betrayed the US (who pressured Musharref into allowing her back into the country) by starting to distance herself from Bush and the GWOT. I’m not saying we pulled the trigger, but there’s many ways “not” do it, and still do it. Turning our backs on her and making it known to all involved would be the best way. I do not believe that anyone in the AQ-T had anything to do with it. If they did they would have proclaimed it immediately and gained much favor with their mostly misogynistic base. If we lose the support of the Pakis the war in Afghanistan is lost. We’ve alienated Russia and the rest of the Stans and it won’t take much to make them drop their support of us. Anyone who’s paying attention will tell you that everyone is tired of US bribes. Pride is a large factor in foreign relations and we’ve managed to treat everyone like whores. Time grows short.

The speed with which Bhutto has disappeared from the media also causes me to conclude that al Qaeda was not involved in any way. I’ve always assumed it was a bold move by Musharref.

An atheist wrote that he couldn’t understand why I would make free copies of The Irrational Atheist available to anyone who wants it. There are three reasons. The first is that I don’t need the money. I can use it, sure, but I don’t actually need it. I am fortunate to have everything I need and much of what I want. The second is that I have seen no evidence that pirated or otherwise available ebooks harm book sales, the evidence I have seen indicates that to the extent they have any effect, it is a positive one. And the third reason is that I wrote the book because I knew that there are many individuals on either side of the religious divide whose thinking has been affected by the fallacious, illogical and downright dishonest arguments put forth by the Four Horsemen of the Bukkakelypse. Not all of those people can afford to buy books, others simply aren’t inclined to do so, but their need for something like TIA to help them see the demonstrable flaws in the various New Atheist absurdities is distinct from their propensity for book-buying. Bane, unsurprisingly, understood my purpose best, as he likened the book to the serial killer’s montage. Do you see? In a related vein, MM writes:

I have recently read, then re-read, The Irrational Atheist and found it to be a wonderful resource for nourishing my faith. I realize that you did not intend for your book to be an apologetic but it has certainly served that purpose…. Because I deal with such divergent worldviews on a regular basis, I make every effort to keep myself informed of current trends; so I felt obligated to read the books by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc.

Although I found much of the content of each book to be laughable, there were some things in each one (except for Hitchens’ little screed) that left me disturbed and shaken. However, your careful dismantling of each one of the “Horsemen’s” arguments brought me much relief and renewed confidence in my faith.

So I want to take a moment to thank you for bothering to write The Irrational Atheist. You have done a great service for other believers, and those who are on the fence… I intend to encourage everyone I know to read it.

To put things in a language that Christopher Hitchens would understand, the New Atheist books are the thesis. TIA and the other Christian polemics to come are the antithesis. The synthesis will be a combination of a stronger and more intellectually-hardened Christian faith with an enervated atheism, robbed of its militance and inclined towards a more civilized agnosticism. How can I be so sure? Because while Christians have not hesitated to read and respond to the New Atheist attacks on their faith, the New Atheists and their acolytes are running away in fear from the so-called fleas, who are evolving into larger, more confident and more aggressive creatures.

Dawkins and Hitchens can handle a McGrath, a Bunting, a Sharpton or a pathetic Archbishop of Canturbury. (Harris, on the other hand, couldn’t even handle a Sullivan or a Hewitt.) They can barely handle a D’Souza, who isn’t even seriously trying to attack them. They are simply not capable of standing up to a Day, a Wilson, a Craig or many of the offense-oriented Christian intellectual warriors who are just beginning to make their way towards the field of combat. And they know it! TIA is far from the final word, but like the Duke of Aquitane’s victory at Toulouse, it marks the turning point in what I believe will conclude in a successful intellectual Reconquista.

And if I may offer some advice to those attempting chapter-by-chapter reviews… it may help to keep in mind that unlike most writers of non-fiction, I am also a novelist. Not necessarily a particularly good novelist, but a competent one. So, it’s a mistake to assume that TIA is an entirely segmented work like so much non-fiction happens to be, for example, one who reads only the chapter on Sam Harris will be left under the mistaken assumption that I’ve ignored two of his primary arguments, both of which are examined in great detail in three previous chapters, two of which primarily concern the implicit and the explicit aspects of Harris’s war-related argument. So, to build an effective case against this book or any other, I recommend first reading the book through in its entirety, taking the occasional note about whatever happens to leap out at you along the way, then going back and going through it with a fine-toothed comb chapter by chapter.

Deacon Duncan gets busted:

Apparently Vox Day has not only noticed one of my posts about The Irrational Atheist, he has re-posted it, verbatim, on his discussion forum. The whole thing. With no reply.

And yet, with a link to the original post…. Actually, I don’t think such a painstaking effort should be ignored and I intend to respond in excruciating detail once he finishes working his way through the book. I only put up the first bit up so I don’t completely forget about it before he wraps up the next 13 chapters. His take on it is certainly somewhat unusual. I could be wrong, but so far, he seems to be under the general impression that my entire argument is based on innuendo. But, as those who have read a bit further in well know, I don’t bother with innuendo, I just come right out and say it.

I’ll be surprised, but pleased if he makes it all the way through. It’s been interesting to see how those who initially announced their intention of doing a chapter-by-chapter review seem to mysteriously grind to a halt somewhere between chapter two and chapter three… which is precisely when the setup ends and the more serious shots start getting fired.

Speaking of this, here’s another example of an atheist reviewer who is so upset about the disrespect that I show to his heroes that he can’t even make it to the SECOND chapter. Imagine his reaction if a Christian dismissed The God Delusion because he concluded that the whole book obviously isn’t about anything but ALBERT freaking EINSTEIN! Bonus points if you can count the obvious errors in his review of Chapter One.

Amusingly enough, Arizona Atheist tries the Sam Harris defense:

Of course, as he did with his book and the “new atheists”, he completely misrepresents me and my review. Though, judging from his book that’s nothing new for him. He claims that I make a ton of mistakes? That’s laughable…

No, not a ton, I counted 18. But it’s possible that I may have missed a few.

It occurs to me that when kicking around the concept of God as game designer, we’re still missing a few words required to properly consider the concept. The problem with the concept of omniscience is that it’s a weirdly binary notion, wherein the only options are a superficially illogical all-knowing and a definitively non-Biblical naught-knowing of nonexistence. But how would one describe the knowledge of the Game Designer God, who can know or not know any given thing depending solely on His will?

The concept of voliscience describes a Creator who knows whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to the extent that the concept of time is even relevant to such a being. Not only does this concept not limit God, but it has the additional benefit of being far more Biblically accurate than the traditional concept of an omniscient God. In fact, if one thinks about the matter for more than five seconds, one quickly realizes that the concept of voliscience is far less limiting than the use of the concept of omniscience has historically proven to be. One might also consider the concept of volipotence to be of some benefit in better conceiving a rationally sound and Scripturally precise nature of the Biblical God, but it’s probably less necessary since the key stumbling point for most Christians and atheists alike here is not related directly to omnipotence per se, but rather their inability to distinguish between the capacity of omnipotence and the action of omniderigence.

The fact that there is no possible logical conflict between voliscience and volipotence only adds to the rational appeal of the concept in my opinion, although I regard the nominal theodictic conflict between omnipotence and omniscience to reflect thinking so shallow as to border on stupidity anyhow. In an information society, one has to be fairly obtuse to fail to realize that because knowledge is power, absolute knowledge IS absolute power. There is no conflict because the two are one and the same.

But they’ll smell nicer this time:

I believe that for a very long time men have held up the world by both altruism and greed. I believe that the equilibrium that is gender equity has shifted, and now the onus of responsibility has fallen – not out of disrespect – to women.

I, for one, would love to see the U.S. governed by a female president, a female Supreme Court, and an entirely female House and Senate. Within twenty years, the White House would be issuing formal and very tasteful requests on Chinese-made paper to Germany, Russia and any surviving bastion of patriarchal white male culture to invade and enslave them. Pretty, pretty please!

The curse of women is their eternal desire for control, coupled with a total aversion to responsibility. Throw in the inevitable incompetence caused by bubbling irrationality on the steady low boil and you have a recipe for the primitive, short-lived life in grass huts that is the hallmark of the matriarchal society. Never fear to hand over authority to any woman who demands it. It’s amazing how fast she’ll hand it right back once you make it clear that you won’t make any decisions for her and that she’ll be held 100 percent accountable for her failures as well as her successes. And if she’s one of those rare Elizabethan birds who can handle the pressure of total responsibility and deliver genuine performance, even better!

On an individual level, this guy’s comment is the gold standard. Read it, grok it, live by it: “If I can never do anything right then your opinion is of no value to me.”

I’m somewhat torn tonight, of course, but in light of Liverpool’s defeat of Inter last night, I’d be very surprised if Arsenal doesn’t come roaring back from this weekend’s embarrassing FA Cup disaster and put the tokes to Milan tonight. I expect something on the order of 3-1 to the Arsenal.

Arsenal is always tops with me. I support Milan against literally every other team in the world, but never against the Gunners. Kaka’ is absolutely brilliant, but Arsenal’s slashing, full-throttle attack is the most beautiful in the beautiful game.

Anthony Sacramone publishes a very positive review of The Irrational Atheist at First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life:

Just when atheists thought it was safe to enter the public square, a book like this comes along. The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day is not a work of Christian apologetics. It is, instead, a merciless deconstruction of atheist thought—or what passes for thought. That’s the gimmick, if you will, of the book: Day does not accept a single assertion made by any one of the “Unholy Trinity”—Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens—without first pinning it to a sheet of wax as in a seventh-grade science class, dissecting it until there’s nothing left but a case for anti-vivisection legislation.

I’m delighted with the review, especially with the attention paid to what I’ve always felt was the more significant aspect of my rebuttal of the false religion-war link, namely, the near-complete silence of the classics. However, I should probably make three small clarifications. I made a mistake in the first print-run that’s already been corrected, because Harris doesn’t actually assert “that most suicide bombers are Muslims”, he instead claims that one can almost bet one’s life on the probability of a suicide bomber being Muslim. And this is indeed true, if you believe that it’s a reasonable bet to gamble your life on a 58.6 percent probability. Also, the relevant statement from Dawkins which led to my citation of the Goldilocks-calculating mathematician isn’t “any God capable of fine-tuning the universe”, (a statement Dawkins also made), but rather any God capable of making the calculations necessary to fine-tune the universe. The difference is small, but significant to my rebuttal of Dawkins’s argument.

As for God’s sovereignty, I don’t dispute it at all, I merely dispute the omniderigiste’s tortured interpretation of the word “sovereignty”. But I have no problem whatsoever with the many Christians who are skeptical of my theological speculations, that’s precisely why they are labeled as such in the book, and in any case, they are largely tangential to my case against the New Atheists.

Thanks to Chad the Elder of the good Fraters for letting me know about it. And congratulations to Richard Dawkins for choosing an excellent time to cash in before everyone realizes how completely his credibility has been shot. I don’t begrudge him the money in the least, after all, if his next book is worth $3.5 million, I figure I can make a pretty reasonable case that mine should be worth around five times that.

CodeMonkey Ramblings also posts a very nice review. I’m sure all those atheists terrified by Harris’s Extinction Equation will simply adore his metaphor:

For a book of its size, the Irrational Atheist manages to do a lot of damage to New Atheism. Think of it as the polemic equivalent of putting a city-killing nuclear bomb in a suitcase. If anything proves the intellectual weakness of the New Atheist movement, it’s the fact that a single book which is only about 300 pages, can manage to jump from one member of the leading clique after another and deftly annihilate them in such a small amount of space.

Tom Buffenbarger president of the machinists’ union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) was the the latest in a string of Clinton junkyard dogs unleashed upon Obama. Prior to Hillary Clinton’s speech last night in Youngstown, Ohio, Buffenbarger delivered nothing short of an Obama diatribe….

But it was Obama supporters for whom Buffenbarger saved his most vitriolic contempt, and he proved that the Democratic Party’s coalition is nothing if not fragile. Channeling Howard Beale from the movie “Network,” he yelled into the microphone, “Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.”

That’s just not fair. I don’t see how you could possibly conclude that a man who survived a youth spent in an Indonesian madrassah isn’t tough enough to be the president of the United States.

Rod Dreher points out the secular left’s inability to face the reality that they have sown the seeds of their own demise:

This story from the new issue of the left-liberal magazine The Nation is a choice example of the left’s emotion-based denial of demographic winter. It’s a lengthy catalogue of Christian and cultural conservative individuals and groups who are trying to reverse Europe’s demographic decline. What’s fascinating about the essay is never does the writer actually examine the case these conservatives make about fertility decline and demographic winter; much like the right’s prima facie dismissal of the case for global warming, the thrust of this piece is that demographic winter can’t true because it would validate so many troglodytic teachings that modernity has vanquished. In other words, the case for demographic winter can’t be correct, because all the wrong people believe in it.

You can’t completely grasp the extent of Europe’s post-Christian decline until you walk through the ghost towns of Italy, populated by no more a dozen elderly women and one old man sleeping in the sun. It’s not something that any tourist is going to see in Florence, Venice or Rome, much less Milano, but go outside the tourist tombs and the desolation of demographic winter is impossible to miss. And the imported African hookers scattered along the truck routes in the countryside are hardly adequate compensation for what were once famously vibrant family units.

There’s a large and spectacular church on the outskirts of a town near which we like to wander. Its doors are only unlocked for an hour or so every month, because despite its gorgeous interior architecture and painted ceilings, there’s not only no one around to attend it, there’s not even anyone left to visit it.