Vox Popoli

It’s frustrating beyond words that it has taken this long for the conservative Christian commentators (such as Vox Day) to begin to understand the chicanery and duplicity involved in the corrupt Bush Administration. Better late than never? No, in my mind it’s just a Pavlovian response to a situation that has already been consigned to the dust heap of history. Sadly, the worldly Church is invariably in reaction mode to the world and its evil.

Seriously, does anyone read the information relevant to their chosen subject before leaping to the keyboard and pecking madly away? My very first op/ed in 2001 predicted chicanery and duplicity by the Bush administration. At least this critic correctly grasps that I am not, and have never been, on George Bush’s side.

Tale of 2 burdens

While reading Vox Day’s latest diatribe against George W. Bush, especially the parts about the president’s “assault” on our liberties, I couldn’t help but think about the vast difference between these two men. More specifically, I couldn’t help but think about the vast difference between the daily burdens they carry. Bush, a public servant, awakens each day to a Threat Matrix that outlines efforts to kill American citizens. Then there’s the Iranian nuke situation, developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, various domestic crises and on and on. Meanwhile, Vox’s biggest challenge is finding ways to show off his Mensa-level I.Q. from the sidelines … that and fashioning his hair so as to seem relevant to 15-year-olds.

From the sidelines… that’s certainly an interesting perspective given that the people, not the president, are supposedly sovereign. But he’s right, it is a heavy burden I face in trying to find new ways to show off my genius in a manner that the synaptically shortchanged are capable of recognizing as brilliance rather than madness.

I realize that people sometimes think I invent critical strawmen because it’s so easy to disprove what my critics are saying, but these quotes are all taken directly from the comments on a previous post. By the way, lately I’ve noticed a trend of people providing links in apparent ignorance of what is actually on the other end; if you’re going to provide a link in an attempt to support what you’re saying, I highly recommend reading it all the way through:

Looks like the killer was a fundagelical scorned. And let the VD spin begin: Oh that’s right he wasn’t a xtian cos no real xtian would have done that. So he must have converted from his wish to be a missionary to being a life long anti-xtian. Yup it was a hidden thing I guess.
– DC

Read the rest of the shooter’s quotes. He still believed in Jesus: He carries on about how his hatred for Christians is the pentecostal ones at the church, and that his belief in god is different. But he still believes. Not an atheist.
– MB

There’s nothing about holding the position of atheism that entails anything other than a disbelief in god…. Not only was he not an atheist, he appeared to have been raised and influenced by christians.
– WCAW

A few points:

1. Murray was raised and influenced by Christians. So was Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and apparently Daniel Dennett. Unless one believes all three of these atheist icons are currently Christians, one cannot claim that Murray is a Christian on that basis. He was not a “fundagelical scorned”, he scorned fundagelicals.

2. Look at the link MB provides. He appears to be operating under the impression that any mention of Jesus equates to belief in him. But this is the sum total of references to Jesus in the link: a) Murray (rightly) states that Jesus’s words do not support Dominionism, b) Murray (rightly) rejects the view that a chosen generation will take dominion until Jesus’s return, c) he states that he got tired of hearing “Jesus loves you!”, d) he remembers being afraid as a child that Jesus would return while he was sinning and being left behind, e) he writes a poem saying that Jesus has ordered a child to obey a parent’s desire to molest him.

3. If atheism is merely, as WCAW insists, a disbelief in god, then no amount of references to Hell, an afterlife or various supernatural concepts precludes atheism.

4. Now consider more of Murray’s actual words:

Well, I got all fed up with the insanity, hypocrisy, conflicting doctrines, the and lack of absolute answers in regards to “salvation,” heaven and hell and other theological issues, the child abuse, brainwashing, lies, gossip, scandals, threats and fear mongering. I got tired of always hearing “oooohh, you’re saved by grace, not by works!” “Everybody loves you! Jesus loves you!” only to hear about how I was going to hell for watching “The simpsons” or could lose my salvation and could never be certain if 30 years from now I might lose it due to some odd sin and die in an accident and end up in this eternal hell preached to us day and night. Me, I found a new Law to live by and I realized……I don’t have to be abused nor submit to these liars and their lies nor do I have to be afraid of this make-believe hell and false theory of salvation which no fundamentalist Christian could ever give solid answers on.

Me and many others are waking up. We will rise up above and against these abuses against humanity. Men will no longer be ruled by fear and superstition, oppressed by bigotry and tyranny….

I’m full of hate and I love it! I hate people and they better @#%$ fear me if they know what’s good for them. Yes I hate, I’m headed to Hell and I guess I want others to know it. “Moral Values” people like Christians bring it on themselves….preaching all their bullshit and trying to take over the world with their Nightmare religion…… “what would Jesus do” and all their ten commandments bullshit…me…..I will do MY Will and I will kill those who try to thwart my will…Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law….

Murray is very closely echoes three strains of thought here. The first is the Enlightenment philosophy of the secular humanists. The second is the nihilistic egotism of Nietzsche and Mao Tse-Tung. The third is Aleister Crowley. Either one can reject Christianity or one cannot do so. Atheists cannot have it both ways, claiming that their own rejection of Christianity is legitimate but pretending that Murray’s is not.

And as I have already noted, Murray’s references to Hell cannot serve to disprove his atheism even if WCAW’s definition is ignored; half of all self-described atheists believe in Heaven and Hell. One need only visit Pharyngula, American Atheists or any militant atheist site to recognize that at its core, atheism entails the rejection of God and the denial of the supernatural, a mere lack of belief in God is more agnostic than atheistic.

Murray possessed the passionate hate of the militant atheist, the arrogance of the entitled and the nihilistic rage of the social outcast. It is the combination of those three things with youth and testosterone that make a killer. I should note that it doesn’t surprise me at all that Murray was influenced by Klebold and Harris, as I wrote in The World in Shadow, the Columbine killers are and will continue to be genuine heroes to the hated and unhappy of the world. If Christians do not reach out to them in love, then we cannot be surprised when the void in their hearts is filled by the prince of this world.

Nevertheless, I do see Murray as a failure of the Christians around him. Like Murray, I too was sickened by the shallowness and stupidity of the Christians around me from the time I was a child. Like Murray, I too am disgusted with the Dominionists, the paranoia that sees demons at work in every paper cut, and the hubris that proclaims false prophecies and visions in the wide-eyed congregations. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I understood that nearly everyone, of every creed, is shallow and stupid, and that one cannot reasonably judge the true essence of a belief on the basis of the believers. Murray’s atheism does not absolve Christians of his violent end; it condemns them more completely than if he were merely a mentally ill parishioner in good standing.

UPDATE: at least one atheist hasn’t been paying attention to the atheist hymnbook and is out of tune with the godless chorus singing sweet songs of innocence and light. TA writes:

All I can say is thank you. Thank you to the shooter for taking out some of the most hate-filled control freaks on the planet. Thank you for finally bring the publics attention to the cult like brainwashing that is forced upon these kids at such an early age. Thank you for exposing the cult like ways of YWAM.

America needs more heroes like him. And I expect more incidents like this as victims throw off the shackles of their imprisoners and implode from the years of systematic brainwashing.

Throw off the shackles of oppression and start with the killing. Gee, that’s a new one. So many atheists are incredibly obsessed with this idea; whether they call themselves sans-culottes, scientific socialists or New Atheists, they always seem to end up there eventually.

The whole Mormon thing aside, Mitt Romney is seriously weird:

This summer, Romney said his favorite novel is the Battlefield Earth series by L. Ron Hubbard.

If that doesn’t eliminate you from presidential consideration, I don’t know what would.

As no one will likely be surprised to hear, WND has asked me to provide them with series of excerpts from my forthcoming book for publication when the book becomes available. I’ve decided to do three; it’s one thing to beat the subject to death here on my blog – it’s my idiom, after all – but it’s another to do it in the column where beating the subject of Ron Paul to death is apparently more to the point.

I do get into a rut, don’t I. I wonder what the next one will be?

Anyhow, what is your preference regarding the columns? Three excerpts from the same chapter and therefore the same topic, or three excerpts from different chapters dealing with different subjects. In either case, which aspect of the overall religion debate interests you most? I can’t guarantee that I’ve anticipated and covered it, of course, but I’d still be interested in learning in what element of the argument those here, atheist, agnostic or Christian, happen to be most interested.

111 Mounds View Meerkats
90 East Mesa WhiteTrash

86 Winston Reverends
35 Burns ICU

83 Greenfield Grizzlies
74 W.C. Silver Spooners

53 Black Mouth Curs
35 Village Valkyries

78 Masonville Marauders
72 Cranberry Bogs

The plucky piranha of the Serengeti finished the season with a bang, crushing the defending champions and killing their playoff hopes. Unfortunately, the Meerkats’ slow start meant that not even a five-game winning streak down the stretch nor a second-ranked scoring offense was enough to get them to the postseason this year. Following the game, Mounds View GM Vox Day announced that while head coach Lonzell Cahill will return next year, defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell’s contract will not be renewed.

Congratulations to Masonville, who clinched the regular season title by fending off a high-scoring Cranberry team this week. Congratulations to Cranberry as well, setting a regular season scoring record with 1061 points. Cranberry’s average of 75.8 points per game beat East Mesa’s record from last year by more than three points per game. Greenfield earned its playoff spot with an impressive win over the Spooners, while the Valkyries couldn’t pull it together when they needed it most. And to no one’s surprise, the ICU set a new record for futility while putting up a measly 35 points to end a season that was nearly as bad as Michael Vick’s.

So, Masonville and Greenfield will square off as Winston travels to Cranberry in the first round.

My, my, what a coincidence. As expected, yet another shooter turns out to be a militant anti-theist:

According to a law enforcement source, the man professed to “hate all Christians,” and reportedly left a note or letter that he intended to murder as many Christians as possible.

Large-scale murder or small-scale slaughter, it’s simply amazing how often these killers turn out to be self-identified atheists, especially given the fact that this group is such a small percentage of the population. Correlation may not be causation, but when this sort of statistical improbability regarding the behavior of a tiny minority becomes not only reliable, but downright predictable, that just may be the first clue the relationship is causal.

What I find most interesting is the inevitably defensive reaction of their fellow atheists. Instead of taking a scientific approach by examining the available evidence and then formulating a testable hypothesis to explain it, too many atheists take a philosophical approach similar to that of the medieval philosophers in attempting to ignore the evidence and focusing on the abstract logic of the matter. The relevant question isn’t why WOULD atheists possess a predilection for committing murder, but rather why DO avowed atheists commit mass murder at a much higher rate than agnostics, other non-believers and theists.

In light of the recent discussion which involved atheists crowing over converting the younger generation away from Christianity, it appears that the killer was just such an example of such a conversion to faithlessness: “The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household.”

Isn’t it interesting that the media feels the need to mention the fact that the man was home-schooled a quarter of his life ago? Of course, it’s inevitable that some will try to claim he was a Christian, on the same familial basis that applies to Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett.

On a tangential note, it’s definitely worth noting that this female parishioner showed far more courage than did the cowardly cops at Columbine. She was certainly not given a spirit of fear. Nor are any of us:

Jeanne Assam appeared before the news media for the first time Monday and said she “did not think for a minute to run away” when a gunman entered the New Life Church in Colorado Springs and started shooting….”I saw him coming through the doors” and took cover, Assam said. “I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down.”

Assam had several years of experience in law enforcement and is licensed to carry a weapon. She attends one of the morning services and then volunteers as a guard during another service. “I give credit to God,” Assam said. “God was with me. I didn’t think for a minute to run away.”

When the time came, she stood in the gap when others failed. There is no higher praise.

UPDATE – After reading through the link above, one thing stands out to me. In these situations, stalk-and-shoot applies. Don’t issue any warnings, just take the guy out.

UPDATE II – Yes, my dear defensive atheists, the shooter does really appear to have been one of you. It’s hard to argue that I’m making a No True Christian argument considering the evidence about the end of Murray’s faith. If one can never abandon one’s faith, then what in the name of Charles Darwin is the point of all this New Atheist evangelism?

“You Christians brought this on yourselves,” Murray wrote on a Web site for people who have left Pentecostal and fundamentalist religious organizations. “I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. …God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. Like previous atheist converts from Stalin to Dawkins and Hitchens, Murray rejected Jesus Christ and found nihilistic hate in his atheism. I would think Murray might be regarded as an atheist hero, considering common atheist beliefs such as “religion poisons everything” and Christians “are to blame for most of the problems in the world….”

My point not that Christians cannot and do not do evil things. They can and do, and the mere fact of evil-doing is not sufficient to deny an individual’s Christianity; if that is the metric then there are no Christians on this planet. As I previously wrote, these church shootings could have been a divorce gone bad, a jealous boyfriend or a delusional individual operating under the belief that he was the Angel of Death sent on a mission by God. But the probability is that a shooter is an atheist is nearly as high as the likelihood that he is young and male. It’s obviously a relevant factor.

I can only assume that Rg was referring to today’s column:

You are not only insane but evil!!!

I have to admire his ability to be so succinct, anyhow. JW, on the other hand, asks a relevant question:

It’s clear you don’t like Bush, and that’s fine. There are many things to be disappointed about with this administration. You’ve written fine columns giving us your valid reasons for not supporting him. But in this latest column I have to wonder if you have finally let your personal feelings color your judgment. How can Bush simultaneously be the idiot that can’t even speak English, and the evil genius that was able to fool most of the country and a lot of the western world into going to war to satisfy his insatiable lust for power? Next you’ll tell us you have determined once and for all that George W. Bush masterminded the 9/11 attacks.

The problem with this apparent dichotomy is that speaking ability is not intelligence. I don’t believe Bush is stupid, far from it. His military records show that he was smarter than John Kerry, with an IQ of around 115 to 120. In fact, many people who are much more intelligent than a single SD above the norm don’t speak very well, I’m not particularly eloquent on the radio myself.

But I don’t believe Bush is a grand mastermind either. The central point of the column was to remind everyone of how he was once supposed to be the heir to Reagan, and how he has fallen far short of that in office.

Imagine how many people would have died at New Life Church if the church had insisted upon a no-gun policy like Virginia Tech:

The gunman at the New Life Church was shot and killed by a church security guard after entering the church’s main foyer with high-powered rifle shortly before 1 p.m. and opening fire, Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers said. Four others were wounded, and one later died.

The church’s 11 a.m. service had recently ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery.

Police arrived to find that the gunman had been killed by a member of the church’s armed security staff, Myers said.

Needless to say, if your church has an anti-carry policy, you should definitely bring the subject up with the elders. I remember at Woodland Hills, the church security was volunteer, but better trained than any police. The two men that I knew who served in this manner were both ex-Rangers.

So, any doubt that it’s more angry atheists responsible for these mass shootings? It may not be, for all we know it’s the violent fallout of a divorce or whatever, but the odds are that it’s another violent nihilist ending his meaningless existence with a bang. Say what you will about the danger posed by American theocrats, there aren’t any Christians going to atheist meetings with the intention of murdering them.

Among other things, it looks as if the Brits are pulling out of the neocons’ adventure in Mesopotamia:

GORDON Brown yesterday delivered a stirring festive message to Our Boys in Iraq: “Happy Christmas – war is over.” The PM was cheered as he praised UK troops and revealed combat operations in Basra will end “within two weeks”. Iraqi forces will take over as the 4,500-strong British force switches from front-line duties to a training role. By early next year, our contingent in Southern Iraq will be cut to 2,500 – and may be withdrawn completely in March.

I think this could be interpreted as the official announcement of the start of George Bush’s lame duck period.

Could this be the game that Adrian Peterson goes for 300? I doubt it, I think they’ll give him 15 carries and rest him for the playoff surge, but the possibility is there.