Tag: atheism

Edward Feser praises Common Sense Atheism for having the good sense to abandon a disproven aphorism:

[T]he Common Sense Atheism blog used to proclaim proudly on its masthead: When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I see that that blog has now removed this one-liner, which is perhaps a sign that intellectual progress is possible even among New Atheist types. Because while your average “Internet Infidel” seems to regard the “one god further” objection as devastatingly clever, it is in fact embarrassingly inept, a sign of the extreme decadence into which secularist “thought” has fallen in the Age of Dawkins.

Suppose someone skeptical about Euclidean geometry said:

When you understand why you regard all the particular triangles you’ve observed as having sides that are less than perfectly straight, you will understand why I regard Euclidean plane triangles as such to have sides that are less than perfectly straight.

Or suppose a critic of Platonism said:

When you understand why you regard the things of ordinary experience as in various ways imperfect or less than fully good instances of their kinds, you will understand why I regard Plato’s Form of the Good as being less than fully good.

Would these count as devastating objections to Euclidean geometry and Platonism? Would they serve as fitting mottos for blogs devoted to “Common Sense Anti-Euclideanism” or “Common Sense Anti-Platonism”? Obviously not. They would demonstrate only that the speaker didn’t have the slightest clue what the hell he was talking about.

Feser took a different tact than I did in addressing Sam Harris’s use of this aphorism in TIA, but the fact that the statement can be demolished from multiple angles is a good indication that it is a remarkably stupid statement. I leave it to you to decide which method is more effective, but I certainly can’t argue with his conclusion.

Anyhow, it’s good to see that atheists have abandoned this and the ridiculous Red State argument. Hopefully it won’t be long before they give up on the ludicrous “One Less God” assertion, the ahistorical “religion causes war” meme, and the dishonest “No True Atheist” defense as well.

Cisbio is still trying to defend atheism by insisting that murderous atheists are not, in fact, atheists, while attacking Christianity for crimes that were committed by non-Christians. Needless to say, it’s not the most effective of strategies.

How is it dishonest to compared atheist to non-atheist crimes, if it is perfectly valid to attempt to heighten the enormity of atheist crimes by comparing them only with Christian crimes -exclusively from the middle ages?

First, it is entirely typical that cisbio fails to understand both the context and the nature of the comparison. TIA was not written ex nihilo, but in response to specific atheist charges made against religion in general and Christianity in particular. The Christian crimes are not taken “exclusively from the middle ages”, as should be obvious since the period of Christendom I utilized for the purposes of comparison began prior to the Middle Ages with the accession of Theodosius I to the Western half of the Empire in combination with his decrees that re-established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Prior to that point, his decrees were simply not relevant to the older half of the empire.

While one could argue for starting with 363, when Jovian rescinded Julian the Apostate’s pagan revival, or possibly even 313, with Constantine the Great’s Edict of Milan, 392 marks the moment from which Christianity most clearly reigned politically supreme. Before this date, Christian state crimes were not possible for the obvious reason that Christians did not possess sufficient political power.

Cisbio is mistaken when he thinks that I end the period of Christendom in 1453, which again should be obvious since the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre took place in 1572. 1453 merely set the limit on the number of Roman emperors, 126 to be precise, to which I added every single Christian king from all the major European kingdoms down to the present day. Again, cisbio should have known this due to the estimated number of kings utilized. Thus, this extended period is not limited to the Middle Ages and it is not only a reasonable comparison to the two centuries in which atheism has been most influential, it is the only possible one.

And the fact that not a single one of those estimated 1,781 Christian rulers committed a single crime against his people that was one-half as bad as 52 of the 89 atheist rulers, (with the exception of King Leopold II of Belgium, who appears to have engaged in societal egg-breaking with all the vicious enthusiasm of an atheist) does tend to testify that there is something peculiarly lethal about the combination of atheists and political power. While it is true that most of these atheist killers were Communists and the few that were not Communists were at least Socialists, it doesn’t change the fact that a) all of them were atheists, and b) most atheists are either Communists or socialists.

That may sound surprising, but recall that Bertrand Russell, Michel Onfray, and Christopher Hitchens are all socialists. Richard Dawkins describes himself as having been a voter for the democratic socialist party in the 1970s. Sam Harris is not a socialist, but he is an avowed globalist, which is the socialism of the 21st century. Of the six foremost atheist intellectuals, only Dennett appears to be entirely free of a lethal form of atheism, but even that is unconfirmed.

Now, I think there is room for a reasonable discussion regarding what is more dangerous, the most lethal form of religion or the most lethal form of atheism, especially when the warlike aspect of the former is taken into account. The important difference, however, is that whereas the most lethal form of religion is neither its largest nor its most influential form, the most lethal form of atheism is its dominant strain. For example, I’m not at all concerned about the potential dangers posed by libertarian atheists or even Austrian School-influenced ones like Michael Shermer. The world would be a better place if the countries where atheists now rule had leaderships consisting of libertarian atheists rather than socialist and communist ones. But very, very few atheists are libertarians, (faux libertarians like Bill Maher notwithstanding), in fact, libertarianism is attacked by militant, left-leaning atheists like PZ Myers almost as energetically as religion.

It is true that state terror is terrible regardless of the religion of the perpetrator. And it is also true that non-atheist perpetrators of state terror, like the pagan National Socialists, were of the political Left. Still, while Leftism may well be the primary risk factor in the likelihood of mass slaughter, it must be taken into account that the religious Left has historically been far less violent than the atheist Left. The Swedes may have finally gotten around to getting rid of their state church, but they haven’t killed anyone, at least not yet.

In summary, not only is the No True Atheist a logically invalid defense of historical atheist crimes, but it’s an haplessly ineffective one due to the characteristic preference of atheists for the very political ideology they are attempting to blame in order to exculpate their anti-religious creed. But these days, Communism is all but a dead letter due to its economic failure, so the future danger from the irreligious now stems from atheist trans-nationalism of the sort advocated by Bertrand Russell and Sam Harris.

As I pointed out in TIA, it is not difficult to understand why extraordinarily ambitious atheists in positions of great political power show such a strong predilection for mass slaughter. They are usually obsessed with forcibly modifying society on a large scale and it is impossible to do that without “breaking a few eggs”. Contra Sam Harris, their bloody acts are perfectly rational; we can and should reject their justifications but we cannot fault their logic. But how does one explain the likes of largely apolitical atheists like Terry Pratchett, whose early-onset Alzheimer’s has inspired him to produce a work of murder propaganda?

Viewers of the BBC2 show will see the writer, whose Discworld series of books have sold millions of copies worldwide, at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland with the 71 year–old motor neurone disease sufferer, named only as Peter. Sir Terry, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2008, also reveals that he is “a believer in assisted death”.

In 2008, a documentary on Sky Television called Right To Die? showed 59–yearold Craig Ewert ending his life. He also suffered from motor neurone disease. Dr Peter Saunders, director of the charity Care Not Killing, criticised the BBC’s decision to broadcast the programme, saying it was acting “like a cheerleader for legalising assisted suicide”.

Despite the fervent assertions of atheists to the contrary, again and again we see that their political objectives revolve around two things, sex and death. They can’t even hide behind the defense that “assisted death” is voluntary, because in the Netherlands, at least 20 percent of the legal euthanasia is performed without the patient’s consent.

1995: The Dutch survey, reviewed in the Journal of Medical Ethics, looked at the figures for 1995 and found that as well as 3,600 authorized cases there were 900 others in which doctors had acted without explicit consent. A follow-up survey found that the main reason for not consulting patients was that they had dementia or were otherwise not competent.

2009: The annual report of the regional commissions that oversee the Netherlands’ euthanasia law said there were 2,636 cases in 2009, the vast majority of them euthanasia, or “mercy killing“, as opposed to assisted suicide, or helping someone to die. That represented about 2 per cent of all Dutch deaths last year, based on figures from Statistics Netherlands. Of the cases, slightly over 80 percent were cancer patients and more than 80 per cent of the deaths occurred in the patient’s home. The rise follows a 10.5 per cent rise in 2008….

What I find most reprehensible is that the same atheists who concoct a myriad of imaginary ways in which religious faith could be somehow considered dangerous, even though it hasn’t been for dozens of centuries, habitually feign an inability to imagine how legalizing “assisted death” could possibly go awry. But what were the Mongols, the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Red Guards doing, if not energetically assisting death?

If Mr. Pratchett, whose books I quite enjoy, wishes to kill himself, that is between him and God. But it is deeply immoral for him to seek to absolve himself of the responsibility for his death and place the burden on another individual, and it is horrifically irresponsible for him to lobby for the legalization of what will certainly turn into another form of state-sponsored murder of the innocent, the aged, the helpless, and the unconsenting.

Well, they’re not about to say anything about Islam, you understand. But they are sufficiently intrepid to take on the adherents of a fictional religion:

The government uses census data to determine government policy and funding in various areas, including that of faith-based schools and organizations. The group running the “You’re Not a Jedi” campaign claims that “Jedi” is not an acceptable religion and hopes that people will check “No Religion” in the census instead of saying that they follow the ways of the Force.

“If your religion is of low enough importance to you to that you are willing to put in a religion from 3 good sci-fi films from years ago, and 3 more recent rubbish ones,please consider ticking ‘No Religion’ instead,” the campaign writes. “By ticking ‘No Religion’, you will ensure that the Government receives an unambiguous message about the number of non-religious people in the UK.”

Sweet Darwin, but they’re just intrinsically obnoxious, aren’t they! “God doesn’t exist!” “You’re not a Jedi!” “I am intelligent than you are based on the fact of my historical ignorance and illogical conclusions!” And then they get offended when a Christian believes – doesn’t say anything, just believes – that the God atheists hate, fear, and deny does not look upon them with approval. They really are bossy little assholes right down to the core, and it’s the authoritarian assholery, not the absence of God belief, that ultimately defines the atheist.

The amusing thing about atheists, of course, is the way in which they will claim someone whose religion is “Jedi” or has no religion is an atheist, while simultaneously denying that overt and militant self-identified atheists who also happen to be Communists are atheists. Unless, that is, the Communist atheist happens to be alive today, in which case he can’t be responsible for historically killing anyone and therefore can safely be considered an atheist… so long as he is sufficiently obnoxious. The punchline is that these are the people who consider themselves to be the most rational people on the planet. Forget the Jedi religion, it is more logically respectable to describe yourself as a worshipper of Jar-Jar Binks than as an atheist.

Which leads us to the correct response to the announcement, (and it usually is an announcement, isn’t it), that someone is an atheist: “Ah, so you’re an asshole. Good for you. How’s that working out for you, then?”

“There’s also pretty general agreement on which religions are the toxic worst. These would be the religions that combine particularly crazy superstitions with a blood-soaked historical record. We atheists think of these as deadly memetic plagues, occasionally found in relatively well-behaved quiescent phases but prone to bloom into full-fledged insane murderousness whenever the next charismatic nutcase wanders along to remind them what they’re really about.

And which two religions are at the very top of the threat-potential list? No prizes for guessing that they are Christianity and Islam, not necessarily in that order. Both have relatively tolerable minorities (Christianity’s Quakers and Unitarians, Islam’s Sufis) but have extremely dangerous and powerful fundamentalist groups that effectively dominate the discourse inside their communities.

An accident of our time, post-9/11, is that Islam currently appears the more dangerous of the two. This is a case both Christoper Hitchens and myself on this blog have argued, despite our shared detestation of Christianity. And it’s why the notion that Western militant atheists would run en masse to Islam in preference to Christianity is especially absurd. That would be trading from bad to worse.”

One of the things I pointed out in The Irrational Atheist is the fundamentally non-scientific perspective of the average militant atheist.  Like the “Dark Ages” philosophers they cite so ignorantly and inaccurately as evidence of their supposed intellectual superiority, they regularly utilize false logic in the place of the observable, empirical evidence.  Thus, they insist that Christianity is indicative of mental illness despite the fact that Christians are happier, live longer, and are much less likely to commit suicide than atheists.  They declare that humanity will become more secular in the face of statistics that show religious growth exploding around the planet.  And they insist that Christianity is liable “to bloom into full-fledged insane murderousness whenever the next charismatic nutcase wanders along” even though it is a matter of historical record that atheist leaders are 580 times more likely to kill at least 20,000 of their own followers than Christian leaders and the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 MILLION percent worse than the worst slaughter committed by a Christian leader.

It is always amusing, in light of the martial record of the last ten centuries, to see that the two most-cited examples of Christianity’s supposed predilection for warfare date back to 1095 and 1618.

As with his earlier post on Game, Eric Raymond demonstrates that he hasn’t bothered to do even the smallest amount of relevant research before opining on the matter.  If he had, he would have learned that a) militant atheists do not attack specific religions on the basis of their threat potential, but rather on the basis of the religion to which they are primarily exposed, b) many atheists support the growth of Islam in the West as an alternative to the Christianity for which they harbor a pathological hatred, c) Islamic expansionism is not “an accident of our time”, and d) Christianity is not, and has never been, anywhere near as blood-soaked or crazily superstitious as the paganism that it replaced or the neo-paganism that has replaced it in the post-Christian West.

One can quite reasonably point out, as Raymond has done, that supporting Islam in the place of Christianity is trading from bad to worse.  But that doesn’t change the fact that many atheists are doing precisely that, which we must conclude is due to the fact that most atheists are irrational.

PZ Myers makes a remarkable “argument from inhuman sociopathy” in defense of abortion:

[T]he standard bullying tactics of waving bloody fetuses might cow the squeamish, but I’m a biologist. I’ve guillotined rats. I’ve held eyeballs in my hand and peeled them apart with a pair of scissors. I’ve used a wet-vac to clean up a lake of half-clotted blood from an exsanguinated dog. I’ve opened bodies and watched the intestines do their slow writhing dance, I’ve been elbow deep in blood, I’ve split open cats and stabbed them in the heart with a perfusion needle. I’ve extracted the brains of mice…with a pair of pliers. I’ve scooped brains out of buckets, I’ve counted dendrites in slices cut from the brains of dead babies.

You want to make me back down by trying to inspire revulsion with dead baby pictures? I look at them unflinchingly and see meat. And meat does not frighten me.

It’s probably a good thing he is an atheist without any moral standards, otherwise he might demonstrate at least a modicum of conscience for the bloody acts in which he appears to take such pride. And if he happened to take any sexual gratification from them as well, who can say it is wrong from his perspective, given his total lack of any moral or ethical code. If he feels no revulsion at looking at the pictures of butchered babies, then he likely feels no revulsion and sees only meat when looking at pictures of dead Jews and murdered Ukrainians as well. The awful thing is not that the pictures do not frighten him; they do not frighten me either. The awful thing is that he does not find them revolting like any normal human being with even a minimal amount of empathy would.

This is the naked face of atheism, ladies and gentlemen. Look on it well and remember it, because it usually doesn’t dare to show its disgusting and anti-human nature so openly.