Month: October 2016

The company “Steam” has produced a perverted survival style game called “Rust” which includes a feature which randomly makes a player’s character male or female this is even though 95% of Steam gamers are male. Wait, what?!?! Only those two?!?! This is gender binary tyranny?!?!

Rust game developers noted, “We understand this is a sore subject for a lot of people. We understand that you may now be a gender that you don’t identify with in real-life. We understand this causes you distress and makes you not want to play the game anymore…The only difference is that whether you feel like this is now decided by your SteamID instead of your real life gender.”

The moderators of the Games subreddit have censored many comments regarding this issue which means that a game which includes nudity (for example, the game selects the size of your schmekel for you at random) find certain statements in opposition to transgender / transsexual propaganda to be much too much.

They previously had issue with a certain oddity as game developer Garry Newman puts it, “A man’s voice coming out of a woman’s body is no more weird than an 8 year-old boy’s voice coming out of a man’s body” all of which occurred during the Pavlovian mind control programming—I mean game, yeah, it’s, like, just a game and stuff.

Herein we will consider when and why certain personages became Atheists. We will parse these into Statistics, Influential Atheists, Ex-Catholics, Ex-Hindus and Hoi Polloi Atheists. As of now, I list the tales of 107 Atheists. You can find them all at the When and Why They Became Atheists Project page.

These examples are taken from Quora.

Sreehari Km:
Notes, “I was born as a Hindu. I was taken to temples and used to celebrate religious festivals. When I was 9, I used to attend the service in a church every sunday, mostly because my friend was going there.”

Main points:
Timeline implies circa 12-13 yrs old.

Was “about 12 or 13 when…I tried to find answers” for, for example, why “500,000 kids below age 5 die of hunger and poverty. Natural disasters, terrorist and racist acts, diseases- there were many things which i could not digest.”
They will claim that this has something to do with God not existing and yet, Atheism leaves them with only the ability to assert that they have decided to subjectively and emotively condemn kids dying of hunger and poverty, natural disasters, terrorist and racist acts, diseases, etc. since on Atheism these things just are amoral brute factoids.

Basically, Sreehari jumps from condemning God for one reason, then the opposite reason and basically damned if God does and damned if God does not, “tried to relate it to god and his power” if “there is no devil/satan. Then logically these acts are done by god” then “let us assume there was a devil” then maybe “we were born with innate sin. Why did god let us sin in the first place. Is he f***ing gambling with our lives?”

Sreehari then merely subjectively asserts without an argument that “Eternal life, multiple lives etc do not make sense to me” which is simply irrelevant.
Sreehari then falls for a very an Atheist assertion that is a popular as it is fallacious, “i want to do good, i will- for the satisfaction and happiness i get out of it. I do not do it for the virgins after my death or to make my life better…” 1) note the selfish nature of the motivation as it is not to do good because others need good done to them but to do good “for the satisfaction and happiness i get out of it” and 2) Sreehari is condemning alternate motivations (whether we agree that wanting virgins in the afterlife is vice or virtue).

Based on such a selfish view of doing good Sreehari then essentially concludes that if the latter motivation is the case then it would mean something to the likes of that “god is the head in a supermarket where you pay him to make your life better.” Well, speaking biblically, God’s grace is a free gift thus, we pay nothing as it is priceless.

Len Gould:
Sadly, this one is very short and based on mere generic assertions, “I grew up in a fairly strongly Anglican family. By middle-school I had accumulated enough astronomy knowledge to realize that it directly contradicted the bible’s writings” but does not state how or why yet, “By 15 I was a certain atheist but not anti-religious.”

Main points:
15 yrs old.

Concludes by simply stating, “Then I started reading history” and leaving it at that.

Andrew Stein:
Simply wrote, “Raised without religion. I can not remember a time when anything about religion ever made sense to me” as if that which subjectively makes sense to him has anything to do with reality. As I have noted time and time and time again simply noting that something does not make sense to you it not an argument, not evidence and thus, not relevant.

Karl Mochel:
States that he “Believes in a lack of belief” which I believe as lack of belief is indeed, not a lack of belief but a belief. Karl seems to merely copy and paste from what another Atheist stated and the statement is from someone who came to very firm conclusions based on utter miscomprehensions, misunderstandings, mistakes, misinformation, etc.

Karl writes, “From the site Letters of Note: Why I am an Atheist” and pastes a statement from which I will glean.

“Because it has dawned upon me that it is right to be so, and upon investigation I find no real evidence of the divine origin of the scriptures” which was “Written by a lot of priests, I cannot accept a salvation that is based wholly upon the dreams of an ancient and superstitious people, with no proof save blind faith.” This seems like elephant hurling as it dawned on whomever Karl is quoting “upon investigation” but by what means is not stated. Thus, they “find no real evidence” but we know not where they have even looked. Thus, take my word for it, I investigated it in some unstated reason—period. Now, as far as I know, the only priest to write anything in the Bible was Joshua. This person is merely asserting a conspiracy theory about some unspecified smoky backrooms some unspecified priests wrote that Bible at some unspecified time.

Based on such vague assertions, this person declares “I cannot accept a salvation that is based wholly upon” and here comes a typical Atheist logical genetic fallacy, “the dreams of an ancient and superstitious people” whom, recall it has merely been asserted had “no proof save blind faith.”

This person also wrote, “because I cannot, as a refined and respectable woman, take to my bosom as a daily guide a book of such low morals and degrading influences” but does not bother stating to what “morals” or influences” she is referring to nor upon what standards she declares herself “respectable” or how she defines, “morals.” The fact is that clearly, Karl is quoting this in an utterly un-skeptical manner and likely accepting it on “no proof save blind faith.”

She also asserts that “It is ignorance of the scientific working of their own natures and mind that keep so much ‘mystery’ in the air; and as long as there is a mystery afloat the people will ascribe it to the supernatural.” This is merely playing the scientism card and she will never have to give up this merely claim since it is unlikely that we will ever scientifically discern everything about everything. It is frustrating dealing with such unspecific jumpers to conclusion as for example, she notes that she is “an Atheist because I know the Bible will not do to depend upon. I have tried it, and found it wanting” but says nothing about what this is supposed to mean.

Now, there is one specific point and yet it defeats itself as she writes, “In fact, I found in the scriptures the origin of woman’s slayer” whatever that means, “and that it was one of God’s main points to oppress women and keep them in the realms of ignorance.” Well, someone kept her in ignorance and it must have be she herself as she claims to have tried the Bible and found it wanting yet, utterly misrepresent its view on women—which begins by affirming that women were created in God’s image. The reason I noted that this defeats itself is that as an Atheist, she can no longer condemn woman slaying, oppression of women, keep them ignorant, etc. on any basis but the one they have appealed to the whole time which is merely the unsubstantiated expressions of emotions and not reason, logic, philosophy, science, etc.

Ah but, not so fast as she does, in the end, reveal her standards in writing, “I am in the ranks of Liberalism because of its elevating principles, its broad road to freedom of thought, speech, and investigation.” A but, no so fast as this is just as vague as anything else that was stated since we are authoritatively told that “Liberalism” whatever that means pertains to “elevating principles” but we are not told how nor what they are and that “its broad road” may be true as “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
Lastly, again and again and again it is merely authoritatively asserted that whatever “Liberalism” is and however it pertains to “elevating principles” is that which leads to “freedom of thought, speech, and investigation” and we are not even told upon what premise we are to think that freedom of thought, speech, and investigation” are virtues. Note that this is not to say that they are not but that it is one vague assertion after another.

Omorogbe Usuomon:
This is a one paragraph statement and begins with a very good and biblically solid point, in a manner of speaking, “I was born a Christian (to a Christian family, clearly babies have no religious affiliation no matter what anyone says).” Well, I am unsure who claims that babies have “religious affiliation” but no one is “born a Christian” which is why we must be born again (John 3:3-7).

Omorogbe also notes, “At a very young age, I realised I didn’t pay much heed to Christianity” as if that to which Omorogbe subjectively paid heed to is any sort of argument, evidence or standard.
Lastly, “as you expose yourself to reading books on Science you begin to realise the folly of many religious beliefs” while this is true of “many” such beliefs, Atheists have a tendency to ignore true and proper science and turn to scientism.

Nikita Kiryanov:
This sad tale begins with poor theology from the parents, “I was 5 or 6 years old. My parents…told me that some people believe there is a God, and they pray to him so that he will make their wishes come true.” Well, this was a set up for failure as “I used to get frequent stomach aches…I prayed to God asking for the stomach ache to go away” and when they did not, the conclusion was that “the assumption that this wish granting God exists must be false.”

Main points:
5-6 yrs old.

Interestingly, Nikita admits that “The concept of God which I tested back then was of course a very simplistic, and…inaccurate, idea of what God is.” She then claims, without examples, that “since then every time I was presented with new arguments and refinements for the concept of God I did the same thing” and concludes that there is “No ‘evidence’ for the existence of God” which one can only conclude if one is omniscient which is a traditional characteristic of God.

Thus, this is much ado about nothing since after admittedly dealing with a “very simplistic, and…inaccurate, idea of what God” we get nothing more than an assertion.

Anonymous:
Well, this person is obviously saturated with hatred and an example of the damage that Atheism and/or evolution can inflict on a person who would otherwise have been smart and descent.

Main points:
No age given.

The comment is three sentences long and yet, manages to be saturated with fallacy.

1) “Because I realized how contradictory ‘strong’ believers like my mother are” yet, they now ignore how contradictory “strong” Atheists are. Yet, I am assuming that Atheists would have some standard in the first place, that violating them would mean something, etc. Also, note the stereotypical rebellion against the parent.

2) “I don’t plan to be lumped in with unreasoning wastes of the evolutionary process” note the charge of thought crime since if you believe in God then you are “wastes of the evolutionary process” so that Anonymous thus declares themselves to be more evolved than thou. Also, they demand that theists are unreasoning which is an unreasonable assertion.

3) “If God exists, he sure isn’t the one the Bible talks about” but coming from a supposedly more evolved and reasonable person this is merely stating a prejudice since no argument, evidence or anything of the likes but only hatred.

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This may be occasion for presenting Richard Dawkins with the Can Dish it Out But Cannot Take it award.
Except that Phillip Pullman has already deserved it as shown here.

Indeed, following on Phillip Pullman’s steps, Richard Dawkins suddenly turned into the prim and proper English gentleman and reacts towards disparaging remarks made towards him with a Oh, my! attitude.

Hannah Devlin and Ruth Gledhill reported in The Times that Outraged atheists lose faith in Dawkins as he censors website

Richard Dawkins is accustomed to provoking the wrath of religious communities, but now a schism seems to have opened up within the atheist community who make up his fan-base.
The split occurred after he announced that a discussion section on his website, considered one of the busiest online atheist forums, would in future be tightly moderated and “irrelevant postings and frivolous gossip” would no longer be allowed.

This is utterly fascinating since if you read The God Delusion (that funny and amusing book) you will note that if you remove the personal anecdotes from it—the irrelevant asides and frivolous gossip—you are left with about enough material to fill a pamphlet (a pocket sized one; that little pocket above the big pocket on the right hand side of your jeans).

Writing on RichardDawkins.net yesterday, in a posting entitled “Outrage”, he said that there was “something rotten” in internet culture and pledged to rid his website of its abusive element. “Imagine seeing your face described by an anonymous poster, as ‘a slack-jawed turd-in-the-mouth mug’,” he wrote. “Surely there has to be something wrong with people who can resort to such over-the-top language, overreacting so spectacularly to something so trivial. “Even some of those with more temperate language are responding to the proposed changes in a way that is little short of hysterical.”

The cloak of anonymity under which many people contributed to discussions had led to a culture of extreme language that would not be possible if people wrote under their name.

Also, fascinating; Richard Dawkins has literally built the New Atheist movement upon vociferously pouring down abusive language based derision upon anyone who dares to disagree with him and now…the monster which he created, nurtured and let lose upon the word has come home to roost. Actually, it has come home to burn down the laboratory of its creator.

Dawkins promulgates the mere that I, a Jew, am to be likened to a Holocaust denier because I doubt that human beings are related to “bananas and turnips” and he takes offence at an admittedly uncalled for description of his visage. Please get over yourself professor.

Unwilling to be silenced, however, the members of the website and the 15 moderators, some of whom worked unpaid, vented their own outrage elsewhere. “A lot of people have lost respect for Dawkins after this, although I do still support the work that he does,” said Peter Harrison, a former moderator. “Thousands of loyal, intelligent, rational forum members have been misrepresented as a bunch of foul-mouthed, vitriolic thugs by the man who so inspired them.”

Another former fan said: “It may sound ridiculous to those not involved with online communities, but I feel hurt and displaced. It was like coming home to find the locks have been changed. My respect for Richard’s work is still intact but my respect for him as a person is in tatters.”

In short, Richard Dawkins is upset at experiencing the very same things that those of us who critique his views have been dealing with for decades. How do you like the taste of your own porridge professor?

Professor Dawkins now faces a confrontation with his adversaries at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne in two weeks.

No shortage of fascination for me with regards to this issue as Dawkins now faces a confrontation with his adversaries at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne even whilst he refused to face a confrontation with Creation Ministries International—he refused to debate them; he specifically selected to reject their debate challenge (see here).

He denied that the forum was closing but said that it was being improved. “The forum is going to be more tightly controlled and will be under more central control. So it won’t be available for anyone who wants to sound off freely,” he said. He conceded that there was a good case for anonymity for some contributors and such contributions would still be allowed. “I can see why people in America who lost their faith and do not want their families to know, or perhaps people of an Islamic background who have lost their faith or become Christian, have every reason to be anonymous,” he said.

The forum’s implosion has been jumped on by Christian groups as a sign that the Dawkins community is not as free-thinking as it is claimed.

He makes a good point about improvement and control; perhaps his next book, lecture, TV/radio appearance, article, etc. will be subject to the same improvement and control that will keep him from spewing forth his usual brand of malicious statements.

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Now, I do not know about “slack-jawed…” and all of that but…is it just me or does his photo from The Times bare a striking resemblance to the video game that is being advertised right along side of it?—you be the judge.

We now continue considering the legend of Bart the gnostic hero Ehrman as he attempts to discredit the Bible and Christianity.

Let us consider the physical resurrection:

Ehrman says he doesn’t think the resurrection took place. There’s no proof Jesus physically rose from the dead, and the resurrection stories contradict one another, he says. He says he doesn’t believe the followers of Jesus saw their master bodily rise from the dead, but something else.
“My best guess is that what happened is what commonly happens today when someone has a loved one die — they sometimes think they see them in a vision,” Ehrman says. “I think some of the disciples had visions.”1

This is fascinating as we get a window into Bart Ehrman’s conflicted mind. How so?
Well, he 1) denies that the resurrection occurred because 2) there is no proof 3) Jesus’ followers did not see His body rise from the dead and 4) the resurrection stories contradict one another therefore, 5) something else took place.

But why the affirmation of the “something else” such as his evidence-free assertion that they had visions? After all, Ehrman supposedly proved that “At least 19 of the 27 books in the New Testament are forgeries”2 and all of them are concocted tall tales which are unreliable. Why does he still feel the need to explain the resurrection? Because he somehow knows that he cannot deny it and simply must do something about it. Why not simply state that there is no evidence, there are contradictions, the New Testament is a late dated error filled concoction and the resurrection is a quaint story like them all?

Moreover, for Bart Ehrman the issue of the resurrection is not only about no evidence, no witnesses, contradictions and visions but even if it did take place it would be un-provable:

The debate [with Mike Licona] topic is, “Can historians prove that Jesus was raised from the dead?” and he’s going to be arguing yes and I’m going to be arguing no. I’m not going to be arguing that Jesus was not raised from the dead; what I’m going to be arguing is that even if he was raised from the dead, historians can’t prove it, because of the nature of historical evidence, you can’t prove something like a miracle. You can believe it, but you can’t prove it.

Just as with science or any other field or method of research and study: history has its limitations. He might as well argue, as he does, that history never proves anything at all. In fact, let us grant that: Bart Ehrman claims that “In my class, I don’t simply tell them my opinions”3—fine, what is be telling his students? He is presented unbiased conclusions from his historical research. He is merely presenting the historical data which proves that, for example, “At least 19 of the 27 books in the New Testament are forgeries,” the resurrection did not happen, the New Testament books are late dated, the Trinity is not original to the original Christians, etc.

This is precisely what Dan Brown argued in stating, “How historically accurate is history itself?”4 While there is some legitimacy to this statement it is also a tool by which to deny any possibility of objectivism while likewise allowing one to deal creatively with historical facts. Let us not make the claim of pure subjectivism in history a self-fulfilling prophecy by dealing loosely with the facts—on purpose. If history is not historically accurate, how can Brown claim to base his novel of historical fact? He introduces his fictional novel The Da Vinci Code by stating, “FACT” and then goes on to claim that Jesus was married, etc.

How could history accurately prove the points that Ehrman and Brown want to make but it cannot accurately prove that which those with whom they disagree appeal to in order to debunk their claims? This is a substandard double standard.

Bart Ehrman surely knows that, for example, the affirmation of Jesus resurrection found in 1st Corinthians 15 is dated to five or so years after the resurrection as Paul affirms, in the technical language of “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received” that “Christ died for our sins” then “He was buried” that is, He, Jesus, died and His corpse, His physical body, was buried “and that He rose again” that is, He, Jesus, His corpse, his physical body, rose from the place in which it was buried. Thereafter, He, Jesus, was physically “seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve….Afterward He was seen by over five hundred brothers at once, of whom the greater part remain until this present day, but also some fell asleep” this means, some were still alive; go and ask them, “Afterward He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all He was seen by me also.” As for the pains to which Jesus went to prove to them that He was physically present, see my essay here.

But why, when as opposed to the Ehrmanian mythos, such information has been in print for a very long time has Ehrman become enriched, a celebrity and the go-to-guy for anti-Christian publications and documentaries?

Misquoting Jesus for some reason really sort of caught people’s attention in a way the other books didn’t, I think in part because it’s less academic than the other books…

I think people latched on to that because it made it more down to earth and they could see the significance of it better instead of just talking about it as a kind of academic exercise. That’s what I’ve continued doing… it affected my personal faith.5

When asked, “Do you think the success of your books is part of a trend of fact-based intellectually inquiry that’s being popularized?” he made reference to the popularity of anti-Christian intolerance (some which is very much deserved indeed):

there does seem to be an aspect of the culture war that’s going on right now where the religious right that has sort of controlled religion for a long time in this country, you do seem to have a backlash against it.
On the far left of that are the new atheists, people like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, who are really embracing atheism and are attacking religion.6

Ad to this the contemporaneous publishing by other anti-Christian media darlings such as Elaine Pagels with her “The Gnostic Gospels” and 7 These old conspiracy theories that Christians debunked long ago and many times since are being repackaged for an antagonistic, not very well informed, short attention spanned, pop-culture. Note that indeed, Ehrman recognizes that he succeeds by playing upon the heartstrings of his readers and not upon their scholastic minds.
In fact, it is widely recognized that the academic/scholarly critiques of Bart Ehrman’s academic/scholarly books were ignored and he merely repackaged those works, peppered them with emotionally charged anecdotes and regurgitated them directly into the eager mouth of youthful pop-culture as he rode upon the tsunami wave of anti-Christian belligerence. Indeed, Misquoting Jesus is “less academic” enough to obfuscate the facts and present readymade, scare-quote based, talking points.

In this segment we will consider part of the American Humanists Association’s “Interesting Facts You Might Not Know.” Having considered one of their facts: in part 1, I will now consider: “Without a god, why be good at all?”

This fact is elucidated thusly:

“Without a god, why be good at all? Because you know you want to, anyway. Unless you were born a sociopath or had your natural sensibilities destroyed in childhood, you have the same general sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust, kind and mean that people have all over the world. No matter whether people are raised Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists, humanists, anything else, or nothing in particular, they all have the same sorts of ethical notions and feelings. Thus, except in extreme circumstances, they all can compare notes with each other and appeal to one another’s moral sensibilities. No specific belief is necessary for goodness. Human beings are social primates. So they have basic feelings of empathy and sociality built in, just as do other social primates like chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, baboons, and the like. These animals don’t get their social behavior from Scripture and neither do you. Morality finds its roots in human nature. Human beings are also conceptual thinkers who have a sense of cause and effect. This allows for refinements of nature’s promptings through a better understanding of short and long-term consequences. And it allows humans to learn from experience so their natural inclinations can be made to work better for them.

Humans are also communicators. They share their thoughts and experiences with each other and across generations. This builds up a lore of ethics that further refines human notions of morality. And it allows people to apply their discoveries in evolving systems of law, religion, community standards, social organization, business ethics, etiquette, and the like.”

This argument may function in their well-within-the-box-atheistic-presupposition-goupthink yet, it fails for various reasons including:

1) It is a non sequitur. 2) It is presuppositional. 3) It is an argument to ridicule.

4) It has a defeater in the form of Judeo-Christian theology.

Let us consider each in turn:
1) It is a non sequitur:
Note that the premise was “Without a god, why be good at all?” but it is never explained why we should be good at all without a god. The only why is “Because you know you want to, anyway.”

Atheism, or atheists, offer no why but only musts, oughts and shoulds—no ontology but only epistemology—no ethos but only mores–no absolute finite regress but only an infinite regress of assertions piled one atop another like to many tels. When it comes to moral issues atheist can, and do, make various epistemic statements. They may even claim that there are absolute morals. Yet, they cannot make ontological statements as they have no foundation for morality beyond “Because I say so,” or if enough people agree, “Because the government, state, police, etc. say so.”

In other words, atheists make dogmatic authoritarian assertions about morality but can never provide a why. As an example, consider Richard Dawkins’ words:

If somebody used my views to justify a completely self – centred lifestyle, which involved trampling all over other people in any way they chose roughly what, I suppose, at a sociological level social Darwinists did – I think I would be fairly hard put to it to argue on purely intellectual grounds…I couldn’t, ultimately, argue intellectually against somebody who did something I found obnoxious.

Thus, he concludes,

I think it would be more…I’m going to do whatever I can to stop you doing this…in this society you can’t get away with it’ and call the police. 1

Note that he presupposes that the police, the authority, agree with him. What if he was in Nazi Germany and called the police to complain about the mistreatment of Jews (and others)?
Note that while the question is “Without a god, why be good at all?” the one and only answer offered is, “Because you know you want to.” This raises two questions: 1) how do you know that I want to and 2) what if I do not want to?
The answers are 1) they do not know and 2) then you will either get caught and be incarcerated by other, fitter, social primates or you will not get caught, enjoy doing non-good and simply get away with it—non-good will be for your benefit as you will enjoy doing it.

Let us consider the answer to 1) again as gleaned from the American Humanist Association’s perspective. It is actually a very common atheist tactic—replace cogent and reasoned discourse with arguments to ridicule (and arguments to embarrassment, arguments from outrage, arguments from personal preferences, etc.): “how do you know that I want to?” because if not you are a sociopath (“or had your natural sensibilities destroyed in childhood”). In other words, if you simply do not want to, then you were either born wrong or someone messed you up to the point that you are wrong (wrong according to the AHA).

Overall, I would not say that they make no sense but that there is at least one other way to understand their take of the issue.

Note that the reason that the American Humanist Association do not really answer the question, sans ridicule, is that the answer they offer after the word “childhood” deals with their interpretation of how the general sense got there and not why we should follow it; never why we should be good.
The AHA’s (non)answer is basically the same answer that atheist’s ultimately offer to any of life’s deepest questions: it just is. After all, they state that “you have the same general sense…all have the same sorts…have basic feelings…roots in human nature.”

Interestingly, at this point that atheists and theist could agree to a certain extent and only depart ways when it comes to how naturally occurring morality got there; got here, within us. According to Judeo-Christianity God has written His laws within us and they are mediated via our conscience. Sam Harris argues, actually asserts, that they are “hard-wired” into us which caused me to ask “What if I short circuit?” Likewise, while God’s law is in our hearts the Bible states that our consciences can become “seared.”

…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts… (Jeremiah 31:33). …the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness… (Romans 2:15).

…speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron… (1st Timothy 4:2).

Thus, “whether people are raised Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucianists, humanists, anything else, or nothing in particular” God has not left them unguided and has written His law in their hearts and minds.
Thus, the only reason as to why is “Because you know you want to, anyway,” but what if I do not want to? We will get to this in just a moment. Note that there may be a defeater to this claim in the form of references to us being social primates, conceptual thinkers and communicators.

2) It is presuppositional.
There are quite a few presupposed assertions that make up this fact.
“you have the same general sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust, kind and mean that people have all over the world.”
If so, why argue against theism? Perhaps because it is wrong, unfair, unjust and mean. I actually believe that there is much truth in this presupposition which I will discuss below.

“No specific belief is necessary for goodness.” This claim is interesting and faulty for the following reason: let us state that no specific belief is necessary for goodness. Thus, when you do good you do not need a specific belief for doing so. Fine. What if you do have a specific belief for doing good? Again, fine. Good is done by both specific and non-specific. Now, what happens when non-specific belief personage does not do good, or does the opposite of good? Well, they violate nothing at all. What happens when specific belief personage does not do good, or does the opposite of good? Then they are violating the very specific belief upon which their good was based in the first place. Non-specific belief personage is not accountable to anything, does good for no reason and violates nothing when they do not do good, or does the opposite of good. Specific belief personage is accountable, does good for good reason and violates the very tenets to which they are supposed to be adhering when they do not do good, or does the opposite of good. Moreover, when non-specific belief personage does not do good they have no good reason (pun intended), no good premise upon which to condemn their non-good.

When specific belief personage does not do good they have good reason, good premise upon which to condemn their non-good.

“Morality finds its roots in human nature…natural inclinations.”
Again, I actually find much truth here which I will discuss below. Yet, morality is taught. Children are born with a natural propensity towards selfishness that manifests itself in various forms. G.K. Chesterton wondered why the doctrine of original sin was so disputed consider that overabundance of evidence supporting it.

“evolving systems…”
In a manner of speaking, considering morality to be evolveing (present tense) is problematic for atheists in that it logically disallows them from condemning any past action: that was the morality back then. Of course they, particularly the aggressing sects of atheism, disregard this logical conclusion. It also makes it difficult to ascertain today’s morality: might I be condemning something as immoral that is, even as I speak, evolving towards being moral or did it already do so yesterday? To, again, reference Richard Dawkins; he considers that we may know the evolving moral zeitgeist because “It’s in the air.”2

I recently watched a pretty wild sci-fi/horror movie titled “Pandorum.”

The premise is basically that we have blown up the Earth and all that is left of humanity is aboard a space ship on a long journey to an Earth-like/habitable planet—the basic atheist vision of the future, I suppose (whether we blow up the Earth of the Sun explodes).

In any regard, Pandorum is, at least, psychologically interesting in that the various characters exhibit various characteristics from the altruistic to the utterly selfish.

I have not been able to find a transcript of too many quotes but one of the interesting dialogues comes about via Leland, who is trapped on the apparently doomed spaceship which has become inhabited by creepy-crawlers who basically want to devour everyone in sight.

Upon encountering other humans—as they were all in cryogenic sleep due to long distance space travel and were due to wake up in shifts—Leland first offers hospitality but then gasses them. When they wake up they are hanging upside down and Leland is preparing to cannibalize them:

Bower: What are you doing? Leland: Nothing personal, guys. It’s just “survival of the fittest”… Or maybe it’s the brightest [mumbles] if you know what I’m saying. Bower: You gassed us! Leland: Oh yes! And I’m sorry, but I’m a little too old and too tired for the honorable way of hunting game. Nadia: You better make sure I’m dead… [speaks in German] Leland: [stabs her] Manh: [yelling in Vietnamese] Bower: You don’t have to do this. We’re on our way to save the ship.

Leland: Don’t sweat it. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I had a heart.

Thus, the Darwinian survival of the fittest/brightest busts open Pandora’s Box out of which comes betrayal and self-survival at all costs.

In fact, one of the main characters, the villain really, states, “God? You think God survived? He’s dead just like the rest of humanity.” Yet, the context is clearly that since the Earth is gone, humanity is gone and so there is no one left to dictate morality, no society to conjure an arbitrary social contract. Thus, he is free to express his every desire.

Some atheist attempt to argue from the cosmic insignificance of humanity to moral behavior but this is a non sequitur as one could just as easily, if not even easier still, argue from the cosmic insignificance of humanity to immoral behavior—as some reason, “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1st Corinthians 15:32). Carpe despero.

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Of further, atheism at the movies, interest may be: The Collateral Worldview

We now conclude considering the legend of Bart the gnostic hero Ehrman as he attempts to discredit the Bible and Christianity.

Now, what about the academic/scholarly critiques of Bart Ehrman’s academic/scholarly books? Well, being a man of contradictions, one thing is for certain; he either ignored them or considered them:

There were actually three books written against Misquoting Jesus. That was one of them. And there are a lot of Web sites and blogs and things that attack me. The way I deal with that is by not reading them. [Laughs.]…

I don’t feel a need to respond to my critics or anything like that…

in Jesus, Interrupted, I do talk a little bit about the response to Misquoting Jesus…

I point out in this chapter [How We Got the Bible] is that nobody has disagreed with any of these eight or nine major theses, because they’re true. I think people have objected to the tone of the book maybe, or they don’t like the fact that I talk about how I changed my view of the Bible because of these differences in the manuscripts, but nobody disagrees with any of the scholarship in the book. I think that’s significant…

I answer just about every e-mail except for e-mails that are antagonistic…1

Thus; yes, no, maybe so. He does not bother reading criticisms and does not respond to them except when he reads them and responds to them—sort of, since he has not corrected his demonstrable errors.

It seems that overall no, he does not take criticism into consideration if he thinks that people are only expressing opinions about his tone and if he really thinks that “nobody disagrees with any of the scholarship in the book” against whom has he been debating? I would strain my cognitive functions and conclude that it is against people who disagree with his scholarship. I have yet to hear any of his debate opponents premise their case on his tone.

I wish to take an apologetics aside and focus momentarily upon this related statement:

I get a lot of e-mails from people who agree with me, with what I say about the New Testament, but if I would just join their religion I wouldn’t have these problems. Those people tend to be either Muslim or Mormon. [Laughs.] A couple days ago I got something from somebody who was Baha’i who thought I should join the Baha’i faith…I think it’s a free world. They’re welcome to convert me. I’m welcome to convert them.2

This is fascinating because:
1) It is reported that Muslim have done a good job of transmitting the contents of the Qur’an. Yet, the reason that there are no original manuscripts (autographa) of the Qur’an is not that they were lost to the ravages of time but that they were lost to the purposeful fires of Caliph ‘Uthman.
Variants became such as concern that ‘Uthman had all manuscripts collected, he concocted an authorized version and destroyed the various variant manuscripts (find information on the issue of how the Qur’an came to be in the first place and more at this link).

2) Mormonism’s eighth Article of Faith states, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” The question is: how do they know when it is translated correctly? It is not due to a consideration of the original languages, a comparison of the translations and a retranslation by Mormons to a correct version? The answer is all too simple: when they can use it to affirm Mormon doctrines, it is declared translated correctly but when they cannot, or when it contradicts them, it is not. This is not about translation but about utilitarianism.

Consider, for example, that the Bible and for that matter the Book of Mormon are monotheistic and let us ask: why are Mormons henotheistic? Because their “prophets” have told them that there are very many gods and so the Bible and Book of Mormon are discarded at this point (find information on Mormonism at this link).

3) In this regard, the Baha’i Faith is very much like Mormonism as, on the surface, they affirm that the Bible is divinely inspired but they discard it, via claiming symbolism, etc., whenever it conflicts with Baha’i doctrine. For example, they flatly reject the doctrine of physical resurrection; an absolutely essential Christian doctrine (find information on the Baha’i Faith at this link).

Thus, we continue to find that Bart Ehrman, the man, the myth, the legend, the emotive, makes impressive claims but with a little consideration they are exposed for what they are: excuses for rejecting God.

FYI: this was originally posted on March 15, 2010 AD on Atheism is Dead (one of True Freethinker’s predecessors) but did not get carried over when we did the original merge.

God forbid that a Christian or a “Christian” commits an immoral act; atheists are all over it and come down on them harder than an elephant in musth. Set aside for a moment how they define “immoral” or that this may be fair enough.

The immorality of a Christian or a “Christian” is made to speak volumes about the utter bankruptcy of Judeo-Christian morality in general.

Enter Tiger Woods, the guy who became a gazillionaire by hitting a ball with a stick (I do not care if he is the very best in the history of the world at hitting a ball with a stick; he hits a ball with a stick).

Tiger Woods is a Buddhist and has recently affirmed his Buddhism (see The Brit Hume, Tiger Woods Affair).

I am still waiting for atheists internet-wide, TV-wide, radio-wide, lectern-wide, book-wide, etc.-wide using Tiger Woods and his womanizing, adulterous ways to besmirch Buddhism.

Many atheists fancy themselves equal opportunity faith-bashers but the scales are quite obviously tipped to the point of being broken on the side of besmirchments of Christianity first, Judaism second and miscellaneous a very, very, very, very distant third.

So, will any atheist play fair and besmirch Buddhism due to the doings of Tiger Woods?
Will any atheist start forum discussions on the issue, or start a blog titled “Deconstructing Buddhism” or any such thing?

Anyone?

Anyone?

The Liverpool Daily Post reports “Atheist accused of leaving insulting religious images in Liverpool’s John Lennon airport prayer room” (March 3, 2010 AD)

A MILITANT atheist left allegedly insulting religious images in an airport prayer room in honour of his “hero”.
Harry Taylor is accused of placing a series of “grossly abusive and insulting” photographs and cartoons depicting Christian and Muslim figures in the multi-faith room at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport.

Well, what is the problem? It is a “multi-faith room” and the atheist is expressing his particular and malicious “faith.” It was, after all, at an airport named for the man who wrote the atheists anthem “Imagine” which calls for everyone to convert to atheism in order to “live as one.”
On the other hand, some atheists—some—need to set aside their all consuming anthropocentrism and realize that it is not all about them.

Am I way off in my “what is the problem?” statement and reference to John Lennon? This is what Harry Taylor stated,

…he told Liverpool crown court he was just practising his own religion of “reason and rationality” in the hope of converting people to atheism. Taylor added: “The airport is named after one of my heroes and his view on religion was pretty much the same as mine. “I thought it was an insult to his memory to have a prayer room in his airport.”

Taylor, who also claimed the controversial images were “satire” and would not offend anyone, even recited the lyrics from Lennon’s track Imagine.

His “satire” that “would not offend” and expressed his chosen “faith” and hero worship consisted of your typical adolescent references to sexuality, priest pedophilia, excrement this, Pope that, etc. This, by the way, coming from a 59 year old.

John Lennon, the hero of the story, stated (March 4, 1966 AD interview with Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard),

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.

He is only one of a long, long line of people from very powerful world rulers to mom’s basement bloggers who have expressed likewise sentiments.

As for Harry Taylor,

He admitted being strongly anti-religious, but said people’s faith would have to be “very weak” for them to be offended.

Great point! And he, for one, would be exhibiting “very weak” atheism as anti-religion where he to be offended at being called to task for his childish shenanigans.
The point is: he will be utterly abusive towards you and if you react to his abuse then he will put you down for being weak—this is psychologically fascinating as it is tantamount to the characteristics of someone engaging in domestic abuse.

This is yet another case of what the atheist, Allahpundit, referred to by stating:

…wherever there’s an opportunity to antagonize an innocent believer, we’ll be there…

In case you’ve ever wondered why, even in a post-9/11 world, atheists rank below Muslims in terms of traits the public dislikes in a politician, wonder no longer.

See the posts “Porn For Bibles” and How “Atheists Devise Creative New Way to Alienate People” and “Atheist Activist” – driving a wedge between decent people and road side memorials for more along this line.

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Edd Doerr, “former elected head of the American Humanist Association for 14 years” dissents from the current AHA campaigns.

This seemed like a good occasion to consider just how the AHA purposes that we be without God.

As for the AHA ads which read “No God?…No Problem! Be Good for goodness’ sake,” Edd Doerr wrote, “I am embarrassed by the A.H.A.’s “good without God” campaign.” 1

This is because, as he explains:

Humanists are philosophical naturalists…one item of the humanist worldview is emphasizing the many positive positions we hold in common with a wide range of religious believers.
I refer to such matters as peace, civil liberties, religious freedom, the environment, social justice, democracy, women’s rights and so on.

He feels that there are more pressing matters upon which to focus and thus, is embarrassed by “angry debates about philosophy.” He states that “Our planetary society does not have the luxury of engaging in” such things and states:

Progressive and mainstream humanists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others of good will need to concentrate on what unites us, not on what divides us. Divisive ad campaigns invite blowback and stimulate both ends of the religious spectrum to engage in fruitless bouts of name-calling and invective.

Indeed, atheist complain of being viewed with suspicion, at best, and yet as long as they insist on defining atheism as anti-theism, anti-religion, anti-religious people, anti-God, anti-anything/everything and pro-nothing but a negative position and belligerence they cannot expect much more.
The very reason for inventing terms such as Humanists, Brights, etc. was to attempt to get away from the negative connotations of the term “atheism.”

For example, “New Atheist” movement poster boy Sam Harris warned that:

…our use of this label is a mistake—and a mistake of some consequence. My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual and perhaps paradoxical position because, while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one…I think that “atheist” is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people “non-astrologers.” All we need are words like “reason” and “evidence” and “common sense.”

Moreover, while Sam Harris argues that there should be no such word as “atheism” American Atheists counter-argue that they have fought long and hard for the acceptance of atheism and thus, the term should not be gotten rid of. Keep in mind that Sam Harris is the atheist Buddhist mystic who does not like the labels “atheist,” “Buddhist” or “mystic.”

“Humanism” has always been premised upon the concept of atheism is disguise. Note the words of the late Corliss Lamont who taught a course in Humanism at Columbia University; from “The Independent Mind Essays Of A Humanist Philosopher,” pp. 63-64:

I suppose that the first and fairest question to ask our redefiners is, What is the purpose and value of this complex and bewildering game? I imagine that their chief answer is that they do not wish to cut themselves off…

They wish to work within the tradition or within the church and win people over gradually to a new and more acceptable idea of God; to evolve a religion relevant to modem conditions while retaining the hallowed and well-loved words of old. All this would become impossible if they acknowledged themselves as atheists…

There is the additional consideration that the term atheist has certain undesirable connotations apart from its primary meaning as simply a denial of theism, It has frequently been associated with enemies of society and narrow-minded dogmatists…

The attitude of the redefinitionists perhaps comes most appropriately under the heading of what is sometimes called “strategy.” Direct, frontal attacks on the old ideas do not, we are told, result in progress. They stiffen the defense mechanisms of the faithful and handicap the critic by making him appear a crank and a radical…

Some of them, akin to those who aim to reform the church from within, plan to win subtly…though always being careful to call it something else.

With this in mind we will consider the reasoning behind the ads as we progress.