Month: December 2016

“Porn For Bibles” and How “Atheists Devise Creative New Way to Alienate People”

A friend once stated/asked “Atheists just want to argue all the time don’t they?”

I responded to the likes of “How should I know?”

Well, I have been writing contra atheism since 2005 AD so I should know.
Thus, it may be so and it may not be; I recognize that I am dealing with a skewed sample. I post arguments and my atheist readers want to counter argue thus, I attract those who want to argue back to my argument.

Sadly, there are atheists out three giving the general populace the wrong message and just as sadly, these can often come across as the norm. This is not fair although the more that atheists define “atheism” in terms of “anti-theism” I do not see how they will escape this perception; when your movement is premised upon negativism there is not much hope for it but to encourage the naturally negative.

Just as Atheist Activist raised ire by encouraging the destruction of road side memorials (see here) Atheist Agenda are hard at work endearing prejudice by trading college students pornography for Bibles and other “holy books.”

It was Hot Air’s resident atheist Allahpundit who wrote that “Atheists devise creative new way to alienate people” (March 2, 2010) and noted:

…wherever there’s an opportunity to antagonize an innocent believer, we’ll be there. I’m giving you this for three reasons. One: 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. Two: As dumb and distasteful as I find this, I can’t resist the dilemma it presents between acting on principle and doing the politically wise thing…I usually opt for the “politically wise” route and am derided for it in the comments. These tools are acting on principle too. Should they bottle it up instead to avoid alienating people, or is principle always the way to go?

Three: Can it be that Hot Air hasn’t had an atheism post in more than a month? What’s happened to this site?

At least when it comes to the Bible, Atheist Agenda does not seem to understand basic context. They claim that the pornography they are offering is no worse than certain stories in the Bible. Well, a snuff film may be no worse than that which local newspapers report every single day but there is a context for both; one is gratuitous and one placed the immoral acts with context—description versus prescription and so on.
In this regard, I do not know whether to be pleased that Atheist Agenda members are in college or not. It would be nice to think that through the institutions of higher learning such obvious points would be elucidated to them. However, given the climate of colleges today they are likely to merely be encouraged.

So, mild mannered atheists everywhere—and we know you are there and you know who you are—I am very, very sorry for the atheist who give you a bad name.
An example from my side of the debate; the one and only thing I know about Pat Robertson is that once every couple of years he says something preposterous. He is on television five days per week, or more, he makes hundreds of thousands of statements every year but—he gets secular publicity only when his foot goes right down his throat and then his statements are shoved down mine.

Sadly, it is the same for atheists particularly as of recent years; the celebrity atheists are often viewed as such, as leaders of a movement because of their outrageous statements.

Neither side should have to personally pay the price for the excesses of the antagonists who share their label.

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Atheism

We Are All “Religious” & “Religion” is the Root of all Evil

We are Atheism – Dawkins YouTube project

What are some popular baby names? How about “Atheist Evolution”?!?!

What do satanism and atheism have in common?

What Happened to Reginald Finley’s Skepticism?

What if Adolf Hitler had repented?

What to do when Atheists demand scientific evidence of God

What Would Atheists Do If God Appeared To Them?

What, really, is materialist / atheist / naturalist morality?

When An Ethereal Hypothesis Beats Out Tangible Proof

When and why they became Atheists – Ex-Catholics

When and why they became Atheists – Ex-Hindus

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 1

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 10

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 11

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 12

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 13

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 14

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 15

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 16

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 17

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 18

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 19

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 2

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 20

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 21

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 22

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 23

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 3

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 4

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 5

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 6

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 7

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 8

When and why they became Atheists – Hoi Polloi Atheists, 9

When and why they became Atheists – Influential Atheists

When and why they became Atheists – Patterns & Statistics

When Atheists debated how pushy to be

Who created the creator? Who created God?, etc.

Who made God? Who created God? Who designed the designer?

Why Atheists hate the “Ark Encounter” museum

Why Atheists should convert or, evolutionary argument for Christianity

Why bother praying? Answering skeptics’ objections

Why do Americans still dislike atheists?

Why do Atheist countries lead the production of child pornography?

The Book of Eli – the Movie and the Bible

Earlier this year the movie “The Book of Eli” began being shot in New Mexico; is due to be released on January 15, 2010 AD. It is a little difficult to get much info on this movie and some descriptions seem to conflict but: the movie is set in the post-apocalyptic year 2043 AD. It appears to be set circa 30 years after a final war which caused a hole in the ozone layer and humanity is left in a bit of a mess. The movie stars Denzel Washington as “Eli,” Malcolm McDowell as “Lombardi,” Gary Oldman as “Carnegie,” Mila Kunis as “Solara,” et al.

The premise is that Eli guards The Book of Eli (do not if he wrote it or why his name is also that of the book) that is said to hold the knowledge which could redeem the world. Carnegie and his posse are out to get The Book of Eli and the shenanigans ensue. Carnegie’s adopted daughter, Solara, ends up becoming Eli’s guide. The official Warner Brothers film description states that Eli is “Driven by this commitment and guided by his belief in something greater than himself.”

Actually, judging by more recent commercials; it appears that “the book” is the Bible and The Book of Eli is his story. Although, knowing Hollywood if the book is, indeed, the Bible it will turn out to be hollowed out and contain Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth—think about it: a hole in the ozone layer and the Earth is in bad shape! Also, all that it takes to go from “Eli” to “Al” is a copyist error! Perhaps Bart Ehrman will write “Misquoting Eli.”

Denzel Washington stated:

there’s the classic battle of good and evil in this. God and the devil, if you will, and I found that interesting […] We all at some point are in search of something and higher power, whatever you want to call it, the meaning of life, you know? […] I know I was, especially at even my son’s age, in my 20s, and … dabbling in Eastern philosophies and yoga and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam. I kind of touched them all, you know, just trying to figure out the meaning of life or, if nothing else, figure myself out. So I think there’s that. There is a thirst for that. … As a classic battle between God and the devil, or even more specifically for the character of [Eli], I mean, he’s five days’ walk from the Promised Land, if you will, for taking this book where it belongs, and literally all hell breaks loose.1

An interesting thought experiment is to juxtapose the premise behind The Book of Eli and the Bible and consider them in more ways that just a redemptive message being guarded by some, though not kept secret, while others failingly attempt to discredit it.

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Let us imagine that in such a post-apocalyptic world the internet is dead and gone (NO!!!!!!!) as well as all other electronic devices thus; no electronic Bibles, no eBooks, no MP3 audio books, no hand/palm devices, etc. (my nephew predicts that someday YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge into one ginormous site called YouTwitFace).

So, we are left with printed texts alone. Still, there are millions upon millions of Bibles in print but let us imagine that somehow they have all (and in the original Greek “all” means “all”—that is a little apologetics humor) have been destroyed. What now?

Well, for the Old Testament we have some 10,000 manuscripts dated from 250 BC to 1100 AD.
What we learn about the Old Testament when we consider the manuscript evidence, roughly considering our modern version versus the oldest manuscripts is that with the passage of over 1,000 years we find only minor changes and no change to the message. The bottom line is that the Old Testament has more manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, better copied manuscripts, and more reliably recorded history than any other book of its time. If you cannot trust the Old Testament, then you would have to throw out all of ancient history.

As for the New Testament we have more manuscripts and earlier manuscripts which have been more accurately copied than any other book from antiquity. We have circa 5,700 Greek manuscripts with a total of circa 24,000 when we include other languages while most other books of that time have 10-20 manuscripts. The one that comes second to the New Testament is Homer’s Iliad for which we have 643 manuscripts. The New Testament is far and away even from the one that comes in second—it is not a close second as the difference is some 23,357 manuscripts.

Now, let us further consider that the over 34,000 manuscripts for the Bible have all been destroyed. What now?
We could take the writings of the Early Church Fathers—their books, commentaries, sermons and correspondence—in which they quote the New Testament and we could reconstruct the New Testament with the exception of 11 verses (verses that do not affect any doctrine). The writings of the early church fathers are from within 250-300 years of the original writings (which is one fifth less than almost all secular literature). We have 36,289 quotations of the New Testament from the early church fathers, some are 2 or 3 chapters long.

If Eli is protecting the Bible, those who are after it would cease chasing him and would be able to reconstruct it.

John Loftus on the Militant Christian, Militant Muslim and the Militant Atheist

It is interesting that at the same time that John Loftus is downplaying militant atheism, American Atheists’ Al Stefanelli is preaching brimstone and fire to his militant atheist choir, urging them to eradicate the doctrines of those who “want us to die.” He also states that “True Christians” commit murder, etc.

John Loftus posted the image which has been reposted at this link. The image depict the statements Militant Christian, Militant Muslim and Militant Atheist under which is, respectively (but not respectfully) photos which will be described below.

But what does this mean? Seems like the point is:

1. Militant Christians act and speak in direct violation of the Bible, in un-, non- and anti-Biblical manners. This would call into question whether they are even Christians as “you will know them by their fruit” and their fruit stinketh. Take the specific example of the group which is depicted in the photo who is a member of the Westboro “Baptist” “Church.”

The sign calls for prayer for more dead soldiers. Pray tell, how did John the Baptist and Jesus, for examples, deal with the oppressive, Pagan, Roman soldiers? They treated them like human beings. Jesus healed their family members and urged them toward moral behavior—see Luke 3:14, Matthew 8:5-13, et al.

As brother Marcus succinctly states it,

Anyone who would pray for or take joy in the death of anyone can’t be a consistent Christian. They ain’t following God!

2. Militant Muslims act and speak in direct agreement with the doctrine of abrogation which allows them to adhere to the Qur’an’s / Koran’s 109 war verses. They seek to murder men, women and children in masses whilst being cowardly enough to hide their faces (this one is holding both, a bazooka and a Qur’an / Koran).

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3. Militant Atheists, again judging from Loftus’ image choices, are pompous and arrogant, ignorant of theology, history and logic, tar their lungs and pickle their livers while making a living raging against a God in whom they do not believe. The photo is of Christopher Hitchens looking as cool as ever, smoking a cigarette and partaking in adult beverages.

Now, a key question is that as John Loftus appears to be condemning militancy in general and particularly paints Christian and Muslim militancy in a bad light up against the clever and harmless chap representing militant atheism: upon what basis does John Loftus condemn well, anything at all: meaning, upon what basis beyond his personal preferences which are themselves based on plagiarizing Judeo-Christian ethics?

The laws of physics? The laws of the majority de jour? Bio-chemical reactions in our haphazardly evolved gray matter? What?

Consider photo 1. again, this is a person who represent an astonishing minority, a “church” made up of a handful of family members. Such a photo only exists due to the media’s anti-Christian nature and due, indeed, to the church’s anti-Christian behavior. This is a perfect example of that which the prophet Samuel said to King David, “by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (2 Samuel 12:14).

Photo 2. represent a viable threat and it is a threat against which even the most self-professed brave New-celebrity-Atheists have done 100% of nothing. Which one of the celeb atheists has toured Muslim countries giving interviews, lectures, debating, writing books, etc. against Allah, Muhammad, the Qur’an / Koran, Islam and Muslims? Which one? None. They much prefer to sit within the safety, comfort and lucrativeness of the USA and the UK—countries premised upon Judeo-Christian values—and make their living by urging young rebellious children to confuse rightful rejection of “religion” with rejection of “God” via denying absolute ethics.

Photo 3. this is nothing but an embarrassment and John Loftus better hope that his readers are much younger and even more slothful about conducting research than he.

Let us grant him, at least for the sake of counter-argument, that Militant Christian and Militant Muslim are the real threat.

Here are some facts:

The Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars.

The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD.

From over 10,000 years of war 123 wars, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars. Moreover, half of those were involved Islam.

Now, why did he not, for photo 3., use images of, say, Bolesław Bierut, Fidel Castro, Nicolae Ceausescu, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, Enver Hoxha, Vladimir Lenin, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Karl Marx, Ho Chi Minh, Robert Mugabe, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot (aka Saloth Sar), Joseph Stalin, Nur Muhammad Taraki, Mao Zedong, the leaders of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebels, to name a few.

His hoped for much younger and ignorant audience may not know this but—and they are certainly dogmatheistically urged to deny the facts of the matter when they find out about it—the twentieth century, not very long ago, was both the most secular and the bloodiest century in human history. And it was the bloodiest in human history because it was the most secular.

These were the true Militant Atheists who mass murdered millions upon millions, upon tens of millions, upon hundreds of millions, and here is the key, not during war time but of their very own people who where, according to their secular worldviews, nothing but bio-organisms who were either useful or not—“useless eaters.”

Youth, sloth, naivety, ignorance and a high regard for denying inconvenient truths may shrug off these facts but they are, nevertheless, facts.

For more on these issues see:

Adolf Hitler / Nazism / Communism

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Proving God's Existence

Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.

It is interesting to note that when having a theological discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness it is advisable to learn the particularities, and peculiarities, of their own version of the Bible. In this way they accept the premise form which you are arguing, they accept the source of authority from which you are making your arguments.

When having a discussion with Roman Catholics it is important to discuss church history, the apocrypha, the Papacy and various other issues of contention.

It would be presuppositional to quote the Bible to people who do not believe it to be authoritative. Although, I will make a presupositional statement and say that it is still worthwhile since God’s word has power and will not return void-but that is another issue.

The point is that we ought to engage people with a premise that they will accept, discuss issues that they will accept, and utilize materials that they will accept.

If someone told me, “I’m an atheist,” I would ask them, “Which denomination?” This is an odd enough question that should insight interest, as well as confusion. The confusion ought to heighten the interest and the interest ought to cause the posing of the logical question, “What on Earth are you talking about?” We have dealt with this issue in Atheism’s Sects.

That is a good place to start and do keep in mind that you should be prepared to answer any question that you yourself ask-anything could be turned around on you. In fact, keep in mind to turn around anything that is asked of you. There is a saying about good lawyers “They don’t exist!” Just kidding, the saying is “A good lawyer never asks a question that they don’t already know the answer to.” Certainly, some questions are to be asked simply in order to acquire information. Yet, the reason for asking questions that you already know the answer to is so that, having an approximation of what the answer will be, you can lead the discussion and be prepared with your own comment to their response. Again, keep in mind that this will be done to you as well.

Now to my advice about offering proof for God’s existence-do not offer any.

You must first ascertain what the atheist considers “proof.” This is what you must ask, “What do you consider proof when it comes to an issue such as God’s existence?” Ask them what they would consider clear, irrefutable, absolute proof.

Clearly, historical proofs are not applicable, except in the case of a historical discussion of the bibliography of the Bible. As a side note, keep in mind that if an atheist is questioning the Bible’s reliability you can simply grant to them that it is utterly unreliable and not God’s word. Why would you grant this? Because even if the Bible was utterly unreliable and not God’s word this would not mean that God does not exist. It may mean that Judaism and Christianity are false and that their theology is false but it would not discredit God’s existence by the least bit.

Scientific proofs are not applicable, except in the case of testing certain biblical statements over against scientific claims-the beginning of the universe, its composition of time, space and matter, its expansion, the Earth’s spherical form, its hanging on nothing, etc. Although, it is important to keep in mind that one ought never base one’s beliefs upon science because science is constantly changing (perhaps draw a distinction between hard and soft science-engineering versus speculative cosmology for instance).

Oddly enough, it may very well be that what the atheist would consider the best proof of God’s existence is actually the worse. And that the proof that a theist considers the worse is actually the best (at least, those who are involved in the real or intellectual argumentation).I have heard may atheists offer the opinion that the best, absolute, clear, irrefutable proof of God’s existence would be if God would personally appear to them (individually or appear to the whole world). Theists consider the worse proof to be personal experience with God (although it often is considered a proof).

It would be interesting to point this out to an atheist, “You are saying that the most convincing proof for God’s existence is a subjective experience. Yet, this is the same kind of experience that you reject when it is claimed by theists.” We have discussed this topic in our essay What Would Atheists Do If God Appeared To Them?.

Now to the point of claiming that we know God exists because we have had a personal experience with God-a personal relationship. This is thought to be the worse claim of proof since it is highly subjective. It certainly is, but it is the best argument to make in order to demonstrate atheism’s circular logic. The atheist will counter argue that this is no proof at all.
But the point is that the atheist does not believe that people have experiences with God because God does not exist and one way to know that God does not exist is that people do not have experiences with God. Yet, the only way that the atheist could know for certain that no one has ever had an experience with God is if they had a prior commitment to the idea that God does not exist. Either that, an a priori commitment, or they could personally investigate every single instance, regardless of chronology, geography or theology, of claims to personal experiences with God.

Atheists believe that 100% of people who claim to have had experiences with God have been 100% wrong 100% of the time. As we have stated, this is based on their dogmatic belief in the non-existence of God. Theists, Christians for instance, take a more liberal view of the many claims to experiences with God-some of them did and some of them did not. If, and the atheist will consider it a big “if,” but if, for instance, we could demonstrate the Bible’s reliability we could furthermore claim that if anyone claiming to have an experience with God goes against the Bible did not really have an experience with God. For example, Christians can look back at very dark periods in the history of Christendom and can condemn those actions as evil, immoral, unchristian, and unbiblical, by utilizing the Bible’s very own moral standards. The atheist can look back at very dark times when people who were atheists took political power and did very evil things. While the individual atheist can say that they personally did not like what those people did, or that those things were immoral, the atheist will have to borrow morality from a theistic system in order to condemn those actions (or simply fall back on their explanation for everything-morality just is). That is to say that they could not make an absolute statement about the absolute evil of any behavior.

Therefore, before offering anything as proof, ask for parameters. Then build off of what is offered. You may just end up demonstrating how what they consider the best proof is, in part, what has been offered for millennia.

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.

Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.

The National Secular Society and Malicious Atheist Activism at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport

The latest follow up on the essay Freedom of Atheist Expression at “Liverpool’s John Lennon airport prayer room”??? is that the The National Secular Society is spinning like a top. They are attempting to paint the culprit as a martyr of persecution.

Fifty nine year old Harry Taylor found no other way in which to go about “simply challenging the views of others” than to leave “rude images in Liverpool Airport’s prayer room…images of important religious figures in sexual poses.”1

The National Secular Society decries the fact that he was released on bail and will be sentenced on 23 April as “draconian” because they claim that Taylor is being persecuted via a blasphemy law.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said the prosecution had brought blasphemy laws “in through the back door…This is a disgraceful verdict, but an inevitable one under this pernicious law. It seems incredible in the 21st Century that you might be sent to prison because someone is ‘offended’ by your views on their religion. The blasphemy law was abolished three years ago, but it lives on under the guise of religiously aggravated offences and is several times more dangerous. Mr Taylor struck me as slightly eccentric and he acted in a provocative way…In a multicultural society, none of us should have the legal right not to be offended. This law needs to be re-examined urgently.

The BBC did not actually specify under which law he is being charged. One may imagine that it had something to do with posting pornographic images in public. Note that Sanderson referenced his opinion—perhaps his desperate grasping at straws—that the blasphemy law was being brought in through the back door. It seems like a case of we have nothing to argue so we will imagine a problem so as to turn a childishly malicious atheist into a martyr.
“The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it treated each case on an individual basis. A spokeswoman said: “All we can do is to look at each on its merits.”