Month: December 2016

I have previously parsed the various claims being made about “Camp Quest”: on the one hand, their public relations statements which go unchallenged and uninvestigated by the media who gives them carte blanche and on the other hand, the actual facts of the matter: see here.Let us take a moment to consider that Camp Quest is a serious enterprise as it is all part of Dawkins’ tactic of having “society stepping in” to stop religious parents from doing so and his hopes that this “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”Samantha Stein, who promulgates Camp Quest UK, stated,

It is not about changing what they think, but the way that they think.

This is certainly accurate: they are changing “thinking” into imagining.This is the very definition of what Richard Dawkins meant, or so it seems to me, when he claimed that Charles Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist: as long as he can invent tall tales as to how things may happen, or could happen, or should happen, as long as he can imagine it-he is fulfilled.

For example, when he was asked to provide his “most persuasive” argument for Darwinian evolution he not only appealed to imagination but to faith:

_there’s got to be a series of advantages all the way in the feather.If you can’t think of one then that’s your problem, not natural selection’s problem.

Natural selection, um, well, I suppose that is a sort of matter of faith on my, on my part since the theory is so coherent and so powerful_

But is Camp Quest really changing “thinking” into imagining?

The UK’s Telegraph reports that one Camp Quest activity is that the little children will “sing John Lennon’s Imagine.”

Need we be reminded of this atheist anthem which calls for conversion?

Imagine there’s no HeavenIt’s easy if you try

No hell below usAbove us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for todayImagine there’s no countriesIt isn’t hard to doNothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the peopleLiving life in peaceYou may say that I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as oneImagine no possessions I wonder if you canNo need for greed or hungerA brotherhood of man

Imagine all the peopleSharing all the worldYou may say that I’m a dreamerBut I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

When there is no Heaven, no hell, no religion, etc. only then, only when those who believe such things join those who do not-only then will all the people live in peace and the world will be as one in sharing all the world.Got it kids?

Now, children remember; you are smarter than those people you think critically you are bright you are enlightened and those people are not.

I appreciate honesty and actually appreciate atheists who just come right out and admit that they indoctrinate their children from the cradle.

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On this issue George Pitcher’s Prof Dawkins Upstages Bruno In Hilarious Summer Of Satire is a good article for a chuckle.

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Indeed, a rigidly dogmatic theologian has demanded answers to the questions “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?” and “Why Does God Hate Amputees?”

The theologian has even advanced the issue by proposing an experiment that will, once and for all, ascertain the answer.

The theologian has authored a website titled, “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?” This person will remain nameless because they remain nameless on their website (they used to title the website “Why Does God Hate Amputees?”).

The dogmatist proposes that “Is God real, or is he imaginary?” “is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself.” He concludes that “If God is real and if God inspired the Bible, then we should worship God as the Bible demands.” But that “if God is imaginary, then religion is a complete illusion.”

Guess what? Religion is a complete illusion even though God exists. Unless we are employing the only definition of “religion” with which the New Testament agrees,

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).

Of course, the theologian reasons that “Belief in God is nothing but a silly superstition, and this superstition leads a significant portion of the population to be delusional.”

Now comes the invitation to conduct an experiment:

But how can we decide, conclusively, whether God is real or imaginary?

Since we are intelligent human beings living in the 21st century, we should take the time to look at some data. That is what we are doing when we ask, “Why won’t God heal amputees?”

If you are an intelligent human being, and if you want to understand the true nature of God, you owe it to yourself to ask, “Why won’t God heal amputees?”

Note the qualifiers: if you are intelligent, a human being, and if you want to understand the true nature of God. If these things apply then you will ask “Why won’t God heal amputees?” Fine, but is the question the point? Cannot many answers be proposed? It would seem that the answer is more important than the question. Yet, the question is the starting point.

This fundamentalist theologian has actually devised the experiment whereby to scientifically determine whether or not God exists.

The experiment is prescribed thusly:

For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated. For example, find a sincere, devout veteran of the Iraqi war, or a person who was involved in a tragic automobile accident. Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving person.

I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier’s legs overnight, in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey’s mother.

Let us take a moment to note that the references to Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey’s mother. Jeanna Giese is referenced due to the fact that it was reported that via a “prayer circle…Jeanna was the first human to survive rabies without the vaccine.”

Marilyn Hickey is known in Christian apologetics circles as a health and wealth teacher aka prosperity “gospel” preacher aka name it and claim it proponent or sarcastically stated: blab it and grab it.
Marilyn Hickey claimed that upon finding out that her mother was found to have a brain tumor she was out of town and so she “sent God’s Word long distance to my mother’s brain.” Shortly thereafter, “she was X-rayed again by her doctors, there was no evidence that any tumor had ever existed!”

It should be noted that if God healed these people then praise be He! If not then they may have been mistaken, seeking to defraud, etc. Yet, overall; God can heal people and can do so even if the evidence is not sufficient to convince an atheist.

Now, I have responded to this issue in the essay Evilbible – the Polemical Saga Continues, part 1 of 5. Thus, my concern in this essay is to focus on the details of the proposed experiment.

Why do I refer to an obvious atheist as a fundamentalist dogmatic rigid theologian? Because he is speaking as such. How so? Allow me to repeat the terms of the experiment adding emphasis and then parse them in order to elucidate:

For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated. For example, find a sincere, devout veteran of the Iraqi war, or a person who was involved in a tragic automobile accident.
Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving person.
I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier’s legs overnight, in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey’s mother.

Note that, in keeping with the spirit of experimentation, the proposal is extremely detailed. We will instantly begin to realize why this atheist is, in reality, a theologian:

1) The God whom the theologian has in mind is one who is subject to experimentation—this represents a theological position: God may be experimented upon or be otherwise subject to experimentation.

2) The amputee must be “deserving”—this represents a theological position: God considers some people “deserving” of healing (apparently if you are not healed then you are not deserving).
2.1) We must first ascertain this God’s standards or else we would not know who this God considers “deserving” (except, perhaps, base it on who is healed).

3) The “deserving” person must have had both of his legs amputated—not just one and it cannot be a female (alright, “his” may be taken generically).

4) The examples are even more rigid: one must be sincere, devout, a veteran and it must be the Iraqi war. Not, for example, a veteran who fought in Desert Storm only in order to have the US Government pay for his college (alright, being an example we may disregard this).

5) Examples two: must be a person and must have been involved in an automobile accident that may be described, perhaps by definition, as having been tragic. It could not be a horse, could not be a motorcycle accident, etc. (alright, being an example we may disregard this).

6) Next a “prayer circle” must be formed, not a square—ok, just kidding with this one :o) but…

7) The prayer circle must, you got it, “pray to God”—this represents a theological position: God may be prayed to, God hears prayer, God responds to prayer.

8) The prayer is prescribed as requesting (or demanding?) that God would (or should?) restore the amputated legs—this represents a theological position: God can do such a thing, God will do such a thing (technically the experiment is meant to prove this but let us state it this way since it is the presupposition of the hypothesis).

9) That God would do this for the “deserving person” was covered in 3).

10) The “healing” could not be done via a “team of renowned surgeons.” Could it me one renowned surgeon but not a team? Could it me a team of surgeons as long as they are not renowned?

11) The “healing” could not come about due to successful grafting of the legs of a cadaver. Could it be the grafting of the legs of a living donor or two?—this represents a theological position: God would not (or is not being allowed to?) work through “team of renowned surgeons” through grafting.

10) The “healing” could not be done via a “team of renowned scientists.” Could it me one renowned scientist but not a team? Could it me a team of scientists as long as they are not renowned?

11) The “healing” could not come about due to successful crafting of mechanical legs—this represents a theological position: God would not (or is not being allowed to?) work through “team of renowned scientists” through crafting.

12) God must perform the healing “spontaneously.” Oddly, spontaneous means occurring without apparent external cause but the experiment is proposing the action of an external cause. Yet, I would imagine that what was meant by spontaneous is instantly—this represents a theological position: God’s miracles are (or should be?) instant and cannot taken any longer than an undefined span of time.

13) It must be done “miraculously”—let us just say “Granted” and yet—this represents a theological position: God can perform miracles (miracles that are spontaneous).

14) It must be done “overnight” and apparently not during the day, or over two nights—this represents a theological position: same as above.

15) Lastly, the miracle must take place “in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey’s mother”—this represents a theological position: God may be experimented upon in that it is expected that concocting the same circumstances will produce the same results.

Number 15) may actually be the most important presupposition in that it also plays off of a misconception. The misconception is that there is a formula whereby we can get God to do as we please—yes, even things which we considered benevolent. The misconception is that we can pray anything, throw in a “In the name of Jesus” after it and it is a done deal (or is it, “In the name of Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus!”).

Succinctly, I will simply state that this misconception is premised upon a misunderstanding and misapplication of certain texts of scripture which, only upon their surface (the un-contextual surface), seem to imply as much. Yet, since I have already dealt with these with relation to evilbible.com’s contention that Jesus Lied I will leave the interested reader to consider that essay.

The concocter of the experiment, the one who asks “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?” and “Why Does God Hate Amputees?”, is a theologian because he presupposes what God is like before even determining whether God exists, and then concocts an argument whereby to seek to prove that his particular concept of God exists.

If the experiment were ever to be realized and failed it would only disprove this particular atheist theologian’s contempt of God.

Atheist must understand that the moment they state, “Why does God…” or “Why doesn’t God…” or “If God was then God would……” or “God wouldn’t……” or “God should…” or “God shouldn’t…” or “If God existed then God would want to…” or “God would surely…” or “If God was love then…” etc., etc., etc. they are expressing opinions about their own theology and there is no reason to call into question God’s existence due to the atheist theologian’s God being disproved by experiment or logic.

Nicholas Humphrey pokes fun in stating:

…let’s take pity on the Baptist teacher who has become wedded to creationism, and let’s give her a vacation. Let’s walk her round the Natural History museum in the company of Richard Dawkins or Dan Dennett-or, if they’re too scary, David Attenborough-and let’s have them explain the possibilities of evolution to her. Now, offer her the choice: the story of Genesis with all its paradoxes and special pleading, or the startlingly simple idea of natural selection. Which will she choose?

Do you see the point now? This alleged champion of science is presenting an atheist bias based false dichotomy peppered with inaccuracies.What does Daniel Dennett have to do with natural history?

He is a philosopher (or misosopher) and not a biologist, anthropologist, paleoanthropologist, etc.

Ah yes, but he is an activist atheist and so his opinion is supreme in all arenas.What does Richard Dawkins have to do with natural history?At least this time we are dealing with a biologist / zoologist. Yet, he is an atheist activist who, in part, accepted the Darwinian theory of evolution as implying atheism as a much appreciated byproduct (if not as a centerpiece). He accepted the theory as a child because it was taught to him and he realized that it was the one stone with which to kill two birds: 1) the question of how life came about (a topic about which Darwinism has nothing to say) and 2) getting rid of God. Even his allegedly scientific writings are clearly a mixture of actual observation and atheist propaganda.

Moreover, Natural History museums are not infallible and have, through the decades presented much evolutionary myth as fact. Yet, this brings us to an important point; virtually anything you see in a Natural History is subject to change since at any moment the removal of one shovel full of dirt may find something that completely overturns any given display. “Great!” saith the evolutionist of a certain sort “Indeed, we are perfectly willing to dump any theory which is overturned by new discoveries.” Indeed, that is the point; let us not pretend that particularly in such soft scientific areas as the interpretation of fossils we are dealing in fact but in the our best guess thus far.But now for the choice: the story of Genesis with all its paradoxes and special pleading, or the startlingly simple idea of natural selection.This is falsely dichotomous and a category mistake. The story of Genesis deals with origins: the origin of the universe, plant, animal and human lives while the idea of natural selection, which the Baptist teacher has no reason to doubt (at least when presented in an actual scientific manner) deals with subsequent changes. Natural selection has absolutely nothing to say about orignins.While certainly and purposefully playing off of religious terminology; Nicholas Humphrey provides another taste of what I referred to in part 3 as atheist neo-Paganism,

Those who have been walking in darkness have seen a great light. The aha! of scientific revelation.

He follows up with other sentiment that one would imagine have nothing to do with unbiased scientific methodology, “the power of Darwinian theory,” and what science provides is “economical, elegant, beautiful.” Indeed, considerations such as esthetics are considered under the umbrella of what is scientifically accurate and so now elegance and beauty are not in the eye of the beholder but are scientific determinations: Nicholas Humphrey finds cosmic accidents powerful, economical, elegant and beautiful and so they are-and so they are science.Nicholas Humphrey rightly notes,

Science doesn’t cajole, it doesn’t dictate, it lays out the factual and theoretical arguments as to why something is so-and invites us to assent to them, to see it for ourselves.

Indeed and how could it? Science is a method and has no volition. Yet, while science does not cajole or dictate scientists do and they cause others to lose their jobs and reputations for contradicting the orthodoxy de jour. This is because they are mere mortals and must be restrained by the very scientific methods upon which their conclusions are supposed to be based. Indeed, science lays out the factual and theoretical arguments as to why something is so-and invites us to assent to them, to see it for ourselves. And if you conclude that the factual and theoretical arguments do not equate to the atheist co-option of science then you are disqualified and/or excommunicated.Following, Nicholas Humphrey engages in further fallacious misrepresentations and self-serving allusions:

Religion makes no pretence of engaging its devotees in any process of rational discovery or choice. If we dare ask why we should believe something, the answer will be because it has been written in the Book.

As an example of this he references “the second century Roman theologian, Tertullian” who stated “For us curiosity is no longer necessary after Jesus Christ nor inquiry after the Gospel.” And “It is certain because it is impossible.”

Obviously, Tertullian was referencing the Gospel and not a scientific endeavor. Nonetheless as I looked up his statements in order to ascertain the context from which Nicholas Humphrey had ripped them I found that, of course, they came from Tertullian’s work De Praescriptione Haereticorum-On the Prescription of Heretics. Tertullian was juxtaposing the supposed philosophy of the various Gnostic groups and others; he mentions “those who talk of a ‘stoic’, ‘platonic’, or ‘dialectic’ Christianity. We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor for inquiry after the gospel,” with that which the Christian held to be true: or worldly wisdom vs. Godly wisdom.

I was going to argue, as I will now, that somehow Christians managed to overcome this supposed obstacle to science stated in two sentences by one man from the second century AD and actually went on to establish the very methods and fields of science upon which atheists such as Nicholas Humphrey claim to premise their atheism and besmirching of the supernatural (about which science has nothing to say). Interestingly, whilst searching for the Tertullian texts I ran across the article Science and Faith: An Anglican Perspective, which end by stating:

For the most part, the dominant tradition in the church did not follow Tertullian (“We have no need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor for inquiry after the gospel.”), but followed the path of Augustine and Anselm (“I believe in order to understand.”). Scientists follow the same path (faith seeking understanding), placing their faith and trust in the ultimate rationality and intelligibility of the universe in order to understand it.

Let us now backtrack and note that it is utter falsehood that “Religion makes no pretence of engaging its devotees in any process of rational discovery or choice.” Of course, if by religion he means some sort of oppressive self-appointed-infallible hierarchical he may be right but let us understand him as referencing theism or supernaturalism in general. From Buddhists inviting people to try meditation to the Baha’i Faith‘s invitation to conduct an independent investigation of their claims religion is saturated with such engagements.The Bible states, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18).The Bible praises the Bereans for being skeptical of Paul’s preaching and double checking what he claimed (Acts 17:11).

The Bible has the honestly skeptical Thomas asking for evidence when other had seen it and he had not (see the post here).

The Bible is saturated with dates, places and events which encourage exploration along with encouragement to seek wisdom, truth, loving the Lord with all of our minds, etc.To merely say that “If we dare ask why we should believe something, the answer will be because it has been written in the Book” is tantamount to stating that “If we dare ask why we should believe something about Darwinian evolution, the answer will be because it has been written in the textbook.” Oh no, it is not merely in a textbook! Indeed, and it is not merely in “a book” either. After all, why did it come to be written in the book/textbook? It was experienced, mused upon, sought out, witnessed, etc., finally written and subsequently further experienced.Moreover, millions upon millions of people have claimed to have personally experienced what a book states: let us say any book that, for example, describes experiences with God. Millions upon millions of people regardless of chronology, geography or theology have claimed to have experiences with God. The only way for the Nicholas Humphrey school of atheism to conclude that they were all wrong (for whatever reason: hallucination, lie, mistake, etc.) would be to presuppose that there is no God with whom to have an experience. But the only way to come to such a conclusion would be to presuppose that God does not exist. Thus, no one has experiences with God because there is no God and one way to know that there is no God is that no one has ever had an experience with God.Nicholas Humphrey continues by presenting us another fallacy in proposing a choice between,

two paths to enlightenment-between basing your beliefs on the ideas of others imported from another country and another time, and basing them on ideas that you have been able to see growing in your home soil.

This is merely confused. After all what does it matter whence and when comes the truth so long as it is true: this is an ad hominem or genetic fallacy.In juxtaposition to his various fallacious statements about books, religion and parochiality he states,

…teaching science isn’t like that, it’s not about teaching someone else’s beliefs, it’s about encouraging the child to exercise her powers of understanding to arrive at her own beliefs.

Again, this sounds very nice indeed and yet, the child could not engage upon the scientific endeavor without having the teacher teaching someone else’s beliefs such as you should not be religious but should study “science” and become an atheist. And again, if the child exercises her powers of understanding to arrive at her own beliefs in the form of theism what then? The Nicholas Humphrey school would be there to belittle, besmirch and attempt to destroy reputation and career.

Let us now jump ahead for just a moment before getting to the real motivator behind Nicholas Humphrey proposal. Note that after arguing that no adult can lay out the course of a child’s life, except Nicholas Humphrey and his elites, he expresses the very same typical, natural, normal, human wish of a parent for their child: what I want for them:

…what I would want for my daughter (now two years old) because I think it is what she, given the chance, would one day want for herself. But it is also what I would want for her because I am too well aware of what might otherwise befall her.

So, what about Nicholas Humphrey own child? She is except as she will follow the course laid out for her by her father since he claims that this is what I want because I think and I want because I know better than she because I am the parent, she is the child and I want her to choose what I want her to choose.Now to the very bottom line, the very premise, the ultimate bias, the purpose for the push for forcefully stopping parents from teaching their children as they please and turning them over to atheist schools of indoctrination.Nicholas Humphrey stated that part of his purpose is the “mollification of the Gods.”In referring to religious upbringing he had lamented that “the truth is that the effects of well-designed indoctrination may still prove irreversible” we will now see that when it comes to atheist upbringing in the guise of “science” education he actually hopes that “the truth is that the effects of well-designed indoctrination may still prove irreversible”:

_this means that by her own efforts at understanding she will have become a scientific conformist: one of those predictable people who believes that matter is made of atoms, that the universe arose with the Big Bang, that humans are descended from monkeys, that consciousness is a function of the brain, that there is no life after death, and so on. . . But-since you ask-I’ll say I’d be only too pleased if a big brother or sister or school-teacher or you yourself, sir, should help her get to that enlightened state. [ellipses in original]

This, by the way, was the reason for the Big Brother imagery throughout theses posts.

The mocking tone is meant to depict those who would mock him but the point is that he considers that an enlightened state amounts to accepting absolute materialism-Nicholas Humphrey’s worldview is the only viable one and the one that he seeks to shove down the throats of the world’s children while their parents are forcefully held at bay. This is not merely to do with the rise of atheism in American but an Alluminati campaign to elicit the rise of atheism all over the world via indoctrination.

Let us end with some actual hidden camera footage of Nicholas Humphrey’s school of atheist reeducation at work:

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“An objective ethic is a consequentialist ethic that has an ultimate goal that is objectively measurable. It then becomes an objective question whether a particular recommended means will in fact lead to that goal, whether another means might be more effective. The statement “If you want X then you ought to do Y” becomes a statement about cause-and-effect relationships that is objectively true or false, and can be investigated by scientific procedures.

What about the choice of your ultimate goal, your ultimate value that you are pursuing? Can we say that some goal is “better” than others, and deserves to be adopted by everyone? I think there is one that we can predict will be widely popular, because it is favored by natural selection. But there is no logical or cosmic necessity that it be adopted by everyone.

There is a built-in “default” goal of biological life, genetic reproductive success, also called “inclusive fitness” by biologists.”

http://www.rationalatheist.com/Articles/atheist_ethics.html

There is more in the article; by all means read the whole thing if you are inclined. But this snippet is representative and indicative. The relationship is this, that the end determines the means. The first consideration is the goal (a common procedure), followed by the tactics needed to achieve that goal (another common procedure). But the author calls this an ethic. Ordinarily one might consider this to be a project management technique, to define a goal, then to set up tactics to achieve it. But not an ethic. An ethic would be a defined basis for judging which goal is right and which goal is wrong. So the term “consequentialist” apparently means that the consequence outweighs the tactics, not that the consequence has any moral value. The ethic then is without moral value.

The Atheist assumption here is that (a) there is no absolute right or wrong; (b) the goal is neither right nor wrong; (c) any means that successfully progress efficiently toward the achievement of the goal are acceptable.

Aside from this ethic encompassing the fundamentals of totalitarianism, it serves to illuminate the entire thought process used by Atheists in general. We can see clearly that the proposed ethic states that the conclusion is the imperative, and that the supporting elements (premises) are secondary and are to be selected for their ability to support the conclusion. This is classical definition of rationalization(1), the opposition to rationality.

If one is habituated to the defect of rationalization, the inverted procedure becomes transparent to him. It seems natural to believe a conclusion and then seek out or even manufacture the arguments that support it (with total disregard to the logic of the arguments). And it seems natural to reject and deny any arguments that do not support the conclusion (again with total disregard to the logic of the arguments).

In fact denialism is pathological in the rationale of Atheism. It is really the only defense against first principles based, transcendent logic. Such absolutist logic can only be denied, not disproved, and this is just what Nietzsche did in his support of Atheism. But most Atheists don’t delve that deeply into the philosophy of their own beliefs, because there is no need to examine a personal truth construct for validity if one actually believes it.

The inversion in logic is transparent to the rationalization-afflicted, if they refuse to consider the use of first principle based, absolute, transcendent logic. In fact the inversion goes to the extent of inverting the meanings of the fallacies in order to support their conclusions.

This logical inversion is fatal to any conversation with an Atheist which tries to hinge on first principle based logic. Denial in the face of clear logic is the Atheist’s approach to argumentation. This is then turned into rebuttal in kind: tu Quoque or Red Herrings, and followed with another denial that it has been done. If the non-Atheist quits in the frustration of arguing in a nonrational, nonsensical environment, the Atheist declares victory.

But there is more to the story than how the logical inversion happens. There is the why. Why is there a necessity for rationalization and denial of fallacy in the worldview of Atheism? It is necessary because the conclusion is more important to the Atheist than the process that is used to derive it. In other words, the truth-finding process is not deemed necessary when the truth of the conclusion is pre-defined. Atheists have created their own truth. They must defend it at all cost. They cannot admit to fallacies because to do so would threaten the validity of their own personal truth construct.

Loss of the atheist’s truth construct can be a serious, even traumatic, event. It means that he must be exposed to external moral authority outside his own ethical story; it means that there becomes necessity for intellectual discipline, which is required when one seeks truth rather than inventing it; it means that it becomes necessary to value humility over elitism.

The loss of these aspects of the Atheist’s self-image is too devastating for many to consider. And so for some of them it becomes necessary to argue one’s viewpoint incessantly just to keep justifying it over and over. Why else would a person “without a belief” argue it so persistently and passionately? Only the need for self-justification could answer that drive. (The “passion of moral outrage” argument fails immediately in light of consequentialist ethics, which ignores morality altogether).

I have previously outlined the several causes that seem to lead to Atheism. The need to preserve the worldview-cocoon and safety from external moral authority is strong. But the corresponding loss of truth-finding ability when embracing Atheism is exacerbated by the artificial truth-manufacturing that is needed to support the cocoon.

And it is their truth manufacturing that makes the Atheists impossible to understand for those of us who seek the truth by rejecting conclusions that are not based on fallacy-free premises. The logic systems are too different to allow communication to flow between parties with the transfer of meaning unencumbered by inversion.

Even as an Atheist myself for 40 years, I found it difficult to see the logic behind much of what other Atheists held to be true. But I finally decided to actually seek truth, rather than pack delusions around a preconception, no matter how valued the preconception.

Sometimes I try to communicate with one. But it is always the same, faced by artificial constructs advertised as facts, rebuttal by denial of the obvious, complete inability to connect on a rational basis. Empirically speaking, it’s a proven waste of time.

Notes:

(1)Rationalization is used here in the sense as follows:

“to find reasons to justify or explain (one’s actions)”

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006
© HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

and

“To devise self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for one’s behavior.”

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Updated in 2003.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

True Freethinker continues to do the media’s job for them as we parse between various atheist sects free press via public image interviews on the one hand and what they have to say on their own websites on the other.

We again are fed the victimhood, martyr, woe is me line:

“We aren’t trying to force anyone to become atheist. We are just trying to break the stereotype that atheists are mean or cold. We are just average people, like your friends or neighbors,” said Caroline Klein, IU student and public relations officer for the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign.1

During a time of worldwide recession atheists are collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations not in order to actually help anyone in real need but in order to attempt to demonstrate just how clever they think themselves to be-need anymore be said?

The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign has wasted perfectly good money responding to an argument that no one has made as their bus ad reads,

You can be good without God.

Perhaps the slogan above could be worded in a manner more commensurate with atheism,

You can be good without God in that you can define ‘good’ according to your personal preference.

Considering that an expensive add responding to an argument that no one has made was their best group effort it does seem that they are victims after all; victims of well within the box group think.Other atheist bus ads and billboards related posts are:

Atheist Charities
Atheist Bus Ads and Billboards

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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. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.

Having considered some very basic cosmological natural theology in dealing with the The Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Invisible Pink Unicorns it seemed noteworthy that a new book has been published entitled “The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.”

The book is edited by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig (one of the many, many people that Richard Dawkins refuses to debate).

Interesting reviews are found here and here.

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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. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.

Christianity ————-

Atheism

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World Religions and Cults

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Science

(Science in general, Evolution, Cosmology, Creation Science, Intelligent Design) ————-

Movies & TV Shows

————-

Fringe-ology

(Transhumanism, Aliens/UFOs, Occult, Conspiracies) ————-

Misc. and Resources

(Nazis, Communism, Crusades, Morality / Ethics, Abortion, Rape, Homosexuality / Trans, Audio, Books, Debates, Videos, etc.)

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Activist atheists keep on lining up during a time of worldwide recession to gather donations and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars not in order to help anyone in need but in order to attempt to demonstrate just how clever they think themselves to be.

Yes, they are at it again.

This time an adherent of the positive affirmation of God’s non-existence sect of atheism, Charlie Sitzes spokesman for the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign, gives voice to the latest two faced public display of atheism-yet again: a public pretence of friendly atheist next door is clearly nothing but more atheism as anti-theism.

The latest bus ads are to read

In the beginning, man created God

In yet, another example of atheists having an unchallenged say in the media Charlie Sitzes states:

We’re not picking on any religious groups_

The intent of the campaign is to stimulate discussion of religion and its place in our society_ It would appear that where there is more opposition to the message that maybe that would be the place where we needed dialogue more_
Atheists, agnostics and secular humanists have a unique perspective on the topic that usually gets ignored in public discussion, and we’d like to make ourselves heard_

The ads aren’t an attack on religious people but an affirmation of a different point of view_

People are free to believe whatever they want to believe_

This represents the politically correct, public relations, pretence side of the coin.

But what else has Charlie Sitzes stated?

We do challenge the idea that God created man_

“All non-believers believe God is a creation of man,” he said. “We used to have thousands of gods. Now we’re down to one. We’re getting closer to the true number.”

Thus, they are “not picking on any religious groups” with the exception of those religious groups that believe in God!?!?

I was not aware that we were down to one God: please do not tell that to Hindus, for example.

And we are getting closer to the goal of Charlie Sitzes and the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign: the abolishment of theism, “We’re getting closer to the true number.”

Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of Center for Inquiry chimes in to demonstrate well-within-the-box-atheist-think:

In my opinion, this is a great message to put out there_Too many people think that you have to be religious to be a moral person.They don’t know they have a choice.They think that it is a given that there is a god, that everyone believes there is a god, and if you don’t believe in god you are a bad person.

We secular humanists know that is not true.

Thus, we went from a claim to merely seeking to encourage public discussion to establishing militant activist positive affirmation of God’s non-existence atheism.1

The apparently, quaint, ignorant and superstitious notion that God created humans from soil is replaced by atheism with the supposedly scientifically enlightened notion that human life can trace its lineage back to lightning striking a swamp, or the backs of crystals, or bubbling deep ocean vents, or aliens, or, or, or_see this link for a paroosal of such theories.
What is noteworthy is that the Bible provides a scientific prediction that human bodies are made of the stuff of the Earth.

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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. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.

The Hopeless Monsters

I know, I know: say what?! Now I will correlate Ida (the newly canonized fossil) and the Gospel of Judas?! Oi vey!!
Let us consider the reason for the correlation and then some issues involved with the new missing link fossil named, “Ida” including its history, celebrity and controversy.

The Correlation

The new missing link fossil Ida has been hailed as a “transitional fossil,” a “missing link” “a scientific discovery that will undoubtedly revolutionize how we understand our own evolution,” an “astonishing breakthrough,” “an extraordinary fossil,” and the “eighth wonder of the world.”

The new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas are represented by one piece of evidence:
The gospel of Judas is represented by one manuscript (vs. 24,000+ for the New Testament, representing a substandard double standard).The new missing link fossil is represented by one fossil: Ida.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas were fragmented: the new missing link fossil Ida as a purposeful hoax and the Gnostic gospel of Judas due to its age and poor storage.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas were discovered decades before the public outing: the new missing link fossil Ida circa 25 years prior and the Gnostic gospel of Judas circa 36 years prior.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas were originally possessed by dealers of antiquities and fossils.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas were presented to the public as the star of a media circus.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida and the Gnostic gospel of Judas were popularized along with books and documentaries ready to go.

Both the new missing link fossil Ida‘s and the Gnostic gospel of Judas’s popularization was motivated in part by considerations that went beyond unbiased science and scholarly research: Ida in “Honoring Charles Darwin on the occasion of his 200th birthday” and the timing of the release gospel of Judas was around Easter (when the media releases its latest anti-Christian myths) and was also “aimed at capitalizing on interest in the film version of The Da Vinci Code.”1

A Hoax?

No. Apparently, it is not a hoax (at least not anymore) but I did have my initial suspicions.

After all new missing link fossil Ida was:

Claimed to have been discovered 25 years ago.Identified 2 years ago.

Pieced together by removing purposefully faked reconstructions. I was having flashbacks to Archaeoraptor for a moment.

It was unveiled on the year of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.
In order to honor Charles Darwin its “Derivatio nominis” is Darwinius masillae.
Why it was not actually released on his birth date (when Kyle Butt and Dan Baker debated) has me flummoxed; perhaps the books and DVDs were not ready yet.

Background
The original research article on new missing link fossil Ida is provided by PLoS ONE (“An interactive open-access journal for the communication of all peer-reviewed scientific and medical research”) as Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology by Jens L. Franzen, Philip D. Gingerich, J&#b6;rg Habersetzer, J&#b8;rn H. Hurum, Wighart von Koenigswald and B. Holly Smith.The fossil is a truly fascinating specimen in that despite that “the skeleton is lightly crushed and bones cannot be handled individually”:

Darwinius masillae represents the most complete fossil primate ever found, including both skeleton, soft body outline and contents of the digestive tract.

It is thought to have been found in Grube Messel, near Darmstadt, Germany.

The PLoS ONE article describes the history of the find as follows:

The specimen has an unusual history: it was privately collected and sold in two parts, with only the lesser part previously known. The second part, which has just come to light, shows the skeleton to be the most complete primate known in the fossil record…

The fossil was apparently unearthed in 1983 by private collectors who split and eventually sold two parts of the skeleton on separate plates: the lesser part (herein plate B) was restored and in the process partly fabricated to make it look more complete. This was eventually purchased for a private museum in Wyoming, and then described by one of us who recognized the fabrication2. The more complete part (plate A; Figs. 1-2) has just come to light, and it now belongs to the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo (Norway). When made available for study, plate A was immediately recognizable as the complete complementary and unaltered counterpart of plate B…

part and counterpart of the same individual fossil can have such different histories…excavation for fossils [at Grube Messel occurred], between 1971 and 1985…Once mining was finished, plans arose to use the open pit as a garbage dump. With this in mind, early excavations for fossils were necessarily rushed, and less attention was paid to careful bed by bed collecting of fossils…From what we know of the present fossil, it was privately collected at Messel in 1983, at the foot of what is known as the Schildkr&#b6;tenh&#bc;gel (Turtle Hill) see Fig. S1, although the exact horizon is unknown (personal communication from previous owner of plate A, Thomas Perner, Bad Homburg).

Plate B (Figs. 1,2), originally described by Franzen3 as the sixth Messel primate (Table 1), had a curious history. It was purchased in 1991 by Dr. Burghard Pohl for the Wyoming Dinosaur Center at Thermopolis, Wyoming…Franzen4 showed that some of the specimen is real, while substantial parts were faked to give an illusion of greater completeness…

Plate A (Figs. 1,2) described here, became available for sale and was purchased in 2007 by the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo (Norway). This plate, showing a skeleton from the right side, proves to be the hitherto unknown and much more complete counterpart of the Wyoming Plate B…

The Oslo specimen, plate A, clarifies exactly which parts of plate B were faked…Traces on the surrounding polyester resin background suggest that a cast of the tail of another mammal was inserted into plate B. Additional parts such as the vertebrae between sections 1 and 2 as well the nasal part of the skull on plate B were simply fabricated.

Slow Your Roll Stunningly, not everyone is gaga over Ida; and I am not just talking about those wacky Bible-thump’n-born-againer-fundie-evang-YECers:John Fleagle, Stonybrook University paleoanthropologist, stated:

What does it tell us about human evolution that we didn’t know? Precious little.

Chris Gilbert, Yale University paleoanthropologist, stated:

On the whole I think the evidence is less than convincing…They make an intriguing argument but I would definitely say that the consensus is not in favor of the hypothesis they’re proposing.

Richard Kay, Duke University paleontologist, stated:

They claim in the paper that by examining the anatomy of adapids, these animals have something to do with the direct line of human ancestry and living monkeys and apes. This claim is buttressed with almost no evidence…And they failed to cite a body of literature that’s been going on since at least 1984 that presents evidence against their hypothesis.

Clara Moskowitz notes:

Kay said the researchers did not compare Ida to other important fossil primates from this time, especially those from a group called Eosimiads, that could contradict their claims.

Matt Cartmill, Duke University in North Carolina anthropologist, stated:

It’s a very beautiful fossil, but I didn’t see anything in this paper that told me anything decisive that was new.

Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, stated:

This fossil has been hailed as the eighth wonder of the world. Frankly I’ve got 10 more in my basement.

Clara Moskowitz notes:

Though the fossil is a beautiful specimen, it is not dissimilar to many slightly less well-preserved primate fossils from around the same period.

She also notes that Chris Beard:

disagreed with some of the outlandish claims researchers made during the press conference, such as the suggestion that Ida represents a ‘missing link’ between early primates and humans. “It’s not a missing link, it’s not even a terribly close relative to monkeys, apes and humans, which is the point they’re trying to make.” (all quotes endnoted here5)
Come to think about it, Ida reminds me of other celebrities:

Now, let us consider the manners in which she attempted to vilify Christians for not following laws that were not meant for them.

3) A third tenet prohibits men and women from wearing each other’s clothing (“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God” –Deuteronomy 22:5). Funny thing, two female Jehovah Witnesses came over this morning, they coffee clutched [sic] with my neighbor Jenny, a fellow Christian and ALL THREE of these women were wearing pant suits!

This is confused on various levels: primarily the aforementioned attempted application of the Old Testament to Christians. Although, the spirit of this law still stands in that males are to appear as males and females as females. She refers to her neighbor as a fellow Christian of Jehovah Witnesses yet, Jehovah Witnesses are “Jehovah Witnesses” and not biblical Christians due to their denial of Jesus’ divinity, the Trinity, that Jesus created “all things,” they are basically polytheistic, and deny virtually any and every biblically Christian doctrine as the Bible itself defines it.

12) Lastly, Jesus, who clearly is of greater importance than Paul, said the Old Law was to remain in force until heaven and earth passed away and all is accomplished (“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”-Matthew 5:18-19 RSV).

This leads Charlotte to comment thusly,

Heaven and earth still exist and many prophecies are not yet fulfilled. How many times have you heard some lame ass Christian say “the Old testament doesn’t matter, Jesus was the lamb and abolished it”? Don’t let them get away with this **** for even the bible says that they should still be following the Old Law.

It is from here that the rest of her “sermon” fallacy progresses (or regresses).Charlotte is a tricky one; not tricky enough to trick the discerning biblical skeptic (as per Acts 17:11) but just tricky enough to trick pseudo-skeptical atheists and even trick herself. Note how she argues that “New” testament/covenant Christians are supposed to follow “Old” testament/covenant laws. Yet, she argues that “many prophecies are not yet fulfilled.” What about prophecies, I thought that were discussing laws?Moreover, note that she is missing the point even while quoting it and commenting on it. Note her comment and quotation,

until heaven and earth passed away and all is accomplished (“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished_

Did you note both the manipulation and also the solution?
She wrote that it would be “until heaven and earth passed away and all is accomplished” but the text does not state that the law will be in place until both heaven and earth pass away AND all is fulfilled. Rather, the text states that it will be until “till heaven and earth pass away_until all is accomplished.” Is the difference clear? In Charlotte’s reinterpretation the law being fulfilled and heaven and earth passing away go together but in the biblical text it hinge is the law being accomplished. This is how the hyperbole works: for all of time “till heaven and earth pass away” the law will not pass away “until all is accomplished.” Thus, when all is accomplished the passing away of heaven and earth are not relevant as they were mentioned to denote until such a time-as the accomplishment occurs.
Lastly, note that Charlotte wrote that “Christian say ‘the Old testament doesn’t matter, Jesus was the lamb and abolished it’?” Well, I would love to have a word with such Christians since Jesus specifically stated, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” The word “destroy” is precisely indicative of “abolish” which He did not do.

After her above quoted misunderstanding, rewritings, and propaganda Charlotte wrote “Among the scores of verses they enjoy and employ are those which teach the following:” and so on we go:

13) Contact with mediums or wizards is forbidden (“Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God”— Leviticus 19:3 1 RSV, see also: Leviticus 20:6 & Deuteronomy 18: 10-12). Here’s an interesting little stat; Christians more then [sic] any other faith consult mystics and self-proclaimed oracles.

Again, she is equating the Old Testament with the New Testament (hereinafter OT=NT). Although, she is quite right that Christians ought not do such things. Note that she asserts that “Christians more then any other faith consult mystics_” while not providing any citations to the effect. Christians are less likely to do such things.
The Wall Street Journal provided the following report:

“From Hollywood to the academy, nonbelievers are convinced that a decline in traditional religious belief would lead to a smarter, more scientifically literate and even more civilized populace. The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that’s not a conclusion to take on faith – it’s what the empirical data tell us.’What Americans Really Believe,’ a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians_

While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things [dreams foretelling future, existence of Atlantis, haunting, necromancy, Bigfoot and Nessie], only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did_In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener,” skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.

Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.”1

Charlotte continues thusly:

14) People should give one-tenth of their income to the Lord, which Biblicists equate with church (“And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s…And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord”–Leviticus 27:30-32)

I was unaware that “Biblicists equate” “Lord” “with church.” She again discredits herself while leaving Christians unscathed. Had she knowledge of the subject she is writing about she would have noted that the one-tenth tithe was not only of income but all sorts of goods; grains, herbs, etc. This is OT=NT; even though some still, un-problematically, consider it a good guide while others, problematically, demand that it is the law for Christians.

The fact is that the New Testament presents a scenario according to which all you have is yours and you decide how much to give. With particular reference to the money gained from the sale of property which a couple sold and pretended to give all the money to the church, it is stated, “While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own authority?” (Act 5:4). The answer to the rhetorical questions is clearly, “Yes.”Then there is the story of the poor widow who conceptually gave more than others when she “threw in two mites, which is a farthing”-fractions of a penny. Jesus,

called His disciples and said to them, Truly I say to you that this poor widow has cast in more than all those who have cast into the treasury. For all cast in from their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has cast in all that she had, all her livelihood (Mark 12:42-44).

Her little bit was worth more than lots more from those who had lots more.

Next time we will bring our dissection of evilbible.com and Charlotte to a conclusion.