PZ Myers continues to: 1) Positively affirm God’s non-existence without evidence. 2) Refuse to debate God’s existence.
3) Speak dogmatheistically for all atheists.
Just when an atheist has a conniption at the mere thought that you are generalizing about what atheists are, do, believe, etc. atheists such as PZ Myers come along and generalize about what atheists are, do, believe, etc.
As part of his defining atheism as anti-Christianity PZ Myers posed the following “Sunday Sacrilege” subtitled “That other thing we don’t believe in”—note the “we” as he presumes to speak for thee.
Atheists don’t believe in God. We deny the Holy Spirit.
Now, I love it when an atheist makes a very, very, very rare attempt at criticizing any religion besides Christianity and only succeeds in demonstrating a lack of knowledge of that which they speak.
Jesus was just a man, at best, as were Buddha, Mohammed, and every other prophet and religious figure in history.
The “at best” statement may mean that PZ Myers is an adherent of the radical and fringe school of thought that asserts that Jesus never existed—that He is not even an historical figure. Now, “Jesus was just a man” therefore not God or anything but human “as were Buddha, Mohammed.” But there is no claim within Buddhism or Islam that Buddha or Muhammad were anything but men. Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha when he reached enlightenment whilst meditating but Buddhism is atheistic (see Buddhist Missionaries Proselytize and Buddha and Jesus). By the way PZ; did Siddhartha Gautama/Buddha ever exist? Muhammad is certainly seen as no more than being Allah’s human prophet. He was not even born of a virgin nor did he perform miracles as the Qur′an affirm Jesus did (see Muhammad and Jesus and Misconceptions in Reason and History). By the way PZ; did Muhammad ever exist?
PZ Myers continues speaking for all atheists:
We don’t believe in souls…There is no immortal, constant part of any of us that will survive after death — our minds are the product of a material brain. We are literally soulless machines made of meat, honed by millions of years of ruthless, pitiless evolution…When we die, there is no paradise, no hell…Everyone who has ever lived has or will simply end, and become nonexistent. That should be the scariest, most depressing part about being an atheist. No future? How awful.
But it isn’t.
Just how does he know these things? One may wish to answer something to the likes of “Science” (that magical catch all term) but science only deals with the material and yet, it is being appealed to in order to disprove that which it cannot and does not consider—the supernatural.
But there is more,
I have several replies to believers who think we should be miserable because we don’t have an afterlife to look forward to; they usually can’t comprehend any one of them, which is far more depressing than mere death. One answer is that a lie is not reassuring at all — telling me that I’ll get to go to heaven when I die is about as believable as telling me that I’ll be rewarded with beer volcanoes and strippers for my irreverence. I’d rather be honest and aware then deluded and oblivious.
Another answer is that we are alive right now — I simply do not worry about what will happen after I’m dead. Life is for the living of it, it’s wasteful to spend it fretting over what you’ll do when it’s gone. One reasonable response to mortality is to enjoy life now.
Here PZ Myers falls into popular well-within-the-box-atheist-group-think-talking-points. Atheist tend to claim that they live life now whilst Christians await the life to come. Yet, atheist live life now—along with which can come the concept of getting what you want when you want it as soon it will all be over—whilst Christians live life now and also look forward to the next.
Note also that this is an argument from personal incredulity as that which is or is not believable to PZ Myers has nothing to do with what is and is not true.
But atheists have a future as well…or do they?
We do have hope for the future, too. Think for a moment about your community a century from now. Does it make you feel good to think that there will still be people living there then? That they will be talking about things that you find interesting, that they will be doing activities you also enjoy? Do you hope that life will be better for them? Even though we will be gone, we can still aspire to perpetuate our culture, and find satisfaction while we are alive in advancing that cause.
Do they? No, not even a grim gray afterlife.
…every work of art and technology produced by people whose names have been lost to us, every child, every dream, has been created by us, mere mortal flesh unled by a magic puppeteer in the sky, unaided by angels or spirits. I find that wonderful.
In the place of a “magic puppeteer” he places magic evolution.
…we can throw away the irrelevant crutches of god-belief. We’ve walked successfully without them — cast them away, stand as a proud human being and meet fate without the wishful delusions of faith. That’s why this thought is a sacrilege — it says that we have no need of priests or gods or persistent ghosthood, ideas that have only hobbled us.
With this, PZ Myers makes it clear that he is one of the self appointed Evolutionary Watchmen who determine for all of humanity where evolution is to lead via their unnatural selection. From way up high in his imitation ivory tower he has bequeathed that it is about time that we all evolved to his lofty state. Also, why would he bother writing a list of that which atheists believe and or do not believe? It is a catechism; come all yea and adhere to PZ’s dogmatheism lest yea be besmirched as less evolved than he.
What PZ Myers, as dogmatheist who here calls for converts, should throw away is the irrelevant crutches of atheism as atheism is the consoling delusion of absolute autonomy and lack of ultimate accountability. It is a facade of intellectual superiority that very thinly veneers an emotional rejection of God—this much is peppered throughout Myers’ article.
Thus, as for the crutch, he clearly has his and we all have our: see My Crutch.