I conducted a research project titled When and why they became Atheists wherein I reviewed the reasons given by over a hundred Atheists as to just that: when and why they became Atheists. The project considered influential Atheists, ex-Catholics, ex-Hindus and hoi polloi.
In this case, I am reviewing the reasons given by an Atheist with whom I am acquainted having had quite a bit of interaction with him, see my section on him here.
Stick with Neo on this one as we will find out that at a certain point in his life he decided to make expressing hatred his goal. As far as I can tell that is the only arena in which he has been quite successful.
Neo notes, “Like the vast majority of atheists, I was raised Christian” which buttresses my variously stated point about Atheism primarily being an anti-Christian support group. Also, note that 1 John 2:19 notes, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
He claims, “I dutifully memorized my verses while attending Sunday School and church every Sunday through high school.” The term “memorized my verses” is of interest to me because I just finished writing to him about how he tends to deal in just that “verses” meaning thought fragments that have been removed from the rest of the thought. In other words, a partial statement that has been removed from the text which gives it its meaning: a text taken out of context makes a pretext for a proof-text.
He notes, “It is a source of embarrassment to me now, that I was able to read without questioning.” This seems like a personal problem. Why did he not question? Wait, let me guess: overbearing parents and/or Sunday School teachers who told him that questioning equals hell fire! Sadly, for many people this is actually the case. Yet, if, as one example, he would have read Acts 17—in context—he would have seen that the Bereans were considered more noble or fair minded that then Thessalonians because after Paul preached to the Bereans they double checked his claim to see if what he claimed was true.
Neo wrote, “What I did, was to blindly accept the parts that I could understand, and ignore the parts I couldn’t.” Again, “to blindly accept” is a choice and of course all of us accept parts we understand and ignore parts we do not or research the parts we do not. And, by the way, this goes for anything and everything: there are parts of the functioning of the rotation of the Earth, and my car, and my digestion that I understand and parts I do not and so I then decide those things I will research and which I will put on the backburner—some will remain lukewarm and some will be brought to a boil.
He now appreciates this state of affairs because “it gave me the ability to understand how so many other people could be as naive and unquestioning as I had been.” Of course, from repeated personal experience his idea of “the ability to understand” is to childishly taunt theists in the most illogical and emotive manners.
He tells us “I was in my early twenties when I finally realized that the God I had been taught to believe in, could not possibly exist…” Two points to note, “early twenties” is actually relatively late for Atheist who often become Atheists earlier in life when they are ignorant (literally and simply meaning lacking knowledge) and yet, still within the roughly teenage range when Atheists rebel against mommy and daddy and take it out on the ultimate parental figure: God.
Now, Neo’s claim is quite astonishing as he not only claims that God may possible not exist but that he knows that God “could not possibly exist.” This a positive affirmation, a claim to actually possessing that knowledge and so in order for it to be a legitimate claim Neo must prove it. And with that, Neo won his place in my list of Atheists who positively affirm God’s non-existence.
Neo actually offers a reason for why he makes this unproven assertion, “because that god was in direct contradiction to the evil monster who threatened to torture billions of innocent humans for the ‘crime’ of disbelief. With my religious blindfold finally removed, I saw that there was only one explanation: the whole story must be a lie.” Firstly, the Bible does not refer to “torture” of unforgiven after death but of “torment”—yet, such accuracy is irrelevant who discuss this emotive point. Secondly, his parents and/or teachers seem to have neglected to teach Neo systematic theology: and I do not mean the likes of getting a Masters but simply a well rounded view of God. Thirdly, hold up a minute: he dutifully memorized verses, was attending Sunday School and church every Sunday, plus read the Bible, etc. and never encountered such texts or even verses? Well, at some point he did which seems to be that which lead to assertion yet, he did claim that it was “the God I had been taught” who “could not possibly exist” since “that god was in direct contradiction…” which brings us to the next point. Fourthly, to appeal to a “direct contradiction” is to appeal to a law of logic and yet, logic is not a material entity, Neo cannot experience it through his senses and so whence comes logic—particularly as an imperative law—as the result of nothing causing nothing to explode for no reason and making everything without meaning? In other words, Atheists can beg, borrow and steal from logical but cannot account for absolute logic. Fifthly, the statement is focused on God being an “evil monster” who “torture billions of innocent humans for” a “crime” which is “disbelief.” So he is asserting that disbelief is not a true crime. Yet, the point is deeper and more important since Neo is merely asserting, merely presupposing that on his view of God not even possibly existing there is such a thing as objective, extrinsic, absolute, from without “evil” and that it is monstrous—as in condemnatory, bad, wrong, etc.—to be whatever “evil” is.
In other words, he is condemning God without a premise, without a foundation, without an argument: his only reason is his feelings (actually, his God given ethical conscience). And Neo has repeated this patter time and time and time again and again and again: he makes it a habit of referring to God as an “evil monster” and does so for emotive reasons expressed in childishly taunting terms and when I ask him to justify his assertions he refers to God as an “evil monster” and does so for emotive reasons expressed in childishly taunting terms and when I ask him to justify his assertions he well, you get the idea.
This means that just like any and every other Atheist, Neo has disqualified himself from condemning well, anything at all—even though he and they all continue doing so as if reality, facts, philosophy, logic, etc. never got in their way.
Neo then stumbles into another logical fallacy “With my religious blindfold finally removed, I saw that there was only one explanation: the whole story must be a lie.” Firstly, he asserts that “there was only one explanation” which merely means that he has failed to think of others such as that which I explained above: that his jump to conclusions is at fault or that God has ethically justified reasons.
Secondly, his unreasonable reasoning is that since he discerned one (unjustified) contradiction then “the whole story must be a lie.” Consider, for example, that one of Bart Ehrman’s books contains various errors even simple things such as upside down Hebrew on the cover, etc. Now, does this mean that the whole book is a lie? Of course, not—for details see, Bart Ehrman’s Millions and Millions of Variants part 1 and part 2.
Thirdly, he is not merely claiming that Christian theology and/or the Bible contains mistakes but that it is a “lie.” Well, to lie means to pass something off as true when you know it is not true. But when you state something that is not true but you believe that it is then you are not lying but are simply mistaken. Thus, Neo would have to actually know, as in prove, that it is a lie or else back it down a notch and assert that it is mistaken.
Fourthly, he is falling into the same issue I noted above, he is condemning lying without a premise.
Well, Neo next tells us that determining that God “could not possibly exist” he “considered myself an ‘Agnostic’ for many years thinking that I was ‘playing it safe’ (I thought agnostic simply meant ‘not knowing’ and that if there were a God, He wouldn’t punish me for not being sure).” Well, God does not punish for not being sure but for sinning. Yet, note that he knew that God “could not possibly exist” and also believed that “if there were a God” which is a styled contradiction of his own. Thus, I see that there was only one explanation: Neo’s whole story must be a lie—but I jest.
Yet, eventually he “re-examine my beliefs” and went from God “could not possibly exist” to “if there were a God” to “It became clear to me that I no longer had any doubt … or fear; I did not believe in God – I was an atheist” (ellipses in original).
Neo then makes some cryptic remarks: cryptic because they are generalized and generic, “My life was devoted to attaining personal goals and achieving self-satisfaction.” Well, within the context of rejecting God in his early twenties I can only imagine what self-satisfaction may mean—but I do not want to imagine it.
He further states that “I felt I had no power to affect others; certainly not to change the world. I was just going to live out my life, and then die – and thanks for the ride.” We get a hint that he is interested in affecting others but for now, note his picture perfect definition of his Atheist worldview philosophy: live and then die and he actually has no one to thank for the ride. He is basically paraphrasing the Bible, “in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die” (Isaiah 22:12-13) also “ “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32)
He then notes that “After 9/11, atheists began emerging from hiding and pouring into the arena for battle…I became obsessed with learning everything I could about science and religion” and I will here state that everything he could seems to not be very much—based on my personal experience with him. He wrote that “One book that especially ignited my passion was Atheist Manifesto because it went into detail about the witch-burnings that plagued America and Europe only a few hundred years ago. I realized that, had I been a little boy in 18th century America, there would have been nothing I could have done to stop those devout Christians from murdering my mother; a horror many little children must have experienced.”
A few things to note firstly, he is again condemning without a premise: so what if some temporarily and accidentally existing bio-organisms burned other temporarily and accidentally existing bio-organisms? They merely caused bits of energy to change form—for actual facts on the witch burnings see Bill Honsberger’s lecture “Why Not Burn Witches?”
Apparently, the very same parents who sent him to Sunday School and church consisted of a mother who is a witch or else he is merely playing off of what might have been if. In any case, the fact is that had he been a little boy in 20th century around the world, there would have been nothing he could have done to stop Atheists from mass murdering millions upon millions and millions of people. Thus, this is not about religion or theism but about fallen human nature. Moreover, someone did stop the supposed witch burnings and those someones were devout Christians.
Next Neo finally reveals his motivation and it is that which I noted at the outset: Atheism is an anti-Christian support group. He writes, “…something within me was growing. It was intense hate. Yes, I understand that hate can be self-destructive, but if controlled and focused, it makes one hell of a fuel.” Thus, as is utterly obvious his motivation is emotions and this is why he is incapable of actually laying down arguments in any way that a philosopher or logician or a good ol’ every day commonsense person would recognize: he merely vents hatred—period.
Recognizing hatred as his motivator he then realized, “For the first time in my life, I have purpose: when I leave this cesspool, it will be a better place than when I got dropped into it.” Sadly, he is meeting his goal in a manner of speaking: no, this cesspool is not better off because of him but he has dropped a lot of hatred into it. Fighting hatred with hatred is somewhat like well, fighting hatred with hatred.
Thus, his goal is to “fulfill my responsibility to future generations” which is a great goal and yet, indicative of his messianic self-aggrandizement. He states, “I have become a warrior who prowls the internet in search of prey” but he is a very sloppy prowler and his cacophonous approach leads to his intended prey running away. In fact, he tends to troll for e-addresses of various churches, ministries, Christian organizations and includes them in his mass emails wherein he treats people like trash even whilst failing to argue cogently, refusing to engage rationally and when people get tired of his abuse and ask to be removed from his mass-troll email list he declares victory as if they want to be left alone only because his arguments are so devastating that they cannot possibly respond—even cyber-celebrity Matt Dillahunty begged leave from Neo’s e-list.
Neo closes with “I have a message for my enemies: ‘Don’t waste your time trying to find me … I will find you’” (ellipses in original).
Well, I have a message for my enemies: While I do not appreciate my time being wasted you are not the human waste that Atheism tells you you are and I have become a warrior who prowls the internet in search of people who need prayer. Neo, I love you, have shown you respect and will continued to do so.
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