Get a Chance to Celebrate Nothing!!!!
People will go to the first US Army Atheist Concert for the sense of novelty and finger-in-the-eye defiance of theists. If you aren’t into the whole religion thing, it can feel nice to let off steam if you have a Christian co-worker or relative who gets on your nerves and you want to feel a sense of payback. But atheism is intrinsically boring as a social movement. You can only say, “There’s no God” so many times before the thrill of scandalizing the hicks is gone and the hicks themselves are looking at their watches and wondering if you are done with your rant yet. The only people who linger around such social scenes for the express purpose of evangelizing for atheism and not to meet girls tend to be Napoleon-Dynamite-with-a-Mean-Streak types: people lacking social skills and normal human affective abilities or dim bulbs like Richard Dawkins whose atheistic obsessions have compelled them to become bag ladies screaming at the traffic. (And sure enough, Dawkins will be a headliner at the event linked above.) Normal, ordinary, godless folk don’t make a thing of atheism and tend to feel as uncomfortable around aggressive Evangelical Atheists as ordinary Christians feel around the sort of Christian who is uber ultra pious and talks as though Jesus personally advises him on whether to buy whole kernel or creamed corn. Gung ho evangelical atheists behave, by and large, like angry social misfits with a personality disorder. Proof: the lionization of Richard Dawkins, a man too socially unskilled to figure out that this
was intended to mock him. Please, atheists who keep your eyes peeled for posts such as these, don’t now descend on the comboxes to debate the merits of Intelligent Design. My point is not, “This is sure a persuasive argument for Intelligent Design!” (Indeed, I’m quite prepared to argue, as a theist who believes in God the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, that there are very serious problems with Intelligent Design arguments and I see no particular theological problem that makes evolution and creation irreconcilable.) Rather, the question is, “Did the makers of the video mean to make fun of Richard Dawkins?”
Because that’s the thing: All normal people with the normal complement of normal social and affective skills instantly can see that it is. But socially clueless folk like Dawkins and his New Atheist fans, who constantly pat themselves on the back for possessing an intellect superior to the herd of ordinary religious folk, spent quite a long time trying to analyze this video. Why? Because the Genius Dawkins (he likes to call himself a “Bright”) could not tell if it was “on his side” or not.
Moral: When you anoint as one of the guiding lights of your philosophical movement an emotionally and socially clueless man and, with supreme fatuity, anoint yourself a “Bright”, you’d better actually be bright. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if normal people cannot take seriously your claim to be the Vanguard of History and the Future of Mankind. if you want to know about the life cycle of a wasp, Dawkins is your man. But if you want to discuss what it means to be human, you need to look a bit deeper.
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Normally there is one thing you write that I can say, “Well, I’m not a Shea robot because I don’t agree with all of this.” Today I got nothin’. Militant atheists are both the most clueless and boring people I ever come across. and that post is hilarious!
Like Peter Kreeft (a Catholic philosopher) said:
“I often agree with atheists: I do not believe in the gods they deny as well”
I think Christians should just forget Paley and ‘Intelligent Design’ (St. Thomas Aquinas would reject ID and would be far more favourable to evolution, since evolution does not conflict at all with his teleological argument, which is quite different from Paley’s and does not rest on ‘complexity’).
ID, even if it was true (which I doubt), could at best point a ‘deist’s God’ and not the Christian God of classical theology, unlike other, much better, teleological arguments.
The video is quite funny. I think it describes New Atheists perfectly:
- superiority complex
- if you disagree with them you are labelled and perhaps expelled from places of learning (if they get their way)
- no intelligent and rational arguments, but only ‘dissing’ their opponents
Then atheists complain about the ‘Inquisition’? I think people like Dawkins and Myers are true oppressors of freedom of thought and truth.
Wow. You are JUST getting this stuff? That video is ancient. Dawkins knew it was to make fun of him, but embraced it anyway. It is well-made, amusing and creative.
Also, I don’t think Dawkins uses the term “Bright” anymore.
Since you have such pretty names for us, may we call you rabid Catholics?
Exactly. Militant, close-minded, exclusive, bigoted atheists in a nutshell. And I don’t think what they are into is limited to garden variety proseltysing but may include various other things. No one is required to believe but for grown people to come together over hating others’ religious beliefs is pretty sick indeed.
Believe it or not, one of Richard Dawkins’ fundamentalist atheist psychophants posted my parody reworking of G&S ‘The Major General’s Song’ into ‘The Atheist Supremacist’s Song’ to the forum section of Richard Dawkins’ web site. It was posted there for weeks, if not a few months, before *somebody* decided to “memory hole” it. . .
The lyrics of the ‘The Atheist Supremacist’s Song’ may be found here -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2008/07/is-richard-dawkins-very-model-of.html
@Joy:
“...may we call you rabid Catholics?”
Go ahead. You already were. Don’t need our permission. Are you JUST getting this stuff?
“When you anoint as one of the guiding lights of your philosophical movement an emotionally and socially clueless man and, with supreme fatuity, anoint yourself a “Bright”, you’d better actually be bright.”
Ha ha, I love that line! It kills me that people think he is smart. He’s just one of those “bad boys” who likes to go to cocktail parties and insult people. He LOVES being considered a genius. Of course, they have always been popular with a certain sort of person who gets a thrill for hearing others insulted.
But! But!.... He’s smarter than you, he’s got a “SCIENCE!” degree!
Hm, since they’re in the army, does that make them automatically “militant” atheists? Or just “military” atheists?
Rabid Catholics… hmmm… not bad. That would make some cool t-shirts for the next WYD. On the front Rabid Catholic and proud. Then on the back Fellow Rabid Catholics, with a list of Saints and Blesseds that considered themselves hounds of heaven or dogs for Christ etc. I would rather be a rabid Catholic than a clueless, lost atheist with an empty hole that I keep trying to fill with things of this earth that can never satisfy.
I recognized Darwin on the Beagle, and Bryan and Darrow in the ring. Does anyone want to help me out with the other references and/or identifications? Hey, I’ve never claimed to be bright.
People will go to the Christian Concert for the sense of novelty and finger-in-the-eye defiance of atheists. If you into the whole religion thing, it can feel nice to let off steam if you have an atheist co-worker or relative who gets on your nerves and you want to feel a sense of payback. But theism is intrinsically boring as a social movement.
You can only say, “There is a God” so many times before the thrill of scandalizing intellectuals is gone and the intellectuals themselves are looking at their watches and wondering if you are done with your rant yet.
Yeah, Right:
Nice Pee Wee Herman impression. Tu quoque rhetoric only works when it, you know, makes sense. Nobody has a Christian concert to spite atheists. Christians get together, not to focus on atheists, but to focus on God. Atheism, in contrast, is an entirely negative phenomenon. It exists simply and solely to say, “There is no God” and to rail against those who believe in Him. It is, by definition, about attacking theists (since there is no God to attack, according to you).
Oh, and great bit where you pat yourself on the back as a innerleckshul. Cause Aquinas, Lemaitre, Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were such stoopidheads. You demonstrate beautifully that the tendency of those who worship the intellect is to fail to use it.
“People will go to the Christian Concert for the sense of novelty and finger-in-the-eye defiance of atheists. If you into the whole religion thing, it can feel nice to let off steam if you have an atheist co-worker or relative who gets on your nerves and you want to feel a sense of payback. But theism is intrinsically boring as a social movement.
You can only say, “There is a God” so many times before the thrill of scandalizing intellectuals is gone and the intellectuals themselves are looking at their watches and wondering if you are done with your rant yet. “
This doesn’t work in reverse, though, because Christians DON’T go to Christian concerts to poke fingers at atheists, nor do they limit themselves to saying only “There is a God.” That’s because there are places to go with a positive statement that aren’t available to a negative statement - so at Christian concerts (or services, or meetings, or whatever) there’s a very large chance that atheists won’t get mentioned at all because the Christians will be praising God or any of the other activities that make up religion. It’s also why in the entire Bible very little space is given over to talking about atheism, and why in atheist tomes like Dawkins’ or Hitchens’ all they can do is talk about Christianity and other religions. Atheism, if raised to the level of a complete ideology, can only be one of criticism because it has no positive statement from which to build anything else.
(Note that this is not an argument for the truth of either position, only why one actually works as a social movement, meaning Mark’s statement is valid and yours isn’t.)
P.S. There are plenty of intellectuals who aren’t scandalized by Christianity. Perhaps you meant “Brights”?
Hey Mark, I guess great minds think alike…
(Oh wait, we’re not intellectuals.)
Michael O:
I don’t get it. Are you on my side? What’s going on? Can you guys analyse Michael’s remarks and figure out if he is for us or against us? ;)
@Maggie. I’ve heard this odd claim about atheists before. How do KNOW they have this empty hole that needs filling? And Dawkins appears to have at least one sterling quality most of you don’t seem to possess: a sense of humor.
How do KNOW they have this empty hole that needs filling?
Because they belong to the species Homo sapiens sapiens and have, unlike so many atheists, the normal complement of social and affective skills which enables them to recognize universal human experience.
And Dawkins appears to have at least one sterling quality most of you don’t seem to possess: a sense of humor.
Yes. That is clearly the lesson to be learned from Dawkins’ utter bafflement about the meaning of the video.
Do we have any other volunteers from the audience who would like to inadvertently prove my point?
Slightly off topic here, but speaking of intelligent design, I’d love to hear you discuss the issue as it pertains to Catholicism (in a future column perhaps?). I know many homeschoolers in my area who use Protestant textbooks for their science classes, and I’ve always had a problem with that. The Catholic perspective on Evolution and such is after all so different from people who interpret the Bible more literally. I’ve detected quite a bit of confusion with these people on the topic. Which then of course provides great ammunition for non-believers… Great column, as usual, btw.
“Christians get together, not to focus on atheists, but to focus on God. Atheism, in contrast, is an entirely negative phenomenon.”
As are all of your tiresome rants on atheism.
@Mark. That hardly constitutes evidence. I could equally say that all priests have a hole in their heart that can only be filled through pederasty. It’s just as silly.
@Mark. You might consider retracing Dawkins comments. I’m not saying you’re not bright, but as I pointed out, having no sense of humor, you miss humor in others.
Do you often support your claims through declarative fiat? That’s disappointing. I thought Catholics were fond if reason.
RG:
Actually, the phenomenon of priestly pederasty *is* evidence of the fact that all human beings have a hole in their hearts. We are born looking for something to fill that hole and we try all sorts of things, including extreme sexual deviancy (among thousands of other variations on the idols of money, sex, and power which tend to constitute the Big Three alternatives to God). Surely, you did not take me to be saying that Christians are immune from the longing for happiness that characterizes the human condition, nor that they are immune from sinfully worshipping the creature instead of the Creator?
You don’t have a choice about whether you will worship. You only have a choice about what you will worship.
Dawkins actually is quite bright. And he’s an excellent writer.
He’s a much better writer and a much smarter person than I am.
Both you and he are proof that it’s possible to be brilliant, a good writer, and still regularly produce nonsensical drivel.
Good job.
Re: Brian Westley:
“As are all of your tiresome rants on atheism.”
I disagree entirely. Atheists have virtually the entire media complex to use as a sounding board (LA/New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, etc…), not to mention using the ACLU as a bludgeon for the faux “separation of church and state” argument. (Which, mind you, was designed to keep the government from establishing a religion such as the Church of England).
Those of us who do believe don’t have such luxuries. Of course, to ask an atheist, you’d think we were all living in some sort of theocracy.
“You don’t have a choice about whether you will worship. You only have a choice about what you will worship.”
Mark, these words are so true and this is so evident in our very materialistic culture. Keep up the good work.
“This doesn’t work in reverse, though, because Christians DON’T go to Christian concerts to poke fingers at atheists, nor do they limit themselves to saying only “There is a God.” “
Perhaps it’s starting to sink in why I reversed it? To Demonstrate that it’s a straw man argument from the get go.
From the rock beyond belief page: “We are also not interested in putting on an anti-christian, anti-religious, or anti-anything event. Rock Beyond Belief is A Day of Fun and Entertainment for the Rest of Us.
In the spirit of Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign, we are embracing the fact that just by coming out and saying “we are non-theists, and also we are your firefighters, your military members, and your neighbors and friends” that we help to shed the negative connotations and debunk the myths associated with being a non-believer.”
Dawkins actually is quite bright. And he’s an excellent writer.
And Rain Man has impressive gifts too. And yet (which was my point) he is remarkably clueless about some very basic social and affective skills, rather like Dawkins and many of his acolytes who worship, rather than use, the intellect. They are men without chests, as C.S. Lewis described them in The Abolition of Man. It’s not that their heads are larger than that of ordinary people; it’s just that their atrophied chests (seat of such qualities as magnanimity, common sense, humor, empathy and so forth) make them seem so.
Perhaps it’s starting to sink in why I reversed it?
Yes. Because you are incapable of grasping when a tu quoque does and does not work. Intellect worship vs. intellect use is a terrible thing to behold.
In the spirit of Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign, we are embracing the fact that just by coming out and saying “we are non-theists, and also we are your firefighters, your military members, and your neighbors and friends” that we help to shed the negative connotations and debunk the myths associated with being a non-believer.
In other words, you are offering a “We’re Not the Jerks So Many of Us Act Like” campaign. Good to see you do damage control. Still the fact that Phil Plait and others with normal social and affective skills have to instruct the Atheist Community on the rudiments of normal social interaction does rather suggest that there’s a reason you have to have such soirees to attempt damage control on your image. Even more telling is that Phil Plait’s mild suggestions are often greeted with howls of derision by the Napoleon-Dynamite-with-a-Mean-Streak crowd who don’t see what the big deal is with the way they relate to normal people.
“dim bulbs like Richard Dawkins whose atheistic obsessions have compelled them to become bag ladies screaming at the traffic.”
I laughed in the library at that image. Richard Dawkins as a bag lady screaming at the traffic and maybe throwing cats like the cat lady on the Simpsons. Somebody needs to make a youtube video of this for Dawkins to examine.
“Yes. Because you are incapable of grasping when a tu quoque does and does not work.”
Nope, worked just fine. It did a good job of highlighting the hypocrisy in play here, especially when combined with the straw man the author sets up by telling us what the focus of the event will be. The expected response was to tell us all about how that’s not what Christians do, bringing full circle the hypocrisy in play.
There is a whole lot more to the atheistic world view than just “Not believing in a supreme deity”, just as there is a lot more to the Christian world view than just believing in a god. Just visit the rock beyond belief site and see for your self.
“There is a whole lot more to the atheistic world view than just “Not believing in a supreme deity”
No. There isn’t. All atheism qua atheism has to say is “There is no God.” An atheist might be interested in all sorts of other humanizing things and that’s great. But that’s not because he’s an atheist. It’s because he’s a human being (made in the likeness of a Creator whose loves are manifold for his creation). Indeed, when atheists *do* perpetually insist on taking normal, healthy human things and making them be *about* atheism (That flower reminds me of why belief in God is so dumb/I read the other day about the deficit debate and it made me think of why there’s no God, etc. ad nauseam), they tend to demonstrate that they are crashing bores and johnny one notes. People who insist on unnaturally dragging the conversation back to their personal hobby horse (and there are some Christians that do this too) just demonstrate that, yes indeed, they lack normal social and affective skills.
Sorry but the purpose of the concert is to do damage control on the richly deserve rep atheists have built for themselves. It would be more sensible just to admit since people with normal social skill are—including atheists like Phil Plait.
“Posted by Joy on Friday, Aug 26, 2011 8:23 AM (EDT):
Wow. You are JUST getting this stuff? That video is ancient. Dawkins knew it was to make fun of him, but embraced it anyway. It is well-made, amusing and creative.
Also, I don’t think Dawkins uses the term “Bright” anymore.
Since you have such pretty names for us, may we call you rabid Catholics?”
—-
## Of course - as you as you don’t try to (ahem) put us down :)
You are JUST getting this stuff? That video is ancient. Dawkins knew it was to make fun of him, but embraced it anyway.
No. I’m just getting the story about the Army Atheist concert because it news, as literate people would understand. The video is old, but the lesson of Dawkins’ reaction is timeless. And no, Dawkins *didn’t* know it was to make fun of him, as my link documents.
The video is hilarious!!!
It interests me is that so much of what militant atheists do is simply in response to evangelical Christians. Like the concert at Fort Bragg, organizers say that they are running it just to test the leadership at the fort to see if they will give the same support to them that they gave to Rock the Fort (an evangelical Christian concert).
It reminds me of earlier this year, when one evangelical group believed that the world was going to end on May 21st and put up billboards in California. An atheist group started putting up their own stating that there has been 2000 years of “any day now”.
It seems that whenever evangelical Christians do anything big, the atheists aren’t too far behind.
By the way, when I clicked on your first hyperlink about the concert, it didn’t work. Here’s another one: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/09/national/main20090152.shtml
“Posted by Yeah, Right on Friday, Aug 26, 2011 4:04 PM (EDT):
***
“...There is a whole lot more to the atheistic world view than just “Not believing in a supreme deity”, just as there is a lot more to the Christian world view than just believing in a god.””
—-
## Understood.
—-
“Just visit the rock beyond belief site and see for your self.”
—-
## What sort of things have you in mind ? People talk endlessly about “the gay lifestyle”, which simply doesn’t apply to a lot of gay people; so what is this “atheistic world view” ? Is there one AWV that all atheists share, or is it more likely that there several AWVs ?
***
BTW (in the interests of accuracy) Christians believe in God - not in a god. Granted, from the POV of an external observer without any commitment to what Christians believe, “a god” is accurate - but from our POV, it’s not accurate.
Posted by manticore on Friday, Aug 26, 2011 5:07 PM (EDT):
“...as you as you don’t try to…” = “...as long as you don’t try to…”
:facepalm:
“Indeed, when atheists *do* perpetually insist on taking normal, healthy human things and making them be *about* atheism (That flower reminds me of why belief in God is so dumb/I read the other day about the deficit debate and it made me think of why there’s no God, etc. ad nauseam), they tend to demonstrate that they are crashing bores and johnny one notes.”
—-
## Those people aren’t atheists - they are “crashing bores” who are atheists as well as crashing bores. There is no reason why an atheist should not be a perfectly well-balanced and delightful person. A lot of atheists were probably no less tiresome when they were Christians (as many of them once were).
*
Is finding atheism in every nook and cranny so very different from finding the Presence of God in every nook and cranny ?
The New Atheists’ Asperger’s Syndrome is a long-running source of amusement at Vox Populi, voxday.blogspot.com. Vox Day eviscerates disbelievers at some length, and it can be terrible to behold. The comments are of high quality, too, though his readership tends to be Evangelical.
Wow, Mark, bitter much? Did some nasty atheist hurt your feelings?
When I hear faithers complain about how hate-filled the atheists are, I’ll remember this article and the comments.
No Max. Not bitter, though I know that is a favorite rhetorical strategy of the atheist who does not know how to deal with facts—or even see the problem—that atheists with normal social and affective skills (like Phil Plait) try to point out.
“There is a whole lot more to the atheistic world view than just “Not believing in a supreme deity”
So then, someone who does not believe in God, but does not swallow the rest of your ideological platform (whatever it is) is not a “real” atheist?
Funny how people who make a full-time occupation of NOT being Christian keep holding on to precisely those aspects of self-styled-mainline Christianity I can’t stomach. They throw out the baby and KEEP the bath water.
Right. While trying to follow something that came up on Unequally Yoked, I ran into comments complaining that when Plait asked “How many of you became skeptics because someone got in your face and called you an idiot?”, he ignored “all the” hands that went up.
I wonder if someone asked “How many of you became Christians because someone got in your face and called you an idiot?”, how many hands would go up?
In the spirit of Richard Dawkins’ Out Campaign, we are embracing the fact that just by coming out and saying “we are non-theists, and also we are your firefighters, your military members, and your neighbors and friends” that we help to shed the negative connotations and debunk the myths associated with being a non-believer.”
And you try to do that by creating myths on how evil believers are?
Give me a break. Dawkins & co. is not trying to defend the poor atheists.
They already consider themselves and fellow atheists the ‘master race’ (sometimes they sound like proponents of ‘Arian supremacy’, just replace ‘white/Caucasian’ with ‘atheist’ and ‘Black/Jew/Latino’ with ‘Hindu/Jewish/Christian/Muslim’).
I think it is more than clear that people like Dawkins, Dennet, Harries, Hitchens and Myers have only one fixation: prove that all religion is evil, that all believers are stupid and that religion should be wiped out from the face of the world.
If you just read their books that much is more then clear.
New atheists are just a new oppressive regime wannabes, who depict themselves as ‘liberators from the so-called oppression of religion’.
+++++++++++++++
That said, not all atheists are like that, mind you. Dawkins & Co and their fanboys are just the trolls of the atheist community: overly vocal and loud.
I have several atheist friends and thank God(!) they are not like Dawkins & Co. They do not believe in God, but they do respect people who do and they do not consider themselves superior or smarter just because they are atheists.
Also they do not participate in stupid campaigns like those organized by Dawkins, since as long as they have their rights like everyone else they think they have nothing to complain about.
All in all it is clear that Dawkins and Co. are the cancer of the intellectual world, not the cure.
I thought we put paid to Arian supremacy at Nicaea.
“BTW (in the interests of accuracy) Christians believe in God - not in a god.”
There are thousands documented gods created by humans, and yours is just another one that I don’t find adequate evidence for the existence of. Even the 10 commandments acknowledges their existence;)
“Is there one AWV that all atheists share, or is it more likely that there several AWVs ?”
As many views as there are atheists. My views on the perennial *why* questions are different than other atheists, with the common element that supernatural beings are not required to make them function.
So then what is “the” atheistic worldview which, according to “Yeah”, embraces so much more than that “common element”?
It is a common unbelievers’ rhetorical strategy to demand that “You Christians make up your minds about what Christianity is before daring to talk about it.” Perhaps you and “Yeah” could settle between you what atheism is before telling us we are wrong about it.
I have only had time to read about half of those comments, and will get to the rest later, but I wanted to put in my two cents about one particular detail: In my own experience, there can be some extremely intelligent people (as determined by IQ tests in particular) who can show solid accomplishments, but at nonetheless, in other moments, do, and write, extremely dumb things - being bright and being stupid are unfortunately not mutually exclusive. I know, I have met some of those!
I read Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene about 20 years ago or so, back when I knew less about him than he knows about God. It was clear that in some Flatlandy narrowly defined way this was a smart man. But what struck me most about this book is that the author came across as arrogant. That stuck with me more than any neat nugget of scientific wisdom did.
I have read a lot of science books, and I have never had that happen to me before.
“...and the hicks themselves are looking at their watches and wondering if you are done with your rant yet.”
And yet you keep writing about us. Curious.
GalapogosPete, he’s bitter. It’s clear. He denies it, but how can you read his writing and not come to that conclusion. Mark, I’m not trying to be snarky, you honestly do come across as bitter. And your commenters are posting in kind. If you’re going to complain about Dawkins’ attitude you might want to examine yours. (Mine too, but I don’t have a blog.)
This is a hateful prideful article. Referring to other human beings as “Human Thoothaches” is disgraceful. For thosose of you who are not Catholic, this article should not be taken as an example of charitable Catholic behavior.
“And Rain Man has impressive gifts too. And yet (which was my point) he is remarkably clueless about some very basic social and affective skills, rather like Dawkins and many of his acolytes who worship, rather than use, the intellect. They are men without chests, as C.S. Lewis described them in The Abolition of Man. It’s not that their heads are larger than that of ordinary people; it’s just that their atrophied chests (seat of such qualities as magnanimity, common sense, humor, empathy and so forth) make them seem so.”
Given what I’ve read of this post and your comments, you risk describing yourself. You seem sometimes to have a very small heart. Maybe that’s just what I get from your writing.
You are right that Dawkins is socially awkward (though he does very well in front of the camera). But at least from the short interactions I’ve had with him, he seems to have a very warm heart.
Dawkins makes me think of Chesterton. He’s very much for absolute truth, and for a clever and sometimes counterintuitive way of representing it. And he’s not afraid of polemics.
Compare Chesterton’s beginning a chapter of his book, Orthodoxy, talking about all the contradictions of Christianity, with Dawkins’ chapter on the origin of life from Blind Watchmaker, where he starts off basically saying “Miracles happen sometimes.”
The way your barbs turn, you don’t remind me of Chesterton as much. Maybe a sort of half-inept Oscar Wilde (also a Catholic, though at the very end of his life).
This blog, in a round about way, is about civility. Quite frankly both sides in the theist/atheist argument are guilty of gross rudeness. The theist/atheist argument has been going on since recorded history began. I don’t see it ending anytime soon.
The problem I have with militant atheists is their worship of science. Science is only a small part of life. Science also can only tell us “what” never the “why”. That is why I don’t look to science to answer questions about the existence of God. To me looking at science to answer that question is like looking to paint to explain Michelangelo.
I don’t consider myself smarter than theists. I know several that I would openly admit are more intelligent than I am. So why am I an atheist?
Because there are a lot of religions out there and I think the best way for sifting thru the chaff to find the truth is to demand testable theories that have supporting evidence. Right now, I’m not aware of any religion that offers this.
I also have to admit that perhaps I am not smart enough to be a catholic. I simply cannot understand/comprehend why a loving god would require a blood sacrifice in order to forgive.
I don’t understand why Catholics pick on Atheists. There are so many religions competing for faith that at least “no faith” would be the least of your problems.
You seem to see non-believers as more confused or pathetic than Muslim suicide bombers or Jewish militants, or Hindus (who believe in the caste system and treat “untouchables” worse than dirt). Most atheists I meet don’t care if I pray, they just don’t want to be told they are immoral or “wrong” by someone who thinks he/she knows better. You won’t attract atheists to faith with your arrogance.
The video was designed to be ambiguous. Despite the catchy rhythm, it contains errors. Dawkins did his schooling in the UK, so he actually has a D.Phil. from Oxford. This is pretty much equivalent to a Ph.D., but it shows that the video maker did not do his homework. Mark Shea’s lack of discrimination in finding a cudgel with which to strike Dawkins is noted, and stupid.
“But socially clueless folk like Dawkins and his New Atheist fans, who constantly pat themselves on the back for possessing an intellect superior to the herd of ordinary religious folk, spent quite a long time trying to analyze this video.”
Seriously? A link to Vox Day’s web site? I guess “socially clueless folk who constantly pat themselves on the back for possessing an intellect superior to the herd of ordinary folk” is your theme for the day, that description fits your friend Vox Day to a T.
“Human Toothaches”?
You would think someone with a certified reservation for the Kingdom would exhibit a bit more compassion toward the unsaved… just as a matter of providing a good example if nothing else. I will say, however, that your most humorous posts are when you get your panties in a bunch over non-believers. Funny that.
Yes, it’s true: we atheists are incredibly angry at how you Catholics continue to protect child molesting priests. It’s a shame you can’t get upset about such a thing. We atheists can’t help it, because we have something that believers lack: a moral conscience. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
The video allegedly mocks Dawkins by placing in his mouth a fallacious argument he has never used - the argument from authority. If you want to see some very effective, very brutal mockery, look instead to Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. In one instance, Fey recited a verbatim quote from Palin, in effect saying, “she is so ridiculous that nothing I could make up would be funnier.” Now that was brutal, and effective, and funny too.
Meanwhile, no one has bothered to mock Mark Shea the hater. Maybe he’s not as famous as he thinks.
...And apparently Evangelical Atheists are very sensitive, too!
@ Lee S.
Wouldn’t you be sensitive to someone calling you a liar and an idiot? Or a human toothache?
What gives you the right to complain about sensitivity? Atheists are insulted constantly on this blog.
Some people are salesmen. They don’t care whether they sell shoes or used cars, they"re just salesmen. Some salesmen sell religion. The brand isn’t particularly important. As they shift religions they just shift the brand they’re selling. Former Protestant salemen convert and just keep selling only now they’re selling Catholicism. It’s not the product—it’s the sale.
The fact is that American servicemen who happen to be atheists are holding a concert. Could we just say “Thanks for your service” to these servicemen and not refer to them as “Human Toothaches? Those human toothaches may be the solders sailors and airman protecting you. They may be police and fire officers and doctors and nurses. They may even be your own family members on their own journey. Moth of all, they are our neighbors. We are commanded to love our neighbors. Stop selling to them and start loviing them.
“Could we just say “Thanks for your service” to these servicemen and not refer to them as “Human Toothaches?”
If you’re Mark Shea, apparently not. Although, in fairness, I’m not sure he’s calling atheist *soldiers* “human toothaches,” he’s only calling people who *support* atheist soldiers “human toothaches,” and obviously that’s a completely different thing altogether.
For someone supposedly so secure in his faith, you sure have a need to insult atheists. How pathetic.
Scot, Christians of every sort have been called every name in the book—and Catholic clergy in general now bear the brunt of the worst names people can come up with. “Human toothaches,” which Shea uses only to refer to a specific type of atheist, is quite quaint by comparison.
I’m trying to remember how recently and how many times I’ve discussed atheism on this blog (and what percentage of posts I’ve devoted to the topic). I’m reasonably sure that the answers are somewhere in the ballpark of “not recently, not often, and not very big”. Yet all of a sudden there are all these handwringing posts about how I’m “always” criticizing atheists.
Mhm.
Joe McFaul makes a good point when he criticized my use of the term “human toothaches”. Fair enough. I will refrain from it in future. However, the sacralization of the military must stop. Sure, I’m grateful for the service of atheists. But mere membership in the military does not bestow amnesty on all things. The fact is, guys like Richard Dawkins, who these guys look up to (he is a headliner) imagine themselves to be the vanguard of history, and would like to see a world in which parents who give their children a religious education should be punished by the state for child abuse and have those children taken away. I regard such people as enemies in Just War. I pray for them, and will fight them to my last breath.
I submit that people who do not have elementary social and affective skills should not be placed in charge of such decisions and that normal people should resist and laugh at such arrogance. How that constitutes “selling something” I have no idea. I’m not particularly interested in the feelings of such close-minded bigots under the Pearls before Swine principle. Not all atheists are, as I note, arrogant jerks with an itch to dominate. Some of them, like Phil Plaithave tried to get the arrogant jerks to get a clue. But when those jerks respond, not by asking, “Is there something in our subculture that might be amiss?” but by boohooing about their poor hurt feelings, I’m not especially interested. This concert is an attempt at damage control. I’m pointing that out. That said, I will try to do a better job next time of hating the sin and not attacking the sinner. However, the sin is, in fact, fatuous arrogance.
Maybe you didn’t realize that an earlier sales presentation had already occurred at Fort Bragg. It was called “Rock the Fort,” held on base. RTF was put on by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association. Over $50,000 tax dollars were spent on the event and many more military resources were expended. Soldiers were urged to “bring their battle buddies” to the altar call and a call went out to all the local evangelical churches to attend and “support the troops.” By now, even Catholics should be concerned. This event was far too partisan to be held on a military base. It violated longstanding federal law prohibiting chaplains from prostelylzing—they serve all service members regardless of denomination. It went so far that the BGEA sicne deleted references to Rock the Fort on its website.
http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=6289
Marketing a particular denomination to vulnerable service members who are subejct to command pressure is deeply offensive on several levels. There should be no sales of any products, services or religions to servicemembers that even remotely appear to have command support. Command pressure is subtle and subect to abuse. The Commanding Officer attempted to excuse this exercise of poor judgment by stating that he would be willing to host similar events for any other denomination and supply the same logistics, manpower and funds provided to BGEA. Fort Bragg happens to have a large number of atheists (or, if you prefer, Human Toothaches) who, when not defending their country, often get together to socialize. They decided to see if the CO was sincere and organized “Rock Beyond Belief.” There will be no altar call and no efforts to convert battle buddies, either.
Predictably, the Co balked at hostigna n atheist event, at first cancelling the RBB event, whereupon the atheists publicly reminded him of the promised “same logistics,” including the use of the base parade field, access to sound systems, staffing and room and board provided to the BGEA. The CO, recognizing that there was a major problem developing(bad public relations is a career killer) has again about-faced and the concert is on.
I think the BGEA Rock the Fort event was extremely misguided. If the Rock Beyond Belief event serves to show Commanding Officers what can happen if they choose to favor a particular denomination, it will have achieved a good result.
The reason the Human Toothache post got so much attention is that it surfaced on many religious news sites such as Zite, Flipbook, Google News and others. I don’t read NCR but I do read about religion and obejct to internet articles that harm the Catholic faith. This one is one of those, unfortunately.
So are you saying that the Atheist concert is payback for the obnoxious Evangelical one? Cuz if so, that does seem to be echoing my point that the thing is designed to be a finger in the eye to Christians who annoy the organizers. I agree there is much to be annoyed with. But how that demonstrates the substance of my piece is wrong, I don’t know. Evangelicals and Evangelical Atheists like Ditchkins both have a missionary imperative. It’s just that Evangelicals are frank about it—annoyingly frank at times.
This video is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a good while.
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Rabid Catholic? I dunno…Hungry Catholic is more my m.o.
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