Ignorant Atheist Bull Shit

Pardon my tone in this post but I am really beginning to get pissed off. I hear atheists railing about ignorant theist bull shit all the time. But how about some ignorant atheist bull shit, which seems to be all I have been reading lately on various atheist blogs. And the latest example comes to us from Friendly Atheist (which now is a misnomer due to his switch to confrontationalist, i.e. all religion is bad and theists should be treated with contempt).

CFI Canada is running a campaign that states “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”. They then have a laundry list of items they classify as “extraordinary”. A columnist responded to CFI’s campaign stating the following:

So why does he care if people believe in God, Allah or the tooth fairy? Atheists are defined by their disbelief. i.e. the biggest thing in their life is that they don’t believe in something. But rather than just go around quietly, not believing, Trottier and his pals feel compelled to make other people not believe either. Their only faith is in the rightness of not having faith.

Isn’t that just a bit strange? I don’t happen to believe basketball is that interesting. Sorry, just don’t. I tried, but it bores me. Mainly I just keep it to myself. But if I was Justin Trottier, I’d be out there raising money to run ads in subways and streetcars, trying to convince other people that basketball is boring. The ads would say: “If you think basketball isn’t boring, you have to prove it. Just like Bigfoot.”

Would that make sense? (Answer: No). And to what end, exactly? If five more people suddenly realize they also don’t care about basketball, have I achieved anything? 

Hemant Mehta, the not-so-friendly Friendly Atheist, responded to the columnist’s comments and it is his response that is part of the ever growing amount of BS spewing out of anti-theists mouths that is driving me up the wall.

We actively fight against extraordinary claims like the ones in the poster because those claims cause harm.

Those claims do not inherently cause harm! They have the potential to cause harm, but so does every single other claim/thing/belief/idea ever conceived or used by mankind. There is no reason to single out all of religion because of its extremists. Every group has extremists or the potential for extremists. Although what he says next is really what falls under the ignorant atheist BS.

They can drain your wallet.

So what! Is it your wallet? No! Was the money given willingly? Most of the time, yes! And in the times where religious believers are scammed out of their money laws are usually broken and the perpetrator can be taken to court. And the vast majority of money given to Churches will also go towards some kind of charity work instead of just going into the preacher’s pocket. Oh, and did I ask if it was your money? If it is not yours, why do you care? Getting rid of religion is not going to stop people from scamming others out of their money. Those who end up scammed probably should have seen the warning signs. As for rest of the people, those in the vast majority, they generally do not miss the small amount they tithe to their church which helps keep their church, and various charities, running.

They will waste your time.

According to who? Anti-theists who are hell bent on making others think, act, and believe like they do? This is an opinion, not a fact! For a group whose favorite buzzwords include “rational thinking” you would think they could recognize when they are giving a personal opinion as fact. I think watching sports on TV is a waste of time. But you will not see me going around telling everyone who enjoys it to stop.

They can become the basis for irrational, unnecessary, and dangerous laws.

And what cannot? This goes back to what I said earlier, any kind of idea, claim, belief, you name it, when it is taken to an extreme it can become the basis for irrational, unnecessary, and dangerous laws. Just because you happen to have an irrational hatred of all things religious does not make religion more of a catalyst for this kind of behavior.

They offer false hope that will never come to fruition.

Again with the personal opinion. When will atheists learn that just because it comes out of their mouths, it does not make it a fact? Also, in some cases the hope they offer does come to fruition. For example, there are cases where families becoming religious together have made them stronger and closer as a family. Or a person struggling with drug addiction who, through religion, cleans their life up. Could this happen in other circumstances as well? Yes. But does that make it any less valid? No. There are also the studies that have shown being religious will make you a happier person. That sure seems to be an example of hope coming to fruition.

They can make you kill or hate or injure others.

More taking the extremes and applying it to the whole. Politics can do the same thing. Should we get rid of it? In some areas of Europe wearing the wrong soccer jersey in public can get you killed. Should we ban soccer? How about we focus on the people who are actually doing the killing and the specific beliefs that are causing that behavior instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Last time I checked, religion has not made me, or any religious person I have ever known, fly a plane into a building. That kind of behavior seems to be limited to a small group with very specific types of thinking.

They make you believe in fiction.

Again, according to who? Oh yeah, anti-theists hell bent on making others think/act/believe like they do.

They make you fight against reality.

See previous comment.

They brainwash children and adults alike.

This argument has been refuted so many times it is no longer funny. Oh, and see previous comment.

We can’t “live and let live” when we see how much damage these beliefs — as silly as some might seem — have inflicted on people we love, and how much pain these beliefs have caused by people who took them too seriously.

I think one of the commenters responded best to this little bit:

Fundie Troll
Hemant, you can’t “live and let live”? Then you are guilty of the very thing that you accuse the religious of on a daily basis – forcing your system of beliefs on others.
The road that you are travelling down – and I will admit that the religious right in this country is guilty of the same thing – leads to tyranny. You MUST live and let live, because the only alternative is a society where freedom does not exist.

Fundie Troll makes a good point. The atheists who share the same mindset of this post are guilty of the same intolerance and bigotry the constantly decry in believers.


/rant

The Unlikely Disciple

I saw this video of the author of The Unlikely Disciple giving a talk about his experiences at Liberty University. After watching it I think I am going to pick up his book and give it a read. He makes several points through his talk that I though were very good. One is that when groups of people from the same spectrum of belief get together, such as a group of moderate liberals or conservatives, they will end up moving towards their respective extremes. This is one of the causes of the drastic polarization we are seeing in our culture today. He also talked about how bringing in other people of differing belief that you disagree with can be a positive experience. That is actually why I started getting into religious discussions and debates online and I strongly agree with him. The video is embedded below. It may be cut off depending upon your browser settings so you may need to click the link.

Don't Be A Dick

I have mentioned the Don't Be A Dick talk from Phil Plait before. I thought I would post the video of his talk in case some have not seen it. I highly recommend it, it is a great talk.

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Also, it seems the idea that confrontation is best as opposed to accommodation is not getting as much support as I thought.  Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist said this about PZ Meyer's recent post Confrontation all the way,

I used to think it was ok to be religious as long as you were in support of things like social justice, good science, and church/state separation.
Anyone who’s read this site for a while knows I don’t really feel that way anymore.
I don’t “attack” people who are religious, but I don’t see a need to let that slide anymore even when they agree with me everywhere else.

It is disappointing that Hemant Mehta's position on this matter has changed for the worse, and it seems quite a few of his commentators think the same. I would have thought a lot more of them would have agreed with Hemant and PZ than actually did. Here are a few of their responses to his (Hemant Mehta's) post.

 R9 Says:

“And even if the religious moderates don’t vote against gay rights and are vocal about getting rid of bad science, they’re still wrong about the god thing. That means we must keep speaking out on that issue.”

“Must” to improve the world? Or their lives? Or for our sense of self-satisfaction?

CP Says:

How nice to know that atheists function under the same rules as fundamentalist Christians. Evangelical atheists are some of the most annoying people if only because they deny that they are evangelical.

Guy G Says:

A general maxim which works for me is “If it’s not doing any harm, then really it’s none of your business”
I’ve been visiting here for a fair while, and my view on it is that your change in stance has been a negative thing. Your posts are increasingly more mocking and derisory to the religious, which is a shame, IMO.

 This one is rather long but well worth reading.

muggle Says:

There’s no need to be hostile. If their stupid imaginary friend is doing no harm and they’re not bringing it up, why do we need to? If they bring it up politely, we should just as politely disagree. If they’re hostile, fight fire with fire and tell them they’re being a dickweed and an idiot.
But — as you used to notice — there’s simply no argument when they’re not using their religion to harm. Why do you assume the ones who are open and accepting to gays are sneaking quietly off to vote against gay marriage in the voting booth? Sure the ones who say they hate the sin love the sinner are but I’ve known many Christians who are openly accepting of gays without that qualifier and I’m sure they’re not doing so. To assume they are is, frankly, prejudicial. There are denominations who want to marry gays and are prevented to by law. They are most likely voting for gay marriage. While I think evolution pretty much debunks the creation myth of the buybull, I’ve known many Christians who politely disagree with that and are outspoken against creationism in the schools. Do you really think Atheists are in the majority in Dover, PA? Naw, I don’t either. Far as I know, we’re not in the majority anywhere.
Let me stress, not antagonizing unnecessarily does not mean to actually support religion by giving to their charities, etc. You know my view on that. It does, however, extend to protecting their civil rights. Hell with them, protecting their civil rights is important because it protects ours.
I’ve got to say, Hemant, I’m really disappointed in this new bitter tone. I’m patient because I realize that you’re in a public position and, hence, more of a target for the nasty type of believer. It’s got to be harder to keep your perspective in that situation. But I’d really hate to see you come what you hate and that’s always what it seems to me when Atheists like Dawkins start with bigoted crap like they’re all delusional and Atheists are smarter, etc. They are every bit as bad as theists who say you’re amoral without gawd. Every fucking bit. There’s a reason why I read your blog every day and not PK’s.
Let’s not fall into the trap that we condemn so many theists of falling into: that’s it’s okay to follow the leaders into hateful, viral over-genralizations of people who are not like us.

Accommodation And Confrontation

*Imagine a pastor preaching to his congregation on a Sunday morning:

There is an answer, and it's on display right here in this room. The solution, the only longterm solution, is the sanity of God’s Word. The lesser struggles to keep silly skepticism out off our textbooks or to keep pseudoscientific nonsense like evolution out of our classrooms are important, but they are endless chores -- at some point we just have to stop pandering to the ideological noise that spawns these unending tasks and cut right to the source: science.
We must confront untruths; letting them lie unquestioned is simply a way to allow them to fester and grow.

No, the words above are not the latest rant from Pat Robertson nor are they from your local fundie preacher. They are not even from a Christian, but a well known militant-atheist, PZ Meyers. With just a couple key changes (shown above in italics) his statement, originally about the elimination of religion, becomes indistinguishable from statements by extremists on the extreme opposite side of the belief spectrum. This goes to show the line of thinking in both cases, fundie Christian and militant-atheist, are not far removed from one another. And it looks like it is getting worse. The Don’t Be A Dick idea is losing ground and in its place is the idea that anti-accommodation (anti-theism), expressed in the original quote above, is best.

More and more people are coming out and stating their anti-theism and they are proud of it. They are proud of the exact behavior they so radically oppose in extremists theists. It should not be all that surprising that this idea of opposing religion regardless if it is harmful or not should come from Pharyngula. You can read the blog post that is making its way through the blogosphere, from which I took the passage I quoted at the beginning of this post, here. It is your general “religion in any form is evil and must be eradicated” polemic. You can also read about it on sites such as Friendly Atheist and Blag Hag.

The post by PZ Meyers is his talk he gave to a group about accommodation and confrontation. In it he talks about the “real battle” going on today with extremists trying to undermine education and science. He has a point about this and I see no real problem with his style of confronting these types of people who wish to deny scientific fact. He then goes on to explain that this battle has been going on for a very long time and that those who oppose the extremists trying to undermine science (I assume he is only including fellow atheists here, he makes the reason why clear latter) have not been making any real success.

We have been treading water for 50 years. In one sense, that's a very good thing: better to stay afloat in one place than to sink…

It is about time, he says, that they began to make some kind of progress.

But isn't it also about time we learned a new stroke and actually made some progress towards the shore?

Okay, nothing wrong with trying to do better and actually achieve your goals.

Shouldn't we move beyond just reacting to every assault by Idiot America on science education, and honestly look at the root causes of this chronic malignancy and do something about it?

The “root causes”? Hmm, I have a bad feeling I, along with every other theist/Christian, are about to get thrown under a bus…

The sea our country is drowning in is a raging religiosity… We keep hearing that the answer is to find the still waters of a more moderate faith, but I'm sorry, I don't feel like drowning there either.
At some point we just have to stop pandering to the ideological noise that spawns these unending tasks and cut right to the source: religion.

Yup, I knew it. The rest of his post goes on to try and cast all religious as essentially evil as far as science and evolution are concerned. He tries to say that simply because atheists do not believe in religion (thus it must be false) the simple act of believing in a God somehow makes us part of a “disease”.

Religion isn't the problem, they claim, it's only the extremists and zealots and weirdos. The majority of believers are moderates and even share some values with us.
"But is a moderate superstition true?", we repeat, and "How can a myth be made more true if its proponents are simply calmer in stating it?"

Since when was this about whether or not our religious beliefs were true? We believe them to be, atheists do not. The real issue here is the extremists and more importantly their actions of attempting to undermine things such as public education. It is not about if their beliefs are true or not, but how they are attempting to force their beliefs upon others.

I mean, it's nice and all that most Christians aren't out chanting "God Hates Fags" and are a little embarrassed when some yokel whines that he didn't come from no monkey, but they still go out and quietly vote against gay and lesbian rights, and they still sit at home while their school boards set fire to good science.

No, they do not all go out and vote against gay marriage, nor do they all stand by when their children’s education is at risk. Some do, some do not. The same is true of atheists. Not all atheists go out to vote for gay marriage, some sit at their homes and could not care less. Some even vote against it (yes, there are atheists who think homosexuality is wrong). Nor do all atheists stand up when their children’s education is at risk. Some do nothing, heck, some are even bad parents and probably don’t even know their child is about to be taught evolution is false, just like some Christians.

It's all about the truth, people.

I think he really means it is all about “truth” as seen through the eyes of an anti-theist.

I have been told that I must think promoting atheism is more important than promoting good science education;

Sounds about right to me.

I've been told to hush, there are good Christians who support science, and a vocal atheism will scare them away...and I have to ask, you question my support for science education, when you pander to people who you admit will put their superstitions above science if someone says a harsh word about Jesus?

Now he is just setting up a straw man. I highly doubt those atheists who see accommodation as the best approach would agree that this is a rational framing of their reasoning.

Half of PZ Meyer’s reasoning in his post is good. The intentional undermining of things such as education by religious extremists needs to be confronted head on. However, the other half of his reasoning is nothing but an attempt to spread the blame to all those of religious belief in an attempt to throw them under the bus of ridicule and hatred thinly disguised as “criticism” and “truth”. It is nothing more than an attempt to rationalize his bigotry. And it is beginning to catch on with other militant-atheists.

To those militant-atheists who wish to condemn or ignore we theists in the middle, who believe in evolution, who do not take the Bible to be infallible and completely literal, who believe that BLGT’s should be allowed to marry, who do not condemn others to hell fire and brimstone for believing differently, who condemn the radical extremists who bomb buildings, who do not support the likes of Pat Robertson or the Westboro Baptist Church, who do not spread hatred or fear, we are here and we exist. We do not have a skewed view of reality and our beliefs do not impair our reasoning skills or our ability to function in society. To quote Christopher Titus, “now take down that cross from your back, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it!”.

Final Videos of Jed's Visit

I got the video I took from Jed's Friday visit to Purdue up now. Here are the links to all the videos:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Parts 1-3 are from Wednesday, 4-7 are the new ones from Friday.

And again, Jed has a post on facebook about his visit to Purdue from Friday.

As I sat waiting for the class break, I notice students were milling around waiting for me to start.  When I began preaching, a male student got beside me and started reading at the top of his voice from Nietzsche.  This was distracting tactic.  But I am always able to outlast these kind hecklers.  Usually, I just go on automatic pilot in these circumstances and preach.  After 15 minutes the heckler switched to reading from Kant.  I would have been glad to debate with him concerning philosophy but he was only interested in disturbing my preaching, not in pursuing truth.  After about 30 minutes he had to go unto class.  By then 50-75 students gathered which is the size of crowd we maintained for most of the afternoon, sometimes building to over 100.

Article From Jed's First Day at Purdue

Found this article written by Brother Jed recapping the first day at Purdue. Apparently the Force is strong with our lesbians on campus.

Sister Cindy, who is in top form, drew a crowd, which built up to one hundred by crying out against the lusts of the flesh.  Lust was the main issue of the day, especially when it is expressed in the “gay” way.  The lesbians were out in force.  They were going out of their way to be generally respectful.  I did not deal with that many male homosexuals, but the female ones were very vocal.  At one point a man held a derogatory sign behind me, but the students shamed him into putting it down.

Rest is here.

Brother Jed @ Purdue Videos

The videos I took of Brother Jed yesterday are up.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Brother Jed

Brother Jed is on Purdue's campus through Friday. You can read about him here if you have never heard of him. I watched him today for about an hour and a half and recorded most of it. I will be putting it on YouTube sometime Thursday or Friday as I will be going back to watch him talk and, more importantly, watch the crowd tear him to pieces. That is literally what they did today. I was happy that many of the people there who said they did not believe in God, or any religion, made it very clear that their hostility towards Brother Jed and his group did not come from their disagreement with Christianity but with his method of presenting it. I think the best part was when a girl who was passing by shouted "Sit on this!" and flashed Brother Jed as he was speaking. Too bad I had my camera turned off as it happened.

The more you know about religion the more likely you are an atheist…

Or Mormon.

The Pew Forum released a new study on Americas’ knowledge of religion. Of the nine different groups surveyed atheists, Jews, and Mormons scored the highest with an average of 20 correct answers out of 32 questions. This survey has been making the rounds on the various atheist blogs and religious debate forums with non-theists shouting its results from the rooftops that atheists know more about religion than theists. However, almost all of them neglect to mention that Jews and Mormons are practically tied with them. It also seems they neglect to mention that it is knowledge of non-Christian religions that they score the highest in while on Christian topics, such as the Bible, Mormons score the highest.

Frankly the results of the survey should not be all that surprising. Most self proclaimed atheists have generally studied various religions to see if they believe them. Hence it is not surprising they would be fairly knowledgeable on this topic. It is also not surprising that Jews and Mormons are at the top as well. Jews tend to a highly educated group along with Mormons. It has even been shown that the more educated a Mormon is the more likely they are to be more involved in their Church.

Sources:
US Religious Knowledge Survey
Survey: Americans don't know much about religion

Wanting to come back to posting

I have not posted anything in quite a while here. Over the past several months my motivation for continuing in religious debate and discussion has been waning. Not because of lost of interest, but because of my coming to believe that it is rather pointless. This same thing occurred when I first started studying and debating religion as a hobby in high school. Originally I participated on a forum where the discussion/debate was between LDS and Mainstream-Christians. Eventually I got tired of constantly bashing my head against the wall there so I switched to a different forum where the discussion/debate was largely between theists and non-theists. Now, again, I am getting tired of bashing my head against the proverbial wall. So, again, I am losing my motivation. Now, I know I am not going to change the minds of those (mainly) non-theists I debate/discuss with. That was never my intention. What I wanted to do was get the point across that religion can and does have a place in the world and trying to cast it, and its adherents, as evil, delusional, handicapped, irrational, and the list goes on, is not the most efficient way to go about criticizing it. Such a method only results in alienating those you wish to reach.
I haven’t based my decision solely on my participation on a single forum. I also read quite a few big name atheist blogs (if you say my Google Reader you would think I was an atheist) and the general feeling of the posts I go through each day has also played a part. Frankly, with how many of them describe religious beliefs, I should be thankful I have the mental capacity to get out of bed in the morning or tie my shoes. I am hoping that the “Don’t be a dick” type atheists start getting a little more support but I doubt that will happen. A lot of blogs have been talking about needing the aggressive, dickish types in the atheist community. I cannot really wrap my mind around why they would think that as it is the same thing as me saying Christians need people like Pat Robertson or the Westboro Baptist Church.
Anyway, I would like to start posting again but I will have to wait and see if some topic comes up that I think is truly worth posting about.