Atheism, EvilBible.com, “Theists Suck” and Christians are Hypocrites, part 1 of 6

Having previously discredited evilbible.com’s assertions about rape in the Bible, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible and Jesus having lied we will now consider their page entitled, “Christians are hypocrites.”

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

As with absolutely every condemnation of the Bible, its God, Jesus and Christians found within evilbible.com we must, yet again, note that this condemnation of hypocrisy goes unsubstantiated since is it premised upon an atheist worldview whereby condemnation of anything at all amounts to mere assertions based on emotive and impotent arguments from outrage.

This time evilbible.com’s author is not the author but borrowed an “essay” written by a certain Charlotte who wrote a series entitled, “The Church of Theists Suck [sic].” These were previously posted on a website that was entitled “Theists Suck” yet, “Theists Suck” is dead and gone and only a portion of it lives on at evilbible.com.
Evilbible.com’s author calls them “essays” but Charlotte prefers to term them “sermons.”

Beyond this, the only things I know about Charlotte is that she is an “ATHEIST WOMAN,” she is very, very, very very angry and she is very, very, very, very ignorant of even the most basic biblical concepts and contents. It is no wonder that evilbible.com’s author found a comrade in her since they share these common afflictions and others such as self-servingly convenient selective quotations, manipulation of biblical texts and their readership via propagandizing, simply being all around illogical and have a propensity for employing school yard bully style vocabulary into their writings.

We will find that the overwhelming majority of everything that Charlotte had to say is premised upon the same fallacy. She lays this out in toto at the end of her “sermon” and so while we will chip away at it throughout we will conclude by shooting down her supposed fool proof shoot down of Christians after considering other arguments.

Of primary importance it must be pointed out that, in reality, Charlotte’s entire “sermon” can be discredited beyond repair by simply making one or two points:

1) If she wants to charge Christians with hypocrisy we could merely say, “Right you are, shame on us”—period.

2) Or: since God, Jesus, the Bible, Christianity do not teach the attaining of perfection on this side of heaven Christians cannot be logically charged with hypocrisy.

That is all that there really is to discrediting both Charlotte and evibible.com’s approval of her “sermon” in one fell swoop. Yet, I will dissect her “sermon” as I know that atheist are very un-skeptical and will generally believe whatever they are told about the Bible by another atheist without question.

Charlotte’s angry, misguided and expletive peppered condemnation begins by noting:

[Christians’] willful ignorance of the Bible combined with their two faced idealism to preach it, has made us sick, hasn’t it? For nearly two thousand years Biblicists have been lecturing people on the importance of adhering to the Bible’s teachings on ethics, manners, and morality…The problem with their approach lies not only in an oft- noted failure to practice what they preach, but an equally pronounced tendency to ignore what the Bible itself, preaches. Christians practice what can only be described as “selective morality”. What they like, they cling to and shove down other’s throats; what they don’t like, they ignore vehemently…even the validity of calling oneself “Christian” is in question…[they] don’t even PRETEND to heed other, equally valid, maxims…This one [“sermon”] is going to sum up the rest of my beefs.

This premise, this reference to “beefs” and the examples of malice and ignorance that follows denotes a webpage that is more akin to a “My Dear Diary” entry.

Section one is entitled, “Hypocrisy of Marital Relationships” and revolves around the idea that the Bible ideally allows for divorce only due to adultery yet,

80% of this country is Christian yet we have a 50% divorce rate. A majority of divorces are a result of irreconcilable differences, not adultery, which implies that Christians are again practicing selective morality. How many Christians are working on a second, third or fourth marriage?

The primary response to this sort of condemnation is, of course, to say AMEN!!! She is quite correct; there are Christians who are not living up to the biblical standard.
Yet, even with such large numbers of Christians divorcing it is noteworthy that,

atheists are 58.7 percent more likely to get divorced than Pentecostals and Baptists, the two born-again Christian groups with the highest rate of divorce, and more than twice as likely to get divorced than Christians in general.[1]

Also, that,

What needs mentioning is the fact that many atheists do not cohabit as a prelude to marriage. They in fact see cohabitation as "equivalent" to any marriage relationship…a whopping 37% of atheists never marry as opposed to 19% of the American population…Not only do atheists cohabit and break up in very large numbers, they also do not marry in very large numbers.[2] [emphasis in original]

And yet, it is not condemnatory that atheists divorce because an absolutely materialistic universe does not call for the fidelity of bio-organisms living on a little dot in the middle of the universe’s nowhere and so they are violating nothing when they divorce.

The next section is entitled “On to another beef”

The Christian attempts to put prayer into schools run directly counter to biblical teachings. Jesus said prayer should be a private affair devoid of public display: "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room (or closet.) and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret..." (Matthew 6:5-6 RSV). Biblicists violate this on a regular basis and have no intention of correcting their behavior…Christians continuously pray in public, IE: churches, street corners, schools, courts, etc. yet all the while they never stop to think this is in direct violation to the god they pray to.

This actually is the goal of many atheists; to push Christians out of public view, the public square and into their closets with the lights out under a blanket. Many atheist countries already and literally do this, by the way.
This is rather interesting as Jesus is being quoted, the very same Jesus who attended the Temple and who prayed in public, in front of people such as in Matthew 14:19 when he prayed before “about five thousand men, besides women and children.” Then perhaps it is not merely Christians who are hypocrites but Christ Himself.
Yet, note that Charlotte is parsing the thought behind the text in order to make her point; the thought is just as was quoted,

when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men.

It is clear that the thought is that the, actual, hypocrites where praying that way just to make a show of their supposed godliness. In counter distinction is it better to completely remove yourself from the public. Yet, since the thought, the context, is about not putting on a fake show of godliness and Jesus prayed in public it is not a condemnation of public prayer but is, in typical Jewish fashion, counterbalancing one extreme with another: as if to say that if they do this you do that.

This is in keeping with the preceding verses which read:

Take heed that you do not do your merciful deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in Heaven.
Therefore when you do your merciful deeds, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may have glory from men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.
But when you do merciful deeds, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, so that your merciful deeds may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret Himself shall reward you openly.

That was the point; do not do it just to be seen and draw attention to yourself.

Next, Charlotte plays the part of a mind reader and pretends to know why Christians want prayer in public:

I, of course, know why this is voluntarily ignored. Public prayer forces the peers of school children to jump on the band wagon and pray. We are all aware that the church is simply a business which employs tactics similar to that of tobacco industries in recruiting consumers…
I find it humorous that other businesses warn their consumers on the package that it is dangerous to one’s health while Churches don’t put warning labels on the bible for the pornography and immorality it contains. The psychological damage organized religion causes is notably prevalent. Cancer from smoking and cirrhosis from drinking is JUST AS HARMFUL as the psychosis believers develop concerning reality.
The “I see demons” complex is more rampant in Christians then it is in acid dropping space cadets. I am not saying this as a joke. There are literal studies done on this topic and they are in accordance to what I am conveying here.

As for as being harmful, I wrote about how harmful, in fact tormenting, it was for me to be raised in an utterly secular home in my essay Torture, the Hell of Atheism and the “Gentle Pedophile”. She not only claims to know why but to also know that it is voluntary ignorance. What she does not seem to consider with regards to the “pornography and immorality it contains” is that it is mentioned within a framework which places it into an ethical context. In other words, the “pornography and immorality” are not gratuitous but are meant as lessons and guides. This is tantamount to discrediting a newspaper for reporting immoral actions. Remember: just because it is found in the Bible does not mean that the Bible is giving its approval.
I would love to read her absolute atheist standard of immorality, by the way but, of course, it is not provided but merely asserted. As to the “I see demons” complex it may be of interest to note that there are literal studies that demonstrate that secular people are far more superstitious than Christians. This is because Judeo-Christian theism or even superstition, if you wish, is confined within an internally consistent framework, it has parameters, whereas for secularists anything goes and so they go for anything:

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.”[3]

Ponder these things my friends and we will pick it up next time: same bat time, same bat channel.

[1] Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2008), p. 188
[2] Michael Caputo, Atheism and Divorce
[3] Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, “Look Who's Irrational Now,” The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 19, 2008, p. W13
Continue reading Atheism, EvilBible.com, “Theists Suck” and Christians are Hypocrites, part 1 of 6...

Camp Quest - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here

Atheism is Dead has 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.

We did this in two posts here and 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 Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But 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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On this issue George Pitcher’s Prof Dawkins Upstages Bruno In Hilarious Summer Of Satire is a good article for a chuckle.
Continue reading Camp Quest - Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here...

Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 4 of 4

Atheism is Dead now concludes considering Nicholas Humphrey’s Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1997 AD alternately published as “What shall we tell the children?” and “What shall we tell the children?” (PDF, HTML).

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

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 Bahá'í 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:

Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 4 of 4...

Atheism – Bus Ads Minus One

A letter to the editor of the Indiana Daily Student presents a wonderful poster boy example of atheist “logic” and the disparity between their attempts at putting a public relations happy face on atheism on the one hand and what they are really about on the other.

The hoopla revolves around yet another atheist group, Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign, who are collecting donations, “Help us reach a goal of $50,000!,” during a time of worldwide recession not in order to help anyone but in order to attempt to demonstrative just how clever they think themselves to be.

The letter claimed that the ads, which are to read “You can be good without God,” say “nothing about the virtues of religious people”? Really? It means that, in this regard, their religion, not to mention their God, is irrelevant.

Moreover, “You can be good without God” is an answer to an argument that no one has made, in a manner of speaking. This is because theists, let us speak of Christians, would argue that people who think themselves to be “without God” are not so, since God still motivates them to do good through having placed His laws in their hearts. Thus, the argument is not that atheists cannot be good without God.

The letter claims that “You can be good without God” is a “a positive message about atheism”? This message, as usual, defines atheism strictly as a negative position; it is atheism as anti-theism. Why can they not make a statement that does not besmirch theism?

Note that morality describes what is; whatever people, a society, agree upon while ethics prescribes what should be; the ethos. Atheist can certainly make assertions about morals based on subjective personal preferences and arguments from outrage but cannot provide an absolute ethic: they can make epistemic statements but not provide ontological foundations.



The atheists and their bulldog, the ACLU, should certainly advertize as much as they please for at least two reasons:
1) Their claims should be heard as much as possible since they discredit themselves.
2) Atheists from the UK to the USA have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars/pounds of donated money during a time of worldwide recession not in order to help anyone in need but in order to attempt to demonstrate just how clever they think themselves to be: need any more be said?
As it turns out; these bus ads were not only a look how clever we are ploy but where meant to be an in your face display,

…in advance of President Barack Obama's visit Sunday to the University of Notre Dame.But Transpo — the bus authority for Mishawaka and South Bend — is waiting for its board to approve the posters.
The board meets Monday, after Obama's visit, which doesn't do much for the ads, said Charlie Sitzes, spokesman for the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign."That would be like us buying a 1972 Sears catalog," Sitzes said. "They're worthless now."[1]

Well, the ads are not exactly worthless as the ads which are to be posted on 20 buses cost $3,895.80.
Thus saith the Charlie Sitzes, spokesman for the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign yet the unnamed author of the letter claimed the following motivations for the ads:

…encourage non-believers to “come out” of the atheist closet. Another goal of the bus campaign is to start a thoughtful discussion about atheism and morality…

our slogan is a call for atheists and other non-religious people to be included in these conversations…
demand our constitutional rights to freedom of speech against government censorship…

we are standing up for all who value freedom of expression and personal liberty…

support our goals of fostering open discussion and ending the stigma against voicing atheist views.

Again, and again and again we find the disparity between atheism as PR happy face and in reality.

Transpo board Chairman Chip Lewis explained that the ads were considered controversial,
blockquote>not because of its content, said, but because of the media attention it got in Bloomington…"I want to make sure we have a thorough discussion and that everybody gets a chance to feel comfortable with what we decide," Lewis said. "It's just business as usual for us."

And so we have yet another example of wasted money, failed atheist happy face publicity, examples of atheistic illogic and yet much benefit from painting atheism as woe-are-we-underdog-victim-status-give-us-more-money-for-ACLU-lawsuites.

[1] Ed Ronco, “South Bend 'atheist bus campaign' put on hold - Group paid to post message on Transpo for Obama's visit,” South Bend Tribune

Continue reading Atheism – Bus Ads Minus One...

Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 3 of 4

Atheism is Dead now continues considering Nicholas Humphrey’s Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1997 AD alternately published as “What shall we tell the children?” and “What shall we tell the children?” (PDF, HTML).

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Nicholas Humphrey retells the 1995 AD find in the high mountains of Peru of the frozen mummified body of a young Inca girl,

She was dressed as a princess. She was thirteen years old. About five hundred years ago, this little girl had, it seems, been taken alive up the mountain by a party of priests, and then ritually killed—a sacrifice to the mountain's Gods in the hope that they would look kindly on the people below.
The discovery was described by the anthropologist, Johan Reinhard, in an article for the National Geographic magazine. He was clearly elated both as a scientist and as a human being by the romance of finding this "ice maiden", as he called her. Even so, he did express some reservations about how she had come to be there: "we can't help but shudder," he wrote, "at [the Incas'] practice of performing human sacrifice."

He then expresses outrage that a TV program depicting the find represented,

the practice of human sacrifice was in its own way a glorious cultural invention—another jewel in the crown of multiculturalism, if you like.
Yet, how dare anyone even suggest this? How dare they invite us—in our sitting rooms, watching television—to feel uplifted by contemplating an act of ritual murder: the murder of a dependent child by a group of stupid, puffed up, superstitious, ignorant old men? How dare they invite us to find good for ourselves in contemplating an immoral action against someone else?
Immoral? By Inca standards? No, that's not what matters. Immoral by ours…

Get the picture? According to Nicholas Humphrey child sacrifice is not inherently immoral but just happens to be thus viewed by our standards; “ours” apparently meaning first-world country citizenry’s agreement which is, of course, subject to change even as the zeitgeist fluctuates to and fro from moral zeitgeist to poltergeist.
But then again, the only “moral” conclusion is that the child chooses for themselves as long as they do not choose anything but atheism, as we shall see (particularly at the end of part 4).

Moreover, I wonder what his view on abortion is; the Incas had nothing on the hundreds of millions of healthy, beautiful, innocent and defenseless human babies that have been painfully murdered via brutal dismemberment. Keep in mind that according to “our” morals this is not only perfectly acceptable: it is; as per Dan Barker, “a blessing,” it is even “sacred abortion,” it is a right, it is a financially beneficial multibillion dollar money machine.



This is just about the point in the lecture where Nicholas Humphrey drives home the point that in opposition to his proposal of what the child would have chosen if given the choice,

The Amish, by contrast, survive only by kidnapping little children before they can protest.

And we are getting ever closer to the ultimate motivation behind his proposal which, as we shall see, is to make it so that the atheist survives only by kidnapping little children before they can protest.
Again, note that he claim to uphold the ideal that,

…in every case where we come across examples of children's lives being manipulated to serve other ends, we have a duty to protest.

His ultimately goal is to bypass the parent’s rights, forcefully, and manipulate children to serve other ends; Nicholas Humphrey’s own.

In another attempt to drive a nail into the coffin of a parent’s relationship and responsibility to their children he states,

…the very idea that parents or any other adults have "rights" over children is morally insupportable.

He, of course, does not elucidate to what moral he is appealing; atheists generally prefer to not bother with premises but merely launch into condemnation. Yet, it is ONLY parents and other adults who do have “rights” over children. The parent or guardian is legally and morally responsible for the child’s health and safety since they are supposed to be better informed and more able to discern than a child. When I take my children to the playground only I have the right to pick them up, place them into my vehicle, drive away with them and place them into my home. No one else, not even those Amish kidnappers, have that right. Where my children to vandalize personal or government property I would be responsible for the legal and financial ramifications.
Yet, Nicholas Humphrey is not really proposing that “the very idea that parents or any other adults have ‘rights’ over children is morally insupportable” but that only he and his elite atheist cabal have a rights over children.

And again,

No human being, in any other circumstances, is credited with having rights over anyone else. No one is entitled, as of right, to control, use or direct the life-course of another person—even for objectively good ends.

That is right; you have no right to tell your child to share with others, or become a doctor, etc. because this amounts to being entitled direct the child’s life-course for objectively good ends. This, of course, is more poppycock since everyone from parents to teachers, from the police to the president, from the lunch lady to the military is actually expected to exercise rights over others and are indeed, entitled to control the life-course of others persons—to a certain extent.



We shall see that Nicholas Humphrey’s entire lecture, his very premise, is his hopes of personally having rights over others; to actively control, use or direct the life-course of others (as will be seen particularly at the end of part 4).

Now we get closer to how the militant activist atheist plan is meant to unfold as he describes how he intends on, forcefully, intervening:

Intervene how? Suppose we—I mean we as a society—do not like what is happening when the education of a child has been left to parents or priests. Suppose we fear for the child's mind and want to take remedial action. Suppose indeed we want to take pre-emptive action with all children to protect them from being hurt by bad ideas and to give them the best possible start as thoughtful human beings. What should we be doing about it? What should be our birthday present to them from the grown-up world?
My suggestion at the start of this talk was: science—universal scientific education. That's to say, education in learning from observation, experiment, hypothesis testing, constructive doubt, critical thinking—and the truths that flow from it.

Let us grant that he provides a wonderful definition of “science” against which none would argue. However, let us recognize that the purpose of defining science in this way within this context is in order to elicit this very reaction: that it is wonderful and no one would argue.
Yet, we must recognize that within the worldview of certain atheists what they mean by “science” is atheist propaganda wrapped in a mere veneer of scientific respectability. Science is employed along with claims that upon exploring the cosmos science implies atheism. Science is even employed in the form of atheism spirituality to fill the God shaped hole in every human heart—atheist neo Paganism. Science is one of the doorways through which atheists have smuggled atheist propaganda into public schools.

Nicholas Humphrey further elucidates:

I think science stands apart from and superior to all other systems for the reason that it alone of all the systems in contention meets the criterion I laid out above: namely, that it represents a set of beliefs that any reasonable person would, if given the chance, choose for himself…science is the one way of thinking—maybe the only one—that passes this test. There is a fundamental asymmetry between science and everything else.

What are some of these “beliefs that any reasonable person would, if given the chance, choose for himself”? That life came into being when lightning struck a swamp? That nothing caused nothing to explode for no reason and made everything? That light is both wage and particle? That there are subatomic particles? That water consists of H2O? That accident begat accident begat accident begat the human mind that concludes that accident begat accident begat accident begat the human mind? That Keanu Reeve can act?
Just what are we talking about: hard science, soft science, scientific interpretation of evidence via schools of thought, professional rivalries, and worldviews? Exclusively observation and repeatable experimentation? Wild speculation in the guise of theory? What?
Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 3 of 4...

The Good Books?

I wonder sometimes; I do not know what to make of the New Atheists sometimes and sometimes I think that they do not know what to make of themselves.

Are they the Four Horsemen or the Four My Little Ponies?






Are they bold confronters of religious fanatics or do they prefer taking pop-shots at the Pope, Jerry Falwell, the Bishop of Canterbury and Pat Robertson?

Are they campaigning to convert the ignorant religious or merely encouraging the naturally rebellious and hormonal youth to act out, and act up?

Etc.

Well, the evidence that Atheism is Dead has amassed always points towards the latter.

I simply wanted to point out just how highly these personages think of themselves.

Richard Dawkins wrote that Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith,

is one of those books that deserves to replace the Gideon Bible in every hotel room in the land.

Of The God Delusion Bill Maher stated,

hopefully, someday, it’ll be by the bed in every hotel in America.

Delusion indeed.



Of his own book Letter to a Christian Nation Sam Harris stated,

It’s a book that a person could simply hand to a member of the religious Right and say, “What’s your answer to this?”

Just like a tract.
Well, I suppose that I would say, “My answer to this is that you have a lot of studying to do.”

In the preface to The God Delusion Richard Dawkins wrote,

If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.

Apparently, this very funny book did not work as he intended.

Lucrative? Yes indeed. Converting fueling the fires of unbelief? Yes indeed. Historically, logically, theologically, scientifically accurate? No indeed. Worthy of ubiquitous hotel room distribution? Perhaps in the latrine.
Continue reading The Good Books?...

Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 2 of 4

Atheism is Dead now continues considering Nicholas Humphrey’s Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1997 AD alternately published as “What shall we tell the children?” and “What shall we tell the children?” (PDF, HTML).

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Nicholas Humphrey primes the pump for his doxology to “science” by appealing to the typical besmirchments of America’s lack of scientific enlightenment: age of the Earth this, evolution that, superstition this, almighty science that…

He also gives the obligatory hat tip to Richard Dawkins for being on the forefront of turning children against parents and his references to religious ideas as viral:

…as Richard Dawkins has explained so well, this kind of self-restraint is not in the nature of successful belief systems

The “self-restraint” of which Nicholas Humphrey speaks is the restraint of not teaching one’s children one’s “faith.” As is perhaps obvious, we shall see (particularly at the end of part 4) that Nicholas Humphrey and co.’s answer is to teach, nay; indoctrinate, children into absolute materialism.

In this regard, consider his self-righteous us against them statement:

…their devotees will be obsessed with education and with discipline: insisting on the rightness of their own ways and rubbishing or preventing access to others. We should expect, moreover, that they will make a special point of targeting children in the home, while they are still available, impressionable and vulnerable.

It is hard to see how this can so very easily be turned around on him?

Nicholas Humphrey’s devotees are obsessed with education and with discipline: insisting on the rightness of their own ways and rubbishing or preventing access to others. We should expect, moreover, that they will make a special point of targeting children in the home, while they are still available, impressionable and vulnerable.

Of course, such atheists are beyond merely targeting their own children in the home, while they are still available, impressionable and vulnerable. But have for a long time smuggled atheism into the public schools not merely through the back door but right through the front in the form of textbooks, “science,” removing any reference to God, etc. They do not only want their children to be atheist but yours as well. This will become all too clear and troubling as we proceed in considering the lecture (and in the various posts to which I linked in part 1).



Nicholas Humphrey provides a token comment in apparently recognizing that retorts such as mine above could just as easily be made as he begins his various belittlements of the Amish; those kidnappers!

Donald Kraybill, an anthropologist who made a close study of an Amish community in Pennsylvania, was well placed to observe how this works out in practice. "Groups threatened by cultural extinction," he writes, "must indoctrinate their offspring if they want to preserve their unique heritage…The Amish contend that the Bible commissions parents to train their children in religious matters as well as the Amish way of life. . . An ethnic nursery, staffed by extended family and church members, moulds the Amish world view in the child's mind from the earliest moments of consciousness." [second ellipses in original]
…"An ethnic nursery, staffed by extended family and church members . . ." could be as much a description of the early environment of a Belfast Catholic, a Birmingham Sikh, a Brooklyn Hasidic Jew—or maybe the child of a North Oxford don.

I imagine that the North Oxford don is in reference to a supposed true intellectual and perhaps particularly to Richard Dawkins. Apparently, he is not familiar with the Amish year of freedom whereby an Amish teen is allowed to explore the world outside of the Amish community and decides whether or not to return. Surely, Nicholas Humphrey would argue that such as exercise is merely a farce as by that point the teen has been so indoctrinated as to ensure only the teen’s return to the Amish paradise.
However, he rejoices in a circa three decades old story about Amish teens choosing the outside world after being made to work in public hospitals in lieu of military service during the Vietnam war drafts: male teens with raging hormones being unleashed upon the world of whatever-whenever-however-anyone wants goes world—big surprise.

Nicholas Humphrey makes reference to “sectarian schools” such as those that insist on,

presenting all subjects only from a biblical point of view, and requiring all teachers, supervisors, and assistants to agree with the church's doctrinal position

As an example of the deleterious effects of such schooling he offers the following,

Dress a little boy in the uniform of the Hasidim, curl his side-locks, subject him to strange dietary taboos, make him spend all weekend reading the Torah, tell him that gentiles are dirty.

As becomes more and more evidence as the lecture progresses, Nicholas Humphrey’s response is to, for example, establish equally, or even more so, sectarian schools wherein the teachers will present all subjects only from an atheistic point of view and requiring all teachers, supervisors, and assistants to agree with the atheist’s doctrinal position (many have already been excommunicated from the realm of academia). These schools seek to dress a little boy in a lab coat and make him spend a minimum of twelve years being told that life, the universe and everything is the fortuitous result of happenstantial accidents and tell him that religious people are ignorant.

Nicholas Humphrey notes that a boy “actually escaped and lived to tell the tale” of being raised a Catholic and notes,

There are plenty of other examples, known to all of us, of men and women who as children were pressured into becoming junior members of a sect, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Marxist—and yet who came out the other side, free thinkers, and seemingly none the worse for their experience.

Indeed, there are plenty of other examples, known to all of us, of men and women who as children were pressured into becoming junior members of a sect of atheism—and yet who came out the other side, true free thinkers, and seemingly none the worse for their experience. Then again some of the pseudo-freethinkers of which Nicholas Humphrey refers end up becoming some of the most vitriolic expressers of prejudice one would never hope to hear—just asks the likes of Dan Barker and co.

In another attempt to appeal to his liberal audience in the form of liberal ideas about sex in stating,

someone who has learned as a child, for example, to think of sex as sinful may never again be able to be relaxed about making love.

Again, this is one-sided-well-within-the-box-liberal-group-think as I personally know many people who learned as a child to think of sex as a mere bio-function to be expressed anytime, anywhere, with anyone and may never again be able to be relaxed about making love as a pure thing; a God ordained sacred and holy union of a husband and wife.

Now we get into the full Monty of Nicholas Humphrey’s promulgations as he lays it on the line:

…what would happen if this kind of vicious circle were to be forcibly broken? What would happen if, for example, there were to be an externally imposed "time-out"? Wouldn't we predict that, just to the extent it is a vicious circle, the process of becoming a fully-fledged believer might be surprisingly easy to disrupt? I think the clearest evidence of how these belief systems typically hold sway over their followers can in fact be found in historical examples of what has happened when group members have been involuntarily exposed to the fresh air of the outside world.

This is exemplary of his proposal: to forcibly unleash the forces of atheism upon you, your children your worldview, you schools (even and especially home schools). Again, appealing to fellow militant activist atheist Richard Dawkins, Nicholas Humphrey makes reference to “cultural viruses.” Do not simply shrug off the fact that militant activist atheist are increasingly dehumanizing religious people: as with abortion; dehumanization precedes persecution and extermination.

Nicholas Humphrey gets to his bottom line point which he described thusly:

Suppose that, as the Amish case suggests, young members of such a faith would—if given the opportunity to make up their own minds—choose to leave. Doesn't this say something important about the morality of imposing any such faith on children to begin with? I think it does. In fact I think it says everything we need to know in order to condemn it…

So I'll come to the main point—and lesson—of this lecture. I want to propose a general test for deciding when and whether the teaching of a belief system to children is morally defensible. As follows. If it is ever the case that teaching this system to children will mean that later in life they come to hold beliefs that, were they in fact to have had access to alternatives, they would most likely not have chosen for themselves, then it is morally wrong of whoever presumes to impose this system and to chose for them to do so. No one has the right to choose badly for anyone else…

only if we know that teaching a system to children will mean that later in life they come to hold beliefs that, were they to have had access to alternatives, they would still have chosen for themselves, only then can it be morally allowable for whoever imposes this system and chooses for them to do so.

Thus, the only allowable result is a worldview that a child would have come to hold when, having been given access to alternatives, they would have most likely chosen. And then we are provided a typical baseless atheist assertion of moral condemnation. He had previously referred to giving the child “access to the full range of alternatives.”
Full range meaning that they may choose to become a Mother Theresa or an Adolf Hitler. Given the choice they may forgo working 40-80 hours per week and coming home to a wife who does not elicit constant goose bumpy adrenaline spiked feeling and choose the life of a pornographer. They may become a foster parent or an assassin. No, no! No? Why not, because of some vague and ultimately judicially impotent notion of right and wrong?
No indeed, because the view of such atheists is that of a Utopian human race wherein education of the “right” kind will produce pure benevolence.
Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 2 of 4...

Bill Maher the Jewish Zombie

The ever present Bill Maher controversy continued unabated on Real Time with Bill Maher (January 18, 2008 AD).

This year he jumped upon the bandwagon of ever mounting childish atheist talking points by referring to Jesus as a “Jewish Zombie.”

In typical form Bill Maher makes arguments from outrage, arguments from ridicule and argument for embarrassment in stating:

As a book of morality, it would be about last on my list. If I had a child, the last book I would ever give to teach morality would be the Bible, especially the Old Testament.

I can only imagine that he does not take them time to consider that, as opposed to so many atheist, the Bible places morality and lack thereof into context. His statements are tantamount to denouncing a newspaper for reporting the immoral activities of the previous day.

His guest, columnist Dan Savage, then does a good job of providing a virtual one stop shop for learning the same, old, tired, regurgitated without skepticism and ubiquitously discredited atheist talking points as he then launches into a barrage of condemnations:

People only pretend to read the Bible. Their eyes glaze over, and they remember a couple of passages that they ignore when they feel like ignoring, like "Turn the other cheek."And, then they, when they don't like somebody, they go flipping through this massive book, full of ancient desert prejudices, looking for something to justify it.

Just like they justified slavery using the Bible, because there are passages in the Bible that justify slavery, including passages that justify selling your daughters into sex slavery. Right there, that's Biblical, those are Biblical family values.

And so, we have this selective sort of reading problem with the Bible. If we're going to enforce it all, stone the gay people, but, you know, stoning the adulterers first starting with Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain...by the time it's my turn, they'll be out of rocks. [ellipses in original]

The first portion is simply childish—actually children have much more sense than this.



As for slavery; what the Bible was doing was reforming it and commanding protections for the “slave” (servant is generally more accurate). Moreover, it was in appeal to the Bible that slavery in America was abolished: it was the elucidations of the well versed and educated theologians who clarified the issue. That there are “passages that justify selling your daughters into sex slavery” is no less than utterly baseless and he conveniently neglected to cite book, chapter and verse. Yet, since we are dealing with atheist talking points Atheism is Dead has already discredited such baseless assertions in our post: Atheism, the Bible, Rape and EvilBible.com.

Why would anyone; Jew, Christian, or even atheist, think that anyone would or should seek to “enforce it all.”
This is an example of the unfathomable depths of a typical atheist misunderstanding and lack of knowledge of the Bible’s contents, concepts and contexts even at the most basic of basic levels.

The Bible’s every law is not to be enforced particularly when dealing with the, note the key word, Old Testament as that Old Testament was the old law for the Jews of olden days in Israel under the theocratic government in which they agreed to live.
So, even though Dan Savage savagely appeals to the Old Testament in mockingly asking why we do not stone the gay people and adulterers and Sam Harris argues that you can actually justify stoning adulterers from the New Testament they only discredit themselves by so very openly, loudly and proudly displayed the tremendous depth of their ignorance: this is pseudo-skepticism at its finest.

Never missing an opportunity to further discredit himself further Bill Maher chimes in:

And at least half of the Commandments are stupid...If you were going to make a list of like the ten things you absolutely can't do, wouldn't you put on there rape, incest, bestiality, slavery? But, instead, they have things like "Don't swear," you know, "Don't build statues to other Gods," obviously the ideas of primitive man living in primitive times, and this is what you look up to.

Bill Maher does not seem to consider premise, cause and effect chains of causation, etc. He also seems to be under a misconception about what the Ten Commandments are; he seems to think that they are the complete law. They are the premise of the complete law. There are various premises, overarching principles upon which the whole law was based.
When Jesus was asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (see Mark 12:28-34).

Apparently, the Bill Maher school of Bible misinterpretation would say, “Wow, wait a minute Jesus! Show me where it says that in the list of ten!” I admit that if I have to choose between Bill Maher’s and Jesus’ elucidation of the issue I may have to side with Jesus ;o)



Interestingly, Bill Maher does not bother (as per typical atheism shoot condemnations first and do not even bother asking questions about premise later) providing a premise upon which to condemn rape, incest, bestiality, slavery or anything at all for that matter. In fact, he has made fun of little children that are raped by their parents.

The Ten Commandments where the first list of rules for a brand new nation. This is something that atheists such as Christopher Hitchens (see here and here) do not consider: the Jews had just been freed from four centuries of slavery in Egypt (have you ever heard of an atheist condemning Egyptian slavery? No! They just want to condemn Jews).
The Jews had been institutionalized by four centuries of slavery in Egypt.
God was literally building up a nation from the ground up and the building began with the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments provide premise that God freed them from slavery, defeated the false gods of Egypt, that the Jews were not to make idols and serve them because this leads to the worship of the very false gods that had been defeated, the gods that commanded all sorts of unethical actions.
The Ten Commandments build from relationship with God to relationship with family to relationship with one’s neighbor to relationship with society. Specific condemnations of rape, incest, bestiality and slavery follow elsewhere.

It would be interesting if Bill Maher ever has a debate about the Bible and I do not mean a panel in his circus and amongst his amen chorus of adherents but an actual debate. Thus, far upon commenting on the Bible he discredits himself even further while leaving the Bible unscathed.
Continue reading Bill Maher the Jewish Zombie...

Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 1 of 4

Atheism is Dead has been chronicling the attempts by some atheists to dictate child rearing to the parents of the world. Not content to merely come out of the closet some atheists want to proceed by kicking your door down so as to besmirch you and gain access to your children. In this episode we will consider a plan outlined by Nicholas Humphrey.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Forget the philosopher Weird Al Yankovic’s tales of an Amish paradise. Forget the Amish friendship bread. Nicholas Humphrey represents a very troubling trend amongst atheists to apply the most malicious and vicious of labels to those with whom they disagree as he states, amongst many other things, that “The Amish…survive only by kidnapping little children.”

The New Atheist sentiments of “religious” parents raising their children according to their “faith” as “child abusers” is no mere intellectual exercise or controversy stirring tactic; I have personally experienced the displeasure of having one of those militant activist atheists tell me to my face, “you abuse your children.” Of course, I invited them to notify the authorities, which they declined to do. Rather odd I thought; they know that I am a child abuser and are doing nothing about it—that makes them worse that I.
However, some atheists are pushing to make it so that they will someday be able to do something about it. Richard Dawkins envisages “society stepping in?”[1] in hopes that his movements’ interference “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”[2]

We will now cover a significant lecture on the subject by Nicholas Humphrey who is the School Professor at the London School of Economics and Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research.
This was an Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1997 AD and has been alternately published as “What shall we tell the children?” and “What shall we tell the children?” (PDF, HTML).
In an illogical and falsely dichotomous manner Nicholas Humphrey manipulates his audience into accepting the vision of he, and cenobites like him, as arbiters of what will be allowable to be taught to your children.
His various references to “liberals” are in acknowledgment that he is well aware of his audience’s constituency. Thus, he is addressing what he hopes to be a sympathetic audience and seeks to placate any objections that they may have along the way.




In addressing Amnesty International he seeks to encourage them to not only seek to liberate people from physical bondage but from the bondage of children’s captivity to their parents. Children, he argues are to be inoculated against their parent’s “word-virus” or viral religious memes.

Should we then be fighting Amnesty's battle on this front too? Should we be campaigning for the rights of human beings to be protected from verbal oppression and manipulation? Do we need "word laws", just as all civilised societies have gun laws, licensing who should be allowed to use them in what circumstances? Should there be Geneva protocols establishing what kinds of speech act count as crimes against humanity?

He presupposes that the rhetorical answer is “no.” Perhaps in 1997 AD “hate-speech” was not as of yet inculcated into American society, and illegal in Canada, as it is today. In any regard, he seeks to rectify the answer by elucidating his purpose:

…we should try to make up for the harm that other people's words do, but not by censoring the words as such…it is the purpose of my lecture today to argue in one particular area just the opposite. To argue, in short, in favour of censorship, against freedom of expression, and to do so moreover in an area of life that has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct.
I am talking about moral and religious education. And especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed—even expected—to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong.
Children, I'll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas—no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no god-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.
In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible, or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children's teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.
That's the negative side of what I want to say. But there will be a positive side as well. If children have a right to be protected from false ideas, they have too a right to be succoured by the truth. And we as a society have a duty to provide it. Therefore we should feel as much obliged to pass on to our children the best scientific and philosophical understanding of the natural world—to teach, for example, the truths of evolution and cosmology, or the methods of rational analysis—as we already feel obliged to feed and shelter them. I don't suppose you'll doubt my good intentions here. Even so, I realise there may be many in this audience—especially the more liberal of you—who do not like the sound of this at all: neither the negative, nor still less the positive side of it.

We are instantly made to wonder just who will be the arbiter of what constitutes “bad ideas” and “nonsense.” We wonder if there really is no limiting “children's knowledge” (“Happy sixth birthday little Juanito! What? You want to learn about necrophilia. Sure, of course!”). And just what is “the truth”? Who doeth bequeath it?



We encounter what is perhaps the first of his very many manipulative dichotomies as he likens religious upbringing, the imparting of certain ideas, to physical mutilation:

Let's suppose we were talking not about children's minds but children's bodies. Suppose the issue were not who should control a child's intellectual development but who should control the development of her hands or feet . . . or genitalia. Let's suppose indeed that this is a lecture about female circumcision. And the issue is not whether anyone should be permitted to deny a girl knowledge of Darwin, but whether anyone should be permitted to deny her the uses of a clitoris.
And now here I am suggesting that it is a girl's right to be left intact, that parents have no right to mutilate their daughters to suit their own socio-sexual agenda, and that we as a society ought to prevent it. [ellipses in original]

There is quite a bit to state in this regard.
Primarily, Nicholas Humphrey knows that he is addressing a majority liberal audience and is thus, playing on the liberal instinct to recoil at the very thought of restricting sexuality in any way shape of form (with the most generic caveats against that which they personally find distasteful, of course). He seeks to liken physical mutilation to intellectual mutilation. While he is aware that in the one case he is dealing with irreparable damage and in the other with something that may be unlearned or augmented he will return to this fallacious likening nine times during the lecture (it is as if his notes stated, “Point weak here; mention female circumcision”).
Also, note that the term “female circumcision” is both ubiquitously employed and fallacious. It is supposed to be likened to male circumcision but is absolutely nothing like it.
Female “circumcision” is, as rightly stated above by Nicholas Humphrey, mutilation: it is the complete removal of the clitoris for the specific purpose of ensuring lifelong denial of sexual pleasure.
On the other hand, male circumcision is the removal of a little part of the penis’ foreskin which is not only very healthy but does not diminish sexual drive or pleasure.

Nicholas Humphrey has attempted to win his liberal audience to his side by going from recognizing that their natural reaction to his proposal of dictating child rearing is, shall we say; initially skittish, to getting them to be overcome with emotion for the, rightful, condemnation of child mutilation. This is a fallacious and yet very effecting tactic: he has won their empathy and having won their emotions their intellect is putty in his hands.

[1] During his interview with Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers”
[2] Richard Dawkins, “Now Here’s a Bright Idea”

Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America While the Amish Survive Only By Kidnapping Little Children, part 1 of 4...

Bill Maher’s Errata

This essay consists of the following sections:
Superior-Inferiority-Complex
Absolute Agnosticism
Apatheism
Oh My (Selfish) Goodness!

In this essay Atheism is Dead will enumerate the various logical and theological fallacies that were uttered my Bill Maher whilst appearing on Joe Scarborough’s news show “Scarborough Country” for April 24, 2007 AD (manuscript here).



Superior-Inferiority-Complex

JOE SCARBOROUGH: No holds Mahered. Controversial comedian Bill Maher attacks God, Jesus and Christianity. Now, he’s working on a new documentary on religion with the producer of “Borat.” And I talked to him about why Jesus, Christianity and faith scares him so much.

Here they play a clip of a conversation on Bill Maher’s show (for info on Religulous see here, here and here):

BILL MAHER: I mean, you really think that I’m lost because I don’t accept Jesus Christ as my savior. You think I’m your inferior. Be honest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (UF): Oh, no, not inferior.
BILL MAHER: Come on!
UF: That’s very different.
BILL MAHER: But wait. You think you have a truth...
UF: I don’t—I don’t think you’re inferior, but I...
BILL MAHER: But do you think you have a truth that I do not see?
UF: Yes.
BILL MAHER: Then aren’t I not, by logical means...
UF: No. No, you’re where I was...
BILL MAHER: ... inferior?
UF: ... once because I was all confused myself.
(CROSSTALK)
BILL MAHER: That’s condescending.

Bill Maher appears to be an example of a person who is not strictly expressing their opinions on the subject at hand but are expressing what is deep within the recesses of their hearts, souls and minds. A form of what psychology refers to as “transference.” For instance, on the topic of fathers who take their little daughters to father-daughter dances or “purity balls” Bill Maher had quite a laugh about pedophilic-incest. On the topic of a mother breast feeding her little baby in public Bill Maher likened it to public masturbation (see here and here for details). These are various aspects of the ongoing Bill Maher controversy.

Transference certainly seems to be the case in this instance. Bill Maher is equating a person who possesses a certain bit of information with a superiority complex and infers that they look down upon a person who does not possess that bit of information as being inferior. This is certainly a fallacious inference due to the following options:

1. A person who possesses a certain bit of information may very well hoard it with good reason and rightly look down on others who do not possess it as inferior. For example, an inventor may patent a new devise from which he will become rich himself and give a business of his choosing, to whom he sells his invention, an advantage over another business which may even become obsolete and go out of business due to the competitor’s technological-superiority and their technological-inferiority.

2. A person who possesses a certain bit of information may hoard it with a much more selfish reason and capriciously look down on others who do not possess it as inferior. Such would be the case in a “I have a secret” (read in a whiny voice) scenario.

3. A person who possesses a certain bit of information that another person lacks is under no moral or logical obligation to feel superior to anyone, may even feel unworthy, and may feel it to be their life’s purpose to share that information with as many people who lack it as possible.

Note that Bill Maher, appearing to be more interested in instigation and belittlement than in rational discourse, did not ask the logical question, “Do you think I’m your inferior?” Rather, he makes a fallacious assertion, “You think I’m your inferior.” Note that he then turns from insisting that he is being considered “inferior” to insisting that it is “condescending” to be considered “confused.” The fact is that some people are confused and there is nothing condescending about it nor about pointing that out.

It appears to me that the bottom line, at this point, is that Bill Maher considers her worldview to be exclusivist and arrogant. Yet, her claim to have absolute knowledge to the effect of someone being lost because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their savior is matched by Bill Maher’s negation which is just as absolutist, exclusivist and arrogant.
Moreover, it should be noted that if something is true and another thing false, it is not arrogant to assert the true in negation of the false. For instance, if someone stated, “1+1=2 and 1+1 does not =152” would they be considered arrogant for making such a truth claim? Granted truth claims about mathematics and truth claims about theology are of separate categories but the general concept is important to point out: if something is true and another thing false it is not arrogant to make the truth claim and therefore negate the false. I drew out this issue a bit in two essays: Exclusivism, Part I - Is only one worldview true? And Exclusivism, Part II - Is there only one way of salvation?

Absolute Agnosticism

MAHER: As you know, Joe, I’ve always had it out for religion for very good reasons. It’s mostly destructive. I don’t know what happens after you die, but to believe what another person tells me just makes me want to say to that person, How do you know? So that’s what I would ask you. How do you know what happens after you die?
It’s only, Joe, because somebody in this long game of telephone from 2,000 years ago told you what it was. But if some person hadn’t told you and a person just came up to you on the street and says, Yes, there’s a God and he had a son and he sent him on a suicide mission to earth, and then on Easter, he flies bodily up to heaven, I mean, what would you think of a person in the 21st century who believed that someone could fly bodily up to heaven?

The statement that religion is “mostly destructive” is stunningly exaggerated. Let us consider, for example, the topic of war. The Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars. The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD. From over 10,000 years of war 123, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars. Let us consider the number of religious people who have ever lived and let us balance on one side of the scale those who have engaged in religious war and those who have lived out their entire lives in virtual benevolence. The scale would surely break under the weight of the benevolent side. Yet, we are getting ahead of ourselves since Bill Maher did not provide any standards by which to make an absolute claim to religion being “mostly destructive” but merely made an argument for embarrassment assertion.

It is somewhat logical to think that if you do not know what happens after we die no one else does either. However, this is actually an agnostic logical fallacy since it is illogical to think that since I do not know something then no one else, in the history of the universe, knows it either.

To the issue of a “long game of telephone.” This is a fallacy which betrays knowledge of how oral cultures maintained their information and assured its accuracy. This also fails to recognize that far from being a game of telephone, the purpose which is to fail and have a good laugh about it, there are over 24,000 New Testament manuscripts and proof of at least 2,000 year of accurate Old Testament transmission.

Dr. Craig Blomberg, Ph.D., while interviewed by Lee Strobel, explains why the game of telephone is not a good analogy for how oral traditions are passed down:

“When you’re carefully memorizing something and taking care not to pass it along until you’re sure you’ve got it right, you’re doing something very different from playing the game of telephone. In telephone half the fun is that the person may not have got it right or even heard it right the first time, and they cannot ask the person to repeat it. Then you immediately pass it along, also in whispered tones that make it more likely the next person will goof something up even more. So yes, by the time it has circulated through a room of thirty people, the results can be hilarious.”
“Then why,” I asked, “Isn’t that a good analogy for passing along ancient oral traditions?”…
“If you really want to develop that analogy in light of the checks and balances of the first-century community, you’d have to say that every third person, out loud in a very clear voice, would have to ask the first person; ‘Do I still have it right?’ and change it if he didn’t. The community would constantly be monitoring what was said and intervening to make corrections along the way. That would preserve the integrity of the message,” he said. “And the result would be very different from that of the childish game of telephone.”[1]

But what of the statement about things that would be unbelievable in the 21st century? The fact is that, much to Bill Maher’s dismay, millions of people believe it today. Moreover, consider other things that we are supposed to believe in the 21st century:
That the universe came into being when an eternal uncaused dot of matter exploded.
That life on earth originated when lightning struck a swamp (abiogenesis). Ergo, that the argument from contingency regresses us back to ethereal clouds that rained down upon an amorphous concoction of minerals, etc.
That we cannot detect or observe 96% of the universe.
That there are invisible subatomic particles.
That light is both a wave and a particle.
That Keanu Reeves can act.
Etc.
As Prof. Richard Lewontin has stated it (see here for the full text):

What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity ‘in deep trouble.’ Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.

Apatheism

JOE SCARBOROUGH: So let me ask you, do you belief in God?
MAHER: I call myself an “apatheist.” I’m apathetic about God. In other words, there could be a God. There could be something. I don’t know. I don’t—I certainly don’t think it’s a human God. But there could be some force that we can’t understand on earth.

Bill Maher has apparently established another sect of atheism/agnosticism namely: apatheism. Yet, we should wonder just how apathetic he is about God’s existence. He devotes comedy routines, portions of his show, interviews and a documentary to the issue of God and religion. Perhaps God is only important enough to mock. Well Bill Maher, it’s been done, done to death in fact, to death.

While it is true that “there could be some force that we can’t understand on earth” one aught to be careful about the usage, and usefulness, of this argument. This argument can all too easily become an excuse for believing in an absolutely materialistic universe and denying any evidence to the contrary.
According, to this argument any evidence for the supernatural can be shrugged of as natural phenomena that we do not yet understand but that we will surely someday understand as mere materialism after all. Yet, upon what do we base such assertions? How do we logically claim to know what future discoveries will be? Because this argument and the worldview which it informs are presuppositionally materialistic. Ergo: there is no evidence for the supernatural because the supernatural does not exist and we know that the supernatural does not exist because we never allow anything to count as evidence for the supernatural because the supernatural does not exist because there is no evidence for the supernatural, ad infinitum.

Oh My (Selfish) Goodness!
At this point the discussion involves at least two main topics: the question of why someone does “good” and the alleged selfishness of Christians.

After claiming apatheism Bill Maher continued by stating the following about God’s existence:

It doesn’t matter. You should be a good person for the sake of being a good person, not because there is some reward in heaven.

This is highly presuppositional on various levels:
He is referring to “good” without defining what “good” is—what is “good”?
Without providing any standards of goodness, he asserts the importance of goodness anyway.
He is setting up goodness as a moral standard without establishing why we aught to do “good.”

Rather, he mere makes various assertion, “You should be a good person” – why, remains unstated.
Moreover, “for the sake of being a good person” – why, remains unstated.
Furthermore, “not because there is some reward in heaven” – why, remains unstated.

At this point I would consider arguing that if I set out to “be a good person for the sake of being a good person” then my primary purpose for being good is so that I can be thought of, and think of myself, as being a good person. In this sense, “being a good person” is a reward that I sought. In fact, Dan Barker enumerates certain reasons why we should be good during his debate with Peter Payne:

“if you wish to be…a healthy person” [meaning mentally healthy], “if you wish to be labeled ‘ethical’ by other people,” “if you wish to be viewed by your society as ‘a good person,’” “if that’s something you wish.”

Atheism is Dead has detailed this atheist sentiment in the following essays: A Good Person, Does God Prefer Atheism?, Do Any Atheists Have Pure Motives?

At this point Bill Maher gets to the alleged selfishness of Christianity.

One of the things that bothers me about religion is that it masquerades as humility, and it’s really arrogant. And it masquerades as self-sacrificing, and it’s really about saving your own hide. Ask any Christian, they’ll tell you it’s about salvation through Jesus Christ. This is how I am going to achieve happiness for all eternity after I die. But it’s mostly about saving my own behind.

At this point Joe Scarborough asks:

But how in the world can you even—how can you draw—listen, how can you assume I’m a Christian because I want to save my hide?

Some back and forth occurs at this point the gist of which Bill Maher states thusly:

BILL MAHER: OK, the reason—the reason I say this is because I just got done from interviewing many, many people about this. This is what I was doing on this documentary. And most Christians...
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Many, many people—I mean, you sound like—you sound like Katie Couric—Some people say—you didn’t talk to me.

Joe Scarborough’s point is more understandable this way: “Many, many people”? “Some people say”? Well, “you didn’t talk to me.” I certainly do not know what that reference to Katie Couric was but I thought that Bill Maher sounded like Richard Dawkins he was interviewed by Ben Stein for the movie Expelled. Richard Dawkins asserts that people feel liberated and relieved when they realize that God does not exist. Ben Stein asks him how he knows that, he is after all speaking with an empirical scientist. Richard Dawkins responds that he receives letters from people to that effect. To which Ben Stein states that there are some 8 billion people in the world and asks, “How many letters do you get?” (see here for more examples of goosbump-atheism).

The conversation continues thusly:

BILL MAHER: OK, but I would bet, Joe, if you talk to most Christians, what they would say the most important part of the religion is, salvation, salvation through Jesus Christ. It’s in the Bible. It’s what he says. You can only...
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Now, you know what Jesus says the most important part of being a Christian is? And he tells his disciplines when they ask him. He says it’s about feeding the poor, clothing those that have no clothes, visiting people who are sick, visiting people in jails. Just because Christianity has been perverted by televangelists during your lifetime and my lifetime doesn’t mean that they’re using the words of Jesus. Jesus said, This is how you’re judged. You’re judged on how you treat the poor. You’re judged on how you give hope to the hopeless. I am shocked you didn’t talk to a single person...
BILL MAHER: Yes, but...
JOE SCARBOROUGH: ... that didn’t tell you that.
BILL MAHER: Yes, they talk about that, and that is important. But of course, you can do those things without believing in those kind of myths. You don’t have to personalize a God. OK, but Joe, I mean, let’s get real. I’ve read the New Testament. I’ve read it recently. It is a lot about achieving eternal life through Jesus Christ, OK? Yes, helping the poor and all that stuff is in there, but mostly it’s about saving yourself through this one method, through this one man. God sent his son to earth to die for your sins, yada, yada, yada. That’s what it’s about.

With that, this segment comes to an end.

Certainly, “you can do those things without believing in those kind of myths.” Although, there may be something to be said for the fact that it is not exactly atheist who establish, fund and manage charities, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, disaster relief organizations, hospitals, universities, adoption agencies, foster homes, etc., etc., etc.

As much as I know that Bill Maher has built a career based on bombast, belittling and vile displays of prejudice I get the feeling that he may actually be honestly confused on this point. Or would that be condescending? I am trying to give him some credit, even while believing that he deserves very, very little, if any. I wonder if he missed the point when he was interviewing many, many people.

I would not doubt that many, many of them stated that the point of Christianity is salvation. The issue is that it was at that very point that they, many, many of them were, and this is a crucial point, sharing this message with Bill Maher. It may be this very simple, yet crucial, point that Bill Maher missed. Would not the experience of salvation be a prerequisite for telling others about salvation? Would Bill Maher refer to volunteers at a homeless shelter’s soup kitchen as “selfish” because they also ate, and ate in order to have enough energy to feed others?

Thus, it may be perfectly accurate to assert that “if you talk to most Christians, what they would say the most important part of the religion is, salvation, salvation through Jesus Christ.” And it is from this premise that Christianity is not selfish since it is not, or not solely, about “saving your own hide” or “mostly about saving my own behind” (“mostly” being a very telling qualifier) but is about attempting to save everyone’s hides and behinds. Bill Maher appears to be missing the cause and effect that is at work in the New Testament and in today’s 21st century Christianity.

[1] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1998), p. 56

Continue reading Bill Maher’s Errata...

Dogmatheism – The New York City Atheists Proselytizers

Come out, come out wherever you are—reach deep into your pockets and see if you can come up with an amount that matches your lack of “faith”!!!

Yes, they are at it again. Having nothing better to do with vast amounts of money more atheist bus ads are being purchased.

This time the New York City Atheists are placing ads to read,

You don’t have to believe in God to be a moral and ethical person

This time the atheist talking points have been voiced by Ken Bronstein; president of New York City Atheists, a sect of the American Atheists denomination.

Atheists sure know their PR and this time mere bus ads are being officially introduced at a news conference—tantamount to Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with God’s Ten Commandments—or something.

Ken Bronstein offered the obligatory cognitively dissonant statement which has been a requirement of atheists PR campaigns in stating that they sought to…

find a statement that we thought was positive, it wasn’t bashing religion and it wasn’t huge…They’re not attacking or disparaging the Church as far as I can see.[1]

Well, my dear sir, keep looking further than you can presently see from deep within your well within the box atheist group think. “You don’t have to believe in God” is not attacking or disparaging the Church? Alrighty then.
Of course, needless to say, it is a given and grated that you will be hard pressed to find anything at all posted on the New York City Atheists website that is not attacking or disparaging the Church.

But let us not lose sight on the main point, the bottom line of the ads—they were a styled adhān,

Jane Everhart, the director of communications for New York City Atheists, said that one goal of the campaign was to increase membership.

Mr. Bronstein said he was more focused on establishing “atheist pride” and promoting acceptance of atheism.

“I’ve had people call me in tears, and tell me they thought they’d never see a sign promoting atheism in New York,” he said.

Moreover, this was meant to promote the non-gospel of the atheist emotive/spiritual/religious/militant movement and is described as part of an “atheism awakening,” as per Ken Bronstein and as “part of our coming out,” as per Jane Everhart.

Before referencing some comments about atheism’s increasing a-evangelical zeal let us ponder why atheists insist in responding to arguments that no one has made.

The issue is not whether one can be moral and ethical without believing in God. The issue is that atheists have no premise upon which to base moral and ethical besides their own personal preferences which they express via arguments from outrage, arguments for ridicule, arguments for embarrassment, etc.

Atheists can muse upon moral issues and even come to construct ethical systems but they are impotent systems which either presuppose an atheist utopia where people are good for goodness sakes or else get the iron fist of the government behind them.

Since atheists believe that morality is constantly evolving Sam Harris argues that rape once played a beneficial evolutionary role. Dan Barker argues that rape is not absolutely immoral. Richard Dawkins believes that the fact that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we evolved five fingers rather than six (as Atheism is Dead has noted and cited at this link).

With sentiments of increasing membership, encouraging atheist pride, envisaging an atheist awakening and calls to coming out the statements by Frank Schaeffer that I had read the day before reading about the New York City Atheists are more than apropos:

The New Atheists have proved how inescapable religion/spirituality is (by whatever name we call it) by turning their movement into a quasi-religion with priests, prophets and gurus, followers, and even church services. Check out Richard Dawkins’ website and you could be looking at the website of any televangelist suffering from an acute messianic delusion.

Add a dash of hucksterism, replete with scads of merchandise, including a “Scarlet A pin” to be worn by the faithful to identify them as followers and to provoke “conversations” with the uninitiated leading to their conversion to atheism. A secular “Maharishi” of atheism may also be a fruitcake cult figure leading a “church” in all but name…

When I was watching Religulous in an Upper West Side theatre in New York it seemed to me that the laughter and shouted comments were just another version of “Amen!” and “Preach it brother!” I assumed these cries of affirmation were from the more spirit-filled atheists in the audience! In a moment of unintended self-parody Maher even delivered an altar call at the end of his film begging believers to join him in his unbelief…

The New Atheists turn out to be secular fundamentalists arguing with religious fundamentalists.[2]

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?

[1] Daniel E. Slotnik, “Ads for Atheism Appear on Manhattan Buses,” New York Times, June 25, 2009
[2] Frank Schaeffer, “Purpose Driven Atheism: Secular Maharishis Seeking True Believers,” Religion Dispatches, June 23, 2009

Continue reading Dogmatheism – The New York City Atheists Proselytizers...

Atheism as Militant Activism in Schools

And: Richard Dawkins’ Pestiferous Memes

While atheists complain that via an Intelligent Design conspiracy Creationists are attempting to smuggle religion in though the back doors of public classroom atheism is kicking in the front door. Atheism is Dead has chronicled this in posts such as, Protecting the Science Classroom and The Wedgie Document.

Now, coming to a UK school near you, or across the pond from the location of Atheism is Dead’s colossal headquarters, the militant activist atheists are targeting their favorite captive and easy to propagandize audience; the naturally rebellious youth. Yes, the atheist “child abusers” (employing Richard Dawkins’ term) are at it again manipulating little children like so many marionettes as the puppet masters make them dance to the tune of atheism as anti-Christianity.

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer.

Backed by professors Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity.

It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour.

The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE [religious education] lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God.

Chloë Clifford-Frith, AHS co-founder, said that the societies would act as a direct challenge to the Christian message being taught in schools.

She expressed concern that Christian Unions could influence vulnerable teenagers looking for a club to belong to with fundamentalist doctrine…

"We want to point out how silly some of these beliefs are and hope that these groups will help to do that," she said.
The federation's bid to improve co-ordination among atheists in schools follows a successful campaign at universities…

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: "Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith. It is deeply worrying that they now want to use children to attack the Christian ethos of their schools.

"Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children."[1]

This new push to push atheism right into the schools (already done in textbooks) is not new as Richard Dawkins has long sought to get children to do his bidding.

As one of the most successful New Atheist televangelist and proselytizing missionaries Richard Dawkins you to reach deep into your pockets and help him shove atheism right down children’s throats (again, or still, or more so) while they are away from you in their classrooms.For years now, Richard Dawkins has been campaigning in his self-appointed role as Professor of the Public Understanding of Atheism. His crusade seeks public-charitable funding to push his own particular, and peculiar, Dawkinsian weltanschauung (which Atheism is Dead will dissect in the, relatively, near future) into the classroom.

He seeks to divert money from religious charities who provide life’s little luxuries such as oh, you know: homeless shelters, soup kitchens, disaster relief organizations, hospitals, adoption agencies, foster homes, addiction clinics, etc., etc., etc. and into the coffers of his propaganda machine. Richard Dawkins’ propagandist press will “maintain a database of charities free of ‘church contamination.’”

As Vox Day puts it, with regards to Richard Dawkins’ conversion crusades,

It’s like the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu, only sillier.[2]

The Sunday Times – Britain report by Steven Swinford:

RICHARD DAWKINS, the Oxford University professor and campaigning atheist, is planning to take his fight against God into the classroom by flooding schools with anti-religious literature. He is setting up a charity that will subsidise books, pamphlets and DVDs attacking the ‘educational scandal’ of theories such as creationism while promoting rational and scientific thought. The foundation will also attempt to divert donations from the hands of ‘missionaries’ and church-based charities.

Richard Dawkins “describes the theory [of intelligent design] as a ‘bronze-age myth’ and plans to send his own material to schools to counter the ‘subversion of science.’” What he wants to see in the classroom instead of Bronze-Age myths is quaint Steam-Era myths, “‘The enlightenment is under threat,’ Dawkins said…We even have to go out on the attack ourselves, for the sake of reason and sanity.”As Chris Lehmann put it in his article, Among the Non-Believers - The tedium of dogmatic atheism:

…village atheists are as numerous, and as shrill, as they’ve ever been, for the simple reason that the successive revolutions in thought that have furthered their cause—the Enlightenment and Darwinism—have been popular busts. As the secular mind loses mass allegiance, it becomes skittish and reclusive, succumbing to the seductive fancy that its special brand of wisdom is too nuanced, too unblinkingly harsh for the weak-minded Christer, ultraorthodox scold, or wooly pagan.

And yet,

Dawkins’s approach has also offended fellow scientists. Steven Rose, emeritus professor of biology at the Open University, said: “I worry that Richard’s view about belief is too simplistic, and so hostile that as a committed secularist myself I am uneasy about it. We need to recognise that our own science also depends on certain assumptions about the way the world is — assumptions that he and I of course share.”

It is any wonder that Richard Lewontin, Harvard University Professor of zoology and biology, made the following points, “As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing.” He then states that Richard Dawkins is among the contemporary science-popularizers who “put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market” he particularly mentions “Dawkins’s vulgarizations of Darwinism.”

It would be one thing for Richard Dawkins to look through a microscope or telescope and merely report what he sees. Yet, it is quite another thing for his admitted atheistic proselytizing worldview-theories to enter the classroom in the guise of science. As Richard Dawkins himself admits he did not become acquainted with the Darwinian theory of evolution because he read The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life but “it was because I was taught”[3].

I, for one, will certainly not accept Richard Dawkins’ worldview not only because as H. Allen Orr, the Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester, wrote “most scientists do not accept Dawkins’s theory of memes”[4] but because if I did so I would be merely contracting his pestiferous memes. Yet, our children must be made immune to the militant activist atheist memes perhaps via inoculation—merely present atheist ideas to them and they will readily discern their folly.

[1] Jonathan Wynne-Jones, “Atheists target UK schools - Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education,” UK Telegraph, April 25, 2009
[2] Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist, p. 10 - freely downloadable
[3] The Atheism Tapes, Part 4: Richard Dawkins and Jonathan Miller
[4] H. Allen Orr; Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester, “A Mission to Convert,” New York Times, Vol. 54, No. 1, Jan. 11, 2007. A review of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion
Continue reading Atheism as Militant Activism in Schools...

A. J. Jacobs - Night at the Royal Ontario Museum

Atheism is Dead previously considered Christopher Hitchens’ and Camille Paglia’s bio-chemical-gray-matter-secretions as part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s lecture series on the question of the Decalogue – the Ten Commandments.
We will now consider A. J. Jacobs’ lecture.[1]

Of all three lecturers A. J. Jacobs is, in a manner of speaking, the most qualified by a vast, vast margin to speak on God’s Ten Commandments. This is because as part of a literary project he “spent one year living the Bible as literally as one human being could” and wrote of his experiences in his book “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.”


One caveat is that A. J. Jacobs appears to be a well humored guy. I do not mean well humored in the Michael Shermer sort of way; particularly during debates he insists on telling what are supposed to be jokes but since they are really meant to demonstrate just how pleased he is with his own pseudo-cleverness they just tank time and time again.

As to A. J. Jacobs’ humor,

…he once wrote a story called "My Outsourced Life" in which a team in India “read bedtime stories to my son and argued with my wife.” He also wrote a piece on “radical honesty” in which his brain filtered nothing. It was called, "I Think You’re Fat."

So it seems that he is genuinely well humored although this makes it so that sometimes it is hard to tell when he is being serious and when he is not.
For example, it was reported, as quoted above, that he ““spent one year living the Bible as literally as one human being could…” but the sentence ended thusly, “…even taking time out to stone a passerby.” This may be cute but utterly unbiblical since in order to stone someone the committing of a stone-able offence would have had to have been witnessed by at least two eyewitnesses and then they would have had to have gone to the judges to have the case heard, etc. this was no spur of the moment rock concert but part of a very careful judicious, litigious system.

A. J. Jacobs also,

…painted lambs blood on his apartment door…did not cut his hair or beard. He said the Bible tells men not to cut the corners of their beards. Mr. Jacobs said he could not figure out where the corners were so he just let it grow like crazy.

A mighty beard! My kind of guy!


Again, funny but fallacious. Whence did he get the idea that he had to painted lambs blood on his apartment door? Unless his apartment was in the Egypt of millennia ago the onetime event, the original Passover in Egypt, has come and gone and there is no need for him to do that.
Why did he not cut his hair or beard? There is no biblical mandate against cutting hair; unless he took the vow of a Nazarite and then it would be until the vow was fulfilled. As for the beard; again, nothing about not cutting the beard itself but about not cutting the corners which Jew traditionally interpreted as being just behind the temples what they call the “payos.”

In any regard, what came of his year of living biblically?

His biggest challenges? “That’d be no coveting, no lying, no gossiping. They’re little sins, but they’re killers. My year made me realize just how many of these sins I committed every day. And refraining from them for a year was really hard but completely transforming.”

Biggest lesson? “Your behavior shapes your beliefs. If you act like a good person, you eventually become a better person. I wasn’t allowed to gossip, so eventually I started to have fewer petty thoughts to gossip about. I had to help the less fortunate, so I started to become less self-absorbed. I am not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but I made some progress.”[2]

He explained that living in New York and being a journalist meant that following the proscriptions against lying and gossiping (You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour) was particularly difficult…He reduced his gossiping by 35%, he said.

Mr. Jacobs said that keeping the Sabbath holy was the one of the 10 that he found the most profound. He described his life — weekdays and weekends, night and day — as a giant blur.

“The Bible says you have to have the boundary at least one day a week. Someone described it as ‘sanctuary in time.’ Whatever your belief, even if you’re an atheist, the Sabbath deserves a comeback.”

Gratitude: “[My experience] changed my view on that.” He said saying constant prayers of thanksgiving gave him a change of perspective.”[3]

He also offered a few mixed compliments/putdowns in enjoining:

Thou shall not stereotype. Whatever group I went to was more complicated than the preconceived notions — I thought every evangelical was like Sarah Palin.

And,

Thou shall pick and choose. “I tried to follow everything in the Bible and I failed. Fundamentalists will say anything less than following everything is cafeteria religion. What’s wrong with cafeterias? I’ve had delicious meals in cafeterias.”

Again, clever but…I would love to meet any fundamentalists who claims that anyone needs to follow everything: did A. J. Jacobs sacrifice animals in the Temple? No. This is no longer enjoined.
And just what is wrong with cafeterias? Nothing. But we are not discussing cafeterias or food. Perhaps he will take his concept of delicious cafeteria meals to skydiving whilst repairing a refrigerator with a rabid mongoose—what is wrong with that?

A. J. Jacobs is an agnostic and has stated,

I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden Restaurant is Italian.

Moreover,

I started the year as an agnostic. I sometimes believed strongly in God; other times I didn’t believe at all. At the end of the year I was still an agnostic but a reverent agnostic.”

He said he and his wife even joined a synagogue. “We never go but we send in our dues.”

Sadly, if this is true, he has gotten himself stuck in the letter of the law while missing the spirit. This is the true treachery of “religion”: you scratch our financial backs and we’ll scratch your soul’s—capiche?!

I could not help but being reminded of a friend I met while attending private Jewish school: he ended up owning a deli called “Heavenly Ham”!!!!!!!!

A Jew owning “Heavenly Ham”—oi vey!!!!!!!!

[1] Charles Lewis, “Commandments lecture series: Biblical living left a mark on writer,” National Post, June 09, 2009
[2] Carol Memmott, “Agnostic cloaked himself in the Bible for a year,” USA TODAY, Life, Section D, Monday, October 8, 2007, 1D
[3] Charles Lewis, “Commandments lecture series: Biblical living left a mark on writer,” National Post, June 09, 2009

Continue reading A. J. Jacobs - Night at the Royal Ontario Museum...

Camille Paglia - Night at the Royal Ontario Museum

Atheism is Dead previously considered Christopher Hitchens’ bio-chemical-gray-matter-secretions which he gave voice to as part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s lecture series on the question of the Decalogue – the Ten Commandments.
We will now consider Camille Paglia’s lecture.[1]

We must be aware that in the view of Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Camille Paglia, et al, “religion” certainly has its place: a highly restricted place.

For Daniel Dennett since it is all tomfoolery all religions should be taught in schools, as interpreted by atheism of course.
For Richard Dawkins since it is all fiddlesticks the Bible should be taught as literature so as to understand literary devices and references that are culturally commonly employed.
For Camille Paglia “religion” has a positive effect in creating art in various forms.

Yet, even these apparent friendly tokens, these smiley faces, are actually meant to water down “religion” as an anthological fascination, a literary interest or artistically inspiring but nothing more.

As for Camille Paglia, it is reported that she,

worships devoutly at the altar of Hollywood. She’s an atheist who defiantly defends religion, articulating in punctuated bullet-like speech why she thinks religion will save great art and why the generational reverence swelling in the 1960s for religion is represented so well in epic biblical films in Hollywood.“I think religious thinking is crucial to understanding the universe,” she said. “I do believe in all gods.”
Raised as a Catholic, Ms. Paglia said she soon turned with reverence to films, and one film in particular: Cecil DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.
“I realized I was identifying with Hollywood, Hollywood was my true religion,” she said. “My goddess of that time was Elizabeth Taylor. One of my transcendent moments was when she won the Oscar in Butterfield 8 as a high-class hooker.”
Raised as a Catholic by her Italian immigrant parents in upstate New York, she said she turned to atheism in her adolescence after becoming frustrated with the church.

Camille Paglia

She believes in all gods; maybe there was something to that Barna study that concluded that some atheists believe in God :o) Then again; 47% of all statistic are incorrect. Then again and again, Prof. Daniel Dennett argues that Joseph Stalin, the atheists, was really a theist because he told himself what to do: thus, all atheists are theists!?!?! See this post.

Sadly, she made a very, very common atheist mistake; she confused frustration with the church with frustration with God. Why did not her frustration with the church lead to acceptance Synagogue, Ashram, Mosque worship services? Who knows, perhaps there was something else going on like worshipping a Hollywoodland high-class hooker goddess.
Her main concern is that “Distancing society from religion is a grave error” because “a secular society that sinks into self-absorption won’t leave behind an artistic legacy.” But why should that be? Just because atheism offers no meaning for yesterday, no comfort for today and no hope for tomorrow? Oh, right; that is why.

Camille Paglia also took to task one of the other Royal Ontario Museum’s lecture series on the Ten Commandments lecturers; Christopher Hitchens,

Taking a swipe at Mr. Hitchens in the question and answer period, Ms. Paglia contrasted the title of his book God is Not Great with what she calls the most important sentence of her career: “God is man’s greatest idea.” “My criticism of him is, what is he offering to the young in his system?” she said. “That book is atrociously researched, and he will have to live with that. ... What does he give the young? Are they to live like him? That’s not a life.” [ellipses in original]

But just what is wrong with Christopher Hitchens’ life?

We will let Camille Paglia be the judge of that. But as for the young Christopher Hitchens’, atheism’s, ultimate bequeathment is basically that of Alister Crowley, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
There is no universal ethos, no ultimate accountability, we are absolutely autonomous. While it would be nice if we could all just get along and just be good for goodness sake but this sort of universal anarchy is an open door through which a Mother Theresa or a Joseph Stalin may equally enter, it is a blank canvas upon which anyone can pain anything.

What Camille Paglia needs to understand is that the young is just about all that personages such as Christopher Hitchens have, it is all that militant activist atheists have since the young are: ignorant, arrogant, rebellious and, shall we say, hyper hormonal.
Ignorant and so vociferous, emotive, charming, English accented, iconoclasts like Christopher Hitchens seems to have the answers, “Like, he knows a lot of stuff and stuff.”

Arrogant and so they know more at the age of 17 than those who have decades more life and academic experience. Arrogance and atheism go hand in hand like a hand in hand.

Rebellious and so easy to influence toward rebellions against the norm (for example the normalcy of a majority Christian country), against “religion” (AMEN to that!) and the ultimate rebellion: rebellion against God.

Hyper hormonal and so being told that in the realm of sexuality basically anything goes anytime and anywhere with anyone for any reason or none at all within the most flaccid and impotent of please be nice or else you will get away with not being nice sentiments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lastly, it is simply fascinating that the Royal Ontario Museum lecture series on the Ten Commandments featured a militant activist atheist, a professor of the arts and an editor at large for Esquire magazine. These are billed as “three prominent social commentators” fine but what about oh, I don’t know: a Rabbi, a Priest, a Pastor, a theologian, etc. I know, I know; a prepubescent French fries fryer at the local fast food joint is as, or more, qualified to speak on Biblical issue than a Rabbi, a Priest, a Pastor, a theologian—at least it would seem that blog comment sections are saturated with an outworking of such a proposition.

Maybe next time the Royal Ontario Museum can have a lecture series on quantum physics by a new age medium-a spirit channeler, an anesthesiologist, a radiologist, a chiropractor (who is a follower of the new age medium), and a couple of physicist for good measure (but make sure that one of the physicists is sort of self-employed and wrote the book “The Yoga of Time Travel”).
Oh, right, that was already done in the documentary “What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?” aka “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” or technically as seen in these images[2]:

The funny thing is that two of the physicists who argue that we create our own realities wear glasses. Why would you WANT TO have poor eyesight? Why create that reality for yourself maaaaaaaaaannn!!!!!!!!

Pardon the uncontextual aside but when “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” came out someone told me that if I watched it I would be up on the very latest that science has to offer: turns out that it is a new age infomercial.

[1] Katherine Laidlaw, “Commandments lecture series: An atheist defends God as ‘man's greatest idea’,” National Post June 16, 2009
[2] Philosopher of physics and Columbia University professor David Albert discusses the documentary and how he was misrepresented in the article “Bleep” of Faith.

Continue reading Camille Paglia - Night at the Royal Ontario Museum...

Atheism and Agnosticism

The UK Guardian has been exploring the question of the difference between agnostic and atheist and have thus set out to define agnostic and agnostic beliefs and define atheism and atheism beliefs.

They ask:

What is the difference between agnosticism and atheism?...are agnostics merely people who lack the courage of their lack of convictions?

Is there a real difference between someone who thinks that the question of God's existence is undecideable in priciple and one who supposes merely that the evidence to settle the question has not finally come in?

Or is the whole distinction between agnostics and true believers, or true unbelievers, really one of temperament? Perhaps some people just don't like feeling certain, and others feel uncomfortable any other way.[1]

They then posted an article by Jonathan West entitled, “I'm an atheist, OK? The debate over who should call themselves 'agnostic' is muddled by imprecise and conflicting uses of the word itself,” UK Guardian, May 18, 2009.

Jonathan West attempts to remedy the confusion as to atheism and agnosticism and the definition of agnostic and definition of atheism by, in part, writing:

The cause of the confusion is that atheists and theists have different definitions of the words agnostic and atheist, and adamantly refuse to accept the validity of each other's definitions.

Here is a short form of the definitions from the two separate points of view.
Theist version: An atheist is certain there is no God, an agnostic is not certain.
Atheist version: An atheist believes there is no God, an agnostic doesn't know.

But why bring theists into it? Atheist have enough problems attempting to figure out the difference between agnostic and atheist and defining atheism and agnostic.

For example, as Atheism is Dead noted in our post Atheism Symbols - Atheist Symbols; Internet Infidels’ Jeffery Jay Lowder noted,

…the “atheist” movement keeps shooting itself in the foot by failing to reach a consensus regarding the meaning of “atheism.”

Jonathan West attempts to elucidate further:

The two versions are only subtly different, but a great deal of hot air has been expended on this difference.
Let's look at the two definitions of atheist first, because this is where the cause of the confusion really resides. It is the distinction between "believes" and "is certain". In choosing the two different forms of words, I am trying to convey that the theists' definition of atheism suggests that atheists know beyond any possibility of doubt that they have proof of God's nonexistence.
The self-described atheists tend to use the word "believe" as meaning a very high degree of confidence, sufficient to live their lives on this basis, but falling short of 100% proven certainty.

Yet, his “short form of the definitions” of agnosticism and atheism are limited and merely add to the muddling. They certainly are limited due to being “short form” but perhaps he should not have referenced “short form.”

What of strong atheism, positive atheism, explicit atheism or critical atheism? What of weak atheism, negative atheism or implicit atheism? What of Naturalists, Materialists, Rationalists, Humanists, Skeptics, Brights, Freethinkers, Philosophical Skeptics, Universists, Ethical Culturalists, etc.? What of anti-theists, militant atheists, activist atheists, etc.?

Part of the confusion is that Jonathan West thinks that,

A Christian is somebody who says he is a Christian, and an agnostic is somebody who says he doesn't know. If we all accept each other's self-applied labels, we can all get along much better.

Such concepts are convenient to atheists who can then say things such as, “That idolater, fornicator, leader of a violent regime says that he is a Christian so; he is a Christian.” Yet, Christianity is a concept defined within certain well defined parameters and so one is not a Christian by mere claiming to be one: such “self-applied labels” are irrelevant even while it is important to consider how those with whom we are having a discussion defined their “self-applied labels.”

Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term “agnostic” in 1869 because he noted two extremes:

1) Atheist who positively affirmed God’s non-existence (claimed to know that God did not exist).
2) Theists who positively affirmed God’s existence (claimed to know that God exists).[2]

Concluding that he did not posses enough evidence to positively affirm either position Thomas Huxley coined a term which he saw as a middle position which was that of lacking knowledge to go either way (whether such knowledge actually exists outside of his personal knowledge or may someday be discovered is another issue).

It was after this coining that Charles Bradlaugh (circa 1876) popularized the definition of “atheism” as some define it today; words to the likes of “lack of belief in god(s).” Or what EvilBible.com’s author refers to as the “few morons” who are “so damn stupid” for defining atheism as such (see Atheism is Dead’s post History of Atheism).

This post was meant to provide a heads up to the centuries old issue with which atheists have had to deal which is how to define their own position. Some will merely say, “All Atheists merely lack a god(s) belief” and yet, this is merely another self-serving and restrictive attempt to bypass the issue.

[1] “What is agnosticism? Is agnosticism anything more than a polite, or cowardly veil around atheism?,” UK Guardian, May 18, 2009
[2] Britannica Online Encyclopedia entry for “agnosticism.”

Continue reading Atheism and Agnosticism...

American Misosophy - Christian Morality Meets Philosophical Objections

From the “Jobs For Philosophers” files…

It is being reported that:

The battle lines are being drawn as American philosophers debate which institutions can place ads in Jobs For Philosophers, an industry trade magazine.

This month, the American Philosophical Association (APA), the magazine's publisher, received a petition signed by 1,500 members demanding nine Protestant colleges be banned from advertising in the publication because, they say, the schools single out homosexuals for discrimination.

It's also been handed two counter-petitions with 500 names that say the schools are exercising freedom of religion and are not picking on gays [but]…includes believing in the main tenets of Christianity…[1]

The various injunctions cover various moral issues such as heterosexual and homosexual relations.

This is the state of American philosophy?!?!?! The are Protestant colleges single out homosexuals for discrimination so let us single out Protestant colleges for discrimination?!?!?!

[1] Charles Lewis, “Christian morality meets philosophical objections,” National Post, June 08, 2009
Continue reading American Misosophy - Christian Morality Meets Philosophical Objections...

Capella’s Guide to Atheism

Capella’s Guide to Atheism is anything but that, this website’s subtitle is more accurate in stating, “An Atheist’s Guide to Scripture and more…” Capella’s Guide to Atheism may be better titled, Capella’s Guide to Atheism as Anti-Theism. Actually, mere “Anti-Theism” is inaccurate as the website is exclusively anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.
This essay will be parsed thusly,

Give God a Rest
Atrocious Assertions
Carry Your Own Cross
Ride'em Cowboy!
Animal Magnetism
Which Way to the Temple?
In Conclusion

Sadly, Capella’s Guide to Atheism presents none but more, and more, and more of the same old, tired and discredited criticism’s of the Bible. Rather, it presents more, and more, and more examples of atheists who do not possess a working knowledge of that which they seek to criticize. While I do not wish to turn this into yet another series of essays discrediting the contents of Capella’s Guide to Atheism, which could certainly be done quite easily yet time-consumingly, let us consider certain examples.

Give God a Rest
It is rather sad when one seeks so diligently to find little crumbs with which to attempt to bake a loaf of Bible discreditation. For instance, Capella’s Guide to Atheism claims:

Here God "rests" and God "walks". This of course are things you wouldn’t expect an omnipotent, omnipresent being to have to do.

(Gen 2:2 NRSV) And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and *he rested* on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

(note that although apologetics will try to say he just "ceased", that is not what this is saying, it is saying that he had to rest for a day from his work as a being that was tired)

(Exo 31:17 NRSV) It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he *rested*, and was *refreshed*."

(Gen 3:8 NRSV) They heard the sound of the LORD God *walking* in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Sadly, Capella’s Guide to Atheism misses the point that the Bible is, among other things, providing a scientific prediction of the First Law of Thermodynamics in stating that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe as God ended His acts of creation and so all we have now is energy changing forms (see First Commandment of Thermodynamics for elucidation).

What is being stated in Genesis 2:2 is that God “shabath”: to stop, to cease. In Exodus 31:17 this is repeated but with the addition of “naphash”: to take breath, to be refreshed.
But why this additional emphasis?
Obviously, because of something that Capella’s Guide to Atheism did not bother noticing or noting: the six days of creation and one day of cessation by God are being correlated to the seven day week; six days of work and one of ceasing/rest by humans.



As to God walking in the Garden of Eden one can only wonder what Capella’s Guide to Atheism sees as a problem. How is God walking something that we would not expect an omnipresent being to do? It appears that Capella’s Guide to Atheism is confusing pantheism (or some such thing) with omnipresence. God is not irretrievably diffused throughout the universe but picks and chooses where to manifest. God is not in trees and moons and flowers and black-holes and puppies and chinchillas and cucumbers. An example of this is in 1st Kings 19:11-12,

the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.

Atrocious Assertions
Capella’s Guide to Atheism also has a listing of “Atrocities and deviant behavior by key Bible figures” which, of course, does not offer a premise by which to condemn these “Atrocities and deviant behavior.” One claim listed under this title is that that “Jesus says it’s ok to castrate yourself for the kingdom of heaven.” But they never get around to explaining what is wrong with this although presupposing absolute materialism negating any bodily function is anathema to atheism.

Following is Capella’s Guide to Atheism quote and some of the commentary:

(Mat 19:12 NRSV) For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the *kingdom of heaven*. Let anyone accept this who can."

Note: This passage is purposely distorted in the NIV and Living bible to appear to be dealing with marriage. There is nothing in the original Greek for this verse that has anything to do with marriage.

The Greek word in this verse specifically is eunuch:
2135. eunouchos, yoo-noo’-khos; from eune (a bed) and G2192; a castrated person (such being employed in Oriental bed-chambers); by extens. an impotent or unmarried man; by impl. a chamberlain (state-officer):–eunuch.

Again, what is wrong with this is left unstated. Apparently, merely the fact that it is being pointed out is supposed to mean something and make a point against the Bible—or some such thing.

Have the NIV and Living Bible “purposely distorted” the text? Note that in order to know whether it was “purposely distorted” Capella’s Guide to Atheism would have to know that it was “purposely distorted.” Perhaps it was distorted but not purposefully. Perhaps it was not even distorted. Let Capella’s Guide to Atheism present the evidence or purposeful distortion; merely noting differences is not proof of distortion; purposeful of otherwise.

The NIV reads:

For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage*because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Footnote:* Or have made themselves eunuchs

Pardon, but I do not have a Living Bible to consult.

Thus, is it as Capella’s Guide to Atheism claimed; that “There is nothing in the original Greek for this verse that has anything to do with marriage”? Note the qualifier very carefully, “for this verse.” This means that Capella’s Guide to Atheism has blinders on and is considering a single solitary verse as if it came into being ex nihilo: was nothing said before it, was there no thought leading to the statement, is there really no context? This shows us the level of scholarship with which we are dealing in Capella’s Guide to Atheism.

True, “for this verse” “There is nothing in the original Greek…that has anything to do with marriage.” Thus, we ask why the NIV and Living Bible would refer to marriage in that verse; perhaps it was a purposeful distortion!
When we read the Bible in order to ascertain what it states and not in order to pull texts out of context to make pretexts for proof-texts we note that Matthew ch. 19 v. 2 refers to marriage, v. 3 refers to marriage, v. 5 refers to marriage, v. 6 refers to marriage, v. 7 refers to marriage, v. 8 refers to marriage, v. 9 refers to marriage, v. 10 refers to marriage.
Is it any wonder then that when we get to v. 12 we see that it is contextually referring to marriage? Moreover, vv. 9-10 dealt with sexual morality.

Next, note that Capella’s Guide to Atheism mentions that the Greek for “eunuch” does not only refer to “a castrated person” but to “an impotent or unmarried man.” This is why Jesus refers to those “eunuchs who have been so from birth.”
Atheism is Dead has also dealt with this text in responding to Dan Barker’s scriptural misinterpretations and misapplications. Dan Barker make the, to him apparently meaningful, point that he knows of one single person in Christianity’s two thousand year history who took this text “literally” and castrated himself. Dan Barker has to go circa two centuries from the time of Jesus, His apostles and the disciples to make reference to Origen (who is not known to be the most orthodox of early church fathers, by the way) who lived 185–254 AD. Even in this case; note that,

It was to remove any hint of scandal as he taught young women their catechism that Origen castrated himself, literally following Matthew 19:12. He later came to see his action as ill-advised and not to be taken as an example.[1]

Carry Your Own Cross
Capella’s Guide to Atheism attempts to cause confusion in apparently supposing contradiction where there is no such thing.

Here at Capella’s Guide to Atheism we have our own theory about how Jesus got his cross to his execution, but let’s see what’s in the Bible:

The Gospel of Mark says:
(Mark 15:20-24 NRSV) …Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him…

The Gospel of John says:
(John 19:16-18 NRSV) Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him…

Hmmm…. One says that Simon of Cyrene carried it and the other one says that Jesus carried it by himself.

Apparently, “Hmmm….” is supposed to mean something to the likes of contradiction.
Is this really so flummoxing? Jesus carried the cross by Himself until He did not carry it by Himself.
But why did John not mention Simon? Who knows?



Yet, a few things are for certain: there is no logical reason for an author to record all of anything, there is no historical reason for an author to record all of anything, it does not affect any doctrine whatsoever to learn from Mark rather than John that Jesus carried the cross by Himself until He did not carry it by Himself.

Ride'em Cowboy!
Another example of likewise making something of nothing is Capella’s Guide to Atheism’s claim of contradiction as to “How many animals did Jesus ride when entering Jerusalem?”

The author of Matthew contradicts the author of Mark on the number of animals Jesus is riding into Jerusalem.
(Mat 21:7 NRSV) they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on*them*.
(Mark 11:7 NRSV) Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on*it*.

For some odd reason Capella’s Guide to Atheism does not bother mentioning or quoting the fact that the Matthew text does not state upon which animal Jesus sat. It states that they brought a donkey and colt, that they placed their coats on “them,” (actually he, she, it) and that Jesus sat on the “coats.” Maybe the colt and donkey were side to side, Jesus had very wide legs and startled them both, right?!So we are told that there are two animals and that Jesus sat on coat that were put on them, but which one did He ride upon? We do not know.Or don’t we? Mark and Luke tell us.Mark states that they brought the colt to Jesus and that He sat on it and Luke states that they brought the colt to Jesus and that they put Jesus on it.Thus, they are not recording the superfluous enumeration of animals but are specifically and succinctly telling us upon which Jesus sat thus, they only mention the relevant one.

Animal Magnetism
Under the heading “Peculiar Bible verses” Capella’s Guide to Atheism lists “Adam and God search the animals for a partner for Adam.” The entry for this subsection reads, in full,

In the bible, out of all of the animals of the earth God and Adam searched and couldn’t find a "partner" for Adam.
(Gen 2:20-21 NRSV) The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused…

Most of Capella’s Guide to Atheism are of this sort; a vague assertions and a mere fraction of biblical text. Missing is the context of the quotes and a justification for the condemnation, however vague the condemnation may be since apparently we are supposed to merely have gut reactions to the arguments from outrage and arguments for embarrassment.
I can empathize with why it is difficult for an atheist to understand the text and, more importantly, the point of the text since to atheist the only difference between human and animals is that we have a superiority complex. In fact, as Prof. Richard Dawkins puts it, “We are not, then, merely like apes or descended from apes; we are apes.”[2]

In the text we find that Adam is given the task of naming animals. What did he name them? In what language? Where are the taxonomy and/or nomenclature recorded?
Interesting to ponder, but irrelevant.

The point was to get Adam to understand differentiation, distinction, disparity, dichotomy, etc. One can picture Adam thinking, “That one has a tail, I do not. That one has a trunk, I do not. That one has wings, I do not” etc. The point was to get Adam to realize that he was different and so that once he saw someone like him he would…well, let us see in vv. 20-25:

But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.And Adam said:“This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

The point was to get Adam to appreciate one of his kind and to demonstrate that two like human beings, one male and one female, are to come together and stay together to build a primary relationship with one another “leave his father and mother.” But who were the mother and father? Adam and Eve had none and that is the point; the union of Adam and Even was the premise upon which marriage of future generations was built.

Which Way to the Temple?
Another of Capella’s Guide to Atheism’s “Peculiar Bible verses” is that “Solomon’s temple is exaggerated” the entirety of the segment of which reads thusly:

It was 90 ft long, 30 ft wide, and 45 ft high (1 Ki 6:2)
About twice the cubic footage of an average 2 story house.
For a small structure It took 183,300 men 7 years to build it. (1 Kings 5:13-16)(1 Kings 6:38)
Into it supposedly went 9,200,000 lbs of Gold and 92,000,000 lbs of Silver. (1 Chron 22:14)
Note: Archaeologists can’t find it anywhere…

Let us begin at the end “Archaeologists can’t find it anywhere” and so we cannot compare the historical description with the actual building or even the outline of its foundation. Thus, the logical question is, “How do we know that it was exaggerated?” Because it took 183,300 men 7 years to build it? I do not think that they had Extreme Home Makeover back then.
Also, note what 1st Kings 5:13-16 actually states:

v. 13 Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel; and the labor force was thirty thousand men.”

v. 14 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts…

v. 15 Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains

v. 16 besides three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Solomon’s deputies, who supervised the people who labored in the work.

30,000 worked in shifts.
70,000 carried burdens.
80,000 quarried stone.
3,300 supervised.
In any regard, traveling, quarrying massive boulders with hand held tools and carrying massive boulders via animal and human drawn conveyances takes time (not to mention subtracting work time from inclement weather including entire seasons). Apparently, the complaint is that it took too long: sorry Capella’s Guide to Atheism.

Apparently, another complaint is that “Archaeologists can’t find it anywhere” especially the 9,200,000 lbs of Gold and 92,000,000 lbs of Silver (or “one hundred thousand talents of gold and one million talents of silver, and bronze and iron beyond measure, for it is so abundant”—you do the math).
One reason that “Archaeologists can’t find it anywhere” is that the presumed location of the Temple coincides, at least in part, with the location of the Al Aqsa Mosque which was built in 685 AD and digging around anywhere near that site, aka “The Temple Mount,” is basically seen as a declaration of war.
While the Al Aqsa Mosque is in view it may be of interest to note that Solomon’s Temple was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide (or “its length was sixty cubits, its width twenty”) and was constructed in 7 years. Al Aqsa Mosque is 272 feet long and 184 feet wide and was constructed in 20 years.


As for the gold and silver; in the history of humanity it has been common for people to prefer to not leave massive amounts of gold and silver lying around. In fact, the very reason that the Temple (the Second Temple) was destroyed (fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 19:44, 21:6) is that a soldier threw a lit torch in it, it caught on fire and the gold melted down through the walls and cracks between the boulders. Thus, the Temple was taken apart boulder by boulder in order to collect the gold, leaving the Temple scattered and its parts removed to be reused elsewhere.

In “The Wars of the Jews” 6.4.5 the historian Flavius Josephus wrote:

So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the Temple the next day…At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the Holy House, on the north side of it.
As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that Holy House was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard upon it.

In Conclusion
There is much material in Capella’s Guide to Atheism which could likewise be taken apart and demonstrated to be baseless assertions, baseless condemnations, lack of scholarship, lack of knowledge of the Bible’s contents and contexts, etc.

Yet, as with so very many atheist catechistic websites that seek to discredit the Bible; Capella’s Guide to Atheism discredits itself while leaving the Bible unscathed.

[1] Glimpse of Christian History, “Glimpses #54: Origen: Gifted, Devout, Condemned,” © 2009 Christianity Today International
[2] Richard Dawkins; fellow of New College and lecturer in zoology at the University of Oxford, writing in the Late City Final Edition 4-9-89
Continue reading Capella’s Guide to Atheism...

Theory of Evolution – Was Alfred Russel Wallace Unnaturally Unselected?

As of late, I have been wondering: what ever happened to Alfred Russel Wallace?
2009 AD saw the celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200 birthday with the impartation of various doxologies and even the Kyle Butt vs. Dan Barker debate.
But what about good ol' Alfred Russel Wallace?

Is it that he was born in 1823 AD (January 8th) and his 200th will not come up until 2023 AD?
Was his 100th celebrated? Was his 150th celebrated? I do not seem to remember.

Why has he been all but forgotten? Charles Darwin this and Charles Darwin that but what about Alfred Russel Wallace?

If you are asking yourself who Alfred Russel Wallace is and what he has to do with Charles Darwin you have comprehended the point of my flummox.

I will not provide a biography of Alfred Russel Wallace but succinctly note that he is generally referred to as having co-conceived, along with Charles Darwin, theory of evolution via natural selection.

So why the lack of hoopla over Alfred Russel Wallace? After all, both he and Charles Darwin have mighty beards (my kind of guys!).

You may want to go out and rent the movie “The Fall” (various clips found here) which is an interesting and visually stunning film starring a precious little French girl.

In the movie Charles Darwin is played as per this image:

And Alfred Russel Wallace is played by a little monkey whom Charles Darwin carries around in a bag. Reflecting the reality of Charles Darwin’s propensity towards hording credit for the theory of evolution the movie depicts Charles Darwin as getting his ideas from the monkey/Wallace whilst pretending that they were his own.

I am beginning to think that Alfred Russel Wallace is all but forgotten, particularly in lieu of Charles Darwin, because Charles Darwin is hailed as so much more than a scientist. As an icon of atheism he is lauded as the killer of gods. Some atheists actually think that describing how bio-organism’s change and speculating about quaint Victorian Era ideas of abiogenesis have something to do with God’s existence or lack thereof.

Alfred Russel Wallace’s sentiments were not as those who attempt to co-opt science as a tool with which to erect a façade of scientific respectability around atheist propaganda:

“I fully accept Mr. Darwin’s conclusion as to the essential identity of man’s bodily structure with that of the higher mammalian, and his descent from some ancestral form common to man and the anthropoid apes,”[1] he conceded.
However, man’s intellectual powers and moral sense, among other things, he said, “could not have been developed by variation and natural selection alone, and… , therefore, some other influence, law, or agency is required to account for them.”[2]
Darwin was naturally upset by what Wallace called “my little heresy,” and he wrote to Wallace in 1869 lamenting, “I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.”[3]

What good is a brilliant scientists; a naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist such as Alfred Russel Wallace if he is not also an activist atheist?

Lastly, I wanted to mention a new book by Benjamin Wiker entitled, “The Darwin Myth: the Life and Lies of Charles Darwin.”

Benjamin Wiker makes the following point:

One of Charles Darwin’s very few character flaws was this: he was oddly possessive about his theory, so much so that he failed to acknowledge his predecessors, including his own grandfather [Erasmus Darwin], until his detractors pointed out the glaring omissions. He wanted the theory of evolution to be his discovery, his creation, his baby.[4]

Benjamin Wiker also discusses:

* Why Darwin didn't "discover" evolution
* How Darwin set out to create a godless version of evolution
* Why many of his best friends and allies criticized Darwin's theory, and how he never refuted their objections
* How "social Darwinism" is not a misapplication of Darwinism, but is Darwinism
* Why Darwin's theory supported natural slavery, an institution he abhorred
* How much of what we know about Darwin comes from his Autobiography--which at key points is downright misleading
* How Darwin helped make ideological atheism the battle cry of science

[1] Darwinism, published by Macmillan, London, 1889, p. 461
[2] Ibid., p. 463
[3] Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention (New York, NY: A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987), p. 310
[4] “New Book Uncovers ‘the Life and Lies of Charles Darwin’,” The Discovery Institute
Continue reading Theory of Evolution – Was Alfred Russel Wallace Unnaturally Unselected?...

Atheism’s Continued Attempts to Dictate Child Rearing

It is difficult to decide whether the New Atheism is refreshing, terrifying, or both. Of course, the New Atheism is nothing new but basically refers to plagiarizers of 19th century anti-theists (as I was noted here). I suppose that it is refreshing because atheists have come right out and exploited every possible form of media in order to push their agenda. Their message is clear and the same as always: they are right and everyone else is wrong.

On the other hand, as will be made clear in a near future post on Atheism is Dead about James Randi “The Amazing Randi,” in certain disagreements such as the atheism theism polemic some people can only sustain a pleasant and intellectual façade for a short amount of time only to have their honest and emotionally spiked belligerence surface. The new atheists see no need to tone down the rhetoric since they represent the one true position and they are, after all, jousting with theists who are simpletons, superstitious and ignorant.

One time atheist, C. S. Lewis, made an interesting suggestion as to atheism’s concept of being right while everyone else is wrong:

If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake.
If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.[1]

Is it any surprise that atheism is attempting to infiltrate our homes, our families, our parental duties, our very children? Let us see what they have to say for themselves:
Tufts University professor of philosophy Daniel Dennett wrote (who snafued here):

On the one hand, many declare, there is the sacred and inviolable right of life…
On the other hand, many of the same people declare that, once born, the child loses its right not to be indoctrinated or brainwashed or otherwise psychologically abused by those parent, who have the right to raise the child with any upbringing they choose, short of physical torture.
Let us spread the value of freedom throughout the world—but not to children, apparently.[2]

“the same people declare that, once born, the child loses its right not to be…psychologically abused” this coming from a supposed professor of philosophy, mind you; misosophy is more like it.



Prof. Richard Dawkins:

“How much do we regard children as being the property of their parents?” Dawkins asks. “It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?”[3]

In his article Now Here’s a Bright Idea, Prof. Richard Dawkins wrote:

A phrase like “Catholic child” or “Muslim child” should clang furious bells of protest in the mind…
Children are too young to know their religious opinions. Just as you can’t vote until you are 18, you should be free to choose your own cosmology and ethics without society’s impertinent presumption that you will automatically inherit those of your parents. We’d be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child or a Hayekian monetarist child. So isn’t it a kind of child-abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child? Especially in Northern Ireland and Glasgow, where such labels, handed down over generations, have divided neighborhoods for centuries and can even amount to a death warrant?
Catholic child? Flinch. Protestant child? Squirm. Muslim child? Shudder. Everybody’s consciousness should be raised to this level…children should hear themselves described not as “Christian children” but as “children of Christian parents.” This in itself would raise their consciousness, empower them to make up their own minds and choose which religion, if any, they favour, rather than just assume that religion means ‘same beliefs as parents’. I could well imagine that this linguistically coded freedom to choose might lead children to choose no religion at all.
Please go out and work at raising people’s consciousness over the words they use to describe children.”

Please do not think that this is merely an intellectual exercise. I have personally had the displeasure of having an atheist accuse me of brainwashing and abusing my children. Actually, they made quite an odd statement—they made their statement thusly: you abuse your kids, but I’m not going to call the authorities.
Very odd indeed.
I, employing a perfectly calm and rational demeanor, invited them to report me to the authorities. I asked them to consider what sort of person they were since they know that children are being abused but they refuse to do anything about it. Such is the disconnect between an idea that seems good when you are discussing it with people with whom you agree and actually attempting to implement such an idea. This is head-in-the-sand-well-within-the-box-group-think-atheism. But then again, Prof. Richard Dawkins does envisage “society stepping in.”

Atheists, the belligerent activist sorts, do not seem to understand, or do not seem to consider, or do not seem to mention out of fear of discrediting their own arguments, that theists, in this case we will speak specifically of Christians, agree with much of their criticisms of “religion.” Yet, Christians do so by appealing to Biblical standards while atheists do so by stating their personal opinions in the form of emotive assertions based on arguments from outrage and arguments for embarrassment or by borrowing the Christian ethos.
In this particular instance we will comment on the issue of referring to children by their parents’ religion. This issue is not as simple as it is made to seem. For instance, Jewish parents have Jewish children because Judaism is more than a religion; it is a people group. Roman Catholicism and Islam have a strong sense of their religion also being their culture. Moreover, Judaism and Christianity have Bar / Bat Mitzvahs and Confirmation when a child is viewed as being cognizant enough to decide to take on the theological aspect of the culture.

But what about good old fashioned Bible-believing-fundamentalist-orthodox-traditional-Christians? I am afraid that here I must be somewhat subjective and speak of that which I know well: the personal experience of myself and those who are close to me. In my circles being called “religious” is tantamount to a put down. This is because we know what “religion” is like and that it is a major factor in people not coming to know God personally. When people think that the way to please God is to jump through the hoops of ritual and to conduct a sacramental song and dance they are missing the point. No atheist could ever come close to being as anti-religion as the Bible.

The sort of Christians that we are discussing here would never imagine that their children are Christians, that they are believers and would most certainly never refer to them as such. No one is born a Christian because becoming a Christian requires a decision which is why Jesus refers to being born again (John ch. 3).
Following the teaching of the New Testament such Christians would not baptize their infants since getting wet has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sin. When baptism is correlated with salvation in the New Testament it is made very clear that the issue is not getting wet and thereby cleaning your flesh but it is a conscience decision, one which an infant obviously cannot make.

“There is also an antitype which now saves us-baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1st Peter 3:21)

This is why denominations that baptize infant have someone speak for the infant by proxy. Logically fallacious as it is; it does demonstrate that they see the problem but rather than give up their traditions they have attempted to create a loop-hole. The bottom line in all New Testament passages regarding baptism is succinctly summarized in Acts 18:8 which states:

“Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.”

Why where they baptized? Because they heard, they believed and only then were they baptized. If they could not hear and understand enough to believe then they could not be baptized.

But the atheists that we have been discussing are not so much interested in such factual and logical superficialities. What they oppose is that, for instance, even if your children are baptized in their early or late teens when they would be fully capable of understanding and explaining what they are doing it would be presupposed that they are doing so because their parents have been brainwashing / abusing them all along. We must also empathies with even the most belligerent atheists for the fact that there certainly is much brainwashing / abusing rightly associated with “religion.”

But will these atheists establish 1-800 hotline numbers for children to inform on their parents for the crime against the new atheist world order? One can only wonder how these atheists conceive of enforcing such Gestapo-like tactics—ya vol!

What religions will Prof. Daniel Dennett propose be taught in public schools? Surely, all of them would only be fair from Swedenborgism to J. R. Bob Dobbs’ might Church of the Subgenius who offer eternal salvation or triple your money back. I recall hearing a certain New York city radio personality who also proposed that religion be taught in public school but only the inclusive ones—any religion that was exclusivist would be, you guessed it, excluded. Atheist Nica Lalli (also mentioned here) has attempted to lay out her particular atheist ideas of what ecumenism would look like:

I am more interested in dialogue, and I hope that conversation will get us to respect and understanding. I cannot see dialogue happening with someone who tells you that your core beliefs are wrong, so I refrain from telling anyone what to believe…
With that in mind, let’s invite more of everyone to participate in the discussion…Once we start, we might see that we have more in common than we all think. Once we all agree to disagree, one we set the rules that no side is trying to convince the other of its rightness or wrongness, once we clarify that we are simply trying to understand each other – and then move on to other topics of common interest – then the conversation about religion and its place in our society can really begin.[4]

Note that this particular, and peculiar, brand of ecumenism which claims to include “more of everyone” would exclude by its “rules” anyone who is “is trying to convince the other of its rightness or wrongness.”

But why confine one’s criticism and allegations of brainwashing and child abuse to religion?

What about raising children as carnivores? This forceful action robs them of the choice to be a vegetarian (vegan or lacto-ovo). But then again raising them as vegetarians would rob them of the choice to be a carnivore. Perhaps we should not feed children anything until there are old enough to make their own informed choice.

What about nationality? What right do parents have to force their children to grow up in a particular country, region, climate, culture?

What about language? How dare any parent force their children to speak a language just because its parents speak it? Perhaps children should have their ears plugged until they are old enough to decide what language(s) they want to learn.
Interestingly, Prof. Richard Dawkins “describes the British-born headteacher [of an ultra-orthodox Jewish school] Rabbi Gluck’s Yiddish accent as testament to the isolation of his community.”[5]

Although the point seems to be that the Rabbi speaks with a Yiddish accent in the midst of English-British speakers Prof. Dawkins (who speaks with a heavy British accent that demonstrates his isolation on his side of the pond) seems to overlook the fact that every single person who speaks any language speaks with an accent.

What about morals? Surely, only a brainwasher would teach a child that anything is right and wrong. Who are we to impose that on our children?

And how about simple etiquette? How could we possibly shove down our children’s throats that they should say excuse me after flatulating? Isn’t the expulsion of gastric fumes a compliment in some cultures?

What of gender? Just because of an evolutionary accident, and X instead of a Y chromosome or visa versa, a child should be forced to grow up male or female. We should place them into surgery directly after birth (or genetically manipulate them before) in order to make them androgynous, or perhaps hermaphrodites or androgynous hermaphrodites until such time as they can choose their own gender.

What about handism? Should poor little children be forced by their parents (and a genetic accident) to be right or left handed? Perhaps they should all be forced to be ambidextrous but then again they may not want to be so. Perhaps we ought to bind their hands (ala Chinese women’s feet) but they may not want that either.

Maybe children should be exposed to all ideas, although this will not happen, “all” meaning “all.” Maybe they should not exposed to any ideas until they decide what they want to be exposed to, but how will they do that?

It appears that there is still a long way to go towards realizing the dream of placing an atheist Big Brother in every home. For now Atheism is Dead will soon consider the attempts by many celebrity atheists to establish a new atheist world order by establishing a one world atheist religion.

[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1960), p. 29
[2] Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin Group, 2006), p. 326
[3] Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wired Magazine online (found here and here)
[4] Nica Lalli, “Atheists don’t speak with just one voice,” USA TODAY, The Forum, Monday, October 8, 2007, 13A
[5] Britain’s channel4.com reviewing The Root of All Evil? Part 2: The Virus of Faith

Continue reading Atheism’s Continued Attempts to Dictate Child Rearing...

The Holocaust and the Blame

The Holocaust has been on the news quite a bit lately, as per; Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama, Anne Frank, James Von (or Van) Brunn.

With Mahmud Ahmadinejad denying it.

Barack Obama affirming it.

Anne Frank’s birthday being celebrated.

James Von (or Van) Brunn shooting guards at the museum.

Let us not, ever, forget a statement made by an obviously militant extremist who actually blames all of the Jew’s suffering throughout history including the Holocaust; the Jewish persecution during the Holocaust, the 6,000,000 Jewish deaths during the Holocaust on whom?

THE JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the quote:

The gravity of Jewish suffering over the ages, culminating in the Holocaust, makes it almost impossible to entertain any suggestion that Jews might have brought their troubles upon themselves. This is, however, in a rather narrow sense, the truth.

Who would even imagine such a sentiment?

Who would entertain it?

Who would actually state it?

Who would publish it as a cerebral accomplishment of theirs?

It was not a 1940s era goose-stepping Nazi.

It was not stated by a neo-Nazi group member.

It was not even stated by James Von Brunn.

These are the words, the thoughts, the heart and soul of the supposed champion of reason: Sam Harris.[1]

…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks — Luke 6:45

[1] Sam Harris, The End of Faith—Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), p. 93
Continue reading The Holocaust and the Blame...

GUEST BLOGGER: Atheism

How weird is this; this time I am the guest blogger.

I wrote a little essay on atheism that has been posted at this link.
Continue reading GUEST BLOGGER: Atheism...

The “Atheist,” the “Muslim” and the “Christian” Murderers – and their victims: Stephen Tyrone Johns, William Long and George Tiller

It seems that recent events have taught us quite a few important lessons.

I am referring to:
The murder of Stephen Tyrone Johns by the “atheist” James von Brunn (some term his name James van Brunn).

The murder to George Tiller by the “Christian” Scott P. Roeder.

The murder of William Long by the “Muslim” Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad.

And the media coverage and the internet hullabaloo including the statements of William F. Harrison.

Let us begin with the media coverage since it presented an interesting progression:
1) Scott P. Roeder murdered George Tiller and, being labeled a “Christian,” gave occasion to make reference to the American Christian Taliban, the right-wing extremists and such.

2) Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad murder Private William Long and, being labeled a “Muslim,” shifted the focus form the American Christian Taliban to focus on religion as dangerous in general. This is even though this story has been very, very downplayed both by Barack Obama’s administration and the media in general.
Still, we get to besmirch “religion”—hoorah!

3) James von Brunn murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns and, being labeled an “atheist,” lead to…
Well, certainly no disparaging remarks about atheists or atheism in the media. In fact, you may be hard pressed to hear him referred to as such.

These events brought to mind something that I have been thinking about recently and that was the 1971 AD Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford University psychological prison experiments.
A prison atmosphere was set up and students played the roles of guards and prisoners. The surprising results were that since within a mere six days, including a riot on the second day, the guards had sadistically traumatized the prisoners and the experiment was terminated. The 24 middle class volunteers had been considered the most psychologically stable and healthy of the applicants.
Prof. Philip Zimbardo played the part of the superintendent and a research assistant was the warden.

Though various interpretations of the data have been proposed, one interesting aspect is that of the effects of authority: a-ethical authority (the only restraint placed on the guards what against physical abuse). Absolute freedom corrupts absolutely and it appears that anyone “atheist,” “Muslim” or “Christian” is subject to succumb.
This seems to be so whether they consider themselves to have authority bequeathed by the struggle to survive as the fittest or by some god.
Christianity has a basis upon which to restrain sadistic behavior.
Islam has some yet, the doctrine of abrogation may be problematic in claiming Qur'anically prescribed restraint.[1]
Atheism offers none whatsoever—anything goes; malevolence or benevolence are equally up for grabs.

Oh, right, I know: James von Brunn did not do what he did based on reason but was much more like a religious person and he, an atheist, was even a theist—as per Daniel Dennett’s claims that the atheist Joseph Stalin was.
Yes, the Sam Harris sect’s dogma strikes again: the one word answer to all of the world’s problems is “religion,” any atheist who commits malicious acts is excommunicated and also labeled as being too much like a religious person—nice try.

This brings us to a piece of illogic that has been floating about on the internet for some time (since 2002 AD) written a “Dr.” William F. Harrison. It has alternately been posted as “Militant Religious Fundamentalism” and “9/11, Terrorism And Militant Religious Fundamentalism” (etc.?).

“Dr.” William F. Harrison is involved in the multibillion dollar money machine as an abortion provider. Some versions of his article have his opening line as “As a physician who openly provides abortion for my patients” and some “As a Gynecologist who…” Some versions have certain details that differ from others as well. Yet, the overall point is worth considering as the article is a good study in hypocrisy.

“Dr.” William F. Harrison makes his living by murdering beautiful, healthy, innocent and defenseless human babies in painful and brutal manners. Yet, like others of his “profession” and their supporters they complain about opposition. Some of these complaints are quite valid as, for example, the recent with the murder to George Tiller evidences bad theology gone worse—these issues are to be dealt with judiciously and litigiously.

“Dr.” William F. Harrison sought to point out where fundamentalism goes wrong and why it is so very dangerous. He is at least kind enough to refer to the Ku Klux Klan as being “ostensibly Christian” and goes on to write:

Militant religious fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh or of some splinter sect origin, presents the greatest threat to peace and security in the world today. Fundamentalists seem to share certain widely recognized characteristics and attitudes. They are certain that they, and only they, possess "The Truth." They all cite an external source for that "Truth": religious dogma, the Bible or similar sacred texts, or a charismatic leader. They adhere to a good vs. evil belief system, all black or all white with no shades of gray – an "us versus them" mindset…

Fundamentalists usually express a justification for violence to oppose what they perceive as evil or to support what they "know" to be the good and true. They reject efforts to accommodate to inevitable social change and moral ambiguity…

They are authoritarian, self-righteous, and zealously oppose any critical or analytical thinking which might alter their attitudes since reasonable doubt and a healthy skepticism are among their greatest sins…

But it is only when religious fundamentalism is wedded to a militant and tyrannical agenda used by a ruthlessly ambitious political figure or party that it becomes truly dangerous to dissenting individuals and to the society within which it might flourish…

This is not an attack on religion…But if it is read as a rebuke of militant, exclusivist, hostile and violent or violence promoting religious bigots, of those who have just enough religion to kindle sectarian hatreds, but whose faith is not nearly sufficient to quicken love and respect for others simply because of their humanity, this is exactly how I meant it…

a struggle between those who promote reason, tolerance, freedom, and the basic human dignity of the individual, and religious fundamentalists who proclaim and follow lives committed to intolerance of the religious beliefs of others and a slavish devotion to a particular religious superstition…

Militant fundamentalists too often have demonstrated over hundreds of years a willingness to "kill or convert" those who subscribe to differing belief systems.

Clearly, this is one sided hypocritical malarkey. Why? Because he is doing exactly that which he besmirches.

Read it this way:

Abortionists seem to share certain widely recognized characteristics and attitudes. They are certain that they, and only they, possess "The Truth" that abortion is a virtue or as per Dan Barker, “a blessing.” They all cite an external source for that "Truth": cultural dogma, evolutionary biology texts, or a charismatic scientist. They adhere to a good vs. evil belief system, all black or all white with no shades of gray – an "us versus them" mindset: the abortionists are right and everyone else is wrong…

Abortionists usually express a justification for the violence that they commit, for money, in support of what they "know" to be the good and true. They reject efforts to accommodate to inevitable social change, moral absolutes and the right to life…

They are authoritarian, self-righteous, and zealously oppose any critical or analytical thinking which might alter their attitudes since reasonable doubt and a healthy skepticism are among their greatest sins and would get in the way of the multibillion dollar money machine…

But it is only when abortion is wedded to a militant and tyrannical agenda used by a ruthlessly ambitious political figure or party that it becomes truly dangerous to dissenting individuals and to the society within which it might flourish. Such as the agenda of Planned Parenthood which was established upon racist premises, the agenda of turning “women’s rights” into ensuring no rights for the babies, the politics of the abortion movement or the Chinese forced abortion policy…

This is a rebuke of militant, exclusivist, hostile and violent or violence promoting abortionists bigots, of those who have just enough “pro-choice” sentiments to kindle sectarian hatreds, but whose activism is not nearly sufficient to quicken love and respect for human babies simply because of their humanity, this is exactly how I meant it…

a struggle between those who promote true reason, tolerance, freedom, and the basic human dignity, even of human babies, of the individual, and abortionist fundamentalists who proclaim and follow lives committed to actual intolerance of the pro-life beliefs of others and a slavish devotion to a particular abortionists position…

Abortionists too often have demonstrated over hundreds of years a willingness to "kill" babies for money and declare themselves saints and those who argue for life as sinners.

Obviously, pop-culture, the media and internet personalities prefer thoughtless gut reactions, easy generic targets and emotive assertions but the fact is that, there is a lot more to it than that.

[1] The doctrine is based on the fact that the Qur'an is divided into two periods: Mecca and Medina. At first, whilst in Mecca, Muhammad did not have much wealth or followers and was persecuted so he preached peace. Afterwards, whilst in Medina he gained wealth and followers and preached conflict. Thus, as per the doctrine of abrogation; later revelation formally annuls previous and conflict supersedes peace.
Continue reading The “Atheist,” the “Muslim” and the “Christian” Murderers – and their victims: Stephen Tyrone Johns, William Long and George Tiller...

Atheism Camp: “Camp Quest” - Freethought Camp of Child Indoctrination

A particularly revealing article about an Atheism / Freethought summer camp for children was published in 2008 AD that seemed relevant to our recent consideration of Camp Quest and the likes.[1] While the article painted a favorable picture of the Camp Quest it ended up revealing Freethought precisely for what it is: a politically correct façade for a very restricted, well within the box, system of atheist group think.

In the relatively near future Atheism is Dead will critiqued “Freethought” as dogmatized by Dan Barker: the Barkerian sect.

Camp Quest has “Beyond Belief” as its motto and was established in 1996 AD. It “is a non-profit backed by the Albany, N.Y.-based Institute for Humanist Studies.” It is described in the article as “a niche getaway for children who are agnostic, atheist, or just not sure what to believe.” The camp is currently in 5 states and accommodates kids between the ages of 8-17. The article was a bit confusing in stating that in 2007 AD “the camps accommodated 150 kids”: from the wording it was difficult to discern if 150 kids were divided amongst the 5 camps or if there were 150 in each camp.

Let us consider the camp and its purpose from both sides: the politically correct side and the side of reality.

The politically correct side paints a picture of the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest as a being neutral on the issue of religion, theism or lack thereof. It paints a picture of Camp Quest as teaching children how to think critically for themselves and make their own decisions about what to believe or not believe.

Kids who attend the camp are not required to be atheists, or anything at all.

“We really try not to label the kids,” she [Amanda Metskas, president of Camp Quest Inc.] said, “When a kid is 8 of 10, asking them to say, ‘I’m an atheist’ or ‘I’m a Catholic’ – at 8 or 10 we don’t think that kids are able to make a decision about their worldview.”

There we have it: there are no requirements and the kids are too young to label themselves and by extension, be labeled.

An interesting aspect of the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest is that “Campers are exposed to science and learn about evolution.” This seems rather odd, certainly there are science camp where the focus is science for kids who are excelling in and are interested in that field of study. But why teach “science” and particularly “evolution” at Camp Quest? After all, the average American (the overwhelming majority of the population by a long shot) study science and evolution for a minimum of a dozen years (and in public schools classrooms where atheism is smuggled in through the backdoor in the guise of science; or actually it is brought in right through the front ensconced in textbooks).

Here we appear to get a hint at the underbelly of the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest’s reality. Many absolute materialists of every sect claim to rely on science and evolution as not only favoring their worldviews but disproving supernaturalism. However, science and evolution actually have absolutely nothing to offer absolutely materialistic worldviews (see Omni-Science). I believe that it would not be too much of an inference to deduce that Camp Quest misapplies “science” and “evolution” and manipulate the speculations inherent within “science” and “evolution” to confuse the children with regards to what has been observed and can be reproducibly experimented upon, on the one hand, and what is pure worldview based speculation with a façade of “science” and “evolution,” on the other.

Whilst speculating about the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest’s misappropriation of “science” and “evolution” let us consider Camp Quest’s other side. The side of reality is what the Camp Quest’s obvious purpose is as may be readily discerned from the description of the camp, its activities and the reasons that parents offer for sending their children there.

At mealtime, kids learn about what the camp calls “free-thinkers” through history—defining them as people who questioned or rejected religion. Examples include people who believed in some version of a higher power, but held ideas conflicting with the social norm.

From the outset, let us note that “Freethough” is a system of thought whose aim is particularly to “question or reject religion.” Who was both a “free-thinker” and also “believed in some version of a higher power” is not stated in the article. However, it must be kept in mind that believing in “in some version of a higher power” does not necessarily amount to theism. In fact, Arthur Schopenhauer referred to pantheism, “some version of a higher power,” as a “polite form of atheism.”[2]

In one exercise, counselors tell the kids about different invisible creatures that live in the camp and then challenge the campers to prove that they don’t exist…In each instance, the campers are told they can’t see, touch or taste the creatures.

Before consider why they would conduct such as exercise please note that they are, yet again, presenting a very restrictive form of thought: if you cannot “see, touch or taste,” i.e. experience through the senses it must be impossible to prove. I wonder what the camp’s leadership would say about, for example, wind: you cannot see it (you only see its effects), you cannot touch it (you only feel it, or feel the particles which it is pushing aloft) and you cannot taste it (air pollution being particles being pushed aloft). Or black holes or subatomic particles or abiogenesis or thoughts, etc.

But why bother discussion invisible creatures? We touched upon this question in Atheism is Dead’s pervious consideration of the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest (found here) but will consider it again here as the article states,

The point is that a belief isn’t automatically valid just because it can’t be proven wrong. The exercise is supposed to help kids who don’t believe in God prepare for questions from their peers who ask them to prove a higher power doesn’t exist.

Clearly, this is nothing but a catechism of atheistic polemics. That is to say that the children as specifically being told what to say when their belief in absolute materialism is questioned: when you are asked ___________(fill in the blank) you just say this ___________(fill in the blank).

Moreover,

If campers manage to prove the creatures don’t exist, the prize is a $100 bill from before 1954 – when the government put “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency.

$100 would certainly be a nice award for an 8-17 year old but why a bill from when the government put “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency? This is yet another clear window into the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest’s purpose: not actual Freethought but very, very restricted worldview biased catechized polemical thought. Moreover, in our previous consideration we also learned that they gift the successful children with glorifications of Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins.

Lastly, we will hear from the parents. They do not even make an attempt to prop up the politically correct façade but make it clear that they send their kids to the camp in order to restrict them. They are being sent to be amongst people who think exactly like parents do and who will not question their kid’s beliefs but reinforce in the kids that which the parents want to indoctrinate them into believing. Camp Quest is an Atheism / Freethought support group:

When Joe Fox sends his daughters away to summer camp, he’s confident they’ll be surrounded by kids who share his family’s beliefs and values.

Another family sends their 14 year old son and 9 year old daughter because they want them “to have a sense of belonging.”
Their father states,

Camp Quest has helped his family, especially his children, become more confident about their own disbelief.

And stated,

it’s extremely nice to find similarly minded people with the same worldview.

While the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest’s president may believe that the kids are unable to make decisions “about their worldview” the camp certainly appears to push them in one single direction. They are part of the reason for the rise of atheism in America.

But what is wrong with wanting your very own children to believe like you do and to purposefully place them in environments in which their beliefs will not only not be challenged but be reinforced by adults in authority over them?
That is certainly understandable but is only part of the issue. The point is that if that is what you are doing then be as honest as the parents and not as politically correct as the newspaper article or the Atheism / Freethought Camp Quest’s leadership who pretend otherwise.

[1] Valerie Bauman, “Agnostic camp nurtures ‘freethinkers’,” The Washington Times, May 24, 2008
[2] See Ernst Haeckel, “Monism” from his The Riddle of the Universe (1900)
Continue reading Atheism Camp: “Camp Quest” - Freethought Camp of Child Indoctrination...

Rise of Atheism in America Via Children

Since there is more news on raising children as atheists we Atheism is Dead must again as, “If raising children in a ‘faith’ is ‘child abuse’ what is raising children to be atheists; reeducation?” This is part of the rise of atheism is America.

On Sunday mornings, when many of their contemporaries are taking their seats in church pews, a group of young parents mingle…

This congregation of Triangle residents has no creed or ceremony, just a desire to get together and offer each other support for rearing children without religion. Taking their cue from a primer of the same name, they call themselves Parenting Beyond Belief.[1]

From the get go we must ask, “Why Sunday mornings?” Why not Sunday afternoons, evenings or nights? Why not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday?
Who knows? But there are many, many atheists who cannot seem to do, say or think anything with regards to atheism that is no meant to be specifically anti-theism.

The Triangle resident’s creed is Parenting Beyond Belief which is in reference to Dale McGowan’s book which lays out the creed which they follow in raising their children as atheists.

Not everyone in the group is an atheist. Some prefer to call themselves "freethinkers" or "humanists," or "spiritual but not religious." Some are even believers. But they share a disdain for organized religion and a desire to rear their children with the tools to think for themselves.

Here we go with the name game again: not “atheist” but “freethinkers,” “humanists,” “spiritual but not religious.”

American Atheist’s webmaster authoritatively declared,

Atheists are NOT “secular humanists”, “freethinkers”, “rationalists” or “ethical culturalists”…Often, people who are Atheists find it useful to masquerade behind such labels.[2]

Yet, Dan Barker’s Freedom From Religion Foundation disagrees,

Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.[3]

But some people raising their children by Parenting Beyond Belief are “believers”; believers in what? Believers in a shared a disdain for organized religion and a desire to rear their children with the tools to think for themselves? In that case they agree with every solid Christian that I know—and with the Bible itself.

As to “spiritual but not religious”; this could mean very many things from doing whatever one wants and then looking in the mirror and saying “I’m a good person” to being again, being a solid Christian. Yet, it is noteworthy to consider the words of one time atheist C. S. Lewis:

One reason why many people find Creative Evolution [aka Life-Force philosophy] so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences.

When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest.

If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children.

The Life-Force is a sort of tame God.

You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you.

All the thrills of religion and none of the cost.

Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?[4]

One whose parenting skills are Beyond Belief—that is just a joke, by the way—is Todd Spiering who stated,

"We don't have to act like we have it all figured out," Spiering said. "I'm more comfortable not knowing."

While such notions are appealing and commonsensical, after all who has ever claimed to “have it all figured out” the phrase, “I'm more comfortable not knowing” strikes me as meaning “I do not want to know”—this is a science stopper.

Another atheist daddy is Bruce Harris who states,

Where I work, I'm not really out as an atheist…My boss assumes that everyone around him has some religion. It doesn't occur to him that there are atheists.

Bruce Harris is a graphics designer and I am not sure what atheism has to do with that particular field. He would do well to keep in mind the saying, “You would not be concerned about what people think of you if you only realized how seldom they do.” He is an atheist and atheism is a mere lack of belief in god(s), right? Then why come out? Why look forward to the big reveal? Guess what, very likely, no one cares. I have been outed at work as a believer and people virtually lined up to give me a hard time about it (and yet, they would come to me in private to ask for prayer—makes one wonder).
Moreover, his boss assumes that everyone around him has some religion and according to Michael Newdow (contender for the world’s record for most lawsuits filed) Bruce Harris is religious since atheism is a religion and there are countless influential atheists, the Alluminati, attempting to establish a one world atheist religion (as evidenced here).

Bruce Harris keep up his studies of the New Atheist catechism,

A spate of books by atheists has helped ease some of the loneliness. Best-selling books such as Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great" and Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" have lent some respectability to nonbelievers, and at the least made their existence better known.

I could see how Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have made atheist’s existence better known but “have lent some respectability”? What does “some” mean? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and their New Atheist movement ilk are a nightmare to the friendly neighborhood atheist.

Overall, it seems that the New Atheist latest tact is to support the rise of atheism in America by the concept of get'em while they're young. This is actually an old atheist tactic but is not coming out of the closet as the hip Parenting Beyond Belief de jour and that ultimately it “might lead children to choose no religion at all”[5] so hopes Richard Dawkins.

[1] Yonat Shimron, “Parents gather to nurture nonbelief,” The News & Observer
[2] THE WEBMASTER, “Atheism - What It Is, and What It Isn’t”
[3] Freedom From Religion Foundation, “What Is A Freethinker?”
[4] CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, Ch. 4 “What Lies Behind the Law”
[5] Richard Dawkins, “Now Here’s a Bright Idea”

Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America Via Children...

Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 5 of 5

We now conclude our consideration of evilbible.com’s claim that there is Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Thus far evilbible.com has offered impotent outrage in the form of baseless condemnations and we have seen cases of capital punishment and no human sacrifice. At least, no human sacrifice from the Jews to the God of the Bible but by Gentile Pagans to their false gods. Oddly enough, evilbible.com’s author did not condemn these—let’s just get back to condemning Jews!

The next section is entitled, “Child Sacrifice” which again quotes the apocrypha but this time not from the Roman Catholic NAB but from the RSV, some Bibles include the apocrypha as historical reference:

And this became a hidden trap for mankind, because men, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority, bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared. Afterward it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but they live in great strife due to ignorance, and they call such great evils peace. For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries, or hold frenzied revels with strange customs… (Wisdom 14:21-23 RSV) The Book of The Wisdom of Solomon is mostly in Catholic versions of the Bible. This passage condemns human sacrifice but acknowledges that it did happen by early God worshipers.

In this case evilbible.com’s author is quite correct in stating that this is a straight forward case of “Child Sacrifice.” However, there is one slight detail that seems to have evaded the author’s attention. This detail may be due to, at least, two factors:

1) Some people appear to have such an unfathomable level of lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of the Bible’s contents that they think that any text in the Bible is meant to prescribe an action for us to follow. This is not only unbiblical but unreasonable no matter what text one is considering; from the Bible to the newspaper.

2) I do get the strange sensation that evilbible.com’s author did not conduct any sort of Bible study in order to prepare the contents of evilbible.com but simply surfed the internet seeking likeminded pseudo-skeptical anti-Judeo-Christians and simply compiled pull quotes.

In any regard, two things are for certain:

1) The text does indeed and very clearly refer to “Child Sacrifice.”

2) The text, here I mean the whole text, the entire chapter, the context, presents a styled history and description of idolatry and in referencing child sacrifice is condemning Gentile Pagan idol worshippers.

This is even clear from the text that was quoted as it does state, “it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but they live in great strife due to ignorance, and they call such great evils peace.”
They sacrificed children to false idolatrous gods due to erring ignorance of the true God and end up calling evil good—just as when Dan Barker makes reference to the brutal and painful dismembering murder of beautiful, innocent, and defenseless human babies by stating, “I think abortion is a blessing” (see here).
Where is the condemnation of the Gentile Pagans by evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists and atheists in general? Nowhere to be heard—let’s get back to condemning the Jews!

The next section is entitled, “Humans are Fuel for Fire” and goes back to quoting the Roman Catholic NAB:

As for you, son of man, prophesy: Thus says the Lord GOD against the Ammonites and their insults: A sword, a sword is drawn for slaughter, burnished to consume and to flash lightning, because you planned with false visions and lying divinations to lay it on the necks of depraved and wicked men whose day has come when their crimes are at an end. Return it to its sheath! In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you. I will pour out my indignation upon you, breathing my fiery wrath upon you, I will hand you over to ravaging men, artisans of destruction. You shall be fuel for the fire, your blood shall flow throughout the land. You shall not be remembered, for I, the LORD, have spoken. (Ezekiel 21:33-37 NAB)

Be aware that the NAB has Ezekiel ch. 21 going to v. 37 but other Bibles have it going to v. 32—however, the text is the same, it is simply that the numbering of verses is different as the NAB ends ch. 20 a couple of verses earlier than other Bibles and carries them over to ch. 21.
Interestingly enough, it is by not considering theses verses that evilbible.com’s author commits folly yet again.
The verses in question read,

Thus the word of the LORD came to me:
Son of man, look southward, preach toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the southern land.
Hear the word of the LORD! you shall say to the southern forest. Thus says the Lord GOD: See! I am kindling a fire in you that shall devour all trees, the green as well as the dry. The blazing flame shall not be quenched, but from south to north every face shall be scorched by it.
Everyone shall see that I, the LORD, have kindled it, and it shall not be quenched.
But I said, "Alas! Lord GOD, they say to me, 'Is not this the one who is forever spinning parables?'" (Ezekiel 21:1-5 NAB; 20:45-49 other Bibles)

God’s reference to “a fire…blazing flame…scorched…kindled” was parable (proverb, saying, aphorism, similitude, maxim, etc.). Thus, “fuel for the fire” is parabolic “fuel” for the parabolic “fire” and therefore, no “Humans are Fuel for Fire” with regards to “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.”
The parabolic fire denotes that the Gentile Pagan Babylonians would conquer Israel.

We have now come to the very last reference to alleged “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible” which is entitled, “Burn Nonbelievers” and we are back to the NLT:

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Evilbible.com’s author appears to interpret “Put the entire town to the torch” as “the town and its inhabitants.” Yet, the preceding verses state otherwise. Firstly, this represents the laying out of a contingency plan for when it is reported that Israelites have been enticed to worship the idolatrous false gods whose worship systems included the actual child sacrifice about which evilbible.com’s author had nothing to say, temple prostitution, etc.
The first step is to “examine the facts carefully” and note that this is something which “you must” do.
Then “If you find it is true and can prove” it the sentence is capital punishment which is carried out by destroying the inhabitants and livestock and the burning, of note what is to be burned, “all the plunder.”
Therefore, no burning of nonbelievers and not even their corpses.

Having reached the end of evilbible.com’s page about “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible” we have learned that the only “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible” is that which Gentile Pagan idolaters carried out while worshipping the false gods whom the God of the Bible condemns. Whenever the Jews did practice human sacrifice it was only when they abandoned the God of the Bible and followed the Gentile Pagan false idolatrous gods whom the God of the Bible condemns.
About these Gentile Pagan false idolatrous gods to whom human children were sacrificed and women were made to prostitute evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists, and atheist in general have nothing to say—let’s just get back to condemning Jews!

However, I am not done and would like to point out certain text which do indeed present actual “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible” which evilbible.com’s author missed:

“When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying , ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:29-30).

“And you shall not let any of your seed pass through the fire to Moloch, neither shall you profane the name of your God. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 18:21).

“they built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Moloch, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin” (Jeremiah 32:35).

And what about when Nebuchadnezzar had Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into a blazing furnace that was so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who threw them in? (Daniel ch. 3).
Well, Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon and thus a Gentile Pagan false idolatrous god worshipper about whom evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists, and atheist in general have nothing to say—let’s just get back to condemning Jews!

To sum up our research of the contents of evilbible.com thus, far:

Let us note that in our consideration of rape in the Bible we learned that evilbible.com’s author imagined rape when no text supporting the assertion that the Bible’s approves of rape could be found.
We also noted that, for some odd reason, the primary biblical text dealing with rape was ignored; it was not quoted, not cited, not paraphrased, not alluded to, but completely ignored.
Why? One can only guess, but one thing is for certain; that text, Deuteronomy 22:25-27, calls for capital punishment for the rapist.

Moreover, our study of Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible concluding here, we have learned that the only human/child sacrifice to be found in the Bible was not condemned by evilbible.com’s author. These sacrifices were condemned by the God of the Bible as the heretical and abominable unGodly actions of Gentile Pagans who were worshipping idolatrous false gods and by Jews on the occasion when they turned away from the God of the Bible to join the worship of false gods.
Continue reading Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 5 of 5...

Monsters vs Aliens

Do Aliens Exist?

Much about atheism is quite misunderstood, for example:
Atheists are considered anti-religion but they are not; many are in favor of an atheist one world religion—the Alluminati’s new world order.
Atheists are considered anti-supernatural but they are not; many believe in the supernatural realm known as the multiverse.
Atheists are considered anti-imaginary friends, super friends, sky daddies, etc. but they are not; many believe in aliens.

I love a book that instantly gives you something to ponder. Such was the case when I opened “King Solomon’s Advice” by Walter L. Porter; Professor of Psychology at Harding University.
I have had this book in my holster for quite some time but it had to wait its turn, like oh so many others. I have just started it so cannot say anything about it as of yet.

However, on the very first page of the introduction he wrote something that resonated with a concept that I have long found fascinating: outer space aliens in general and atheism’s love aliens.

Various atheists have appealed to their imaginary friends / super friends / sky daddies as a final court of arbitration who will decide, in favor of atheism, were they ever to openly revel themselves.

For many atheists: aliens know it all, can do anything and most importantly they are atheists who will someday grace us with their open presence and refute those wacky theists. The technologically and intellectually advanced alien-nerd-herd takes the place of God; they will someday appear and vindicate atheism.





Upon making scientific observations of DNA Francis Crick ascertained that the ultimate atheist explanation for anything and everything, “It just is, it just happened to happen, evolutiondidit” did not cut the mustard. However, being an atheist he necessarily restricted his thinking and chose to propose that life had been seeded on Earth by technologically advanced aliens: directed panspermia—Johnny-Alien-Seed.

Orgel and Crick managed to provoke the public and their colleagues by speculating that the seeds of life were sent to the earth in a spaceship by intelligent beings living on another planet. Orgel says the proposal, which is known as directed panspermia, was “sort of a joke.”
But he notes that it had a serious intent: to point out the inadequacy of all explanations of terrestrial genesis. As Crick once wrote: “The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going.”[1]

The book [Life Itself] proposed that the seeds of life were sent to the earth in a spaceship launched by beings on another planet. Called directed panspermia, the theory met with derision from other scientists, and Orgel himself described it recently as “sort of a joke.” But Crick insists that given the weaknesses of all theories of terrestrial genesis, directed panspermia should still be considered “a serious possibility.”[2]

Number eight of Sam Harris’ 10 myths about atheism regards aliens as he ponders the possibility that there “is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos”:

If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities.
They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

“If…could have…if…will be…” got it! Let us play the turnaround game:

If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Theists can freely entertain such possibilities.
They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even more impressive to them than they are to human theists.

Let us consider this another of atheism’s consoling delusions: the delusion of affirmation via higher intellects (exactly the view of the atheists street as they adoringly look to their cenobites for guidance).

In arguing that rape is not absolutely immoral, Dan Barker appeals to malevolent alien rape voyeurs (Dan Barker is of the Freedom From Religion Foundation which was established in a country premised upon freedom of religious expression). He envisages (he actually sits around imagining such scenarios) technologically advanced aliens who offer an option: they will destroy the Earth or watch a woman being raped. Thus, Dan Barker concludes that nothing is absolutely immoral because, “I can think of an exception in any case.” By the way: he just solved the “problem of evil.” This scenario is detailed at this link.

During his “Royal Institution Christmas Lectures” aka “The Royal Institution Lectures for Children” Richard Dawkins told little kids the following:

If we ever meet life from another planet…

I’d also be prepared to put my shirt on the bet that they will have evolved by the way equivalent of Darwinian Natural Selection…

They’ll probably find us pretty childish, but they will be quite kind about our science. They’ll pat us on the head and say, “Well, what you know about Universe is pretty much correct. You got at lot to learn yet, but you are doing fine. Keep it up.” That's what they would say if they were talking to our scientists. What if they were talking to our best lawyers or literary critics or theologians? I doubt if they’d be so impressed.
They might be…their anthropologists, the equivalent of their anthropologists might be interested in us, but they would be bound to notice that our cultural beliefs are very local and parochial; not just by their standards, their universal standards, where they certainly would be, but even by our own standards.
Because what people believe on our planet depends so much on whereabouts on the planet they happen to be born, which is a fairly odd thing.

Now to Walter L. Porter’s statement:

A number of conferences have been conducted by scientists on the subject of life in outer space. The consensus appears to be that other life forms exist out there (in spite of the total lack of what is currently considered to be scientific evidence) and that they include creatures who are not only non-human and "incredibly alien," but are also ''vastly more intelligent than we."

The director of one conference, sponsored jointly by Boston University and NASA, expressed the hope that contact with these creatures ". . . might also lead us to better social forms, possibly to ways to solve our environmental crisis, even improve our own social institutions."
Another participant hoped that these beings can give us ". . . the means by which we can control the application of our knowledge. This is where we have, I think, lamentably failed."

I find all of this incredibly ironic. Modern science is looking toward heaven for salvation!

As a matter of fact, the ancient Israelites recorded many encounters with non-human creatures of vastly superior abilities who provided them with information vital to their survival and prosperity. Many of their great men told of having personally received knowledge from beyond earth.

For example, Moses credited both his power to lead the people out of Egyptian bondage and all the details of his great law to an ongoing encounter with an extra-terrestrial being.

Joseph was a Hebrew slave who rose to the highest administrative position in ancient Egypt.
Daniel, another captive Jew, was a chief adviser to Nebuchadnezzar, who was king of the great Babylonian Empire.
Both of these men achieved greatness because of special knowledge personally provided to them by
non-earthlings.

Ancient Hebrew documents contain many similar reports. Indeed, from the time of their founding father, Abraham, the Israelites were told by heavenly beings that they had been chosen for a special role in the development of the human race.
Through the Israelite people the entire world would gain access to special knowledge needed to promote the progress of civilization and to combat our destructive tendencies…What was revealed includes knowledge relevant for understanding ourselves and for telling how we can live together peacefully-the most critical knowledge we need.

It is, of course, an old familiar story told in an old familiar book-the Bible. The Bible tells of another world in another realm or dimension in the heavens inhabited by superior creatures and ruled by a supreme Being whose unimaginable power and intelligence created not only this universe but all things.

From time to time in the past, communication was made from that realm to some select citizen. Sometimes these creatures simply materialized in human form and were recognized only by their superhuman powers. But more often the contact was made through a form of mental telepathy, by means of a spectacular vision or a dream.[3]

[1] John Horgan, “In the Beginning…” Scientific American, Vol. 264, February 1991, pp. 116-125
[2] “The Mephistopheles of Neurobiology” featured Crick in the “Profile” section.
[3] Walter L. Porter, King Solomon’s Advice (1985, 2nd printing ed. 1992), p. ix-x
Continue reading Monsters vs Aliens...

Daniel Dennett’s One Way Street of Censorship

Or: On the Hoodwinkification of Children

Daniel Dennett, professor of philosophy at Tufts University and author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon is part of a sect of atheists who believe that it is child abuse to raise one’s children according to one’s faith.

Prof. Daniel Dennett wrote:

On the one hand, many declare, there is the sacred and inviolable right of life…On the other hand, many of the same people declare that, once born, the child loses its right not to be indoctrinated or brainwashed or otherwise psychologically abused by those parent, who have the right to raise the child with any upbringing they choose, short of physical torture, Let us spread the value of freedom throughout the world—but not to children, apparently.[1]

From Gary Wolf’s interview with Daniel Dennett:

Dennett gives no quarter to believers who resist subjecting their faith to scientific evaluation. In fact, he argues that neutral, scientifically informed education about every religion in the world should be mandatory in school. After all, he argues, “if you have to hoodwink – or blindfold – your children to ensure that they confirm their faith when they are adults, your faith ought to go extinct.”[2]

The reason for teaching all “religions” in public school appears to be state sponsored forced theological education so that children are not just indoctrinated by their parents.
Thus, children are not to be denied an education consisting of every theological point of view. However, when it comes to Prof. Daniel Dennett’s chosen worldview quite a different scenario is presented.
Prof. Daniel Dennett commented regarding:

…those who don’t yet appreciate just how well established the theory of evolution by natural selection is. According to a recent survey, only about a quarter of the population of the United States understands that evolution is about as well established as the fact that water is H2O.[3]

He refers to this as an “embarrassing statistic.” There is much to be said for his statements:

1. He does not cite the survey: who conducted it, what was asked, how were the questions posed, how may people were asked, what is the margin of error, what have political scientists made of the survey and its results, etc. are unanswered questions.

2. He refers to “evolution by natural selection” yet, natural selection is an aspect of the theory of evolution. Even the most Bible-thumping-­fundi-evang-YECers do not necessarily have a problem with natural selection; at least not when the term is used to mean something to the likes of observing that if we took a Saint Bernards and a Chihuahua to the North Pole one is very much more likely to survive.

3. One reason why knowing what questions were asked in the apocryphal survey is that “evolution” can simply mean living organisms changing or it can mean that God does not exist (just ask Prof. Richard Dawkins who looks through a microscope and infers atheism).

But what of the belief of three fourths (according to Prof. Daniel Dennett’s apocryphal survey) of Americans who believe that “the theory of evolution is false (or at least unproven)”? Prof. Daniel Dennett writes, “there are no reputable scientists who claim this. Not a one.”[4]
Of course, the logical question would be: has Prof. Daniel Dennett surveyed every scientist on the planet (and throughout history, perhaps) and ascertained their position on the matter? Although, perhaps he did not need conduct any such survey. Perhaps his criterion was simply that if they disagree with him then they are obviously wrong. If a scientist believes that “the theory of evolution is false (or at least unproven)” then they are obviously not reputable.


Prof. Daniel Dennett then offers the following recommendation:

Educate yourself in evolutionary theory…

Suspend disbelief temporarily in order to learn what an evolutionist makes of religion as a natural phenomenon.

Incidentally, it seems worthwhile mentioning that the overwhelming majority of American theists have studied the Darwinian theory of evolution for a minimum of a dozen years and have also had exposure to criticism of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Prof. Daniel Dennett even helps us along by recommending his favorite works that seek to prove what he believes.

Personally, I could not agree more with him. Indeed, educate yourself (even more) in the Darwinian theory of evolution (here I mean the concoction of actual observation and atheist cooption of it as atheist propaganda) since there is no better way to understand a house of cards than inspecting one for yourself. But remember to define the terms.
It is also important to mention that out of the vast amount of science literature it is very easy to pick and choose those bit that suit your worldview. Since Prof. Daniel Dennett can recommend science literature we will do the same in recommending the plethora of statement that we quote in Atheism is Dead’s parsed essay Scientific Cenobites.

Moreover, Prof. Daniel Dennett wrote:

Since 2002, schools in Cobb County, Georgia, have put stickers in some of their biology textbooks saying, “Evolution is a theory, not a fact,” But a judge recently ruled that these must be removed…This makes sense.[5]

The stickers were described by some as being “anti-evolution stickers” that “undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.” Since “parents sued arguing that the policy promoted religion in science classrooms and violated the separation of church and state” the removal of the stickers was declared an “absolutely a victory for the parents and the children in Cobb County school” by Debbie Seagraves, executive director ACLU of Georgia.[6]

Certainly, the wording “Evolution is a theory, not a fact” was an unfortunate misnomer but still; imagine the scandal of making it clear that evolution is a theory for whatever reason. It is simply intolerable to ensure accuracy in education, right?
But just how do the stickers undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes? It seems that it merely places evolution in its correct context.
And just how do the stickers violate the non-constitutional separation of church and state? It seems that student may wonder if there are alternative theories, the real problem of which would be that the alternative theory is illegal in public schools; only atheism is acceptable in our public classrooms.
So, why was it a victory for the parents and the children alike? Because the atheist presupposition regarding origins is Federally funded and atheist parents want their worldviews taught to the impressionable and undiscerning children of parents who disagree that in the beginning of life was abiogenesis (which circa one and a half century of experimentation has disproved).
But let us not be capricious; students are to be given every chance to approach the subject matter with an open mind and they are to study the topic carefully and critically.

At this juncture it ought to be pointed out that Prof. Daniel Dennett conveniently quoted only part of the sticker, the full text of which states:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.[7]

Precisely what part of the statement is inaccurate?
That evolution is a theory? It is.
That it is not a fact? While atheist activist scientists like Prof. Richard Dawkins extrapolate atheism from biology, when scientists speak purely from their discipline they make it clear that science does not deal in fact but can only tell us what the best guesses are thus far.
Of course, some scientists, being also activists for their own worldviews, openly proclaim that they will purposefully deny any evidence that interferes with their beliefs. Scott C. Todd from Kansas State University’s Department of Biology is one such scientist as is made clear by his statement:

Even if all the data pointed to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.[8]

See Omni-Science for a detailed dissection of his comment.

Thus, our circuitous statement comes to its logical conclusion:
On the one hand, when Prof. Daniel Dennett expresses an opinion regarding the beliefs of others, children should not be hoodwinked or blindfold. That sort of indoctrination only comes to prove that your faith ought to go extinct.

On the other hand, when Prof. Daniel Dennett expresses an opinion regarding his own beliefs, children should be hoodwinked and blindfold. They should be discouraged from accurate representations of the scientific methods and should be discouraged from having an open mind, studying carefully and critically. That sort of indoctrination should, apparently, not go extinct but should be state sponsored.

[1] Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin Group, 2006), p. 326
[2] Gary Wolf, “The Church of the Non-Believers,” Wired Magazine online (found here and here quoting Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 328)
[3] Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 60
[4] Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 61
[5] Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, p. 308
[6] AJC STAFF, Textbook stickers on evolution out in Cobb
[7] AIG, Cobb county textbook stickers gone for good and MSNBC, Judge nixes evolution textbook stickers - Disclaimer questioning theory ruled unconstitutional
[8] Scott C. Todd, “A View from Kansas on that Evolution Debate,” Nature, Vol. 401, Sep. 30, 1999, p. 423

Continue reading Daniel Dennett’s One Way Street of Censorship...

Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 4 of 5

We continue our consideration of evilbible.com’s claim that there is Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Besides noting that evilbible.com can only logically condemn any action, such as human sacrifice, by appealing to assertions based on personal preference spiked with outrage we have also noted that thus far the author’s claims remain unsubstantiated.

We will now consider a section of the evilbible.com page entitled, “God Commands Burning Humans” the entirety of which reads,

[The Lord speaking] "The one who has stolen what was set apart for destruction will himself be burned with fire, along with everything he has, for he has broken the covenant of the LORD and has done a horrible thing in Israel." (Joshua 7:15 NLT)

Now this is tricky, at least for the undiscerning, as the section was entitled “God Commands Burning Humans” which is true but not in the way one may think particularly as the section is part of the “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible” page.

This has nothing to do with “Ritual Human Sacrifice” but is a case of capital punishment. We should take a moment to keep in mind that regardless of what we may think about the laws of the Israelites these are laws by which the nation had agreed to live. This situation pertains to Achan who had taken action which ended up causing the deaths of about three thousand men. Thus, after an investigation ensued the sentence was death and was carried out by stoning. Being burned with fire pertained to the disposal of the corpse (v. 25).

The next section is entitled, “Josiah and Human Sacrifice” and, again, consists of just the title and two quotes, all the better:

At the LORD's command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, and he arrived there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to offer a sacrifice. Then at the LORD's command, he shouted, "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you." (1 Kings 13:1-2 NLT)

He [Josiah] executed the priests of the pagan shrines on their own altars, and he burned human bones on the altars to desecrate them. Finally, he returned to Jerusalem. King Josiah then issued this order to all the people: "You must celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in the Book of the Covenant." There had not been a Passover celebration like that since the time when the judges ruled in Israel, throughout all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah. This Passover was celebrated to the LORD in Jerusalem during the eighteenth year of King Josiah's reign. Josiah also exterminated the mediums and psychics, the household gods, and every other kind of idol worship, both in Jerusalem and throughout the land of Judah. He did this in obedience to all the laws written in the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found in the LORD's Temple. Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since. (2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT)

That evilbible.com’s author selectively quotes partial and self-serving texts is obvious yet, why the author goes from beginning the page with a lot of comments with a little bit of quotes to a lot of quotes and no comments makes me wonder if the reason is that it is clear from the context (if the context was even read) that these quotes are mere pull quotes meant to make a point only when premised on the preconception of there being “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.”
In this case; is the text about “Josiah and Human Sacrifice”? Josiah—yes, human sacrifice—no.
This is another case of capital punishment.
The “man of God” prophecies of the altar that “On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you.” Since the King protests the prophet’s words, because the King favored the worship of false gods, the altar splits right then and there in keeping with God’s sovereignty.
Now to Josiah who administered the capital punishment by executing “the priests of the pagan shrines on their own altars” and “exterminated the mediums,” etc.
These were not human sacrifices and where not sacrifices offered to the God of the Bible upon His altar.
I can only wonder why evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists and atheists in general are so very selective about against whom they pour forth their impotent condemnation. Why, in cases such as these, is it against the Jews only? Are they even aware who was being sentenced to capital punishment here?
Fortune cookie makers? News paper horoscope writers? The for hire birthday party palm reader?

One of the things that Josiah did was that he, “defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moloch” (2nd Kings 23:10). This was true ritual human sacrifice; to “make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to Moloch” meant that parents were having their children sacrificed by fire. Where is the condemnation of evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists and atheists in general? Nowhere to be heard—let’s get back to condemning the Jews!
In our consideration of evilbible.com’s rape in the Bible page we encountered fallacious claims that the Jews had “sex slaves” and yet, the Gentile Pagans literally did have sex slaves and temple prostitutes in service of, apparently, the pimp god. Where is the condemnation of evilbible.com’s author, the New Atheists and atheists in general? Nowhere to be heard—let’s get back to condemning the Jews!
Prof. Richard Dawkins wrote:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.[1]

Would he ever write “Moloch is arguably the most unpleasant character…”? No!
But of course not! After all; who worships Moloch anymore? I may argue that Moloch is the god of abortion who has hundreds of millions of worshipers worldwide. Yet, if it be argued that this most horrendous of false gods is no longer worshipped I am sure that the Jews would say, “You’re welcome!”
On second thought, would Prof. Richard Dawkins ever write “Allah is arguably the most unpleasant character…”? That would certainly be interesting but I would not expect it—ever! Not from a militant activist atheist who thunders condemnations of whom he considers to be the world’s true evil: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, the Bishop of Canterbury and the Pope—all from the safety, comfort and freedom of countries premised upon Judeo-Christian values. Keep in mind that this is the same Prof. Richard Dawkins who stated,

“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.”[2]

Yet, even he has his standards and so declared,

“It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling [sic] children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue”[3]

Hitler—who knows? The friendly theist next door raising their families—evil!

Let us consider one more entry on evilbible.com simply entitled, “Human Sacrifice”:

Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; (Wisdom 3:5-7 NAB The Book of The Wisdom of Solomon is mostly in Catholic versions of the Bible.)

In this case the translation switches to the Roman Catholic NAB, of course, since reference is being made to the apocrypha which is only found in Jewish or Protestant Bibles with significant qualifiers in place (see here for info).
Yet, even here evilbible.com’s author misses the most basic of basic concepts; need it be pointed out that this is metaphor? Is the text not clear? It states, “As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings…” “As” and “as” equal metaphor.
Moreover, consider the context which is in praise of these souls (vss. 1-8):

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.
For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality;
Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself.
As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the LORD shall be their King forever.

I will offer two correlative concepts:

1) This may be in reference to the unbiblical doctrine of Purgatory (discussed here).
2) Or in reference to the metaphor described in 1st Corinthians 3:11-15,

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.
If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Note that “the fire will test each one’s work” the “work” will be tested by fire and not the person. As for the person whose work is mostly burned away “he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire,” “so as” equals metaphor (this text is discussed here as part of the aforementioned discussion of Purgatory).

And so, we patiently await an example of “Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible”—maybe next time.

[1] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. 31
[2] Stated during an interview with Larry Taunton, “Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist,” byFaith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007 (© 2007-2008)
[3] Martin Beckford and Urmee Khan, “Harry Potter fails to cast spell over Professor Richard Dawkins,” UK Telegraph, October 25, 2008

Continue reading Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 4 of 5...

GUEST BLOGGER: “Atheists: The Godless & the Forsaken”

Today Atheism is Dead has the pleasure of welcoming the our guest blogger Jake Jones who is the an Evangelical Christian and writes the Evangelical Christian articles for Examiner.com.

You may contact Jake by emailing him at ee@jakeswebb.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Atheists; known to me as “the Godless ones” will be more than happy to tell you that I am wrong on almost everything I write about. All one has to do is look at the ‘comments’ that I get on my Examiner articles. I get very few comments (1 out of every 50 perhaps) from Christians as they are usually in close agreement with what I write about, so; no need to comment.

That’s why I get the impression that Atheists feel that they need to beat you over the head with their view of Creation, laws, the Bible, God, the Constitution and more. Even though they don’t believe in the one who made it all possible? They simply must always be right! Atheists can’t see the forest for the trees. Now I’m not saying that they are dumb, but they do have an ill adjusted logic. And that makes Atheists the worst kind of liberals in my experience.

Enter ‘Charlie’ Darwin:
Atheists seem to have a mental block about the reality of the real truth about who is/was responsible for even their own individual existence. However, they put their trust in some guy named ‘Charlie’ Darwin who just happened to write a book titled “On the Origin of Species” or what is commonly known as the Theory of Evolution 150 years ago this year. Modern Atheists have no problem putting their full trust in the fact that we all descended from a common ancestor, which is what Darwin’s book was really about. Even though there is no proof to this date that he was correct 150 years ago when labs and science were in their infancy; they ‘believe’ he was right, but just cannot ‘believe’ the Bible!

Compare Darwin’s theory with the Bible. The original texts of the Bible were written thousands of years ago, long before Darwin, but even so, there is one huge difference. That difference is that on many occasions, the Bible is filled with witnesses to the events described. Additionally, it is filled with witnesses to prophecy; both to prophecy as it was being fulfilled, as well as witnessing the Prophet giving the message.

Of course, then there are the Dead Sea Scrolls which have also given further support to the Bible as being accurate, but the kicker here is Science; Archeology in particular. Archeologists have over the years proven that the Bible is accurate in its descriptions of Cities, rivers, palaces, churches, events and more, but the Atheists would rather stick with old ‘Charlie’ who is a bit more contemporary than the Bible!

The Atheists are contentious about these Archeological findings too. They seem to be unable to add two and two and come up with the right answer. This is not to say that the Bible is not a confusing book, it can be, in no uncertain terms. However, the Old and New Testaments do agree with one another. Yes, even with a thousand or more years between.

As an example, Atheists will take the biblical account of Jonah and the whale and say that could never happen. Or, they will dispute the fact that Jesus and Peter walked on water. Yet, as an Evangelical Christian, I believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired, true, and infallible word of God, so the biblical accounts of these events stand.

The Big Bang Theory:
I question how Atheists figure that out of chaos comes order, when we all know that out of chaos comes even more chaos. Just ask my wife when I help with the house cleaning. Chaos begets chaos, not order. All one has to do is to go the NASA web site and look at their space Gallery! It’s amazing. The beauty and order of God’s creation is overwhelming.

The Godless & the forsaken:
Atheists; or anyone who permanently rejects Jesus Christ, which is the “unforgivable sin” (John 3:18; 3:36) are not only Godless, but will be forsaken at their appointed time. God sent his Son to die for our sins past, present and future (John 3:16). God loves everyone, even Atheists. He continues to love His children for as long as it takes to turn them in the right direction. In Matthew 7:14 it says: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”.

I truly believe that Atheists have good intentions, but here is a short passage you won’t find in the Bible: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”.
Continue reading GUEST BLOGGER: “Atheists: The Godless & the Forsaken”...

Sarah Palin and David Letterman

There has been a recent hoopla over old creepy guy “jokes” that David Letterman made about Sarah Palin’s 14 year old daughter.

Big deal, get over it!

After all, Bill Maher laughed quite loudly and clearly about little girls that are raped by their own fathers and got applause for it.

See the post: Bill Maher's Sad Anniversary


Continue reading Sarah Palin and David Letterman...

Atheism Versus Christianity

Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in;
aim at earth, and you will get neither
—C. S. Lewis

I do believe that I have finally come to understand why we cannot remember the earliest years of our lives. Having observed my children; it is simply astonishing to note that they are on an emotional rollercoaster all day long. Laughing, crying, laughing, crying, crying, laughing, laughing, crying, etc., etc., etc. and etc.
An adult could not survive such a state of emotions—we would at least have a nervous-mental breakdown.
Life in general can be somewhat of a rollercoaster ride—up, down and all around. As, let us use the generic term, worldviews I believe that atheism is on a constant downhill slide while Christianity is on an uphill ride.
The Christian life is an uphill movement to eternal life in heaven and the atheistic is a downhill movement to where they chose to reside. Yet, there are speed bumps in the path of both.Keep in mind that all metaphors eventually break down because they are after all just that, metaphors. Therefore, let us tamper with the metaphor in order to more clearly illustrate the point.

What I mean by uphill drive is not that once we get to the top we will reach the other side of the mountain and then begin our downhill drop. Rather, I mean a hill that is moving ever upwards, or perhaps a hill of which the top leads us to take off into the air flying ever upwards.

As for the downhill drive I do not envision driving down a hill where at the bottom we find a nice gentle slope onto a flat road where we go on our merry way. Rather, I mean a drop that ends in a crash with the bottom, more akin to driving off of a precipice.




Allow me to illustrate why we are making a point about up and down hills and speed bumps.
For the Christian; the speed bumps on the uphill drive are temporary setbacks, they slow us down a bit every now and then, yet we keep moving up. They are little setbacks in an uphill movement only temporarily slowing us down until we press the gas pedal again.
But for the atheist, who is ever so quickly traveling downhill, the speed bumps are little exiting events that make life appear somewhat meaningful, tiny doses of adrenalin in an otherwise hopeless and meaningless downhill crash course (consider purpose vs. meaning). Imagine driving downhill and hitting a speed bump, you may catch a little air that would give you that little roller coaster feeling in your stomach but you would come bouncing down and may even increase your downhill speed (one of atheism’s many consoling delusions in the delusion of subjective meaning in an objectively meaningless existence).

Atheist’s worldviews are bittersweet since to an atheist everything is temporary. An atheist’s reaction to the world around them, from good food, to art, from social justice, to children, is that since all things are temporary everything is both to be experienced and enjoyed as indulgently as possible while at the same time everything is to be mourned over since everything is on its way to ultimate demise. This worldview is tantamount to flowers in a vase; they are temporarily beautiful and fragrant and yet, we tore them from the plant, sentencing them to an early death and we watch them slowly shrivel and die.

The only joy in an atheist’s life is that which they derive from whatever they find appealing: be it food, travel, money, sex, family, etc. The Christian can also enjoy this life and expects more joy in the life to come—aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in…
Continue reading Atheism Versus Christianity...

Rise of Atheism in America

On Atheism Sunday School

Atheism is Dead continues our chronicling of atheists not only raising their own children as atheists but everyone else’s as well. Jeninne Lee-St. John wrote an article for TIME magazine entitled: Sunday School for Atheists
The article was a report on atheist parents who seek to ensure that their children are taught to believe exactly as they do. While this is typically what many parents wants it is refreshing that atheists are admitting that they indoctrinate their children as much as, if not more so, than theists—this is part of the reason for the rise of atheism in America.

Atheists are now coming out and admitting that they practice indoctrination of children just like those theistic parents whom atheists have long condemned as child abusers for doing the same thing.The practice of atheism’s indoctrination of children is, of course, nothing new. I know someone whose father used to tuck her into bed a night, when she was a little girl, telling her that there is no God. The difference now is that the indoctrination is becoming institutionalized in the form of summer camps, classes, various media (such as Philip Pullman’s works), etc.The article states:

some nonbelievers are beginning to think they might need something for their children. “When you have kids,” says Julie Willey, a design engineer, “you start to notice that your co-workers or friends have church groups to help teach their kids values and to be able to lean on.”
So every week, Willey, who was raised Buddhist and says she has never believed in God, and her husband pack their four kids into their blue minivan and head to…atheist Sunday school…the weekly instruction supports their position that it's O.K. to not believe in God and gives them a place to reinforce the morals and values they want their children to have.

Note the qualifiers: reinforce what they want their children to have.

One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable.

Here we have atheism hymns and doxologies.I may be reading too much into this but I thought that it was simply fascinating:

Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader [Peter] Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making.
He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation—an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.

I do not know if it is a mere semantic accident but note that even while the class leader sought to warn them about the role of persuasion he “tried to get them to…”Ok kids, be thou persuaded to beware of persuasion!Lastly, consider a statement made by one of the parents,

“I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths,” Hana says. “I'd rather stick to the evidence.”

What evidence?What is “the” evidence?Evidence of what?Evidence for what?I thought that atheism was merely a lack of God belief; what does evidence have to do with anything? Although, the author of evilbible.com calls people who define atheism as such: the “few morons” who are “so damn stupid” for doing so (see History of Atheism for that nugget).The only evidence for lacking belief in God is a declaration that states such lack of belief.
Note that atheists are not content merely indoctrinating their own children but also want to dictate how you are to raise your own children.
Continue reading Rise of Atheism in America...

Sam Harris – Letter to a Christian Nation

Townhall.com has posted four interesting articles by Mike Adams which seek to correct Sam Harris’ various fallacies.

As Vox Day notes,

Sam Harris is so superlatively wrong that it will require the development of esoteric mathematics operating simultaneously in multiple dimensions to fully comprehend the orders of magnitude of his wrongness.[1]

Mike Adams’ articles are follows:

Letter to a Secular Nation

Second Letter to a Secular Nation

Third Letter to a Secular Nation

Fourth Letter to a Secular Nation

[1] Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist, (Dallas, Texas: Benbella Book, Inc., 2008), p. 7

Continue reading Sam Harris – Letter to a Christian Nation...

Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 3 of 5

We continue our consideration of evilbible.com’s claim that there is Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Thus far, we considered that evilbible.com’s author has no premise, no basis, no ethos upon which to condemn anything at all and noted that the first considerations of “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?” was one in which Abraham “didn't kill his son” and yet, the argument from outrage ensued.

Now we finally come to “Bible Passages About Ritual Human Sacrifice” in which section evilbible.com’s author offers no commentary, except for the title, “Jephthah Burns His Daughter,” but merely quotes the following. The emphasis is in the original evilbible.com page and while up until now the author has quoted the Roman Catholic New American Bible we now switch to the New Living Translation”

"At that time the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and led an army against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, "If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the LORD the first thing coming out of my house to greet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

"So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. He thoroughly defeated the Ammonites from Aroer to an area near Minnith – twenty towns – and as far away as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter – his only child – ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. "My daughter!" he cried out. "My heart is breaking! What a tragedy that you came out to greet me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and cannot take it back." And she said, "Father, you have made a promise to the LORD. You must do to me what you have promised, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin." "You may go," Jephthah said. And he let her go away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept his vow, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter." (Judges 11:29-40 NLT)

I, again, empathize with how someone with virtually no knowledge of the Bible’s contents and no desire to understand them would conclude what evilbible.com’s author concluded, “Jephthah Burns His Daughter.”

But what else could it mean? Well, that is just the point: having been told what to think about it already and thinking that the texts is stating that conclusion, which it seems to be to the undiscerning, we must consider the text all the more carefully. I wish to present a few different ways of understanding what the text is saying by considering the immediate and greater context. This text either states that Jephthah took it upon himself to sacrifice his daughter or, more likely and in keeping with the text’s immediate context as well as the Bible’s greater context, he sacrificed an animal in her place.

The text seems clear enough after all; it does state, “Jephthah made a vow…I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering…kept his vow, and she died a virgin.” He does appear to have sacrificed her—even though the minutia of the Torah’s law not once allowed for human/child sacrifice and what kosher high priest would allow such a thing?
I did wonder why evilbible.com’s author switched translations but have learned that the author tends to pick the ones that serve a purpose and the NLT certainly does at this point, to some extent.

Let us spend a moment on v. 39 which the NLT renders as “she died a virgin.” Having checked 20 translations[1] I can see why the NLT was chosen; none of the others say that she “died.” What is significant is not counting up translations but the fact that the reason that the 20 do not have “died” is that the word simply is not in the Hebrew (or the Greek Septuagint-LXX for that matter). Now you know why the NLT is not exactly considered a scholarly version. Yet, even if I were to grant that a word that is not actually there is there; evilbible.com’s author purposes are not met.

Let us consider the text further and come back to this point; which is at the end of the text. Another oddity with the NLT is that it states, “I will give to the LORD the first thing coming out of my house to greet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” Yet, there is a Hebrew word between “triumph. I” that goes untranslated. Yet, it does appear in 18 other translations with the exception of the GOD'S WORD Translation which reads “…to the LORD. I will sacrifice…” and the Douay-Rheims Bible which reads “…return in peace from the children of Ammon, the same will I offer a holocaust to the Lord…”
The word, generally translated as “and,” consists of the Hebrew construct made up of two conjunctions for “either/or.”

shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. (KJV)

In fact, the Robert Young’s Literal Translation renders it as “or.”

to Jehovah, or I have offered up for it -- a burnt-offering.

Why is this significant? Because it draws the distinction between the daughter and the animal which would have replaced her.

Clearly, if we do not pick and choose but consider the greater context of the Torah we know that if it was a clean animal that came out of his doorway first he would have offered it as a burnt offering and if a human then they would be consecrated to the LORD. This would be done by the daughter being sent, with her consent (v. 37 “You must do to me what you have promised”), to serve in the sanctuary.

Robert Young’s Literal Translation also alerts us to another detail in v. 40 by rendering it as,

And it was an ordinance in Israel that the daughters of Israel went from year to year to the daughter of Jephthah, that they might comfort her for four days in a year.

Rather than as,

So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter.

Yet, there is still no reason not to grant the NLT translation because, as we shall see, it is not ultimately problematic.

Let us wrap all of this up in noting that the fact is that nowhere does the text state anything about Jephthah sacrificing his daughter. The text merely states v. 39, “her father kept his vow.” But there is no mention of what he actually did.
But wait a moment, it states that he “kept his vow” and the vow was “I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” So he does appear to have sacrificed her—even though the minutia of the Torah’s law not once allowed for human/child sacrifice and a kosher high priest would never allow such a thing.

As aforementioned, when we consider the greater context of the Torah clearly if it was a clean animal he would have offered it as a burnt-offering and if a human then they would be consecrated to the LORD. This would be done by the daughter serving in the sanctuary.

But then why does this come across as such a tragedy? Because since she was his one and only child and a virgin, she would have no children and he would have no lineage after him. Not to mention the Jewish woman’s dream to be the one through whom the Messiah is born. Note that the text does not focus at all upon a mourning of her death but her virginity: v. 37 “wept because she would never have children” v. 39 “she died a virgin.”

See, there it is “she died”! Yes, that is just the point when she did die she was a virgin in that she never copulated and thus, never had children.

Ok, why did I bother going through all of this detail?

In order to demonstrate that there are contextual reasons for thinking that she was not sacrificed and in order to demonstrate that even if she was it is not problematic to grant evilbible.com’s author the title and translation that was used.

This is because even if we grant that “Jephthah Burns His Daughter” and that “she died a virgin” means that she died then and there as a burnt sacrifice we simply have to note the end of the story.

Again: if she was not sacrificed the “young Israelite women” went “away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter”—that she would never had children—the reason she wept.

If she was sacrificed “young Israelite women” went “away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter”—Jephthah's actions were considered so horrendous that it literally became an annual event to remember his terrible deed. Imagine being so condemnable that every year there is a festival to condemn you to the point that circa 3,000 years later we are still condemning him.

Thus, either way she either was not sacrificed and evilbible.com is wrong in claiming that she was or she was sacrificed and evilbible.com is wrong in that it is utterly condemned by the Bible.

[1] English Standard Version, English Revised Version, New American Standard Bible, New American Standard Bible, Revised Standard Version, American Standard Version, Robert Young Literal Translation, J.N. Darby Translation, Darby Bible Translation, Noah Webster Version, King James Version, New King James Version, American King James Version, New International Version, World English Bible, Bible in Basic English, GOD'S WORD Translation, Douay-Rheims Bible, Reina-Valera

Continue reading Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 3 of 5...

The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology

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.



Continue reading The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology...

Philip Pullman the Atheosbishop of Canterbury

Atheism is Dead has previously provided info regarding activist atheist author Philip Pullman (at this link). He is in the news again as, for better or worse, Dr. Rowan Williams-the Archbishop of Canterbury is endorsing Philip Pullman’s books, “His Dark Materials” and the movie which it has spawned, “The Golden Compass.”

I wonder about personages such as Philip Pullman who seem to have their heads so firmly ensconced in well-within-the-box-atheist-group-think that they have difficulty discerning reality. I certainly understand that one of the most ubiquitous atheist talking points is painting atheists as underdog and thus, claiming victimhood status.
When it was convenient for him; Philip Pullman states that his children oriented books are about “killing God” and that he seeks to “undermine the basis of Christian belief” and in planned “The Golden Compass” sequel “Director Chris Weitz hoped to develop the anti-Christian themes more fully.”
But then he is surprised that his books and movies stir up controversy—what a shocker!

Bill Donohue describes the books as “atheism for kids.”
Melanie McDonagh describes them as,

a rather blatant and exceptionally offensive anti-Christian polemic…He is actually setting up a parody of Christianity as a thing itself. Now, that’s fair enough as Mr Philip Pullman’s own belief but I think it is something that readers should be alerted to because it is a proselytising agenda.

Rupert Kaye states,

My key concern is that many young people (and adults) who read Philip Pullman’s trilogy will be left with an extremely distorted understanding of what Christians actually believe and what the Bible really says about the person of God.

Chris Weitz retorts,

I think Philip Pullman takes issue with dogma. He is not anti-Catholic or anti-religion.[1]

Is that so? The deity in Philip Pullman’s books about “killing God” and “undermine the basis of Christian belief” is not referred to as a generic “god” or by some invented name (as an imaginative and unbiased author would do) but is referred to by biblical terms such as, “Almighty,” “Ancient of Days,” “Father,” and “Yahweh.” No, no, no; this deity, who is described as “malevolent, deceitful and powerless,” is never, ever referred to as “Allah.”

And yet, suddenly, Philip Pullman becomes a Victorian era chap who in prim and proper manner state, “Oh my!”

Moreover:

In the past Mr Pullman has said “if there is a God and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against.
“As you look back over the history of the Christian church, it’s a record of terrible infamy and cruelty and persecution and tyranny.
“How they have the [swear word] nerve to go on Thought for the Day and tell us all to be good when, given the slightest chance, they’d be hanging the rest of us and flogging the homosexuals and persecuting the witches.”

Do you see what I meant by well-within-the-box-atheist-group-think? This is militant activist atheist poppycock. God, as the Christians describe Him, deserves to be put down and rebelled against—really? Well, it has been done my dear sir, done to the death, to the death of Jesus upon the cross.

Philip Pullman, the prim and proper bloke, “denies he set out to court controversy”:

I don't mind if controversy arises, but I didn't seek it. I didn't think of it at all. Any writer is in a position of the old storyteller in the market place who doesn't know who will stop and listen…The more who stop and listen, the more happy I am. If the audience includes children – great. If it's adults, great…The youngest child will do that if you start telling them a story…I don't know who's going to stop and nor do I know if they're going to be annoyed by it. If someone is so annoyed as to get upset, the answer is don't read it – put it down, read something else…I always was a storyteller. I told stories to my little brother, my friends at school... yes, I'm a storyteller, that's all I am.[2]

Just how do such thoughts justify themselves within the inner recesses of Philip Pullman’s gray matter? I could imagine it now,

My oh my, indeed I did state that my books are about “killing God” and attempting to “undermine the basis of Christian belief” but I did not set out to court controversy. My atheist support group-think are quite hip to such sentiments, I wonder why Christians got their knickers in a bundle.

So, he is a storyteller and “that's all.” Well, a storyteller who tells stories about “killing God” and attempting to “undermine the basis of Christian belief”—“that's all.”



It is reported that The Golden Compass “was not a success…the US box office was quite badly hit. The movie made enormous money overseas, but the studio had sold the foreign distribution rights, so it didn't make any money” yet the new stage play at the UK’s National Theatre (and now the West Yorkshire Playhouse) was a huge success.
It is in this new venue that Philip Pullman is realizing his power to influence and manipulate. I am beginning to think that Philip Pullman is of the catharsis school of book writing and movie making. As he explains it (emphasis added in the following quote):

In the cinema, they can have them [the characters] there in apparent real life – it's been made on a computer but it passes for real. You can't do that in the theatre so the audience has got to pretend, they've got to pretend that there isn't an actor there holding a puppet and speaking for it. So there's an active engagement
with the audience's imagination. I'm used to hearing people who have read the book and were disappointed in the film, but much preferred the play because they are engaging with it in that way which is so special and peculiar to an audience in the theatre.

Via the emotions one can cut right through the intellect: emotions are tangible while the intellect deals with the abstract. He is realizing that he can make a theater audience more fully engage his propaganda so that as they build an emotional attachment to the story, his anti-Christian atheist concepts, and him as a person, they are also eating up his and agreeing with his prejudice.

Having attempted to zombiefy his audience into accepting the concept of “killing God” and attempting to “undermine the basis of Christian belief” he is now working on a new bit of strictly anti-Christian propaganda:

The book I'm writing at the minute is about Jesus. I did a talk at the National Theatre with the Archbishop of Canter-bury, we were talking about the theology in the books and he said: 'You don't mention Jesus at all', so I put him in the next book, The Scarecrow and his Servant. Nobody noticed, so I thought I better make it clearer…
The book is difficult to describe and I'd rather not go into it at this stage. It's just that I'm writing about this very interesting character called Jesus, who is very different from the character Paul calls Christ. I've been reading the gospels and reading around them. It's fascinating – and I've also realised it can't all be true.

This is an outrage! An atheist who states that the New Testament “can't all be true”—who ever heard of such a thing?!?!?!

Pretty soon the 24,000+ manuscripts of the New Testament will be said to be of inferior quality and less telling about Jesus than Philip Pullman’s novel—the new one about “killing God” and attempting to “undermine the basis of Christian belief.”
Maybe after the new book about “Jesus” he will write about a very interesting character called Muhammad, who is very different from the character Caliph Utman calls Prophet. Perhaps he has been reading the Qur'an and reading around it. He may even find it fascinating and realize that it can't all be true. Then again; do not hold your breath—ask Salman Rushdie and Cat Stephens / Yusuf Islam about that.

As to Dr. Rowan Williams - the Archbishop of Canterbury’s role in this:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said books by campaigning atheist, Philip Pullman, are among his favourites, despite the author being a renowned critic of the Christian church…But the Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams, said he liked Mr Pullman’s work because he took the church “seriously” at a time when it appeared to be “drifting out” of mainstream intellectual debate.[3]

[1] Stephen Adams, “Philip Pullman helps understanding of theology, says Archbishop of Canterbury,” UK Telegraph, May 28, 2009
[2] Nick Ahad, “I told stories to my little brother, and to friends... I'm a storyteller, that's all I am,” Yorkshire Post, May 28, 2009
[3] The Christian Institute, “Atheist author's books favoured by Archbishop,” May 29, 2009
Continue reading Philip Pullman the Atheosbishop of Canterbury...

Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 2 of 5

We continue our consideration of evilbible.com’s claim that there is Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

In part 1 we considered that evilbible.com’s author has no premise, no basis, no ethos upon which to condemn anything at all and noted that the first examples under “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?” was Abraham who “didn't kill his son,” peppered with arguments from outrage.

Finishing up on the “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?” section: evilbible.com’s author offers the opinion that the priesthood was basically a scam to exhort food and money from the populace. From an atheist perspective this is understandable and applicable to any clergy regardless of chronology, geography or theology.

Next we read:

Even more peculiar is God's obsession with first-born sons. In Exodus 13:2 the Lord said "Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among Israelites, both man and beast, for it belongs to me." Later it says that you can redeem (replace) an ass with a sheep and that you must redeem a child for an unspecified price. It is clear from the context that "consecrate" means a burning sacrifice. These priests are guilty of theft and kidnapping. Since any sins in the Old Testament were punishable by death, these priests used the threat of death to extort food and money from their followers. What do we call a scum-bag that threatens to kill your kids unless you pay a ransom? A kidnapper! If these priests were alive today they would be in prison with Abraham.

However, in Leviticus 27:28-29, the Lord allows for no redemptions. "Note also that any one of his possessions which a man vows as doomed to the Lord, whether it is a human being or an animal, or a hereditary field, shall be neither sold nor ransomed; everything that is thus doomed becomes most sacred to the Lord. All human beings that are doomed lose the right to be redeemed; they must be put to death." I must admit that I am a bit confused by this contradiction, but it might only apply to slaves in your possession. Not that it makes any difference. A human sacrifice is a human sacrifice, and it is just sick. [emphasis in original]

There seems to be a typo at “any sins” which should probably read as “any sin” or, mostly likely, “many sins.”

I can completely understand why to someone whose Bible knowledge consists of pull quotes “God's obsession with first-born sons” would be “peculiar.” It is the person who possesses at least some working knowledge of the Bible, particularly its most basic greater context, who know the very many references to, and correlations between, the first-born sons and God’s first-born—single, only of its kind, primary, unique—Son.

In a refreshing change of pace evilbible.com’s author considers context yet, fails to differentiate between, or correlate, immediate and greater context. In other words: does “consecrate” mean “a burning sacrifice”? “No” in the immediate sense, “Yes” in the greater sense.

To “consecrate” qadash refers primarily to sanctify, prepare, dedicate, be hallowed, be holy, be separate, etc. (Strong # H6942). This is very clear from v. 12 which states,

you shall set apart to the LORD all that open the womb, that is, every first-born that comes from an animal which you have; the males [shall be] the LORD's.

I am at a loss as to how considering something/someone sanctified, prepared, dedicated, hallowed, holy, separated amounts to “theft and kidnapping” but I did learn from my study of evilbible.com’s page on rape in the Bible that evilbible.com’s author tends to invent preconceived notions and then imagine that they are in texts where they are most certainly not.

Since there was no such thing as human sacrifice according to the Old Testament priesthood there is no chance that the obedient priests “threatens to kill your kids unless you pay a ransom.” Yet, note the further symbolism which is, at least, twofold:

1) The redemption of the first-born was correlated in vss. 14-15 to the first-born which perished in Egypt.
2) We may further infer a correlation of the Messiah Jesus as redeemer.

Note also what was pointed out in part one about the reference to “today”; “If these priests were alive today they would be in prison with Abraham.” This is indicative of the atheist claim that morality evolves and so they cannot condemn what the priests did, even if they were “scum-bag…kidnapper!” but can only express outrage. Get the point? Knowing that they cannot logically condemn any past actions they can only fantasize those actions being contemporary when they could be deemed immoral—yet, how do they know that even as they condemn those actions they are not evolving into moral actions?

Next evilbible.com’s author jumps context from “consecrate” qadash (Strong # H6942) to “devote” charam which refers to to ban, devote, destroy utterly/completely destroy, dedicate for destruction, to prohibit, etc. (Strong # H2763).

Yet, this is not merely about a different word, although that is quite significant, but it is a vast change in context from the consecration of the first-born to a system of “valuation” (estimation of value). The two texts are simply not relatable. In the case of Leviticus 27:28-29 we are dealing specifically with the issue of a person who is “doomed lose the right to be redeemed” (as the NAB oddly puts it) or “person devoted to destruction” (NIV) or “person under the ban, who may become doomed to destruction” (NKJV).

Who are these people? They appear to be people such as those mentioned in Joshua 6:17 who were “under the ban” (NAB) or “accursed” (NKJV) and in Joshua 7:12 with regards to the Ai incident who where “doomed to destruction” and may also refer to those sentenced to capital punishment. In other words, you cannot simply get out of it by having someone flip your bill.

The beauty of this whole issue is that you can forget about what particular words mean and forget differing translations and come to fully understand the meaning by considering the immediate and greater context.

This is tantamount to arguing that some Bibles translate the sixth commandments as forbidding “killing” and some “murder.” It is ultimately irrelevant since the greater context distinguishes between two manners by which to take a life:

1) Legal and moral such as in self-defense or war.
2) Illegal and immoral such as in committing a crime or beating someone to death on purpose.

While 1) is generally referred to as “killing” and 2) as “murder” it is the contexts which defines the words.

Having concluded the “Why does God want me to burn animals and humans?” section our next segment will consider “Bible Passages About Ritual Human Sacrifice.”
Continue reading Atheism, Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible, and EvilBible.com, part 2 of 5...

Materialism Spirituality? “The Science Of Spirituality - Is This Your Brain On God?”

National Public Radio (NPR) has produced a little ditty on “The Science Of Spirituality - Is This Your Brain On God?”
Atheism is Dead has previously considered neuroscientific issues in the post Love the Lord Your God With All of Your Mind.
Some of their musing on the subject is as follows:

Part 1: The God Chemical
The bottom line issue posed in the form of the question, “is God a delusion created by brain chemistry, or is brain chemistry a necessary conduit for people to reach God?”

Part 2: The God Spot
States that “Some epileptologists believe that many of the great religious figures, such as Moses and St. Paul, had epilepsy. Now neurologists believe they've found the sweet spot for spiritual experience…the seat of spirituality. It's also where epileptic activity takes place.” Interesting, apparently only Jewish and Christian religious figures were epileptic; I suppose that “many” means “Those whom we are afraid to offend.”



Part 3: Spiritual Virtuosos
Neurotheologians think that prayer has an effect on sculpting the brain in that it produces increased activity in the frontal lobe (involved in concentration) and decreased activity in the parietal lobe (involved in a sense of orientation in time and space).
In that case Neuroillogican such as Sam Harris are those who already have their minds made up and are becoming “scientists” aka militant activist atheists and in Sam Harris’ case mystic Buddhist atheists who seek to erect a façade of scientific respectability around their atheist presuppositions.
Sam Harris has stated:

What I believe, though cannot yet prove, is that belief is a content-independent process. Which is to say that beliefs about God—to the degree that they are really believed—are the same as beliefs about numbers, penguins, tofu, or anything else…
What I do believe, however, is that the neural processes that govern the final acceptance of a statement as ‘true’ rely on more fundamental, reward-related circuitry in our frontal lobes—probably the same regions that judge the pleasantness of tastes and odors…
Once the neurology of belief becomes clear, and it stands revealed as an all-purpose emotion arising in a wide variety of contexts (often without warrant), religious faith will be exposed for what it is: a humble species of terrestrial credulity. We will then have additional, scientific reasons to declare that mere feelings of conviction are not enough when it comes time to talk about the way the world is. The only thing that guarantees that (sufficiently complex) beliefs actually represent the world, are chains of evidence and argument linking them to the world…
Understanding belief at the level of the brain may hold the key to new insights into the nature of our minds, to new rules of discourse, and to new frontiers of human cooperation…[1]

Note the future-hopes qualifiers, “…yet…Once…will be…We will then…”

Notice his staked deck: religious faith is a humble species of terrestrial credulity and once the neurology of belief becomes clear religious faith will be exposed for what it is: a humble species of terrestrial credulity.

Sam Harris is clearly setting out to prove what he already believes to be true—no doubt, he will prove his beliefs even by gyrations that will strain the very neurons upon which he will be experimenting. It appears that his goal is not to become an unbiased scientist who merely reports conclusions and is prepared to throw away a lifetime of research if it happens to be disproved.



Part 4: The Biology Of Belief
Psychoneuroimmunology is “the idea is that thoughts affect your body” and “New research suggests that spiritual thoughts and prayers have an enormous effect on a person's ability to heal or stave off disease.”

Part 5: Near-Death Experiences

Materialists say the visions that people report experiencing when they come close to death are hallucinations. But a small but increasing number of scientists posit that consciousness is related to, but not dependent on, the material brain. One scientist has found that the brains of people who have near-death experiences closely mirror those of nuns and monks, who are considered spiritual adepts.

I recall that Ann Coulter proposed a TV show wherein liberals would be hooked up to lie detector and question about their views: I wonder if the same can be done with atheists.



Now a truly brilliant scientist has actually found the God spot:

[1] Edge - The World Question Center, “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”

Continue reading Materialism Spirituality? “The Science Of Spirituality - Is This Your Brain On God?”...

Alan Watts - Atheism In The Name Of God

Alan Watts wrote an interesting, fallacious and very confused essay in which he proposed the idea of “atheism in the name of God” which was entitled, “The World's Most Dangerous Book.” Can you guess to which book he was referring? Indeed, the Bible (which is not a book, by the way). Yet, he was kind enough to explain, “The Bible is a dangerous book, though by no means an evil one.”

One is very much reminded of Sam Harris when considering Alan Watts as they are both quite taken with Eastern philosophies, partook in psychedelic drug, and expressed anti-Christian prejudice.
In the essay “The World's Most Dangerous Book” Alan Watts proposes “atheism in the name of God” which actually rejects commonly understood atheism: we will come to this below.
In the essay he continuously complains of literal interpretations of the Bible. He does not seem to consider that to take a text literally means: to take it as it is intended; historical references is taken as such, cultural references is taken as such, symbolic references is taken as such, etc. Then again, he is alternately referring to those whom he refers to as stupid, ignorant, childish, Jesus freaks, Bible bangers, ignorance, uneducated and uninformed, invincible stupidity, idiots, credulous as children, intellectually and morally irresponsible people, etc. (which appears to be all Christians).

Alan Watts’ concerns about literal interpretations are exampled by his statement,

an uneducated and uninformed person who reads them today, and takes them as the literal Word of God, will become a blind and confused bigot.

What does he mean “reads them today”? He is virtually paraphrasing the Apostle Peter,

Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures (2nd Peter 3:15-16).

Of course, Alan Watts was specifically commenting on his misunderstanding of “literal.” An uneducated and uninformed person who reads the Bible literally will become more educated and informed and will become a lover of her neighbors, etc.

Furthermore, note that Alan Watts argues that “the religion of the literally understood Bible is…militant…Among its most popular hymns are such battle songs as…Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
Has he considered the lyrics and matched them to Christian theology?
The lyrics, and the theology, deal with battling satan and not human beings.

At the sign of triumph Satan's host doth flee; on then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praise; brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise…
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail; we have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail.

Moreover, the lyrics refer to being united in charity.
The theology to match can be found in texts such as follows:

the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2nd Corinthians 10:4-5).

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

Now, just what does Alan Watts recommend we do to interpret “The World's Most Dangerous Book”? What emerges in the essay, as per his “atheism in the name of God,” is that Alan Watts prefers to “interpret” the Bible according to his preferred Eastern philosophy views: odd concoctions of Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. And he has an idealistic, romantic, utopian notion of Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

For example, he writes:

Such superstition would have been relatively harmless if the religion had been something tolerant and pacific, such as Taoism or Buddhism.

I know, I know Taoism or Buddhism are hip: wear your ying-yang necklace, seek balance and such, contemplate your navel, chant, etc. Yet, Taoism and Buddhism have been influencing Chinese and Japanese culture for millennia and just as any other religion-philosophy-worldview they have produced benevolence as well as malice mostly in the form of militaristic movements premised on seeing life as illusion or an need to act out our yang, etc. (at this link are some examples and list of further resources).

But just what does Alan Watts recommend we do to interpret “The World's Most Dangerous Book”? What emerges in the essay, as per his “atheism in the name of God,” is that Alan Watts prefers to “interpret” the Bible according to his preferred Eastern philosophy which leads to odd, nonsensical, fallacious and eisegetically fabricated “interpretations” such as:

Jesus, and that spirit is, again, the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal God the Son, who could just as well have been incarnate in Krishna, Buddha, Lao-tzu or Ramana Maharshi as in Jesus of Nazareth…
the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, the Logos-Sopia, refers to the basic pattern or design of the Universe, ever emerging from the inconceivable mystery or the Father as the galaxies shine out of space.

Note the qualifier “could just as well have.” Apparently, according to Alan Watts’ “atheism in the name of God” if he could imagine that Jesus “could just as well have” then the rest of his personal, particular and peculiar theology is vindicated.

Alan Watts further notes that the God of the Bible is a “Father-Monarch” and thus, writes:

There have been other images of God than the Father-Monarch: the Cosmic Mother; the inmost Self (disguised as all living beings), as in Hinduism; the indefinable Tao, the flowing energy of the universe, as among the Chinese; or no image at all, as with the Buddhists, who are not strictly atheists but who feel that the ultimate reality cannot be pictured in any way and, what is more, that not picturing it is a positive way of feeling it directly, beyond symbols and images. I have called this “atheism in the name of God”…

Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system. It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it…

all monotheistic religions have been militant. Wherever God has been idolized as the King or Boss-Principle of the world…

Keep in mind that Alan Watts is referencing the very same Taoism which for millennia has produced copious amounts of literature expressing that the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao and the very same Buddhism which for millennia has promulgated as, perhaps, its most popular scripture the idea of a revelation outside of scripture which has no need for words—his “beyond symbols and images” which he expresses by employing the symbols of language in order to paint images by means of word pictures. I Buddhist once told me that the Buddha taught rid yourself of desire and you will rid yourself of suffering. I asked what I was to do with the desire I felt to rid myself of desire. Get it? What if I feel a driving desire to rid myself of desire?
From what I can tell it is not only “all monotheistic religions” that “have been militant” but any and every religion, philosophy or worldview that gains a certain kind of power has become militant.

In this regard it is noteworthy that Alan Watts wrote,

both science and mysticism (which might be called religion as experienced rather than religion as written) are based on the experimental attitude of looking directly at what is, of attending to life itself instead of trying to glean it from a book.

Imagine that via mystical experiences you end up accepting as truth what the book states; the Bible’s statements about Jesus uniqueness. Now, your subjective mysticism would be refuted by Alan Watts’ subjective mystical “atheism in the name of God” since that being that you consider unique “could just as well have been incarnate in Krishna, Buddha, Lao-tzu or Ramana Maharshi.”

As for the practical implications, the practice of Alan Watts’ “atheism in the name of God” he states:

This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes…in which the past and future vanish…in which there is no audible difference yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other…between what you do and what happens to you.

Directly following he makes a fascinating statement, “Without losing command of civilized behavior.” He appears to realize what atheism in general and “atheism in the name of God” have in common with any concept of reality as actually being some sort of maya like illusion: losing command of civilized behavior is mere the actions of a bio-organism, or an illusion of personality, or insert ethereal concept here, that are subsequently interpreted by other bio-organism-illusion of personality, etc. as being civilized or not—ultimately and/or absolutely, who is to say?

Alan Watts continues defining “atheism in the name of God” by applying his concoction of Taoism-Hinduism-Buddhism to biblical interpretation:

When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas. If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real.

Certainly this is what Jesus himself must have had in mind in that famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount upon which one will seldom hear anything from a pulpit:

“Which of you by thinking can add a measure to his height? And why are you anxious about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field, how they grow. They neither labor nor spin; and yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was not arrayed like any one of them. So if God so clothes the wild grass which lives for today and tomorrow is burned, shall He not much more clothe you, faithless ones?...Don't be anxious for the future, for the future will take care of itself. Sufficient to the day are its troubles.” [ellipses in original]

There you have it; Jesus was teaching Hindus and Buddhists meditation or was He?

Note that the verse just before Alan Watts quoted text states,

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Matthew 5:24).

Thus, you can serve the things of this world or God and if you serve God He will provide the necessary things of this world.
Also, note what is missing from the ellipses in the text quoted by Alan Watts points “faithless ones?...Don't be anxious”:

So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 5:31-33).

Indeed, the text was not about Hindu / Buddhist re-entry to the real world, a meaningless murmur or being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real. Rather, the point is “Therefore do not be anxious” since “your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.” Thus, the point is:

1) Delineation: “No one can serve two masters”

2) Priority: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness”

3) Because: “all these things shall be added to you”

4) Thus, and again, “do not be anxious about tomorrow” (see Matthew 6:25-34)

Moreover, in accord to the, apparently, infallible biblical interpretations of Alan Watts’ “atheism in the name of God”-Taoist-Hindu-Buddhist hermeneutic we get new insight into John 10:31 as Alan Watts writes:

just after he [Jesus] has said "I and the Father are one," the crowd picks up rocks to stone him to death.
He protests:

"Many good works have I shown you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?" The Jews answered him, saying, "We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God."

And here it comes:

Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods [quoting Psalms 82]? If He [i.e., God] called those to whom He gave His word gods and you can’t contradict the Scriptures how can you say of Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme!’ because I said, ‘I am a son of God" [The original Greek says "a son," not "the son."]

In other words, the Gospel, or "good news" that Jesus was trying to convey, despite the limitations of his tradition, was that we are all sons of God.

This is a confused commentary but the end result is that Alan Watts is seeking to justify his “atheism in the name of God” interpretation. Jesus is obviously meeting their argument at the arguments own level—directly to the point—and then taking them further. Jesus makes clear that they essentially want to stone Him for claiming something that ought not have astonished them since in Psalm 82 those to whom the word of God came where called gods. Part of the problem, for the undiscerning or those who lack basic knowledge of the Bible’s contents and contexts, is that son of God, or sons of God can mean various things and is to be determined, as usual, via context. It may be in reference to Jesus’ uniqueness, in reference to Israel as a nation, in reference to what we may become (as we shall see), etc. (the same may be said for the term son of man).

Let us take a moment to understand what is meant by the word of God coming to them and in what capacity they were gods. Psalm 82 refers to elohim and translates it both as “God” and “gods.” Elohim is the plural of El so why is it translated once as singular and once as plural? Again, it is always the context that ultimately determined the definition of a word and not its rigid etymology. Thus, once the reference is to a singular personage “elohim…he” the other plural “elohim…all of you.” Thus, there is an obvious differentiation which is made all the clearer due to the fact that the singular elohim is in charge of the plural ones. Let us consider the text, in part:

God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?...

I said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

Thus, the singular elohim, God, judges the others and notes that they are judging unjustly: these are the judges of Israel to whom God had given instructions as pertains to passing judgment. God calls them elohim which means “mighty ones” as they had a high position and y