Category Archives: Atheism

On hating God

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The ten commandments popped up as part of my regular Bible reading this morning and Ex 20:5-6 struck me:

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“Who”, I thought to myself, “could possibly be stupid enough to hate God?” Even though I now believe atheism to be illogical, I can empathise with being an atheist, since I once was one; being oblivious to God I can understand because even after I thought the idea of his existence was at least plausible, I didn’t want to have much to do with him. But who could hate God? If nothing else, a sense of self-preservation ought to keep one from such folly.

Not so, however. The so-called new atheists don’t so much disbelieve in God as loath him. Christopher Hitchens, shortly before his death, paraphrased the famous C. S. Lewis proposition: “if Jesus isn’t the Son of God, he is a hideous wicked imposter; his words were vane, empty and intended to deceive.” Lewis concluded that Jesus, therefore, was the Son of God, Hitchens that he was…..  a hideous wicked imposter. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris et al echo similar sentiments.

Blinkered fools!

Atheists for church burning

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Having no rational argument to support their belief system, atheists in Fort Bragg are resorting to a video that celebrates church and book burning to advertise an atheism festival. Christians, being considerably more civilised, intelligent and emotionally secure are not advocating burning The God Delusion or this in retaliation.

From here:

Atheists are using a music video that celebrates the burning of churches and synagogues to promote an upcoming atheist-themed festival at Fort Bragg.

“Rock Beyond Belief” is scheduled to be held on the parade field at Fort Bragg in March. The event was created in part as a response to a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association event that was held last year.

Here is the video (notice, I didn’t call it a music video):

Deifying atheism

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Alain de Botton wants something awe inspiring in his life, something to foster love, friendship, and goodness. Something transcendent one might be tempted to think if it were not for the fact that Botton is an atheist and so is compelled to reach the obtuse conclusion that his longing for transcendence is evidence that it doesn’t exist.

Not to be deterred, he has decided to build a temple to his god: atheism. It purports to be a celebration of life on earth, culminating in the human genome sequence inscribed in binary on the outside walls – a tribute to man’s ego as much as atheism.

Botton’s atheism purports to be a more positive form of atheism than that of Richard Dawkins, but adopting the aesthetics of religion while denying its truth doesn’t seem to me to be much less misguided than rejecting both.

Rev. George Pitcher seems to think it is a good idea – a sure indicator that it isn’t

From here:

Plans to build a £1m “temple for atheists” among the international banks and medieval church spires of the City of London have sparked a clash between two of Britain’s most prominent non-believers.

The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.

Rather than attack religion, De Botton said he wants to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life.

“Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good,” he said. “That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don’t believe but aren’t aggressive towards religions.”

Is Richard Dawkins intelligently designed?

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I have to admit, the evidence from his own lips suggests not.

From here:

“We still don’t know what exactly happened at the time of the Big Bang, 13.72 billion years ago. Cosmologists and physicists now have good ideas which are yet to be proved definitely, that the whole universe came into being as a quantum event out of literally nothing,” he said, according to the Times of India.

“This leaves religion with nowhere to go. Because however difficult it may be to explain the origin of the cosmos, it would be even more difficult to explain the origin of a designer who made the cosmos.

“So you have absolutely nothing to gain by postulating any kind of intelligent designer, because that simply evades the question we’re trying to solve. If you want to believe in some kind of god, don’t look to science.”

There are three problems with this.

First, it confuses the categories of things that have an origin – like the universe – and things that don’t – like God. God, by definition is a necessary not a contingent being: he does not depend on something else for his existence. To look for a cause for the universe’s coming into being makes sense, to look for a cause for God’s coming into existence has no meaning because, in order to be God, he must have always existed.

Second, saying: “the whole universe came into being as a quantum event out of literally nothing” doesn’t solve the problem of how something that requires a cause for its existence arrived, apparently, without a cause: what caused the “quantum event”?

Third, since Richard Dawkins’ atheism is a presupposition not something that has been demonstrated logically or empirically, it isn’t surprising that science can’t help him find something he is already convinced isn’t there. Scientists who do not start out with a belief that God does not exist see a great deal of evidence for a universe that has been designed.

Atheists offended by their own dogma

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This billboard was removed from outside a Johannesburg church because an atheist was offended.

From here:

A church advertising campaign that depicted atheists as stupid has been banned by a watchdog in South Africa.

Officials ruled a billboard that suggested non-believers considered their existence to be accidental was likely to be found offensive.

[…..]

the ASA noted that it was obliged to consider the advertisement’s content after it received a complaint from a non-Christian member of the public.

Laying out its judgement on the matter, the authority stated that the complainant, Eugene Gerber, felt offended by the suggestion he was stupid.

The ruling stated: ‘In essence, the complainant submitted that the billboard offends him as an atheist as he does not consider his existence to be an accident.

‘Secondly, the depiction of a man with an empty head communicates that atheists are stupid.’

A few points:

First, I can’t see anything wrong with offending atheists. After all, Richard Dawkins has made a career out of offending Christians.

Second, if there is no God,  Eugene Gerber is a product of unguided evolution: an accident. An unfortunate accident, perhaps, but an accident nevertheless.

Third, a vast number of atheists, particularly the new atheists and those who have fallen under their spell, are stupid. They are incapable of applying the critical reasoning that they think demolishes religion to their own belief system: that is stupid.

Atheists have a piece missing

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I’ve discovered why atheists are the way they are.

The clue was in one of my favourite twentieth century English novels, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited,  where Julia is explaining to Charles the inadequacies of her husband, a crass American called Rex Mottram:

‘Rex has never been unkind to me intentionally,’ she said. ‘It’s just that he isn’t a real person at all; he’s just a few faculties of a man highly developed; the rest simply isn’t there.’

Rex had something missing that prevented him being a complete person. So do atheists.

Most people who believe in God don’t do so because they have been convinced by the cosmological – or any other – argument for his existence. They simply believe, using the same faculty of belief that allows them to believe in such things as the reality of the material world around them, the reality of the past, and the fact that minds exist other than their own. It is an a priori knowledge founded on evidence that is internal to the believer.

Descartes in his ‘Discourse on the Method’ knew that the second most certain thing to exist after himself was God and, although he used an ontological proof to verify this, it is clear that he simply knew that God exists.

That is the bit that is missing or deliberately suppressed in atheists: the ability to know God exists. It’s a shame, really.

Christopher Hitchens forgotten but not gone

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Christopher Hitchens donated his body to medical research as part, one presumes, of a striving after a materialist’s immortality:

In accordance with his wishes, Christopher Hitchens’ body was donated to medical research following his death less than two weeks ago; many of his followers have applauded his decision.

If Christians are right, of course, in addition to his pickled body, the real essence of Hitchens is not gone either because it is immortal and endures post mortem.

I can’t help noticing that the number of articles about Hitchens is on the wane and obviously we will hear nothing more from him. His star burned brightly when it was among us, but it is rapidly fading and I suspect he will be remembered, if at all, as a cantankerous gossip columnist for the effete anti-theist as much as anything else.

As the preacher said, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

Ricky Gervais tries to be funny by picking an easy target

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From here:

Ricky Gervais has become a target for Christian outraged by his views on religion.

The unapologetic atheist is being targeted on Twitter by a host of believers who have taken offence at his view.

The Office creator, 50, has often spoken of his lack of faith, but his appearance on the cover of New Humanist magazine in a Jesus Christ-style pose has pushed a few over the edge.

For the shot, he uses a microphone stand for his cross, dons a crown of thorns and has the word ‘atheist’ daubed across his chest in blood red.

Like most atheists, Ricky Gervais is arrogant, egocentric, not as rational as he would like us to think and not particularly original or outrageous. If he were, he would have dressed up as Mohammed eating a pork chop swilled down with Johnny Walker.

It would be better for Christians to ignore the little twerp than be offended by him.

Atheists want to erect anti-Christmas message next to a nativity scene

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From here:

A national atheist foundation plans to seek permission to hoist its own banner to join secular and religious Christmas displays on an East Texas courthouse square.

The display surrounding the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens includes a traditional Nativity scene, as well as multiple Santa Clauses, elves, wreathes, garland, trumpeters, dwarfs, snowmen, reindeer and Christmas trees, the Athens Daily Review reported.

[…]

However, county officials received a letter Monday from the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued the seasonal display on courthouse grounds amounts to an unconstitutional endorsement of the Christian faith.

In Elmwood City, Pa., the foundation has proposed hoisting a banner that reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, LET REASON PREVAIL. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

It is clear that atheists hate Christmas – the real Christmas – and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to try to make everyone hate it as much as they do. What is less clear is why, after strenuous efforts to make their case, they couldn’t come up with a statement of their position that at least makes sense.

If in your first sentence you trumpet that reason is to prevail, why, in your third, would you make a statement that is unprovable by reason – i.e. “There is only our natural world”?

Perhaps atheists are so smug in the certainty of their assumptions, that they have become incapable of examining them.

Survey finds that atheists are perceived as untrustworthy as rapists

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From here:

Atheists are almost universally perceived as untrustworthy, and only rapists rate as low, a new study has found.

“Where there are religious majorities — that is, in most of the world — atheists are among the least trusted people,” said lead author Will Gervais, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of British Columbia. “With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people.”

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, combines information collected from six different surveys.

This should not come as a surprise.

After all, if atheists are correct and there is no God, then trustworthiness is merely a genetic accident which would generally be overridden by the callous self-interest that inevitably results from natural selection – and who better to indulge callous self-interest than those who wholeheartedly embrace this view.

If atheists are not correct and there is a God, why trust a group of people who base their entire lives and behaviour on a monumental error of judgement?