Tag Archives: Atheism

Atheists de-baptising with hair dryers

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From here:

American atheists lined up to be “de-baptized” in a ritual using a hair dryer, according to a report Friday on U.S. late-night news program “Nightline.”

Leading atheist Edwin Kagin blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading “Reason and Truth.”

Kagin doned a monk’s robe and said a few mock-Latin phrases before inviting those wishing to be de-baptized to “come forward now and receive the spirit of hot air that taketh away the stigma and taketh away the remnants of the stain of baptismal water.”

Baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inner and invisible grace; these atheist antics are, I suppose, an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible disgrace. In addition  to being superstitious and not particularly funny.

A foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks

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From the BBC:

There is no new evidence to show foetuses feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks, and so no reason to challenge the abortion limit, doctors say.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ review said foetuses are “undeveloped and sedated”.

Brain connections are not fully formed, and the environment of the womb creates a state of induced sleep, like unconsciousness, they add.

Anti-abortion campaigners are likely to challenge the reports.

The issue of whether a foetus of 24 weeks or below can feel pain had been raised in the debate over whether the current time limit for abortion should be reduced.

In the absence of an objective moral arbiter, pain seems to have become the contemporary yardstick for determining what is good and what is evil: pain is evil, but nothing much else. This allows for not only the disposal of inconvenient unborn babies, but just about anyone else too – providing it doesn’t hurt.

The aged are eased comfortably into meeting their maker prematurely; Richard Dawkins nods cheerfully as utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer advocates infanticide for babies whose future may not be entirely pain free; Singer, following his logic to its conclusion,  speculates that non-existence for everyone might be preferable to existence because not to exist is not to feel pain.

The comedy in all this is that atheists such as Hitchens and Dawkins appear to think that atheism is capable of producing a coherent moral framework: the sum total of what it actually has come up with is the clodhopping “pain is bad” – a concept whose sophistication could be surpassed by a fraternity of socialised chimpanzees.

Atheist billboard on Billy Graham Parkway

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From here:

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An atheist billboard along Billy Graham Parkway?

Yep, there it is – “One Nation Indivisible,” with the “under God” left out – high atop the parkway, near Boyer Street.

But “no, no, no,” it wasn’t intended as a slap at the world’s most famous evangelist, said a spokesman for Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics.

“It just kind of happened that way,” said William Warren, a spokesman for the group, which is part of a statewide coalition of nonbelievers that is placing the same billboard in five other cities.

It is much more ambitious than a dig at Billy Graham: it’s a dig at God. Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics left out the “Under God” from the sign to demonstrate that they too can be patriots in a nation under – nothing at all.

I’m not sure why they would think anyone cares, but the eagerness to demonstrate self-worth seems indicative of a deep seated self-doubting insecurity, thriving in spite of its obvious evolutionary disadvantage; perhaps God put it there.

Atheist billboard on Billy Graham Parkway

From here:

An atheist billboard along Billy Graham Parkway?

Yep, there it is – “One Nation Indivisible,” with the “under God” left out – high atop the parkway, near Boyer Street.

But “no, no, no,” it wasn’t intended as a slap at the world’s most famous evangelist, said a spokesman for Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics.

“It just kind of happened that way,” said William Warren, a spokesman for the group, which is part of a statewide coalition of nonbelievers that is placing the same billboard in five other cities.

It supposedly is not a dig at Billy Graham – it’s a dig at God: Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics left out the “Under God” from the sign to demonstrate that they too can be patriots in a nation under – nothing at all.

Vatican to evangelise atheists – some atheists

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From The Independent:

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church’s relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church’s top theologians.

The Vatican hopes to stage a series of debates in Paris next year. But militant non-believers hoping for a chance to set senior church figures straight about the existence of God are set to be disappointed: the church has warned that atheists with high public profiles such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens will not be invited.

As a Christian I believe that no-one is beyond redemption: Christ died for all sinners. It is interesting, then, that the Catholic Church – which presumably believes the same thing – is planning on excluding some atheists from their evangelistic endeavours. The only sentient creatures whom we would normally view as excluded from Christ’s offer of salvation are the demons of hell led by Lucifer himself – in whose company the Catholic church seems to have placed Dawkins and Hitchens. A satisfying thought, but perhaps a tad harsh.

A new proof for God’s existence

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Until recently the popular proofs for God’s existence have been the ontological, teleological, cosmological, and moral arguments.

Now we have the new atheists’ proof:

The best proof of God’s existence is the urge some writers feel to deny it. Since the instinct of writers is to make a noise, and denying something that isn’t makes none, they wouldn’t waste their time quarrelling with a nonexistent God.

Hitchens declares himself an anti-theist: he is against God; he hates him as the ultimate tyrant. Dawkins exhibits much the same loathing. None of the contemporary atheists have the grace or wit of their forebears like Bertrand Russell who, when asked what he would say to God if he was proved wrong said, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” – a demonstration of wilful ignorance, but not hatred.

You can’t hate something that much if it isn’t really there, so it’s hard not to see the excessive protestations against an allegedly mythical Deity as anything other than the recycling of the age old rebellion: a proof, not a denial of God’s existence.

A new proof for God’s existence

Until recently the popular proofs for God’s existence have been the ontological, teleological, cosmological, and moral argument.

Now we have the new atheists’ proof:

The best proof of God’s existence is the urge some writers feel to deny it. Since the instinct of writers is to make a noise, and denying something that isn’t makes none, they wouldn’t waste their time quarrelling with a nonexistent God.

Hitchens declares himself an anti-theist: he is against God. If it turns out God is really there, he would hate him as the ultimate tyrant. Dawkins exhibits much the same loathing. None of the contemporary atheists has the grace or wit of their forebears like Bertrand Russell who when asked what he would say to God if he was proved wrong said, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” – a demonstration of ignorance, but not hatred.

You can’t hate something that much if it isn’t really there, so it’s hard not to see the excessive protestations against an allegedly mythical Deity as anything other than the recycling of the age old rebellion : a proof, not a denial of his existence.

At last, a cogent argument from an atheist

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Well, maybe not.

Dawkins seems to think that there is a role for the bovine excrement argument: some people respond to it, apparently. This scatological underpinning for the beliefs of cranially constricted atheists has inspired a great deal of huffing and puffing – as is evident in this speaker – but it doesn’t pass for rationally convincing thought.

The uncaring atheist

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Anti-theists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins take considerable delight in declaring that atheists can be as moral as theists. They remain obstinately impervious to the observation that atheistic morality has no objective standard by which to be judged, no frame of reference, and no foundation other than the vapours generated by the heat of Dawkins’ rodomontade; they prefer to ignore this and proclaim stoutly that they are just as good as the God crowd. It turns out that they’re not:

These are not the brightest days for organized religion. Pope Benedict XVI has come under sustained scrutiny for his role in the investigation of sex abuse scandals tarring the Catholic Church. The practices of fundamentalist Muslim women are being attacked by the Quebec government as uncivilized. And, more broadly, many traditional and long-standing congregations across the country must face the reality of their own worldly demise due to substantial declines in Sunday attendance.

Despite all this bad news, however, there remains much to celebrate about religion and its relationship with society at large. Not the least of which is that those who attend religious services are the most charitable in their donations and the most eager to volunteer. Without organized religion, the world would be a much poorer and less comfortable place for those less fortunate.

Last summer, Statistics Canada released a survey on Canadians and their charitable habits. While less than one in five attend church regularly, those who do are far more likely to give to charities, and are substantially more liberal in the size of their gifts to both religious and non-religious organizations. The average annual donation from a churchgoer is $1,038. For the rest of the population, $295.

With respect to volunteer effort, two-thirds of churchgoers give their time to non-profit causes while only 43 per cent of non-attendees do likewise. And churchgoers put in twice as many hours volunteering.

All this munificence is in stark contrast to complaints from anti-religion authors such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Philip Pullman, all of whom have found themselves getting substantially more ink in the wake of the Catholic Church’s sex scandals. “I’m an atheist,” Hitchens once said. “I’m not just neutral about religion, I’m hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one.” Pullman has claimed religion is “the most wonderful excuse for behaving extremely badly.” Their argument: the world would be a better place without churches.

How Christopher Hitchens copes with futility

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Albert Camus in his novel, The Plague, makes the point that without God humans live in an indifferent, incomprehensible universe that has no rational meaning or order. Camus’ solution to this little problem is not resignation or stoicism but to fight back even though it may be with the knowledge that the fight is futile. For an atheistic existentialist, life’s meaning is found not in overcoming, but in struggling against  the apparent evil in the natural order of things. This struggle in the certain knowledge of ultimate failure defines man’s freedom: he is not merely a puppet of the natural order that created him.

I think this is a daft way to live but, as can be seen in this exchange with William Lane Craig, it seems to be an energising principle behind Christopher Hitchens’ attempt to live with the futility of his own existence. The difference between Camus and Hitchens is that, whereas Hitchens never tires of expressing his hatred of all things Christian, Camus had a grudging respect for believers who lived by their Christian principles.