Fundie Follies: The Contagion Spreads
Simple to Remember: giving the Ray Comfort/Ken Ham/Sye Ten loons a run for their money. They're not Xian, but match the Fundievangelicals™ in pure batshit crazy.
Slandering Atheists
It's the same old, same old: atheists are defective.
The Psychology of Atheism
notes from lecture delivered at Columbia University
by Paul C. Vitz, Ph.D.
Many people have psychological reasons for atheism. Factors of upbringing, sins of believers, etc., may be barriers to belief.
Nevertheless, we have freedom of choice. People can choose to move toward God or away from Him. A person with many impediments to faith may move in the direction of God, perhaps over a period of many years, without ever actually arriving at the point of belief. On the other hand, a person with no impediments may nevertheless choose to reject God.
Here are some of the common, superficial reasons for atheism:
1. The belief that atheism is realistic, whereas faith is wishful thinking.
2. Personal motives (I myself was an atheist from age 18 to 38, for personal reasons that had little intellectual or moral justification):
a. The desire for the sophistication of the secular urbanite; embarrassment over one's provincial background.
b. The desire for acceptance. In my case, it was for acceptance by my psychology professors who seemed to have only two things in common: they were personally ambitious, and they had renounced religion.
c. Personal convenience. It is inconvenient to be a believer in a modern secular society. It involves the renunciation of sexual pleasures and the necessity of committing time and money. We are reluctant to make radical changes in our lifestyle.
Perhaps the above reasons account for the motives of most atheists. Now let us examine some of the deeper reasons for the atheism of some: According to Freud's "projection theory", we developed religion out of a need to defend ourselves against the crushing superior forces of nature. As a child needs a father for protection, so we feel the need to create a protector God.
This, however, is an ad hominem attack, and is applicable to almost anything. It can be used, in fact, to negate psychoanalysis.
Pointless psychologizing
Psychology of Atheism
Hey, Perfesser Dipshit, in your TL;DR rant you forgot one reason why some of us are atheists: we find the case for the existence of your god totally unconvincing. You have presented no evidence whatsoever. When it comes to TrueBelievers™ it makes no difference what brand of bullshit they believe: they are constitutionally incapable of seeing unbelief as an honest difference of opinion. To concede this is to concede the possibility that they just might be wrong. This is the one thing that they can never do. If you don't agree, there's something wrong with you, and it becomes dreary in its lack of originality.
Furthermore, Perfesser Dipshit doesn't know the meaning of ad hominem. Far from being an "ad-hom", what he cites as an example isn't even an attack in the first place.
Paul C. Vitz: proving once again that PhD really does stand for Piled higher and Deeper.
And Another Doktuh
A dual doctorate in Nuclear Physics and Oceanography from MIT along with high-level research in chemistry and planetary sciences gives Dr. Schroeder a decided edge over many Bible critics. How does this renowned scientist reconcile the Biblical and the scientific accounts of creation to understand what really happened “In the Beginning”? To listen click tape title or right click (download) and select “save target as / save link as” to download.
Gerald Schroeder: I dealt with this asshole years ago. Yet another example as to the real meaning of "PhD". How is it possible to attend MIT long enough to get degrees in both nuclear physics and oceanography and yet not learn the first fucking thing about the scientific method?
TORA! TORA! TORA!
If we find the Torah™ irrelevant when trying to determine our humanity and how to attain it, we must ask where the fault lies. Is it possible that this document, which has nurtured the soul of man throughout recorded time, has nothing of interest to say on a subject that so troubles our spirit? It founded the lives of the most skeptical and scholarly people in history for thousands of years, and profoundly affected the worldview of every nation which came in contact with it. What will explain this relentless, penetrating influence?
-- Proof for the Torah
The Torah™ has nurtured the soul of man "throughout recorded time"? Do tell. What did men do before it was written? You know, back during the last Ice Age and for 250000 years? What did all those people, you know, like the Mayans, Inca, the North American Indians who never read the damn thing, had no way to know it even existed, get along without it? All those people living in all those lands about which the Torah™ is totally ignorant?
Remember, folks, this is the same Torah™ that tells us that bats are birds (Lev. 11 : 19-20) and that rabbits are cud chewers (Lev 11 : 6) that π= 3.0 (1 Kings 7:23) then there are all those claims that fantasy animals actually exist, like dragons (was it a Hungarian Horn Tail?) that basilisks (like the one Harry Potter fought in the Chamber of Secrets) are real or that a fire breathing sea creature exists (Leviathan). Unicorns are real (do they live in the Forbidden Forest with the thestrals and centaurs?) The Torah™ can't get the most basic facts about the world right.
How about this story from Genesis, Chapter 22?
1And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
2And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
3And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
[...]
12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Just kidding Abraham, it was a practical joke. What lulz! That Yahweh: WHUDDA CARD! Were I in Abraham's place, the only answer I'd give is: "You're out of your fucking mind. I don't give a shit whether you're God or not; I don't care what you do to me, but I WILL NOT murder my own son". Were I in God's place, that is the only answer I would accept. What point is there to this utterly dumbassed story? That blind obedience is some sort of virtue? Well, it's not.
However, Abraham was luckier than this poor bastard from Judges, Chapter 11:
30And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
31Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
32So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands.
33And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.
34And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.
35And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.
36And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.
37And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.
38And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.
39And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,
40That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
Does this seem the least bit credible? Didn't this Jephthah have any suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the first one out of his house to greet his return, safe, sound, and victorious, just might be his loving daughter? How fucking stupid do you have to be not to consider the possibility?
What of the daughter's response: "My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon." What! The! Fuck! The only rational response on her part would be: "You promised what?! Father, dear, I was not a party to that deal, so you get your ass back to the LORD™ and you work out some other arrangement." Either that, or use those two months to high tail it the hell out of Israel.
Now, the LORD™ could easily have declined the offer of a sacrifice, knowing (he's supposed to be omniscient, right?) that Jephthah's daughter would be the sacrifice, or he could have made certain (he's supposed to be omnipotent, right?) that the daughter was not the first out of the house. What are we to make of the LORD™ for not letting Jephthah out of that bargain? Letting him sacrifice his only child is psychopathic beyond words to describe this foul act. What sort of dipshit thought that there was anything edifying in this?
The Torah™ is relevant only so far as it gives insight into our ignorant, savage, pre-scientific past. It is ignorance frozen in time. If a god had anything to do with the writing of a book, then the evidence should shine through clearly on every page. Not the loftiest ideals that the mind of man could conceive, but that he could receive. It would be free of all dumbassed scientific errors. After all, the creator of bats and birds should know the difference between them; the creator of the rabbit would know that it does not chew the cud, and that π != 3.0. The pedigree could easily be established by the inclusion of knowledge that no one at the time of its writing could possibly have known. For example, Dog could have said to Samson: "Let thine energy be as to thine mass times the speed of light multiplied unto itself". For centuries, Sages™ would have puzzled over that until our time when the meaning: E= mc2 would be quite obvious.
Supposedly Moses™ was given stone tablets (which we no longer have -- how convenient). A real creator could have given him plates of masurium instead. This being the element with atomic number 43. There are no stable isotopes, and the longest half life for masurium is just 200000 years. Since the "seeding" with heavy elements of the clouds that ultimately collapsed into the Solar System by supernovae, there is almost none of it left on Earth. Certainly not more than one part in 1013. There being no nuclear reactors in the Bronze Age, there could be no better proof for a creator. The rate of decay would also establish the dating of the origin of this message from Dog to the second.
To the contrary, there is nothing about the Torah™ that is inconsistent with the time and place of its writers. A book that is no greater than anything man could have produced came from no being greater than man. In short: the Torah™ is bullshit.
Creationism
Evolutionists like to try to prove their theory by death, with fossils and 'natural selection' which only results in death. Yet species are about life and one must wonder how one can develop a theory of life by only examining death. One cannot. Life shows enormous variety and enormous paradoxes which are not easily explained by any single theory. Some of those numerous paradoxes which show the impossibility of evolution are detailed below:
Evolution Facts: Amazing Creatures
Fossils result in death.
The ignorance on display here is breathe taking. Not even Ray "Banana Man" Comfort has come up with anything this dumbassed.
The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe": this is a logical fallacy. In order to know if the human mind can't grasp the universe, you would have to grasp the universe. This is also a God of the Gaps fallacy as well as an appeal to ignorance fallacy.
Not By Chance - Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution: the fallacies in this article would do "Answers in Genesis" proud. Right from the first sentence we have a major problem: "A physicist brings a novel approach that challenges the assumptions of evolution". This is the same old ploy: cite as scientific opinion the opinion of someone who isn't in the field. This physicist's opinions on Evolution are no more valid than a biologist's opinion on Quantum Mechanics.
As with all other creatard rants, this one is full of the same old canards.
Does God Exist? A whole page filled with creatard bullshit, including that from Fundievangelicals™.
Special Little Snowflakes
When the Jews entered the theological arena, they showed people all the mistakes they had been making: Pagan gods are nonsense - there is only one God for all of mankind, Who is invisible, infinite and perfect. Infanticide and human sacrifice are unacceptable. (No it isn't. See Japhthah's daughter, referenced earlier) Every human being is born with specific rights. No one can live as he pleases, for everyone must surrender his will to a higher Authority.
"Pagan gods are nonsense". Yes, they are. And when you understand why you dismiss all those pagan gods, then you will know why I dismiss yours. That's the only difference: I dismiss one more god than you do.
"Every human being is born with specific rights".
Get out your Bi-Bull and pay attention. It is filled, cover to cover, Old and New Testaments™ alike, with instructions on who you can enslave, how to take care of your slaves, how much you can beat them, when and how to sell your daughters into sexual slavery. In the New Testament™, Christian slaves are instructed to faithfully serve their Christian masters. There is NOT WORD ONE that admonishes against slavery; Christians were never told that this was wrong. The idea that humans are born with specific rights is to be found nowhere in the Bi-Bull.
They claim that Moses™ received the Torah™ from Dog himself in 1312BCE. So how is it that the very concept of "human rights" originated during the Enlightenment of the mid-18th century, with the works of John Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill among many others? The Enlightenment occurred some 3000 years after the supposed revelation at Mt. Sinai.
Furthermore, the concept of democracy was invented by the Greeks. The first republic was Rome, not Biblical Israel. Even the word itself -- democracy -- is of Greek, not Hebrew, origin. Biblical Israel was another divine right monarchy. It was never a democracy. There was no President David, nor Prime Minister Solomon -- they were called "kings". After all, Christianity ruled as a world hyperpower for 1500 years. We call that the Dark Ages. No human rights, no democracy, not a single republic anywhere in all of Christendom, illiteracy all but universal. Like the Christers who insist that the US Constitution was written by BornAgainChristians™ or that it was based on the Bible™, they are taking credit where credit is not due. The church was not responsible for the Enlightenment, and the Enlightenment defanged, declawed, and neutered the church. They're making shit up, pure and simple.
"No one can live as he pleases, for everyone must surrender his will to a higher Authority™."
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Law of Thelema
Alistair Crowley
_________________
You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.
Freewill / Rush
Some disagree with you. How does one surrender his will to an Authority™, the existence of which has never been established? What this really means is surrender your will to some asshole who claims he speaks for that HigherAuthority™. The surrender is of your independence and your ability to think for yourself.
I choose free will.