God of the Gaps Atheism

The militant atheist movement is built on the belief that there is no evidence for God. Of course, such atheists are entitled to their opinions on this matter, but because of their militancy, and the way it serves their agenda, they will not acknowledge their opinion is an opinion. Instead, they posture as if they have discovered some objective truth – There is no evidence for the existence of God. We’re all supposed to agree.

Yet if we are supposed to agree with this claim, we’d like to know exactly what it is we are supposed to agree with. So we ask the New Atheists what would actually count as evidence for the existence of God. Typically, the New Atheists will tap dance around that question, insisting there is no evidence without telling us what such evidence would look like. This is their Hide-The-Goalposts tactic.

However, if pressed, some New Atheists will spell it out, especially when they are trying to make themselves look open-minded about the issue. One example is New atheist activist Jerry Coyne who, in a blog post entitled, “What evidence would convince you that a god exists?, writes:

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Hey Max Boot, Here’s Why I Would Be Unlikely to Vote for an Unapologetic Atheist

Atheist Max Boot wrote an article for the Washington Post complaining that people won’t vote for an atheist for President.

Boot offers up the typical, self-serving argument about how atheists are victims:

Atheists are looked down upon because of the erroneous assumption that you can’t be good without God.

Oh, please.  The reason I would be unlikely to vote for an “unapologetic atheist” is because unapologetic atheists tend to have contempt for religious people, sneering at them as people who are delusional, stupid, mindless sheep.  Unapologetic atheists tend to be anti-religious.  Why would I vote for someone who sneers at me for being delusional and stupid?  Why would I vote for someone who thinks he/she is so much more superior to me?

Recall that unapologetic atheist Richard Dawkins publicly called upon his atheist followers to go out and mock religious believers.  Dawkins himself routinely mocked religious people as “faith heads.”

Recall  that unapologetic atheist Peter Boghossian insisted the government needed to classify religious faith as a mental disorder.  Dawkins likened religion to small pox.

Recall that unapologetic atheist Sam Harris referred to Christians as people with psychopathic and psychotic moral attitudes.

Recall that unapologetic atheist Jerry Coyne insisted it should be illegal to give your children a religious upbringing.

And keep in mind that when such unapologetic atheists made these hateful claims, the community of unapologetic atheists cheered them on.

And then we have all the atheist organizations who seem to spend all their time trying to cleanse the public arena of all religious symbols and speech.

Ironically, Boot makes this point:

Atheist vs. Atheist, Round 2

Over at the “Friendly Atheist” blog, Mehta has posted a new entry entitled, “Dr. Richard Carrier Has (Again) Sued Several Atheists on Charges of Defamation.” Nothing new with regards to accusations and evidence.  Just Carrier using a different legal strategy to sue the other atheists for a few million dollars.

Again, I will point out that atheists, like Myers and Carrier, posture as if they are experts on handling evidence. We’re told that it is this expertise that has led them to their atheism. Yeah, right. If they are such experts at handling evidence, then why don’t they use this expertise to reach a friendly consensus outside of the court room instead of going through all this trouble?  Just “follow the evidence.”  Practice what you preach.

Yet as we can see, when two “experts” both “follow the evidence” wherever it may lead, it leads them to fight each other for millions in a courtroom setting. How can that be? No atheist seems to have an answer to that one.

Christophobia on the Rise

From the BBC:

The persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near “genocide” levels, according to a report ordered by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The review, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, estimated that one in three people suffer from religious persecution.

Christians were the most persecuted religious group, it found.

Mr Hunt said he felt that “political correctness” had played a part in the issue not being confronted.

The interim report said the main impact of “genocidal acts against Christians is exodus” and that Christianity faced being “wiped out” from parts of the Middle East.

It warned the religion “is at risk of disappearing” in some parts of the world, pointing to figures which claimed Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq they had fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.

“Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity,” the Bishop wrote.

Y’know, we hear LOTS and LOTS about Islamophobia.  But it would seem to me that an evidence-based approach would indicate Christophobia is a much more serious global problem.

Throw the Heretic in Jail!

One of the reasons I reject so much of social justice ideology is because I am turned off by authoritarianism.  More and more social justice activists want to cram their beliefs down my throat, demanind total allegiance to their ideology and sense of morality.  Consider this example:

Last month, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued an order that a father (referred to by the pseudonym “Clark”) may not refer to his 14-year-old daughter (pseudonym “Maxine”) as a girl or by her original name, whether in public or in private. Doing so has been ruled to constitute “family violence” because Maxine identifies as a boy. According to a separate protection order, police may immediately arrest Clark if they suspect he violated this Orwellian order.

While I have not confirmed this report (just don’t have the time), what I can say with complete certainty is this:  I have never called for someone to be arrested because of the words they have spoken.  Nor have I ever tried to turn words into “violence” as a justification for wanting to throw others into jail.

More and more social justice advocates cannot say likewise.  They do want to imprison those who disagree with them.

Again, note the contrast.

This Christian:  I do disagree with you and can explain why I think you are wrong, but you do have the right to hold and express your sincere opinion.

Social Justice Advocate: Your opinions are wrong and evil and if you express them, you should be put in jail.

The fact that my own Christian faith helps me to be more tolerant of contrary opinions is just a small piece of evidence it is true.  😉

Atheists have a Religion and Church

It’s official.  Atheists have now secured their own religion and church:

The IRS Officially Recognizes the Satanic Temple as a Church

Of course, this does not mean all atheists are Satanists.  Yet as we proceed further into the post-Christian era, it is worth exploring the overlaps between atheism and Satanism.  I, for one, am not shocked that atheists would form their own religion and it would end up being……Satanism.

However, this new development does kill some atheist talking points.

Defeating Sam Harris’s Argument about Science and Religion

I thought I would take some time to look at some of the “classic” New Atheist essays where they assert the incompatibility of science and religion. Today, I will look at Sam Harris’s essay, “Science Must Destroy Religion.”

Harris quickly gets to his core assertion:

The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.

“The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma.” Often? How often is often? 90% of the time? 50% of the time? 10% of the time? 0.1% of the time? Since this sentence can be mean many of these to many different people, it is useless.

Harris does not seem to understand that the majority of science’s successes have not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists determined the importance of centromeres for mitosis, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists determined that DNA was the genetic material and then, a little later, cracked the genetic code, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists discovered various cell cycle genes and the role they play in cancer, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists worked out the structure of the cell membrane, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists identified and characterized the cell’s core metabolic processes, glycolysis, Krebs cycle, and electron transport chain, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists determined the role of sodium and potassium voltage-gated channels in generating action potentials, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. When scientists figured out how calcium triggers muscle contraction by binding to a protein that is in turn bound to actin, it did not come at the expense of religious dogma. Need I go on? It looks to me like the vast majority of scientific success has not and does not come at the expense of religious dogma.

the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.

Always? In that case, I need only one counterexample to defeat his claim. Let’s take the religious dogma of not bearing false witness (the Ninth Commandment). How does that come at the expense of science? Is Harris trying to imply scientists need to lie but religion is getting in the way? That would be ridiculous.

The claim of “conflict between religion and science [being] inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum is defeated.

So let’s move on by going into clean-up mode.

Science and the Resurrection Belief are Not Incompatible

A common talking point in the New Atheist community is the assertion that the resurrection of Jesus contradicts science and thus must be wrong. Yet this argument is seriously misguided, as it depends on a faulty understanding of both science and Christianity.

If you want science to have a say on the resurrection, then you need to a) consider what Christians actually believe and b) show how science can address it through experimentation.

As for a), Christians believe Jesus was God incarnate and that his death/resurrection were a miraculous confirmation of the salvation work that took place on the cross. In other words, the theology clearly makes sense of the resurrection as a one-time event that is a promise for our resurrection at the end of history. Nothing in Christian theology would have us predict God would continually incarnate and resurrect throughout human history.

Once we recognize the theological dimension of the resurrection, it becomes clear that science cannot address the actual Christian belief. For how could you possibly test this one-time divine intervention with an experiment?

Secular Faith

In the following video, AOC outlines her vision of the future – an example of naive, wishful thinking.  A wondrous future (that she, of course, helped to usher in) where ex-oil workers disassemble pipe lines for the “same pay and benefits” they always received, all under the helpful guidance of Native Americans:

This is an obvious example of propaganda, yet many Nones buy into it.  Why?  Could it be that Nones have replaced a faith in God with a blind faith in human leaders?  After all, what AOC is selling can only be purchased with emotion and blind faith.  She responds to skepticism, rooted in the real world, with a slogan – “We can be whatever we have the courage to see.”  The faith is not only blind; it is incredibly dangerous and destructive.

Why believe the SPLC?

From here:

Former SPLC employee Bob Moser described “the annual hate-group list” as “a valuable resource for journalists and a masterstroke of Dees’s marketing talents; every year, when the center publishes it, mainstream outlets write about the ‘rising tide of hate’ discovered by the S.P.L.C.’s researchers, and reporters frequently refer to the list when they write about the groups.” According to The Progressive‘s John Egerton, SPLC co-founder Morris Dees “viewed civil-rights work mainly as a marketing tool for bilking gullible Northern liberals.”