The Shallowness of Atheism

I really don't care what anyone believes about God, as long as they believe it peacefully and do not attempt to impose their beliefs on me through coercive means.  "Coercive means," for purposes of this discussion, include using Congress and the courts to subvert the First Amendment.

Atheists, however, are particularly annoying in their religious beliefs.  Yes, atheism is a form of religion, as it is believed on faith -- a negative kind of faith, but faith nonetheless.  To know whether God exists, one would have to be God himself.  Man's comparatively minuscule intellect is insufficient to answer the question.    Therefore, many of us believe, on faith, that there is a higher power and a higher purpose to our existence.

Atheists, on the other hand, insist that God does not exist, that God is a myth and religion a delusion.  They are actually rather impatient, even intolerant with those who disagree.  After all, the question is entirely clear to them, and they assume that their personal clarity on the issue should be shared by all.  In this regard, they are no different from any fanatical sect who insists that theirs represents THE ONE TRUE RELIGION, that all other religions are doomed to fail and only they are possessed of God's grace, acceptance and enlightenment.

I recently saw a video by the atheist Pat Condell, whose anti-Islam rants I love, haughtily insist that "there is no God."  He knows.  His is "the one true religion."

Atheism is similar to color blindness, and atheists are like color-blind fanatics insisting that green, red, blue and yellow do not exist, and that those who see them are delusional.  Atheists are entitled to their beliefs, but I wish they would stop wearing their religion on their sleeve and trying to push it off on everyone else.

Why Are Atheists Such A-Holes?

I belong to no religion, but I find atheists to be some of the most fanatical and hateful people on earth.  They have concluded, with their little pea-sized intellects, that there is no God or afterlife, and they want to impose their faith (yes, I said "their faith") on others.  The latest example of this comes from New York, where a group of these brain-dead believers want to remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters who died on September 11, 2001.  They are claiming that the term "heaven" in the sign "violates the separation of church and state."

From Fox News:

A group of New York City atheists is demanding that the city remove a street sign honoring seven firefighters killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks because they said the sign violates the separation of church and state.

The street, “Seven in Heaven Way,” was officially dedicated last weekend in Brooklyn outside the firehouse where the firefighters once served. The ceremony was attended by dozens of firefighters, city leaders and widows of the fallen men.

“There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” said Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists. “It’s really insulting to us.”

Bronstein is really insulting to me and to many others, so atheism should be banned, as this philosophy is a violation of the First Amendment.  No?  Well now, my interpretation is no less extreme than that of the atheist left who has utterly corrupted the intent of the Founding Fathers when they banned "official" or state-sponsored religions.  There was never any intent to ban references to religion from the public domain.  This is an extreme position that liberal judges have wrongfully forced on the populace in many court cases.

Read the whole sordid story here.

The Skeptic's Dictionary Labels Saber Point "The Dumbest Website Ever"

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The militant atheists at The Skeptics' Dictionary have labeled Saber Point as "The Dumbest Website Ever."

I take that as a compliment, coming from such rigid leftist ideologues.  These folks are atheists who are just dripping with scorn and sarcasm for religious people.  They assume that because they are blind, color does not exist, and they hoot and howl over those who see what they do not.

Hey "atheists," try reading my post on "The Devil's Delusion."  It tells why your philosophy is so superficial and shallow.  I do indeed "ride roughshod over the asinine and idiotic," and that description fits your atheist site quite well.

Poking Holes in the Theories of Militant Atheism

This past week I read David Berlinski's book, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. Berlinski is a secular Jew with a PhD from Princeton in Philosophy and completed postdoctoral fellowships in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has taught philosophy, mathematics and English at various universities.

Berlinksi came to my attention after spanking John Derbyshire at National Review Online over Derbyshire's erroneous and unfounded attack on Ben Stein's movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The article referenced "The Devil's Delusion," so I bought it.

In the book, Berlinski discusses major scientific theories like Newtonian mechanics, the theory of the electromagnetic field, special and general relativity and quantum mechanics. All of these theories are valuable and useful, but all contain gaps in our knowledge as well, which Berinski calls "the God of the gaps." Much of scientific theory employs supposition, inference, and what molecular geneticist Emile Zuckerlandl calls "unobservable entities": universal forces, grand symmetries, twice-differential functions as in mechanics, Calabi-Yau manifolds, ionic bonds, and quantum fields." Berlinski notes "Why physicists should enjoy inferential advantages denied theologians, Zuckerlandl does not say."

In other words, much of scientific theory is based on faith, not verifiable hard data. Berlinski notes: "If religious belief places the human heart in the service of an unseen world, the serious sciences have since the great [scientific] revolution of the seventeeth century done precisely the same thing." Science often answers questions as to the how and why of natural phenomena, and almost always creates even more questions in the process.

We open one door to find many more. There is a vast amount of what we do not know, and perhaps cannot know. Scientific atheism has its own kind of faith, that everything in the universe will eventually be explained by mathematics or other sciences. That, however, assumes the human mind is adequate to perceive all questions and comprehend all possible solutions. This ignores the probability that we can no more fully comprehend the cosmos than a boll weevil can understand quantum mechanics.

Underlying the dispute of science versus religion is a determination by scientific atheists to never admit the possibility of a Creator. As geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked, "We cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Berlinski notes many facts that make atheist physicists uncomfortable. Some of these are as follows:

1. The Big Bang theory. Scientists once believed that the universe must have existed from "everlasting to everlasting," that it had no beginning and no end. Now there is substantial evidence that the universe appeared suddenly about 14 billion years ago, i.e. it had a definite beginning. What created it? Scientists do not know and cannot explain it. Perhaps it is unexplainable in human terms.

2. The existence of life. Science has described no mechanics by which life emerged from inert matter. What created it? We don't have a clue.

3. The universe appears to be "a put-up job," that is, appears to have been created intelligently and fine-tuned to support life. Various scientists have admitted this, including physicist Paul Davies, who observed "Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - that the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient 'coincidences' and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal." Physicist Leonard Susskind observed: "Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the Intelligent Design critics."

4. The human mind. Berlinski notes "We do not have a serious scientific theory explaining the powers and properties of the human mind. The claim that the human mind is the product of evolution is not unassailable fact. It is barely coherent."

5. Weaknesses in the theory of evolution. Berlinksi devotes a lot of space to evolution. One of his most persuasive arguments against it is that the fossil record does not support the theory of gradual emergence of new species from old. He quotes scientists themselves to support his argument. Robert Carroll, a committed evolutionist, noted that "most of the fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic account" of evolution. Scientist Eugene Koonin published a peer-reviewed paper in 2007 titled "The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution." He concluded: "Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity." So much for the theory of "natural selection."

Berlinski believes, as I do, that scientific atheism is based on arrogance and immaturity. He describes the feelings of many when he writes "Indeed, they [scientific atheists] are widely considered self-righteous, vain, politically immature and arrogant." One example he gives of this is militant atheist Richard Dawkin's remark: "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution that person is ignorant, stupid or insane."

Militant atheism, however, is its own kind of faith, and as Berlinski notes "And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

My conclusions are simple: People of faith have nothing to fear from science or militant atheism. Considering how little scientists actually know, the religious views of creation are as good as any to explain the origins of the universe and life on earth. Or, to quote an older book, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Little Green Footballs: Group-Think at Work

Charles Johnson just can't leave the evolutionist-heretics alone. At Little Green Footballs today he has a very poor poem by one of his readers (Winslow) called "Once Upon the Internet." In it the "poet" writes verses such as these:

And then, with logic so perverse it hurts to render it in verse, The charge was made that atheism is religious faith.

And even Orwell would be awed by language so profoundly flawed, For logically, religious faith is therefore non-belief.

To try to cast theology as natural philosophy Is clearly what Intelligent Designers have in mind.

Their documented strategy to wedge their way to victory Speaks volumes on the nature of Intelligent Design.

Charles is obviously offended by those who do not believe the theory of evolution is a proven fact, hence his daily arrows against them. A couple of days ago he linked to another dismissive post, this one on Zamblog by Zombie (whom I've praised several times in posts). Zombie was also highly critical of the evolutionist nay-sayers and gave a link to John Derbyshire's essay knocking Ben Stein's movie ("Expelled") on the subject. Derbyshire attacked the film as a piece of creationist "porn" and "a blood libel on our civilization." Zombie said he agreed with Derbyshire.

In the piece, however, Derbyshire admitted that he hadn't even seen the movie. His criticisms of it were merely what he imagined its content to be. Wow, what scholarship! This is similar to all those liberals at Amazon.com writing vicious reviews of conservative books that they've never read.

A better scholar, David Berlinski, also writing at National Review Online, takes Derbyshire to task and rips him a new one at this link.

The truth is, Charles Johson is no conservative, and neither are some of his slavish ass-kissers. They are dismissive of Christians and other religious folk, and assume, smugly and arrogantly, that their atheistic beliefs are "truth."

Group-Think is an ugly thing and it has always turned me off. It's even worse in an atmosphere of implied threat, i.e. that the host will ban you from his forum if you dare to disagree. LGF is one of these, where the Great Leader pontificates and his minions bow and scrape to support his prejudices and beliefs, lest they be summarily ostracized from the community. It's similar to what you might see at any college or university today -- the mindset is liberal and leftist, and the social ostracism, intimidation and poor grades reserved for the brave few who speak out against it. That's not for me. I think my days as a Lizard are over.

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As for Winslow's lame verse above, atheism is, in fact, a form of faith, just as theism is. Atheism is simply a kind of negative faith. One person looks at the cosmos and decides there must be a higher power and a higher purpose. He has a positive, optimistic kind of faith. Another looks at the cosmos and decides it must be a meaningless accident with no purpose whatsoever. He has a negative, pessimistic kind of faith.

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Whereas both observers have faith (i.e. belief that is not based on provable facts), the latter believes his faith is factual knowledge (or "science") and that he is very deep thinker and brainy sort. As a corollary, since he is so brainy and brilliant, the optimist observer must necessarily be superstitious and ignorant, and laughably so.

The truth is, the latter observer (the pessimist/atheist) is rather shallow. Sort of like Winslow and a plethora of other CJ butt-kissers at Little Green Footballs.

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