When Atheists Attack (Each Other)

The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.

On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.

I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.

Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.

Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,

We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.

Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.

That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!

It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.

There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,

I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.

A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.

There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.

The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.

Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.

Time as we experience it now, may be long or short. Time as we will expereince it ‘then’ will be large, very very large, as in a nearly infinite volume. [Since Time as a dimensional expression had a beginning, it is not exactly correct to refer to ‘unending’ as eternal, is it?]

Large or small, what is experienced as time, will also determine what is possible as action. For those "large" moments where the experience of time between moments is lengthy, it will imply that actions performed are equally lengthy in terms of duration taken for completion. In other words, if the decision to thank someone takes the mental processes half a millisecond to decide to do so, then if, as you imply, that half a millisecond is "longer" in this "paradise" than here on Earth, the decision process is prolonged equally. One would thus end up taking just as long to thank someone, from the point of view of perception, in this hypothetical "paradise" as here on Earth. Unless the relative times are different.

So, for a god to be a god, how does it decide two sequential events without time? If this god always existed, then poof, decided to create the Universe, and then decided to destroy it, how is this sequence maintained without time? If this god is provided time, how is this god a god, for now this god is under the realm of time, and therefore not timeless?

I asked earlier that when you say that your deity has "imprinted in all" certain knowledge of the deity, why not all of its scriptures as well?

You replied with this:

Betty Boop: Man is made in the image (reflection) of his Creator — that is, he possesses as his natural birthright reason and free will. He evidently is fully able to choose God, or to reject Him. Also evidently, this being the case, then God must want it this way.

If God wanted to create a race of slaves — or robots — then perhaps He would have "programmed" them, in the way you suggest. But then there would be no liberty in the world at all; everything in the human sphere would have been determined from the get-go.

But in my heart I believe/know that God made men free, to be His sons — created in Love, for Love. Individual men, of course, are free to reject Him.

I do not know how our Lord judges such souls, in the end. But if I were they, I'd be a little queasy on this point ... for eternity is a very long time...

This is distraction. The concept under contention was in your argument that your deity has filled in the minds of men, certain knowledge about this deity. I was disputing this by asking you if this was so, why didn't the deity choose to "fill" those same minds with all of its scriptures.

You say that would mean that this deity would be creating a race of robots. Not so, because, even with built-in (and not people-derived, people-sourced) scriptural knowledge, those people would still have a choice to make, whether to obey what those mental scriptures told them, or not. This is nowhere near what a robot does.

The choice element is not present in robots. The reason why in-built scriptural knowledge would be superior, is that under this realm, your faith in the fidelity of mere mortals would NOT HAVE TO BE A PRECONDITION to your faith in your deity. Under the present mode of scriptural transmission, without believing in what men tell you about your god, BEFOREHAND, you CANNOT believe in your god.

What happens to those isolated tribals I was talking about earlier? Are they “saved” due to ignorance?

To your question, all I can say is this: If you have understood anything I've written subsequently to your first "complaint" of this type, then you should be able to answer it for yourself.

Yet it seems you are trying to entangle the debate in the peripheral weeds, to the most minor details of our present problem, such that we need not address the central issues that drive the problem in the first place. This looks like a distraction, a diversion, to me FWIW....

If you are asking for my opinion about what happens to "isolated tribals," all I can say is this: As far as I know, "innocent" ignorance is not punishable, on the grounds that you cannot be held justly accountable for what you do not know owing to lack of opportunity to learn because of the historical/cultural context and/or family situation into which you were born.

[Oddly, to ask about "isolated tribals" is sort of like asking about existentially "alienated" post-modern humans.... ]

Only willful ignorance is subject to judgment. "Willful" entails that you have heard the truth, but deliberately reject it. It seems to me a man made in the image of God should know better than to do that....

To me, practically speaking, such willful ignorance involves something very like a deliberate operation of self-lobotomy.... It represents as a self-imposed diminution of God-given human nature....

In a recent post by Matchett-PI, Gagdad Bob was quoted as saying, regarding atheists, that

"Rational they are not. Or, at the very least, the more sober among them prove the adage that there is a form of madness that consists of losing everything with the exception of one’s reason."

But the irony here is this: If "everything with the exception of one’s reason" is gone, then what is there for reason — the human mind — to do?

Rather than address this *central* issue, you want to drag me into the weeds to agonize over the eternal future of "isolated tribals?"

Pul-eeeeeze....

Thanks for writing, James C. Bennett! .

As far as I know, "innocent" ignorance is not punishable, on the grounds that you cannot be held justly accountable for what you do not know owing to lack of opportunity to learn because of the historical/cultural context and/or family situation into which you were born.

So, would it be better to leave all the isolated tribes around the planet today, and such communities, whose members haven't heard of your religion's dogma, to live their lives as they see fit, so that they may use the claim of this 'innocent ignorance' as you mention, which guarantees their salvation?

Such people and communities do exist today, Betty Boop, no matter how much you may wish to think they do not. They are no "alienated" post-modern humans, but real, living, walking, talking tribals who haven't heard your dogma.

The question I asked has implication in this very present world, as much as it is philosophical. If this 'innocent ignorance' guarantees salvation as compared to being aware of dogma and then being forced to obey it as a pre-condition to salvation, the ignorance route would have a stronger guarantee of said salvation.

There is a fantastic book called *Eternity in Their Hearts* by Don Richardson, which deals with this very issue. It is fascinating reading and deals with tribal groups and the knowledge they have of God within their own cultures which testifies to Him.

In it he deals with modern anthropology and its depiction of indigenous cultures. Anthropology has been hijacked by atheistic, liberal thinking and corrupted. He approaches it from a very different perspective.

http://www.donrichardsonbooksales.com/

“Following a 44-year quest, Don Richardson presents his vision of a charmingly symmetrical unified field, a 22-law ultra-basic “foundation for everything.” Thanks to Albert Einstein, mankind recognizes 4 dimensions—length, breadth, height and time—as comprising the extent continuum that enfolds the entire cosmos. In this book, Don Richardson posits that 3 value dimensions likewise comprise a historically unrecognized Value Continuum. But what are those 3 value dimensions? How do we relate to them as a continuum? Do these 2 invisible continua interact? If so, how? and why is this eternally important to us?”

He is also author of The Peace Child, which is another fascinating read. Lords of the Earth is heartbreaking in many spots when you see how trapped in spiritual bondage the people are.

He is a phenomenal writer and will challenge the thinking of anyone who reads his books. I cannot recommend his books highly enough. They should be on everyone’s must read list for Christian apologetics and I would go so far as dare the atheists to read them and get back to us.

This is distraction. The concept under contention was in your argument that your deity has filled in the minds of men, certain knowledge about this deity.

This is not a distraction. We just need to define/refine our terms.

In the first place, what do you mean by "'certain' knowledge?"

To me, this question is moot: There is no "certain knowledge" to be had in this world. Truth alone is "certain." But Truth expresses itself "as if through a glass, darkly," to human minds in this life. In short, the scientific method cannot give you "truth." It's not designed to do that in the first place.

The "knowledge of God" to which I have been referring is something I can only describe as the logos of each individually unique created soul. As such, it is "native," in-born. It is something for the person it "informs," or prescribes/describes, to discover for himself. There is no automatically "certain" procedure by which this can be done. So we are finally not speaking of "certainty," but of a problem of Truth....

You wrote:

The choice element is not present in robots. The reason why in-built scriptural knowledge would be superior, is that under this realm, your faith in the fidelity of mere mortals would NOT HAVE TO BE A PRECONDITION to your faith in your deity.

But jeepers, JCB, I have never agreed/argued that the "fidelity of mere mortals" and the accuracy of their reports are in any way, shape, or form a "precondition" of my faith in God. That seems to be your hobby-horse: It has nothing to do with me. I prefer to go to the source....

I don't need human intercessors to have a relationship with God, through His Holy Spirit.

This is probably blasphemy in certain circles. If so, then my accusers can look forward to me roasting in Hell some day, if it pleases them to do so.

Yet I know in my heart of heart that God alone judges — and He knows His own, who love Him. And so I leave the issue with Him....

“That seems to be your hobby-horse:” ... more like a pseudo-intellectual strawman, wearing red herring dressing.

I'd say so, too, dear brother in Christ!

But then again, these "isolated tribals" have been deliberately kept in the dark about their own history and culture for decades now. Thanks to Dewey's idea of public education, which has nothing to do with basic knowledge, the transmission of one's inherited culture, and the honing of critical thinking skills, but only with "adjusting" people to the brave new world that he and his fellow progressives were cooking up for us, around the turn of the 20th century....

Never let history, actual human experience, accumulated human knowledge, let alone the U.S. Constitution, stand in the way of their coming expert, scientific Utopia!

Therefore, education = propaganda. Designed to fit us into the new realities that are about to be imposed on us "from above" — from the self-selected intelligentsia that commands power to compel us into adjustment into their feckless "norms" of a second reality that has no basis in Nature, human or more generally.

Oh, the poor dears!

Are you saying that you received knowledge of your religious scriptures by means other than through men?

The “certain knowledge” is the dogma of the professed religion - its scriptures.

That said, let's take a look at this:

Tribe shoots arrows at aid flight

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4144405.stm

An Indian helicopter dropping food and water over the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been attacked by tribesmen using bows and arrows.
There were fears that the endangered tribal groups had been wiped out when massive waves struck their islands.

But the authorities say the attack is a sign that they have survived.

More than 6,000 people there are confirmed as either dead or missing, but thousands of others are still unaccounted for.

The Indian coastguard helicopter was flying low over Sentinel Island to drop aid when it came under attack.

A senior police officer said the crew were not hurt and the authorities are taking it as a sign that the tribes have not been wiped out by the earthquake and sea surges as many had feared.

The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is home to several tribes, some extremely isolated.

Officials believe they survived the devastation by using age-old early warning systems.

They might have run to high ground for safety after noticing changes in the behaviour of birds and marine wildlife.

Scientists are examining the possibility to see whether it can be used to predict earth tremors in future.

Are the dead members of this tribe, who haven't heard of any religion outside of whatever they practice in those remote islands - far away from civilisation, saved due to ignorance or not? Simple question here.

"Are you saying that you received knowledge of your religious scriptures by means other than through men? The “certain knowledge” is the dogma of the professed religion - its scriptures."

"For an atheist to reject religion means only that he has failed to understand it, precisely.

A confession of atheism is simply an honest confession of ignorance of any realities that transcend the human ego, nothing more, nothing less. And why argue with a man who not only clings to ignorance, but is proud of the fact?"

“..For reason is only a faculty of knowing something indirectly in the absence of direct vision, while God is known directly, the same way one knows one is alive, perceives reality, or is aware of free will. In order to see something, it is not necessary to logically prove the existence of sight.

Many of the most important truths are known simply by their “superabundance of clarity,” by pure intellect, not by the reason which is its servant. Reason is not Intelligence in itself, only an instrument of intelligence.

Few things create more mischief than reason in the hands of an unintelligent or immoral wonker. .[..]Not for nothing did Richard Weaver say that “every attack upon religion is inevitably an attack upon mind.”

Naturally there are many forms of stupid religion, for there is nothing touched by humans wonkers that cannot be made stupid. But at least religion as such does not exclude the possibility and priority of Intelligence, and therefore, Truth. ...” ~ Dr. Robert Godwin, Ph.D

The Absolute Science of the Center and the Darwinist Religion of the Periphery

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