The new gang of hyper-confident male atheists wants you to laugh at religion

http://nationalpost.com/news/the-new-gang-of-hyper-confident-male-atheists-just-want-you-to-laugh-at-religion ^ | May 25, 2018 | Joseph Brean

[rickmichaels]

The New Atheists were never a particularly funny bunch.

They were either, like Richard Dawkins, chippy materialists with a quasi-religious faith that science can offer a complete answer to any mystery worth contemplating. Or they were, like Christopher Hitchens, swaggering verbal stylists whose cleverness put a charming gloss on sentiments about believers that would otherwise sound like hate speech.

But there is another gang of hyper-confident male atheists for whom knee-slapping humour is front and centre in their atheist proselytizing, far more than science or intellectual debate.

These are the Comic Atheists, people like TV host Bill Maher, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, and the standup comics Ricky Gervais and Marc Maron, all of whom are part of a broader movement to “destabilize and eliminate religion from the public sphere,” according to research presented at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

In his paper on these comedians, Chris Miller, a PhD student in religious studies at the University of Waterloo, uses the term “boundary maintenance” to describe a sort of social therapy by which human communities reassure themselves about their own beliefs by “describing another group’s world in the language of one’s own.” Thus are religious people painted not as the normal adherents of ancient traditions, but as “laughable and confused at best” and “manipulative or harmful at worst,” Miller said.

He references the sociological theory of Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger that when human groups are threatened, they engage in either “nihilation” of the other group, by portraying them as barbaric or sub-human, or in softer “therapeutic” strategies to explain why this other group continues to exist.

[heterosupremacist]

Telepathic Intruder wrote: Do you have to mock religion and blaspheme God in order to be “non-religious”? I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, but I don’t negatively obsess over the idea of it, or viscously ridicule the children who do. There’s something desperate about the way atheists behave, as if they’re trying to convince themselves more than anyone else. AGREE 100%!

[heterosupremacist]

Good Post! Interesting replies, T Y 4 posting.

[Secret Agent Man]

ok, how is describing cannibals as they are, not accurate. or the ancient barbaric hordes pillaging and burning and ruling by destruction, not accurate?

how is describing abortionists as butchers not acurate?

screw whether its not said with a velvet tone and soft music in the background.

[Secret Agent Man]

Who are they, to be moral arbiters for everyone?

I didn’t vote for them.

[Olog-hai]

Certainly should.

It’s from the same book, and the same chapter of the book, as the 45 communist goals for the USA, for the record.

[Secret Agent Man]

Family Guy is horrible. American Dad is better.

[Secret Agent Man]

Atheists religions are about worshipping themselves.

Whether they recognize it or not.

[DuncanWaring]

Not believing in God is not understandable.

If God didn’t exist, the Universe wouldn’t exist.

That thing that went “Bang” 14 billion years ago ... where did it come from?

[Trillian]

There’s something desperate about the way atheists behave, as if they’re trying to convince themselves more than anyone else.

That's exactly it. It's a communist mentality that I see across their various sub groups, especially the homosexuals.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I've seen this movie.

[loveliberty2]

Dr. Cleon Skousen is the author of that and the series of books on "The Making of America.". His National Center for Constitutional Studies was a resource for many on rediscovering the Founders' ideas by intense study of their writings, speeches and actions.

Skousen had worked for the FBI under Hoover for a time.

[Reeses]

Marxists everywhere.

Leftism is fundamentally driven by envy, which is itself a side-effect of vanity. Envy seeks to destroy perceived advantages enjoyed by competitors rather than adopt them. Religion is obviously a competitive advantage. Many of its benefits can be scientifically verified and are beyond dispute. Depending on the task at hand some religions offer far superior benefits than others. The modern form of Judaism is optimized for prospering while being greatly outnumbered. Buddhism is great for high population density living where there is a higher need for getting along. Despite its many other advantages, Christianity has proven to be the best religion for winning in a world consumed by war. In a fox hole during battle you'd want a Christian beside you.

[navymom1]

I praise God for my faith and continually pray for Him to make me into the Christian he would have me be.

[Noumenon]

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

[Lonely Bull]

But this deviant urge to attack believers is inexplicable.

I've heard similar thinking described in this phrase: "there is no God, and I hate Him."

[bgill]

All the more reason I refuse to watch Family Guy and Maher.

[vpintheak]

It’s because they are doing the work of their father, the devil. The devil is happy when God is mocked and minimized. He wants everyone to be as miserable as he is.