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.

Well, if you make the claim, prove it or shut your trap!

ooooooooooooh the omniscient kosta not knowing this stuff speaking. Once again - you are on record rejecting a priori evidences, other have made the case and you keep moving the goal posts. Prove that God doesn't exist.

What proof? Just because your say something is doesn't constitute a proof.

What proof? Just because your say something is doesn't constitute a proof. Right back at you.

I understand that that's your belief, not a fact or proof that that is really so.

There you go again. Jesus was real, his teachings were effectively passed on to us from eyewitnesses. His resurrection was effectively passed on by eyewitnesses (something terribly lacking in your coffee times with zeus).

G, just because you believe something doesn't make it true. That's not "know it all", that's just common sense. You proved nothing. You have nothing.

Right back at you kosta - except the only one who has nothing in this discussion is the atheist. Your only hope it to comically attack Jesus and the eyewitness of his disciples.

Prove that God doesn't exist

Why should I, an agnostic, have to prove God doesn't exist? I never, ever, said that God doesn't exist because I don't know if he does or doesn't. But you claim he does, so prove it or shut your trap.

As for me rejecting "a priori evidence", LOL that is an oxymoron. That which is a priori is an axiom and not a proof.

As for others having made "the case" does not constitute a proof.

As for me moving goal posts, that's a joke because i am asking the same question i have asked from the beginning.

What proof? Just because your say something is doesn't constitute a proof. Right back at you

I am not saying anything. I am the one who doesn't know. You, on the other hand, claim you know, so prove it.

Jesus was real, his teachings were effectively passed on to us from eyewitnesses. His resurrection was effectively passed on by eyewitnesses (something terribly lacking in your coffee times with zeus).

These are tales. They were written years afterwords. The oldest copies are centuries after the fact. The authors are anonymous. Paul makes claims he can't substantiate. There are no extra biblical records of any kind. Josephus is not an eyewitness; he is merely conveying what he heard (in other words, hearsay). To claim this is all real is a matter of belief, based on a legend, but in no way constitutes fact or truth or proof.

Your only hope it to comically attack Jesus and the eyewitness of his disciples.

I have nothing personally against Jesus. All I ask for is proof, yet all I get is either someone's personal belief or legendary stories.

I think we’re getting down to point of hair splitting with ‘certain belief and probable knowledge’ or is it ‘knowledge of belief’?

Belief and knowledge are distinct and without confusion. Belief is hope, expectation (probable or not); knowledge is certainty. We can reasonably believe the Sun will rise, but have no certain knowledge that it will. Only God is presumed to have that knowledge, because he would know all there is to know. An omniscient God would know but not believe. He who knows everything there is to know has no reason to hope, or believe.

Is it reasonable for me to blame God for my poverty The drunk who loses a limb in an accident asks how God could be so cruel as to allow this to happen since God could have prevented it, couldn’t he?

If your belief is based on the Bible, then the drunk would be correct. After all, doesn't God in the Bible send deceiving spirits to confuse people or cause them to fail, or to kill soemone's daughter because he promised to give him the first thing he sees on his return home? No shortage of God-cause cruelty in the Bible...

So, what is "reasonable" prayer to you? Why is it "unreasonable" to pray for anyting, given that with God everything is supposedly possible?

Back in your post #1862 you said,

“You can know a lot of things, but that's not knowing everything there is to know, which is what The Truth is, and all encompassing knowledge of everything as it truly is. Only your hypothetical deity knows the Truth. You “know” it through belief (assumption, presupposition) in such a deity. But, just because you (choose to) believe something doesn't mean it's true.”

You define “the Truth” above and then say I can “know” this Truth through belief. O.K.

Then the believer in God's existence can know He exists just as much as you know a hot stove may burn you if touched. Or are you not certain (”knowledge is certainty”)that the hot stove will burn someone touching it?

That's why I said it seems to be coming down to hair splitting. It appears to me that you're trying to say that belief, particularly belief in the Bible, is a weak sister of no substance in comparison to the muscular and ‘two feet planted on the ground’, knowing.

And further in that same post that belief in prayer was what?

“I can understand that little self-deceptions are sometimes comforting and perhaps even psychologically necessary, but they have no basis in reality or reliability that we can depend on.”.
Of course, kosta says agnostics and atheists don't do such things, don't pretend, they're the ‘two feet on the ground’ type. Yes, of course......

Anyone with children would understand a parent not giving a child anything and everything they might request.

“So, what is “reasonable” prayer to you? Why is it “unreasonable” to pray for anyting, given that with God everything is supposedly possible?”

Then you should recognize that it is possible for him to say, “No, not just yet” and to keep demanding or expecting He will do so is unreasonable.

You ask what I consider unreasonable but as I already wrote:

Is it reasonable for me to blame God for my poverty The drunk who loses a limb in an accident asks how God could be so cruel as to allow this to happen since God could have prevented it, couldn't’t he?
No the drunk is the cruel and unreasonable one.

“If your belief is based on the Bible, then the drunk would be correct. After all, doesn't God in the Bible send deceiving spirits to confuse people or cause them to fail, or to kill soemone’s daughter because he promised to give him the first thing he sees on his return home? No shortage of God-cause cruelty in the Bible...”

Please, tell me more of this first, this is most interesting, do elaborate.

“....to kill soemone’s daughter because he promised to give him the first thing he sees on his return home?”

But you claim he does, so prove it or shut your trap.

The person of Jesus Christ proved it - so shut your trap.

As for me rejecting "a priori evidence", LOL that is an oxymoron. That which is a priori is an axiom and not a proof.

No, you reject it as a flat out - a priori - without evaluating it. Easier on your belief system not to have to deal with it.

I am not saying anything. I am the one who doesn't know. You, on the other hand, claim you know, so prove it.

Again, you have throughout this thread kept moving the goalposts as far as what "proof" is. You wouldn't recognize proof if it walked up and bit you in the rear.

A standard atheistic backfire. It has been shown that the time between the life of Christ and when the books of the NT were written are far too short for the development of 'legends'. The authors were passed orally for years and were recognized by the church - unlike the pseudographica. For one who 'knows nothing' your bleat against Paul's claims wax hollow. Josephus is regarded as a historian - and his writings reflect the norm for the era.

See, like I said, you reject everything a priori - even most secular historians don't agree with your assessment.

In classical physics, the world was based on the atom, a natural manifestation of the Trinity. The Father and Son seated together and surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses is represented by the atom. Proton and neutron in the nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons.

It's a stunningly beautiful metaphor, dear Dan. Fortunately, the Truth of God does not depend on metaphors like this. For the "classical atom" — the solar system model of the atom constituted by a central nucleus surrounded by orbiting "planets" — electrons — utterly falls apart "in the quantum world."

The reason for that is, thanks to Maxwell, it has been established that moving electrical charges always radiate energy. Electrons are charged particles; as such in their orbital motions they are constantly emitting energy. As their energy is depleted, it follows that they would spiral into lower and lower orbits over time, ultimately "collapsing" into the nucleus itself.

But this evidently does not happen. Bohr's explanation of why this does not happen goes something like this: Electrons don't spiral into new orbits, emitting energy continuously. Rather they jump into and out of very particular orbits — i.e., they "pulse" discretely, not continuously — in the measure governed by Planck's constant (quantum). Then along came Pauli's exclusion principle: No two quantum particles having the same quantum numbers can occupy the same atomic "shell" (orbit) at the same time. Oddly, it seems the very exclusivity and "jumpiness" of electron behavior is what keeps them from crashing into the nucleus — which is what we would expect, if the laws of gravity (whether Newtonian or Einsteinian), and not the laws of electromagnetism, were in control of the situation.

Anyhoot, quantum theory presents us with many challenges to the "normal" — i.e., classical, Newtonian — vision of the world. But I don't conclude from that that quantum mechanics is in any way necessarily "evil."

You wrote:

It has been said that a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and this is what we are beginning to see. The number of the beast, 666, may represent the rise of technology indistinguishable from magic.

I resonate to your observation. So it seems to me we have to define what we mean by "a sufficiently advanced technology."

If what we mean by "a sufficiently advanced technology" is the product of a scientific methodology that has detached itself from science's historical mission of discovering the truth of reality, and has instead become committed to science as the best means of "instrumentalizing Nature" for the benefit of man, then science has lost not only its basis, but its mission and, in the process, has moved closer to magical practices....

I do so agree with you there!

I think it's true there can be "bad" science, and "bad" scientists. But to me, this does not make science itself an "evil" enterprise.

Well, just some thoughts, dear friend! FWIW....

Thank you ever so much for sharing your fascinating insights!

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