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.

You think it escaped His attention that some people wouldn’t hear the gospel presented? That He was caught off guard?

I don't know. According to the NT even Jesus didn't know everything.

He’s not going to be sitting up there on Judgment Day confronted by a crowd of people who never heard of Jesus and say to Himself, “Oops, I forgot about these guys. What do I do with them now?”

It seems to me that God waits for man to "accept" him before he can save him. I guess if they never asked, then he won't. It sounds like the decision is in human hands, not God's.

You know, after seeing your warped view of God, it’s no wonder you don’t believe in Him. I wouldn’t believe in the kind of God you postulate either

Warped is a relative concept. To me, your view of God is warped. At least I realize that man is fallible and that man's beliefs, including mine, can be wrong, but you don't seem to have that ability.

I can't believe or disbelieve in God because because I don't know what God is (not because I don't want to know); but I do know that people believe in many different gods, so I it is next to impossible to accept one story over another, because not one of them offers any definitive proof.

Besides, even if it did happen to be just his say so, his say so would then have just as much validity as your say so.

And that's just the point, when every position is right, when every position is equally valid, there is no objective standard.

God, the Supreme law giver, is the Supreme Standard by which Objective Standards may be used to measure.

An atheist cannot allow anything to be conceptually greater than himself, or his ability to perceive it. He considers himself a law unto himself -- a standard unto himself.

God's law -- Natural law, established as it is and as He did it from the beginning of Creation is perfect (Ps 19:7).

The atheist simply can't stand that, because that means that there is (unlike him) a perfect standard and law giver - maybe even a Creator which is greater than he is. The atheist in his mind is and by definition MUST be his own creator -- though he's completely inept in his ability to tell anyone how, why, or when he even did it.

The godless person cannot acknowledge that there is a Power to be perceived which is greater than his own personal powers to perceive it -- a clinical example of a self-delusional myopia, if there ever was one.

And that is also why all who are atheists are fools. God, The Supreme Standard, says so.

Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."

Given that description is it any wonder why so many liberals, Democrats, and pretend conservatives who show up on FR are atheists and agnostics?

And then there's that nominal "agnostic." The guy who supposedly says "I don't know if there is a God or not" is just admitting that he's too lazy and dishonest to find out the answer.

In reality, he only lives to snipe at those who take the time to show him. But like I said, he's too lazy and dishonest at his core to look, because if he honestly did try seek out God, he'd find God.

God promises that those who seek Him will find Him. "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me." Proverbs 8:17

The One for whom it is impossible to lie (ref. Num. 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:8) says so.

FReegards!

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