Posted on 07/12/2010 10:20:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
1. Discuss the Fermi Paradox. Atheists love aliens because they always assume that, a) brainy creatures gushing out of every galactic cranny shows that Earth is low-rent cosmic real estate, and b) the smartest aliens will be atheists. Against this giddy optimism, the famous physicist Enrico Fermi asked a quite innocent question: If Earth is a typical planet, and there are lots of planets in the universe, then why haven’t any extraterrestrial critters dropped by, or even sent us a text message (“ur nt solo, n btw ur nt vry smrt”)?
2. Join Mensa. Atheists are obsessed with their IQs and they love to flaunt their membership in an organization of people dedicated to self-congratulation. The atheist assumption is that religion is a sure sign of evolutionary atavism. A devout believer whipping out his Mensa card is entirely incomprehensible and ultimately indigestible.
3. Bait and Switch # 1. Atheists love to talk about the Spanish Inquisition. Get them, ever so casually, to talk about persecution by zealous believers in general, and then the persecution by zealous Marxists in particular. Finally, since atheists like math, have them compare the number killed by the Inquisition over several centuries (2,000-6,000) with the number killed by devout Marxists in one century (100,000,000).
4. Bait and Switch # 2. Despite their pretence to moral relativity, atheists will still grant that Adolf Hitler was epically evil. Having gotten them to admit this point, offer to read aloud some of the most offending passages from Mein Kamp (a special copy of which you just happened to be carrying). After about a half-hour, suddenly strike a quizzical look and say, “Wait a minute,” removing the dust jacket, “How did that happen? This is my copy of Margaret Sanger’s The Pivot of Civilization! Say, wasn’t she the founder of Planned Parenthood?”
5. Learn to talk like William F. Buckley. A comfortable prejudice for American atheists is that religious believers all speak with a heavy Southern accent and use small words.
6. Have Lots of Children. Atheists love humanity as long as there is less of it. They are especially grieved by biologically prodigious believers who seem to be taking Darwin at his word, but for all the wrong reasons. Nothing is more irksome than to behold their own future self-imposed extinction amidst the swelling tide of the God-fearing.
7. Host a Darwin Read-a-loud. Invite some atheist friends to read and discuss Darwin, and then read some purple passages from his Descent of Man where he waxes eloquently on the importance of eugenics, the biologically based moral and intellectual inferiority of “lesser races,” and the inevitable evolutionary extermination of the “negro” and the “Australian.”
8. Talk about the Impending Crash of the World Economy. Ideas have consequences, and some of the worst economic ideas were hatched by John Maynard Keynes. Make clear to your atheist interlocutor that the wide-scale adoption of Keynes’ conception of government as the grand fiddler micromanaging the economy through narcotic stimulation with freshly printed money is the single most important cause of the current American and European financial implosion. Then mention ever-so-casually, “Wasn’t Keynes an atheist?”
9. Stage a Nietzsche Practicum. Atheists love the nihilistic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who famously declared “God is dead.” More exactly, they love it in theory, but invariably cringe at the practical implications Nietzsche quite logically drew out: without God, there is no moral order and the strong should devour the weak, for “life itself is will to power.” Invite your favorite atheist to meet you for lunch to discuss Nietzsche. Order the most expensive meal on the menu, steal his iPhone while he’s in the bathroom, and then at the end, stick him with the check. Then on the way out snatch the keys to his Saab and speed away in it singing at full lung, “I love Nietzsche! He’s really rather peachy. A world devoid of moral qualms is far more fuuunnnn…than one that’s preachy teachy!”
10. Assault Them with Charity (cont’d. from No. 9). Drive around the block to the restaurant again, and pull up to your fuming atheist friend. After returning the keys to his Saab and his iPhone, and shelling out your share of the tab, say “I just can’t bring myself to act as if God doesn’t exist.” Then, forever after treat him with unfailing kindness, as if he were Indian Untouchable and you were Mother Teresa.
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Benjamin Wiker is the author of 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor (one of the books being C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man), and 10 Books that Screwed Up the World. His website is www.ameaningfulworldaudio.com
Well, and other heretics, but yes. Only members of the Church, of course, can canonically be brought before an ecclesiastical court, which the Inquisition was. Jews and Muslims were not even its jurisdiction. They could not be brought before it unless they had been baptized.
Incidentally, there's another aspect to the Inquisition that is often missed. It was the state that punished religious crimes--and this goes back to pre-Christian times. Technically, the Church-run Inquisition was just the fact-finding aspect of the inquiry. You will find in many of the records the line "and he was handed over to the secular arm to be burned."
Incidentally, it is pure BS that Christianity and the medieval world had a exaggerated conception of the earth in relation to the created cosmos. Dante, writing in the 1300s, as he ascends into the sphere of the stars:
"You are so close to final blessedness,"It was pretty well known in the Middle Ages that the Earth was but a tiny and infinitesimal point in the universe. I'm not sure why anyone would use that as an argument against God.
said Beatrice, "that you now must keep
your eyes unclouded and your vision keen;
and so, before insiding further here,
look down and see how vast a universe
I have already put beneath your feet...."
My vision travelled back through all the spheres,
through seven heavens, and then I saw our globe;
it made me smile, it looked so paltry there."
I was with him until #3. but I never expected the Spanish Inquisition.
Good point; I checked the wrong book. I could use some help finding comments in it on eugenics, as the word doesn’t appear in the book. I found the section which he’s referring to with “negro” and “australian”, though:
However, it looks to me like he’s quoting someone else — so I went and looked that up, and found Shaafhausen’s comments. It does look like Darwin is simply citing him:
Schaafhausen also explains what he feels the differences between different human races are and between different species:
It’s rather interesting to jump into these people’s heads and see what makes them tick.
Ask them to think about the total sum of universal knowledge ... the sum total of everything that is knowable. Then ask them what percent of that total knowledge do they possess.
Even the most arrogant atheist can be slapped silly by making them recite the atomic number of Fermium, or the most efficient way to solve the Magnetic Field Integral Equations, etc.
At this point, the reasonable ones would be willing to admit that they possess less than 1% of all that is knowable (which in itself is a gross exaggeration).
At that point your question is simply "why do you assume that God cannot be part of the 99% that you admit you do not know?"
Working on #6 :)
That was the book I referred to. It is a refutation of the idea that we could become stronger by killing our weakest. Oh sure, you'll probably post the following quote some source has given you:
It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.That does look like he promotes eugenics. But that is, of course, completely out of context. Using a common argument device, he sets up the logical-sounding proposition of eugenics above, then proceeds to shoot it down in the next paragraph:
Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.It helps to have read the whole book, rather than relying on out-of-context quotes by people who have a problem with the author.
Though the author makes occasional attempts at humor to make digs at atheists, I would hardly call this a "humor piece."
He is obviously a proponent of one side of the issue; in fact, the article is rather polemic. By writing it, the author opens himself to rhetorical attack from holders of opposing views. I merely wished to provide a rebuttal to a few of his points.
As for your ad hominem: People who accuse others of lacking humor often lack it themselves.
Regards,
[...] a lot of atheists are also political conservatives, who despise Planned Parenthood.
SeekAndFind:
It would be interesting to understand what their reasons would be for doing so. I'd guess it has little to do with being pro-life, but being more for pro-liberty.
alexander_busek:
Of course, I can't speak for others, but I am opposed to abortion because I regard it as the taking of an innocent human life without the consent of that individual.
Regards,
Ignorance is not the problem; belief in things not true is. What makes you think believing in god(s) is not belief in things not true?
This is stupid. Most of the points aren’t even about atheism. They confuse atheism with liberalism. Number 4 for example.
Ah ... you're one of those ones who DOES have all the knowledge in the universe. Please enlighten us all lol.
Atheists are overwhelmingly liberal.
The truth is that atheists are rarely conservative, or pro life, even economic and military issues can only get what I guess is about 10% of atheists, to vote against the liberal Democrats.
Isn’t it strange that conservative, pro-life atheists would be attracted to the premiere conservative forum on the Internet?
Think about that for a minute, where else do you think that the tiny, probably minuscule number of conservative, pro-life atheists should be?
Even if true, that doesn't make them the same idea.
The point is that it is accurate to generalize that atheism means liberal, we do that with lesbians and homosexuals too.
Atheists practice a form of religion. The points of atheists must be defended, and they are organized to a certain extent. They make an argument based on only what they can see and touch, and will not take a thing on faith.
I do not believe that you can change the mind of a self-proclaimed atheist, anymore than I believe that I can teach my cat to speak German.
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