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The Irrational Atheist
WorldNetDaily ^ | 11/17/03 | Vox Day

Posted on 11/17/2003 6:02:20 AM PST by Tribune7

The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist. This heady notion was first made popular by French intellectuals such as Voltaire and Diderot, who ushered in the so-called Age of Enlightenment.

That they also paved the way for the murderous excesses of the French Revolution and many other massacres in the name of human progress is usually considered an unfortunate coincidence by their philosophical descendants.

The atheist is without God but not without faith, for today he puts his trust in the investigative method known as science, whether he understands it or not. Since there are very few minds capable of grasping higher-level physics, let alone following their implications, and since specialization means that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest developments in the more esoteric fields, the atheist stands with utter confidence on an intellectual foundation comprised of things of which he knows nothing.

In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this, except when he fails to admit that he is not actually operating on reason in this regard, but is instead exercising a faith that is every bit as blind and childlike as that of the most unthinking Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Still, this is not irrational, it is only ignorance and a failure of perception.

The irrationality of the atheist can primarily be seen in his actions – and it is here that the cowardice of his intellectual convictions is also exposed. Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have good reason for attempting to live by the Golden Rule – they are commanded to do so – the atheist does not.

In fact, such ethics, as well as the morality that underlies them, are nothing more than man-made myth to the atheist. Nevertheless, he usually seeks to live by them when they are convenient, and there are even those, who, despite their faithlessness, do a better job of living by the tenets of religion than those who actually subscribe to them.

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics.

(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...


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To: DannyTN
I do think the conclusion has some merit. That most atheists do not live as though life is the accident that they claim it to be.

How so? I've seen this assertion before, yet I've never actually seen it defined how someone would live if they believe such, nor any justification for the assertion.

But I believe that God provides the Atheist with ample proof and is rejected by the Atheist.

Yeah. I'm just rejecting Krsna because I ignore the evidence. What's your excuse for following a false god instead of becoming a Vishnuvite?

Bleh. I get pinged on this just before I have a class. I'll be back >:)
181 posted on 11/18/2003 11:00:56 AM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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To: Tribune7
How does this square with the tenets unveiled in the Iterated Prisioner's Dilemma concerning the benefits of mutual cooperation?

Given two or more agents of roughly equivalent intellectual capacity (a required mathematical qualification, but generally true for the human population at large), one can prove that an agent can optimize the benefit to themselves over the long run by trying the optimize the benefit they give to others through their interactions. In other words, the optimal behavior is to try to benefit others, as this will maximize the benefit you receive from the interactions as well. Cooperation in good faith is a utility maximizer for all involved parties.

Related to this, the optimal way for interacting with defectors is to employ retaliatory defection in like kind. Punishment or due consequences, in other words.

So to sum up the major mathematical consequences of IPD in more colloquial vernacular: Always cooperate and be fair to your fellow man by default. If those who you interact with abuse this for their own benefit, you must exact retaliatory consequences for their misbehavior.

(This is the problem with the gov't social welfare system at large. It is a clear violation of game theory for the purported results it is trying to achieve i.e. the system was designed in a fantasyland where mathematics doesn't apply. Our system does not deal with defectors appropriately at all, which generates a necessarily sub-optimal outcome.)

182 posted on 11/18/2003 11:04:29 AM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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To: Tribune7
The greatest of the men of science and logical thinkers(Newton, Einstein,...) believe in the Creator.
183 posted on 11/18/2003 11:22:29 AM PST by desertcry
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To: tortoise
Of course, social welfare systems are not designed to enhance the "public's" utility. They are designed to get votes in the next election.

The current system (as I have been pointing out since the 1950s) primarily subsidizes non-work and taxes work; pays women to have children; pays women to kick out their husbands; and penalizes employers for hiring. The results were obvious then and now.
184 posted on 11/18/2003 11:25:50 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: tortoise
So to sum up the major mathematical consequences of IPD in more colloquial vernacular: Always cooperate and be fair to your fellow man by default. If those who you interact with abuse this for their own benefit, you must exact retaliatory consequences for their misbehavior.

Thank you.

185 posted on 11/18/2003 11:29:12 AM PST by Tribune7 (It's not like he let his secretary drown in his car or something.)
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To: PatrickHenry; Alamo-Girl; logos; Tribune7; Heartlander; Phaedrus; Virginia-American; Nebullis; ...
A bit more on this (I hope you can put up with me). If the universe, and life, were really "stunningly improbable," then this brings to mind a deity that interferes continuously with the natural order of things (whatever that might be) in order to bring about this "stunningly improbable" universe in which we find ourselves. When I think of a continuously interfereing deity, I can't help coming up with this kind of image: [picture of Charlie Chaplin]....

Now this "Charlie Chaplin Modern Times" kind of deity, running around flipping switches, pulling handles, turning dials, adjusting mixtures of chemicals, tweaking relationships, etc., may be just what it takes to generate a "stunningly improbable" universe. It seems that way to me, but I don't know. My personal opinion is that a universe where things just had to turn out this way, complete with life, consciousness, intelligence, and free will, is a far more elegant, even sublime creation, than a Rube Goldberg situation that requires constant attention.

I see the party's been moved to this thread!

PH, here's an interesting idea to reflect upon, from Dean Overman:

"If time and space came into existence with the Big Bang, the conclusion becomes invalid that the beginning of the universe in time would have been preceded by a time. But this implies that the very initial Big Bang itself was not a temporal event. This conclusion has profound implications for physical, metaphysical, and theological formulations. German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, who physicist Frank Tipler has credited with increasing his understanding of many physical concepts, has written: 'This suggests to theology a new formulation of the idea of creation: the divine act of creation does not occur in time -- rather, it constitutes an eternal act, contemporaneous with all time, that is, with the entire world process. Yet this world process has a temporal beginning, because it takes place in time. [Planck time -- the first 10^-43 second after the Big Bang -- is "t{ime}-zero".] In this sentence I assert that eternity itself is described by statements of time. With a music parable one might speak of eternity as the sounding together of all time in a sole present. Elsewhere I have developed the concept of eternity from the human experience of time, from the relativity of the distinction of past, present, and future corresponding to the relativity of the directions in space. In view of the relativity of the modes of time to the aspect of the human being experiencing time, this resulted in the assumption that all, time, if it could be, so to speak, surveyed from a "place" outside the course of time, would have to appear as contemporaneous [A-G -- this is what I imagine all of space-time would look like, if we could "get out of it" and take a perch in our hypothetical 5th time dimension].... Understood in the sense of the suggestions above, the concept of eternity comprehends all time and everything temporal in itself -- a conception of the relationship of time and eternity that goes back to Augustine and is connected to the Israelite understanding of eternity as unlimited duration throughout time. The world view of the theory of relativity also can be understood in the sense of a last contemporaneousness of all events that for us are partitioned into a temporal sequence.'" [Emphasis added]

[Wolfhart Pannenberg, Toward a Theology of Nature, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. I bought the book, and can't wait for it to arrive!]

Just try thinking that through, PH -- it is a most amazing insight.

186 posted on 11/18/2003 11:31:31 AM PST by betty boop (God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. -- Paul Dirac)
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To: desertcry
And Pasteur, and Faraday, and Kelvin and Mendel.
187 posted on 11/18/2003 11:36:27 AM PST by Tribune7 (It's not like he let his secretary drown in his car or something.)
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To: Tribune7
Indeed, and I'm sure many more.
188 posted on 11/18/2003 11:40:45 AM PST by desertcry
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To: betty boop
In view of the relativity of the modes of time to the aspect of the human being experiencing time, this resulted in the assumption thatall, time, if it could be, so to speak, surveyed from a "place" outside the course of time, would have to appear as contemporaneous

BB, I'm an old science fiction buff. I'm very familiar with this concept, because it's used in many -- if not most -- time travel stories. The problem of writing such a story is that for your character to be dashing forward and backward in time, he needs some kind of "place outside the course of time" in which to function. This is where the "Time Patrol" has its headquarters. In Asimov's classic The End of Eternity, his time traveling cops, or agents, or whatever they were, lived somewhere -- it was never explained where -- from which they could observe all the centuries, and zip in wherever necessary to improve things, then return to their headquarters to observe the effects which would then ripple through the centuries -- while leaving the agents unaffected in their "neutral territory."

This is a great plot device. It's a plot necessity. Otherwise your lead character and his memory is going to get altered along with everything else when he makes some adjustment in history.

The problem is -- at least I see it as a problem -- there just ain't no such place. You're either in the universe, which means being in time, or you're nowhere. There are no priviliged reference frames. Except in science fiction novels.

189 posted on 11/18/2003 12:12:36 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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To: DannyTN
"If you want a fairly good partial enumeration of the many proofs out there. Pick up Josh McDowell's "Evidence that demands a verdict". Or "Evidence that demands a verdict II".

Don't bother, most atheists would not deign to soil them selves with such an "erudite" suggestion.

190 posted on 11/18/2003 12:21:25 PM PST by semaj ("....by their fruit you will know them.")
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To: PatrickHenry
Heinlein's (writing under the nom de guerre, Anson MacDonald) short story "By His Bootstraps" (1941) is interesting with respect to time travel.
191 posted on 11/18/2003 12:23:45 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
"By His Bootstraps" is inded a classic. And it probably doesn't involve the privileged reference frame problem. You should also read his "All you Zombies." Similar paradoxes.

Generations from now, Heinlein will be regarded as one of the most important writers of the 20th Century (in my always humble opinion).

192 posted on 11/18/2003 12:31:40 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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To: Tribune7
Dig that snazzy haircut!


193 posted on 11/18/2003 12:36:25 PM PST by jennyp (http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
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To: jennyp
He looks just a bit too young for the Heaven's Gate crowd. Otherwise ...
194 posted on 11/18/2003 12:42:42 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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To: PatrickHenry; jennyp
His hair style is a result of his massive brain pushing on the sides of his skull.
195 posted on 11/18/2003 1:08:03 PM PST by whattajoke (Neutiquam erro.)
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To: tpaine
The "Golden Rule", tell that to the demonrats. They don't know that such a rule exists.
196 posted on 11/18/2003 1:15:21 PM PST by desertcry
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To: Bob Ingersoll
.......get some books on cosmology, chemistry,... Sorry Bob, cosmology, chemistry or any other branch of science can tell you, me or anybody, how we came to be. Not even the very edge of high energy physics or astrophysics knowledge will teach anybody how SpaceTime evolved from nothing, not even the "Theory of Everything" (String Theory).
197 posted on 11/18/2003 1:31:10 PM PST by desertcry
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To: jennyp
I've been thinking about changing my look. It's between the Vox buzz and a mullet. :-)
198 posted on 11/18/2003 1:33:04 PM PST by Tribune7 (It's not like he let his secretary drown in his car or something.)
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To: BMCDA
The irrationality of the atheist can primarily be seen in his actions – and it is here that the cowardice of his intellectual convictions is also exposed. Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have good reason for attempting to live by the Golden Rule – they are commanded to do so – the atheist does not.
I always wonder how supposedly bright people can seriously hold such grand contradictions. Surely they cause massive friction as the concepts rub & scrape against each other inside their brains? But I gradually came to understand that the ability to hold major contradictory thoughts is endemic to humans - though I still can't see why.

The only reason I can think of for why it should be a good thing, is because otherwise too many people would die of spontaneous combustion.

199 posted on 11/18/2003 1:38:57 PM PST by jennyp (http://crevo.bestmessageboard.com)
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To: semaj
Don't bother, most atheists would not deign to soil them selves with such an "erudite" suggestion.

Or perhaps many of us have already seen it and realised that it's not quite as sound as you think that it is.

Why do you always asume that your proofs are "infallable" and that people who don't agree with them just haven't read them?
200 posted on 11/18/2003 1:40:15 PM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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