As atheist as it gets?

Sunk in post-holiday torpor, I somehow missed the full flowering of the avowed atheist’s (TM) atheism in the Guardian’s Comment is Free on 30 December.

Bear in mind Brendan O’Neill is someone who introduces his own blog with this blurb:

One of this country’s sharpest social commentators’ (Daily Telegraph)

What country are they talking about? (Although, the Daily Telegraph probably wouldn’t recognise sharp social commentary even if it was poked in the eye by it.)

In the blogpost I’m talking about, O’Neill pours even more scorn on public atheists than he bestowed on the Archbishop of Canterbury.  His victims are Dawkins, Hitchens et al.

The new atheism
There is more humanity in the ‘superhuman’ delusions of the devout than there is in the realism of the hectoring atheists

Blimey, can you plagiarise yourself? Weren’t these pretty well the exact words he used in the Spiked-Online article about Rowan Williams. (Well, except for the “monkeyman” bit. Maybe the Guardian found that too offensive for the subhead? ) He must be really really proud of these phrases.

I am as atheistic as it gets. But I will not be signing up to this shrill hectoring of the religious. The new atheists have given atheism a bad name. History’s greatest atheists, or the “old atheists” as we are now forced to call them, were humanistic and progressive, critical of religion because it expressed man’s sense of higher moral purpose in a deeply flawed fashion. The new atheists are screechy and intolerant; they see religion merely as an expression of mass ignorance and delusion. Their aim seems to be, not only to bring God crashing back down to earth, but also to downgrade mankind itself.

And so on. In so doing, he brings up Darwin and Marx, apparently “old atheists” – whose words must therefore provide the all-wise authority that this “atheistic as it gets” person apparently can’t live without.

Indeed (in the second article of his that I’ve decided to savage) he yet again takes Marx’s words completely out of context, to somehow derive a meaning that is the opposite of what the man was saying. All the same, it wouldn’t matter if O’Neill hadn’t got it wrong. If historic figure X believed the moon was made of paper, their success in another field wouldn’t make it true.

This doesn’t stop O’Neill referring often to Marx, as if some acknowledged wisdom in political philosophy made everything Marx said true. And, most bizarrely, as if Marx somehow agreed with O’Neill that Dawkins et al should just shut up.

For Marx, religion had to be abolished because it made man despicable; for new atheists religion exists precisely because man is despicable, little more than a monkey.
New atheists will continue to ridicule the religious in 2008. But there is more humanity in the “superhuman” delusions of the devout – in their yearning for a sense of purpose and greatness – than there is in the monkeyman realism of the hectoring atheists.

Oh, look, there’s the “monkeyman realism” stuff again. How odd that he hates the whole idea of evolution but seems to worship Darwin.
Here’s the “superhuman delusion” quote again. Again, ffs. Look, Brendan, it just wasn’t that good. Sorry.

And, surely, Marx didn’t believe religion “made man despicable”. Blimey, I doubt that even the allegedly “hectoring” Dawkins and Hitchens would go that far. IMAO, Marx (and other classical social scientists) saw religion largely in terms of its social role of providing ideas that support social relations. (Generally 19th century intellectuals tended to look at how things work in the real world.)

If this is what “being as atheist as it gets” looks like, can we have an atheist competition to see if its possible to get more atheist, please?


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Posted in History, Philosophy, Rants, Society

Avowedly atheist? You made a vow?

There’s a post on Spiked online where the (“avowedly atheist”) editor whines about Archbishop Rowan Williams (Head of the Church of England – I think) on the apparent grounds that Williams is not rabidly irrational enough to be a proper church man. Not enough “fire and brimstone,” apparently. Pays attention to Dawkins, even.

Williams apparently had the audacity to talk about not buggering up the planet in his New Year’s address. So have a few other Christian notables. This has got Brendan O’Neill pretty annoyed, to the point where he complains about Williams’ “smug face” and ” social-worker voice”

His sermon was indistinguishable from those delivered (not just at Christmas but for life) by the heads of Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Williams did not speak about Christian morality; in fact, he didn’t utter the m-word at all. He said little about men’s responsibility to love one another and God, the two Commandments Jesus Christ said we should live by. Instead he talked about our role as janitors on planet Earth, who must stop plundering the ‘warehouse of natural resources’ and ensure that we clean up after ourselves.

What? You are complaining because he didn’t make unfollowable narrow-minded pronouncements about “personal morality” and had the gall to discuss issues of genuine morality? Did I misunderstand something here?

(Maybe he didn’t just repeat meaningless injunctions to love each other, possibly because these religious wallpaper-style admonitions don’t actually appear to work.)

One thing that really ignites O’Neill’s easily sparked avowedly atheist ire is:

in his Christmas sermon, the Archbishop of Canterbury quoted extensively, not from the Bible, but from Richard Dawkins, who is considered by many to be the Rottweiler of the New Atheism.

So, just let me recap here? Signs of a churchman’s taking onboard rational scientific arguments and daring to suggest that it might be immoral not to leave a working planet for future generations are BAD?

At a time of such low horizons, is it any wonder that some people still do cling on to God, and seek transcendence from mundane everyday life through a belief in divinity? There is more humanity in their ‘superhuman’ delusions than there is in the monkeyman realism of eco-Christians and New Atheists

Monkeyman realism?

He is saying that he despises a churchperson who accepts evolution and argues for a broader concept of what ethics are than you can find in a old book of fables. The implications of his words are that a bible-thumping creationist hypocrite would somehow be better.

Don’t fret Brendan. There are more than enough of these to go round. The Phelps are maybe a little too extreme even for your taste but plenty more bible-thumpers would fill the patriarchal priest role you prefer. (Tip. Wingnut daily is a good place to start looking for them.) The Islamic faith has a good few as well.

Any danger of the world’s religions becoming too ecological and rational is greatly exaggerated. So you can sleep easy in your bed and stop worrying about dangerous atheist rottweilers, Brendan.


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Posted in General, Philosophy, Rants, Society

Oh No! The End Is Near!

I accidentally deleted a comment on the previous “False Prophet” post which pointed to a weird site hosted by Bravenet. Titled “Welcome To Rapture In The Air” it has this blurb at the start: (insane font removed)

This is a Pre Trib Rapture forum and all are welcome who share their love for Our Beloved’s return as He promised.There is no debating on this forum about the rapture or denominational issues.We are here for one another in friendship, love, and prayer as we watch together for Jesus’s soon return.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12 (NKJV)

Will You Be At The Wedding Supper

Of The Lamb Of God?

Accept Jesus Now As Your Saviour

The Invitation Has Been Sent

Come Dine With Him.

Wow. You just know it is going to be hilarious. It has hundreds of death-worshipping posts longing for the end of the universe and being somewhat self-congratulating about how all the Born-Againers will get the rewards and everyone else will suffer. Not massively Christian in its outlook but then most BAFundies aren’t.

The site is riddled with madness. Because there is so much start staring lunacy, it is hard to know which particular bit to ridicule the most so I have gone for a random post. I clicked on one of the first page topics at random and found this: (only beginning bit repeated here, it is long)

The judgment at Midnight! (THIS MONTH?)

ALL:

The news of “JUDGMENT” is NOT readily accepted by people “of” the world
and EVEN (or maybe ESPECIALLY) Christians! That may be ALL beside
the point as we enter 2008!!!

It is almost like NOW there was provided (for those watchful) a ringside seat
to “see” some things that “MAY” be about to transpire!

Going back “5” (which means “GRACE”) years….

On 2/1/03, I was in bed watching TV (after an operation the day before) and
actually “HEARD” the words on CNN:

…”The Shuttle (Columbia) has COME APART OVER PALESTINE (TX)!”

As we come to that anniversary on February 1, 2008, there are OTHER
“heavenly” (and “earthly”) witnesses going on! As 2007 became 2008, a
“wedding ring” (URL below sent to me by Carol) produced by solar flares
was seen in the heavens:
… [loads of madness]
WARNINGS TO THE US GO UNHEEDED and Bush is about to enter Israel
this month! This month is 700 days from a 7.0 quake VERY NEAR MIDNIGHT,
Israel time (see notes below). The quake was “IN” Israel’s time zone! I’ll let the
reader decide its implications (because I am only watching, as well)!!!

This is so weird it makes your head spin. It is written in that wonderfully breathless style the real “faithful” manage. The writing style, with its interesting use of grammar, is very typical for the cranks who predict every day is the end of the world. The crazy rationale for how this “quake” being near midnight means the world is going to end is priceless. I challenge anyone to read this without either getting a headache or laughing out loud at least once.

On the subject of False Prophets, the wonderful, balanced, truthful news site FauxFOX News has reported that the lying scumbag ever so honest prophet Pat Robertson is unbowed by his previous predictions from God being complete lies and making new ones: (Source)

NORFOLK, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Wednesday that 2008 will be a year of violence worldwide and a recession in the United States, followed by a major stock-market crash by 2010.

Sharing what he believes God has told him about the year ahead is an annual tradition for Robertson.

On Wednesday’s “700 Club” broadcast, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network predicted that evangelism will increase and more people will seek God as the chaos develops. Robertson said, “We will see the presence of angels and we will see an intensification of miracles around the world.”

Some people really have no shame. I wonder if they really believe the voices in their head are from God? I know when Toutatis talks to me he sounds a bit like Zeus but I put that down a bad connection as the toaster doesn’t even have a speaker…


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Posted in Philosophy, Society