Why Dont You Blog?

I know I should have learned my lesson long ago and I promise to stop responding to Parabiodox’s baiting after this post… (At least I will try).

Previously, I made a post about Christian humour in which I commented that the expected answer to a ranting comment would be “Atheists (agnostics etc)” rather than the Abrahamic religions I previously claimed. Now, I never meant this to imply Atheists were the same as agnostics, and if anyone did take away that impression from my (lengthy) post than I apologise wholeheartedly.

I am fully aware Atheism is not Agnosticism, and personally I do not find “agnosticism” a reasonable viewpoint which can be counted as an opinion. Agnosticism is (remember this is my personal viewpoint!) a good point of view for something about which you have no opinion. I am agnostic as to the existence of life on a planet orbiting Beta Canis Major for example. I am not agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Leprechauns, Pixies, Elves, Orcs, Gobilins, Demons, pink Unicorns or all manner of imaginary nonsense. What on Earth gives a particular religion special privileges about it’s claims to the existence of one (or more) deities? I will return to this.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Popularity: 46% [?]

I was toying with the Blind Commenter as a title, but decided it would be too obvious . I have been reading some of the opinion blogs on the Times today, which is always enjoyable. The main three have been two by Ruth Gledhill (On Dawkins and on Scientology), and thanks to Nullifidian’s blog, I read one by William Rees-Mog, again on Dawkins. As is often the case the columns, being written by sensible journalists, are well presented (with the exception of Rees-Mog but he is different kettle of fish) and the arguments are structured.

Fortunately, for me, the same most certainly can not be said about the people who leave comments. Yes, some are sane and balanced, but others range from mildly confused to massively off the deep end. In this post, I will look at some of the more pertinent comments and explain why I think they are at least a little, ahem, confused.

Popularity: 47% [?]

Popularity: 47% [?]

Well, from the department of the ineducable idiocy, I have found a blog which I don’t for one second think is a legit creationist / theist blog. I refuse to accept that anyone can be as stupid as this person, yet still be able to breathe unaided. Seriously. Still, it has given me a chance to rant about a few topics which have been annoying me lately.

The blog in question is called “Atheist Stooges” and, from that name alone, you just know it is going to be full of juicy idiocy. In this instance, the idiocy is so bizare I can only assume (hope?) that this is a wind up. Can people honestly hold to ideas like this and still function in society?

The blog has an article called “Enter the excavation” which really does hit a new nadir of nonsense. The basic crux of what is a long, wordy and badly written, post is that because you can not pin down a point in time which some human invented Atheism it must be sent by demons. What wonderful logic. There are so many fallacies in the post it would take months to unravel them all. This tends to happen when you take a false premise and try to make conclusions based on it though.

The opening paragraph sets the tone:

Do you know that if you make an endeavor to find out when and by whom atheism was authored you will not be able to find such information from any source? Not even the most “educated” atheists - particularly those associated with the most elite universities throughout the world can truthfully inform you when and by whom atheism originated. They can enlighten you as to who were its main perpetuators in different cultures; but they cannot identify its founder and when it actually originated.

Popularity: 63% [?]

Popularity: 63% [?]

A quick comment for now. I have had the [mis]fortune to have spent a bit of time looking round some crackpot theist sites today and quite a few have had a cool little icon which shows the chance of the rapture taking place. There seem to be a few sources of these so all have different scores and methods of scoring.

One thing they seem to have in common, is the wording on the icons. It talks about the “Risk” of Rapture.

Now I may be being old fashioned, but doesn’t “Risk” seem to talk of a BADTHING happening? Shouldn’t these devout, church-going, anti-gay, anti-abortionist, anti-Rock and Roll theists be looking forward to the rapture?

Popularity: 40% [?]

Popularity: 40% [?]

During a few spare minutes I had today, the Great Toutatis guided me to technorati where I found a link to a blog called “Bible Study for Atheists.” This blog (from Vast Left) is pretty good reading. It is witty enough to entertain and certainly worth a visit. On reading it, I found the shards of a bit of a debate between Vast Left and a blogger called El Borak.

From what I read (and please correct me if I get this wrong), Vast Left made a post “poking fun” at Genesis and El Borak responded with:

Of course, it’s not even a study per se. Rather it’s simply a chance to poke fun and play number games. (read original)

I might be misreading the tone, but this strikes me there has been a sense of humour bypass here. Of course it isn’t a study per se — although I am not sure if El Borak means study in the “Bible Study” sense where a load of Christians sit round and re-affirm each others ideas, or a study in the scientific sense. (Hint: I am poking fun).

Now, broadly speaking, El Borak is actually fairly reasonable and presents his arguments well. I am not sure I want to get involved in the overall debate, so I will not pass comment on that “per se.” One sentence which did leap out at me, though, was: (emphasis mine)

I know I should not expect more from self-proclaimed Atheists, and that’s the problem. I truly don’t.

This is interesting. I am not interested in the attempt at a snide dig, to be honest I don’t expect anything else from any theists (self proclaimed or otherwise), they just don’t know any better. What did interest me was the use of the term “self proclaimed.” I am some what confused as to what it was meant to imply.

Normally, when you see the term “self proclaimed” it tends to imply the following word is a dubious boast. Is this meant to mean that El Borak doubts Vast Left is really an atheist until there is some corroborating evidence? From it’s use it could also be read to mean El Borak is amazed anyone could have the front to actually admit they are an an Atheist, or he could simply doubt anyone is really an Atheist.

I am confused. (extra entertainment can be found from the comments on El Borak’s page, Huckelberry is worth a chuckle)

Popularity: 23% [?]

Popularity: 23% [?]

Previously I made a post which examined the logic (or lack thereof) in a post made on parabiodox. Today I see there has been a follow up post that addresses some of the “issues” I made, so I think it is only fair that I (in turn) address some of the new comments.

First off, I have to say “thank you” to parabiodox for his reasonable, and generally kind comments. I am flattered. The blog post begins:

This is a very readable, calm and intelligent response to a rather bombastic blog entry from me.
Of course the only reason I wrote it was I was hoping that someone would come along and write the kind of response that Why Dont You Blog? has provided.
Myself I do indulge in a bit of calm and measured article writing once in a while, but what’s wrong with a bit of mud-slinging as well ? Variety is the spice of life I think.

I couldn’t agree with the sentiment here more. There is nothing wrong with a bit of mud-slinging and, to me, the reason people blog is to get issues of their chest. At least this way no one gets hurt (unless they are very thin skinned..). Blogs would be boring places indeed if people did not rant, rave and froth every now and then.

Talking of mud-slinging I did detect a bit of it in the article Theistic Logic, the implication being that this is the way all theists think, of course as I know only too well it definately isn’t.

This, I am not to sure about. Where ever possible I try to avoid stereotyping people into a particular school of thought, and I certainly pounce on it when people try to do it to me, so I hope this is an interpretation issue more than anything else. Looking back on the previous post, the closest example I can find is when I begin “Sadly this is an infuriating example of the theistic line of logic.”

Now, that was never intended to mean it was the way all “theists” think - but it is a common fallacy which is used in many, many, blog posts where theists refer to atheists. Parabiodox continues:

The blog entry was parabiodox thinking, and there’s only one member of that particular philosophy to date.

While that is reassuring, ( ) it is not completely accurate. IMHO most blog posts only speak for the line of thought adopted by the person who made the post, however this is a line of thought which is echoed across dozens of blogs (and is often found in the comments section on atheist blogs). While parabiodox does indeed seem to follow a unique philosophy, the fallacies in this particular post are reasonably common.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Popularity: 26% [?]

(or lack thereof). The joys of Technorati have brought me to a post on parabiodox today, titled “Moderate Christians, Fundamentalists and Atheists (where’s the connection?)”

Sadly this is an infuriating example of the theistic line of logic. Obviously when I say logic, I mean fallacies…

The post (in full) reads:

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Ignorant and Proud Labels: rants

“One does not have to be a fundamentalist to put a Jesus fish on one’s car. Some of those who do so are certainly fundamentalists, but many more would better be described as moderate Christians. And yet, they share at least something with the fundamentalists - some degree of pride in their faith (i.e., their belief of something without evidence).”

Also shared with the Atheist faith of course, if you accept the author’s premise.

But of course there’s a lot more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for the non-existence of God.

Now, for so little words there is so much “illogic.” Starting with the first sentence: There is no such thing as the “Atheist faith.” It is meaningless. Any argument surrounding such comments is crying out to be accused of woo.

The second sentence is interesting - mainly in the way it is constructed. I actually know people called Jesus so I agree there is a lot of evidence that Jesus exists. If we are talking about a Jewish carpenter, 2000 years ago then I am also happy to accept that Jesus existed. The important issue is: Was this Jesus the Son of God (while being God at the same time)?

Now here the evidence retreats to the land of woo. What “evidence” is there that this Jesus is the son of God?

In addition to this, the argument uses a fairly blatant form of fallacy (False Dilemma). It tries to present the existence of Jesus and the non-existence of God as the two opposing sides with the implication that proving the existence of Jesus falsifies claims of the non-existence of God. This is nonsense.

There is more evidence for the existence of Reindeer than for the non-existence of Santa, therefore there is a Santa Clause. Evidence for the non-existence of something which doesn’t exist is notoriously hard to come by (what evidence is there that the tooth fairy, unicorns, floating teapots etc dont exist?). In general terms, what is required is evidence that something exists. The more fantastic the claim, the stronger the supporting evidence has to be for it to be accepted. Unless of course you are a devout theist, when no evidence is required for belief…

Popularity: 24% [?]

Popularity: 24% [?]

Well, there seems to be a continuing trend for my blogs now, innocently I click on a Technorati tag search and see what happens. When the results surprise me, I end up blogging about them. I wonder when it will cease to surprise me.

Anyway, the most recent one is the Technorati Philosophy blogs. Now this is busy. When I looked at it just now there were over 370,000 blog posts with the tag and the last 30 days have added around 1500 a day.

Obviously this means a lot to someone…

Strangely, most of the ones Technorati took me to today were much more biased towards “religion” than philosophy per se, but I assume most people have the two concepts closely linked. (It is not a requirement though).

Also a massive proportion of the blog posts seem to be the musings of religious-”spiritual” people in their late teens. Again, this panders to a few stereotypes and is a shame, as Philosophy is really a legitimate, serious subject with ramifications across lots of subject areas. An example of the slightly off the rails religious approach and an example of the late teen approach (Ok, she is 20 but my point remains) are available! It is worth noting that both sites have “Religion and Philosophy” as a single category.

Throwing a contrast, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science presents a very different perspective and is well worth visiting for the free content if nothing else. It is not “easy reading” of the manner of the previous two, but if you are interested in science, it is certainly worth working through.

Now, after the “sane” examples we are left with the rest of the bunch. This is always an entertaining stage of blog surfing. The word Philosophy seems to drag them out of the woodwork - I may try “Religion” when I have more spare time….

This is a priceless one. In a post titled “Saddam Hussein & Feast of Sacrifice (Muslim Holiday)” (this alone should highlight the potential crank content) we get such gems as:

Dont be fooled by Western Propaganda and Middle Eastern “Statesmen” that kiss the United States Ass!! Saddam Hussein is Christ Manifest. In The Bible It Tells You That Christ Will Return As A King of Terror. The Reason Why I Say This Is Because I Am Saddam Hussein!! Saddam Hussein is Zeus!! Saddam Hussein is Me!!

Blimey. Is this meant to be satirical? After a bit more ranting and incoherent babble, the post finishes with this:

Shiites and Sunnis Dont Believe In Allah, Kurds Dont Believe In Allah; Dont Believe In God That Is Why They Got Their Asses Tortured By Saddam Hussein. Why Is It That The Devil Wants To Divide Heaven, Be A False Provider Of Freedom. Human Beings Dont Need A Petty Constitution To Tell Them That They Are Free…..That Is Why God Created The Sun.

Now, I suppose the randomness of this page served a purpose as it encouraged me to read through more of his site and look at the MySpace profile he has - mainly to see if he was actually insane. Sadly reading the profile has not convinced me this is a nut case, so I can only assume the page is there as a joke. The brunt of the profile seems like a normal person (although choice of books is: “Bible, Quran, Tao Te Ching, Confucious, Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, Immanuel Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, William Shakespear,Saving Socrates, Call of the Wild, Political Thrillers & Military Thrillers, Romantic Novels, Steven King, Michael Chrichton, Science Fictions, Biographies” which is certainly unusual for a 25 year old male). He also has a picture of GW Bush (Captioned “The Devil without Make Up) and the words “I WANT TO MAKE THE WORLD FALSELY BELIEVE THAT DEMOCRACY IS GREATER THAN GOD’S PROVIDENCE” attached (as if this is Bush’s motive). A similar picture of Adolph Hitler is labled “I WANT TO MAKE THE WORLD FALSELY BELIEVE THAT NAZISM IS GREATER THAN GOD’S PROVIDENCE” so you can only assume some link between Democracy and Nazism, which is certainly a different philosophical point of view…

Just goes to show, no matter how much Technorati annoys me and how bad its set up is and how much it polarises the blogosphere - there remains the facility for it to provide hours of meaningless, pointless but still interesting distraction.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Popularity: 19% [?]