The Hidden Atheist - Hiding in plain sight

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Trifecta

SAUCE: http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs48/i/2009/180/4/7/Trifecta_by_Shorthand_Hero.jpg

Trifecta
TLP
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:50:00 GMT

Friday, August 14, 2009

George Carlin: The Ten Commandments

"The Ten Commandments" - a funny bit about the ten commandments by the late George Carlin.
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George Carlin (1937-2008) was a champion of free speech. Some thought he was the greatest comedian that had ever lived.
Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith (which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown), Carlin often denounced the idea of God in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased.
Carlin also joked in his first book Brain Droppings that he worshiped the Sun, one reason being that he could actually see it. This was earlier mentioned in You Are All Diseased, along with the statement that he prayed to Joe Pesci (a good friend of his in real life) because "he's a good actor", and "looks like a guy who can get things done!"
In his HBO special Complaints and Grievances, Carlin introduced the "Two Commandments", a revised "pocket-sized" list of the Ten Commandments ending with the additional commandment of "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself."
(Source: Wikipedia)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

FOX News puts Egypt where Iraq should be on map.

And to think we actually wonder why FOX News viewers are misinformed idiots. It’s because FOX News is run by misinformed idiots:

see more Fail Blog

Yes, that’s a real image and not a Photoshop job. It’s apparently from late July. Now I’m not the greatest at geography myself, but if I were making maps for a major news channel I’d take the time to make sure they were accurate. What with Iraq being in the news for almost a decade now you’d think FOX News could at least get their maps correct. I wonder if this is the work of the same idiot who keeps labeling scandal plagued Republicans as being Democrats?

(Via Stupid Evil Bastard)

FOX News puts Egypt where Iraq should be on map.
Les
Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:46:55 GMT

Appraising An Apologist’s Apology

J.M. Njoroge, an associate apologist at RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, posted an article, entitled, The New Atheism and Morality, that I want to look at tonight.

The New Atheism and Morality

Though the chorus of voices decrying belief in God has been humming in the ideological background for centuries, it seems to have reached a crescendo with the emergence of a movement that has been dubbed the new atheism. The trademark of this new brand of atheism is its vitriolic attack on religion. To its advocates, religious beliefs are not only false; they are also dangerous and must be expunged from all corners of society. The pundits of the new atheism are not content to nail discussion theses on the door of religion; they are also busy delivering eviction notices to the allegedly atavistic elements of an otherwise seamlessly progressive atheistic evolution of Homo sapiens.

Let’s pause to think about what we just read. First, Njoroge sets up a straw man characterization of the so-called new atheists and loads it with emotional language: their vitriolic attack on religion includes delivering eviction notices (although I’m not precisely clear who Njoroge sees as the target of these notices – are atheists trying to evict believers, or just their beliefs? Perhaps I should count this as an ambiguous use of language). Second, he mischaracterizes either an atheistic view of evolution, or the gist of the theory itself (more ambiguity?) – evolutionary theory does not posit seamless progress, nor do atheists, on the whole, view human evolution as a continuing forward march of progress. Some atheists may view history that way, but it cannot be posited (legitimately) as a view that is entailed by either atheism or evolutionary theory. So, he got something wrong with that sentence; unfortunately, the author’s ambiguity makes it difficult to pin down precisely what error he made. Perhaps he made both errors, it’s hard to tell.

Given the rhetoric, one might be forgiven for thinking that some new discoveries have rendered belief in God untenable. Curiously, this drama is unfolding in the same era in which perhaps the world’s leading defender of atheism, Antony Flew, has declared that recent scientific discoveries point to the fact that this world cannot be understood apart from the work of God as its Creator. This is no small matter, for Flew has been preaching atheism for as long as Billy Graham has been preaching the Gospel. Unlike Flew and others, the new atheists seem to forget that the success of their mission hinges solely on the strength and veracity of the reasons they give for repudiating religion. Venom and ridicule may carry the day in an age of sensationalistic sound bites, but false beliefs will eventually bounce off the hard, cold, unyielding wall of reality.

It’s time to pause again. Njoroge takes a jab at science with his implication that scientific discoveries have not made belief in God untenable. My opinion – which is shared by many nonbelievers - is that, yes, scientific discoveries of the past several hundred years have, in fact, made belief in God untenable. Discoveries in at least a dozen sciences have caused religious believers to give ground on beliefs that, before the Scientific Revolution and Age of Enlightenment, were seemingly unassailable. Moreover, such discoveries are being made all the time. So, yes, new discoveries that undermine gods have been made and are being made as I write.

Njoroge then cites a former atheist who has become a favorite reference for evangelical Christians, Antony Flew. I want to point out two things here. First, I need to ask: when was Flew coronated as the world’s leading defender of atheism? He was a significant atheist critic, yes, but the world’s leader? Was that title bestowed on him by a jury of his peers because of the acuity of his arguments (which were and still are strong), or because of his fame? Or was it bestowed on him by evangelicals eager to misleadingly claim a feather in their caps? This brings me to the second problem with this claim. Flew professed belief in a deistic deity, not the God of the Bible, a distinction that Christians usually neglect to make. Njoroge follows suit here; capitalization of the term, God, is routinely understood by Christians as a reference to their specific deity. Thus, readers unfamiliar with Flew’s story will likely understand Njoroge’s reference as a reference to their God, not Flew’s. Njoroge then implies that atheistic arguments against deities are weak and unfounded, that they simply consist of venom and ridicule. This is a gross mischaracterization that, in my mind, comes close to being duplicitous. The fact is, the so-called new atheists are making strong arguments, backed by evidence, for their claims. Instead of dealing with any of their claims, Njoroge just slings mud at them.

A good example of a claim against religion that does not sit well with the facts of reality is issued in the form of a challenge to the believer to “name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.” (1) We are expected to agree that no such action or statement exists and then conclude that morality does not depend on God.

The problem is that the conclusion does not follow from the premise. The fact that a non-believer can utter moral statements and even act morally does not logically lead to the conclusion that morality does not depend on God, much less that God does not exist. This challenge misunderstands the believer’s position on the relationship between morality and God.

Ah, Njoroge pretends to dismantle Christopher Hitchens’ challenge. Look carefully at what he does. He knows that Hitchens’ argument is a modus tollens argument. I know he knows this because he explains precisely how the argument works. Put in syllogistic form, Hitchens’ argument is this:

Premise 1 – If God is necessary for human morality, then non-believers can’t be moral.

Premise 2 – Non-believers can be moral.

Conclusion – God is not necessary for human morality.

Since Njoroge can’t admit that this is a successful modus tollens argument, he describes the argument as a non sequitur. This is incorrect. The problem with Hitchens’ argument, from a Christian point of view, is not that the argument is invalid (it is a formally valid argument, and, if one accepts the premises, it is also a sound argument); the problem with the argument is that Christians simply don’t accept Hitchens’ premises. Njoroge skirts this issue by suggesting that Hitchens’ argument fails because Hitchens misunderstands what believers actually believe. Hitchens is a pretty smart guy, so I’m not going too far out on a limb here to suggest, with confidence, that Hitchens understands Christian beliefs very well indeed – probably better than many Christians do.

The believer’s claim is that the world owes its existence to a moral God. All human beings are moral agents created in God’s image and are expected to recognize right from wrong because they all reflect God’s moral character. The fact that human beings are the kinds of creatures that can recognize the moral imperatives that are part of the very fabric of the universe argues strongly against naturalism.

Unlike the laws of nature, which even inanimate objects obey, moral imperatives appeal to our will and invite us to make real decisions on real moral issues. The only other parallel experience we have of dos and don’ts comes from our minds. Thus when the atheist rejects God while insisting on the validity of morality, he is merely rejecting the cause while clinging to the effect.

Has Njoroge cited any evidence to support the believers’ claims he outlines? No. He simply lists his presuppositions. That’s not inherently bad; everybody argues from some basic presuppositions or maxims. This is inevtiable, as spelling out every presupposition for every argument would get tedious in a hurry. But, strong premises require support, something that Njoroge’s premises lack. The problem atheists have with Njoroge’s argument is not that we don’t understand it, it’s that we don’t accept his premises.

Without God, morality is reduced to whatever mode of behavior human beings happen to favor either because of their genetic makeup or conventional accords. There is no action that is objectively right or wrong. Rape, hate, murder and other such acts are only wrong because they have been deemed to be so in the course of human evolution.

Had human evolution taken a different course, these acts might well have been the valued elements of our moral code. Even Nazi morality would be right had the Nazis succeeded in their quest for world dominance. Unless the world contains behavioral guidelines that transcend human decisions and genetic determinism, there is no reason why anyone should object to such conclusions.

Njoroge’s argument here is basically that subjective morality is too uncertain, that the only secure basis for morality is something outside of humanknd. First of all, not all atheists hold that morality is subjective. Second, there is nothing wrong with subjective morality. Subjective morality is what enables humankind to continuously reconsider our values and recast them, if need be. Thus, over time we’ve determined that slavery is wrong, that subjugation of people from particular groups is wrong,and so on. Njoroge’s God certainly didn’t teach us those things. Yes, some Christians reached those conclusions and fought valiantly for those values, but they did so in spite of their doctrines, not because of them.

Njoroge then appeals to fear via Godwin’s Law. This is simply laughable. But, I’ll play along a bit. I’ll concede that, yes, if things hadn’t happened the way they did, then they would have happened differently and the current state of affairs would be something other than what they are. There’s nothing profound or startling about that idea. It certainly does not lead inexorably to Njoroge’s conclusion that humankind requires a transcendent source of morality. The fact is, we have evolved as we have, and we have reached the moral conclusions that we have. It could have been different, but it wasn’t. Arguing from a position of “what might have been” is silly.

Though some religious people do not live up to the moral principles they espouse, it is not true that genuine religious devotion makes no difference to one’s moral commitments. It is missionaries, and not atheists, who regularly give up their own comforts and accept unbelievable amounts of pain and suffering to better the lives of societal outcasts, not just through preaching but also through education, technology, and humanitarian relief. Our failure to live up to what we know to be right provides empirical evidence for the need for God’s intervention in our lives.

Ah, here we go – the evil atheist argument – only Christians are selfless; atheists are selfish. Only missionaries do good deeds and give of themselves to others, while atheists take, take, take. Njoroge doesn’t substantiate his claim. He may not be aware of the many secular charities that do good works – not because God commanded them to do them – but because even nonbelievers care about alleviating suffering, and want to do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. Many nonbelievers do rather well at serving their communities and the world at large without any intervention from God.

Those who insist that objective morality makes no difference to human autonomy still expect morality to guide the behavior of others. That our society is saturated with transcendent moral sentiments accounts for the popularity of some television programs that arrest our attention night after night. Perhaps ninety percent of the shows depend exclusively on our ability to apply objective moral standards to the actions of the characters. Should the Judeo-Christian moral bank close its doors to our cultural psyche, the bankruptcy of human-centered morality would eventually send our spiritual tentacles scouring for an alternative transcendent anchor.

More atheist selfishness – we expect others to be guided by morality (but want to exempt ourselves from such guidance?). Then, the fabrication of a false statistic is so pathetic that it’s actually funny: perhaps ninety percent…. Nothing like pulling a nice, round number out of one’s ass in an attempt to mask the fact that one’s argument is bogus. Of course, Njoroge can’t close without making an appeal to Judeo-Christian morality – after all, that is the only one that’s right, isn’t it? Moreover, if that moral foundation is lost, humanity will certainly seek to replace it with another transcendent anchor (read: God/religion). This appeal is important because:

Thus were the new atheists to succeed in their quest, the result would not be the elimination of religion but the entrenchment of a different religion. As Ravi Zacharias has warned in his new book The End of Reason, eventually, the real choice for the West will not be between Christianity and atheism but between Christianity and another religion.

This paragraph initially struck me as ambiguous. At first glance, it appeared to me that Njoroge was implying that atheism is a religion. But, I think he’s actually doing something more subtle than that. He claims that, if Christianity loses its supremacy in the West, it will be replaced by, not atheism, but a rival religion. The implication seems to be that the sole target of atheism is Christianity and the Christian god. Therefore, if atheists succeed in undermining Christianity, then another religion will step in to fill the void. It may be the case that Njoroge doesn’t realize that atheism is a stance against all gods, not just his. Or, if he does realize this, then his aim may be to feed the Christian persecution complex and reinforce their tendency to believe that they, alone, are the beleaguered ones. I’m inclined to think that this possibility is the more likely one.

Beware of ethical naturalists bearing moral gifts.

Cute. Meaningless, but cute.

1) Christopher Hitchens, “An Atheist Responds,” The Washington Times (Saturday, July 14, 2007).

Njoroge’s argument fails as an attempt to persuade non-Christians that they should convert to Christianity. Since non-Christians are not likely to accept any of Njoroge’s premises, such an attempt wouldn’t get very far. To be fair, that wasn’t Njoroge’s intention anyway; his target audience is Christians. His piece is well-suited for the purposes of

a) fear-mongering among the Christian faithful (if those godless atheists have their way, your churches will be transformed to – mosques, temples, synagogues?), and

b) keeping the faithful tethered firmly to their churches by presenting the illusion of reasoned argument.

When Christians start doubting their faith, the apologist’s role is to reassure them that their faith is neither groundless nor blind. That’s really all that apologists are good for, really, as long as the audience doesn’t look too closely at what the authors are actually saying and how they’re saying it.

– the chaplain

(Via An Apostate's Chapel)

Appraising An Apologist’s Apology
the chaplain
Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:54:53 GMT

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Richard Dawkins interviews creationist John Mackay

(via TheCounterweight1)

From The Genius of Charles Darwin Uncut Interviews
http://richarddawkins.net/store
http://atheistplanet.blogspot.com/

Can You See The "God Spot" In This Brain Scan? Neither Can We [Mad Neuroscience]

Don't be fooled by headlines suggesting neuroscience researchers have found the "God spot" in the brain that triggers religious devotion, say experts. Yes, it's back to the drawing board with our "worship me now, fools" raygun.

Reuters' FaithWorld blog has been covering the University of Pennsylvania's Neuroscience Boot Camp, going on now, and one message has become clear:

You can forget about the "God spot" that headline writers love to highlight (as in "‘God spot' is found in Brain" or "Scientists Locate ‘God Spot' in Human Brain"). There is no one place in the brain responsible for religion, just as there is no single location in the brain for love or language or identity. Most popular articles these days actually say that, but the headline writers continue to speak of a single spot.

"There isn't a separate religious area of the brain, from what we can tell from the data," said Dr. Andrew Newberg, an associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the Penn university hospital and author of several books on neuroscience and religion. "It's not like there's a little spiritual spot that lights up every time somebody thinks of God. When you look at religious and spiritual experiences, they are incredibly rich and diverse. Sometimes people find them on the emotional level, sometimes on an ideological level, sometimes they perceive a oneness, sometimes they perceive a person. It depends a lot on what the actual experience is."

The image above shows two different brain scans, one from someone who is singing, and the other one from someone who is speaking in tongues. They look almost entirely identical, but you can just about glimpse a slight difference in blood flow to the frontal lobe, and specifically to the left caudate, among the "speaking in tongues" brains. (Thanks to The NeuroCritic for the image, and for pointing out that the study's authors admit their "results were hypothesis driven.")

The FaithBlog quotes neurological researcher Geoff Aguirre as pouring cold water on the idea that an fMRI scanner is like a mind reader, and calls the idea that you could use an fMRI to catch terrorists "science fiction, science fantasy." Adds Aguirre:

There's definitely an esthetic in the presentation of this data. People see this as a natural aspect of the brain, not the result of tests. Some groups made a very wise investment in the display technology for how neuroimaging results were reported. Those were the images that got displayed on the covers of the top scientific journals and made a splash.

I also love his comments about "Cartesian dualism," in which people try to claim that someone's actions weren't his fault because "his brain did that." (As if he and his brain are two separate beings.)

[Reuters and The NeuroCritic]

(via io9 - Can You See The "God Spot" In This Brain Scan? Neither Can We [Mad Neuroscience])

Charlie Jane Anders
Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:30:00 GMT

Teachers Can’t Criticize Creationism?

I remember studying ancient Greek and Roman gods in high school. Everybody knew it was complete nonsense — those gods didn’t really exist — but it was interesting (or so we were told) because so much ancient literature revolved around those characters.

So if the teacher had made the comment that Greek mythical characters were “religious, superstitious nonsense” and had no basis in reality there would have been no problem.

But James Corbett said it about creationism in the classroom, and in March, he lost a 16-month legal battle, with the court concluding he violated the first amendment:

“Corbett states an unequivocal belief that Creationism is ’superstitious nonsense,’” U.S. District Court Judge James Selna said in a 37-page ruling released from his Santa Ana courtroom. “The court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context.”

The establishment clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion” and has been interpreted by U.S. courts to also prohibit government employees from displaying religious hostility.

Creationism is religious, superstitious nonsense. It is not based on history or science, but on an ancient book. If children want to believe that, they can — but I think it’s a teacher’s role to show them that those beliefs do not have a basis in reality.

But was Mr. Corbett going over the line when he called it “religious, superstitious nonsense” — or was he simply stating a fact that should be protected under his 1st Amendment rights?

Teachers Can’t Criticize Creationism?
Daniel Florien
Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:00:05 GMT

God Has A Plan

FFreeThinker
August 08, 2009

"I'll Believe in God When This Happens" by
• http://www.youtube.com/DarkMatter2525

"If I were God, you wouldn't need to ask me (pray) to heal your child's cancer. I'd just fucking do it. If you believe that God "intervenes", that He performs miracles, or that He has a grand plan, then you are utterly thoughtless. Look around you. The complete randomness of the world suggests that there is absolutely no scheme going on behind the scenes. If there is, however, then God is one scary motherfucker, deserving only fear - not praise". (DarkMatter2525)

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Brief Bible Blunders -- Episode #4

The fourth in a series of quick looks at biblical oddities.

For my believing friends, please keep in mind that the Hebrew word 'shamayim' is used to describe both the place where Elijah was taken up AND the place where Yahweh lives (see, e.g., Psalm 2:4, Psalm 11:4, Psalm 14:2). In Exodus 24:10 when Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel "saw the God of Israel," they saw him walking in "the sky" (Hebrew = shamayim).

Link to the playlist for the series:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6F8036F680C1DBEB

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Virgin Mary Makes an Ironic Appearance

Well, this should pose a problem for devout Catholics everywhere…

The Virgin Mary has been found in a–well, see for yourself:

Of all the places for a virgin to appear…

I would love to know if someone noticed that post-coitum or if they just shaped it that way. Either way, I’m disturbed.

(I don’t know where that image comes from, and I can’t find it elsewhere, but I’d like to give due credit… if you have any idea, please let me know.)

(Thanks to Doug for sending the pic!)

Virgin Mary Makes an Ironic Appearance
Hemant Mehta
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:46 GMT

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Friday, August 14, 2009

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

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Sunday, August 9, 2009