Definition Of

This post was prompted by the entry That Old Chestnut over at the SGU blog. I started typing a comment for the blog post, but it quickly expanded beyond the scope of just a comment.

I've given the atheism versus agnosticism issue a great deal of thought recently. I think I've hit upon several different problems that I believe cause this confusion: different definitions, different questions, real world applicability, social pressure and pronunciation (didn't expect that one, did you?).

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, writing a "Gospel Commentary for Palm Sunday" in Zenit, the Catholic news service from Rome, Italy, has redefined atheism so that it means, well, theism.

How incredibly convenient!

[link] Jesus on the cross has become an atheist, one without God. There are two forms of atheism: the active or voluntary atheism of those who reject God, and the passive or suffered atheism of those who are rejected (or feel rejected) by God. In both forms there are those who are "without God." The former is an atheism of fault, and the latter is an atheism of suffering and expiation. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, about whom there was much discussion when her personal writings were published, belongs to this latter category.

On the cross Jesus expiated in anticipation all the atheism that exists in the world, not only that of declared atheists, but also that of practical atheists, the atheism of those who live "as if God did not exist," relegating him to the last place in their life. It is "our" atheism, because, in this sense, we are all atheists -- some more, some less -- those who do not care about God. God too is one of the "marginalized" today; he has been pushed to the margins of the lives of the majority of men.

So, as you can see, all atheists really do know that God exists, but they either choose to "reject" Him, or they are going through so much suffering that they lose sight of Him. Mother Theresa's atheism is a good thing, you see? It means that God was heaping on extra punishments and torment for no reason - because she was so saintly and good. Obviously she needed to be tortured her entire life. And this is proof that He exists! Hallelujah!

And God Himself is "marginalized"! The horror! The poor, put-upon, all-powerful Universal Creator of everything is sad because every time He punishes one of his most faithful creatures over the course of years, then refuses to provide any evidence that He actually exists in any real sense, they stop believing in Him. It makes me weep, really.

That means that all of us atheists who make the simple claim that god-belief of any kind is absent within us are delusional liars.

I see.

Thank you Father, for your enlightened Palm Sunday commentary in which you attempt to marginalize and demonize 12 to 15% of the world's population. But that seems to be one of the things the Catholic church does best. Create the illusion that a group of fellow human beings are somehow sub-human, then use that perception to get the upper hand politically

Great job! Mission accomplished! I am SO looking forward to your God making me suffer. Maybe I can be as big an atheist/theist as Mother Theresa if He keeps me alive long enough, and I get painfully tortured enough!

Yes! Religion is so great! And Catholicism is the best religion ever!

Hello All,

This is my review of Vox Day's new book called "The Irrational Atheist". I'd like to make some things perfectly clear before I proceed with this review. I am still, and barring some pretty convincing evidence that I find personally credible, will most likely always be an atheist. What I mean by "atheist", as I have written volumes about in the past, is someone in whom god-belief of any kind is absent.

I have lately (within the last few years) come to the conclusion that the entire social and political "atheist movement" is a big, fat exercise in futility. Atheists are not, in any way, shape, or form, a "group" in the same sense that Methodists, Shriners, or Republicans are a group. The atheists who blog and organize activist marches and identify themselves as part of this "atheist movement" group are lying to themselves. There is no "atheist group". Rather, a movement has emerged and become politically active lately that has co-opted the perfectly reasonable descriptive word "atheist" and has twisted its meaning into something that I do not agree with, endorse, or really even recognize any longer. Ellen Johnson telling all of us atheists to "Vote your atheism first..." was the last straw for me. I mean, what in the heck does that even mean? I am not a member of your little club, Ellen.

I have my own opinions, political views, and values. I have my own, personal rationale for being a person in whom god-belief is absent (an atheist). I recognize no "atheist leaders" or spokesmen, and I endorse no one who claims to speak for me, or insinuates that they speak for me in any way.

I speak for myself, and myself alone.

I find it troubling that one of the recent trends in the "atheist blogger" community is to label someone who does not seem to toe the party line as an "appeaser" or as a "concern troll". It's complete crap. I didn't sign a fucking "atheist loyalty oath", and my lack of belief in a god isn't dependent on kowtowing to the self-anointed leaders of this misguided abortion of a political movement, whether or not they exist. If after this review someone uses the "no true Scotsman" fallacy on me in this fashion, they can go fuck themselves. With a jagged stick. Sideways. The political and social issues that concern me - personal liberty, civil liberties, honesty, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, freedom, justice, the American Way, all of that, don't require my allegiance to some new political movement. I was concerned with those things before I started calling myself an atheist, and I still am today. Atheism has nothing at all to do with any of that stuff. (See my first paragraph above.) Nether does "theism" for that matter.

I evaluate the books I read, the beliefs I come across, and the philosophies I examine fully, and with an eye towards the facts. I have a highly-sensitive bullshit meter, honed through 20-plus years of discussion, research, study, debate, and arguments with theists (that is, folks in which god-belief of any kind is present.) So, when you read the review below, keep in mind that I was really, really trying hard to find something that I could latch onto and argue intelligently and forcefully against. I was positive that it had to be there. I had my BS meter cranked up to 11 as I read through the book twice in an attempt to sniff out something that I could use - and the damned thing only went off a couple of times, and only when Day was explicitly talking about God and/or Jesus and his personal belief in the Christian mythology.

Shit. Double shit.

Ah, well. I am ethically and morally bound to review TIA honestly, and that is what I will do - regardless of how much it hurts me to do so. Heh. ;)

So, hang on to your hats and join me below the fold.

Mitt Romney appeared on Meet The Press with Tim Russert, and immediately Russert hammered him with the atheist/atheism question. Romney stumbled a bit, but managed not to wedge his foot too firmly in his mouth, I thought.

But what in the heck is this "common bond of humanity" he says that he shares with atheists? Is the Mittster a Humanist now? He's trying too hard. He seems to be trying to be all things to all people, and that's just a recipe for disaster.

Transcript below the fold...

OK, there's a pretty fine post over at Greta Cristina's blog titled "Atheists and Anger" that you might enjoy. Undoubtedly, you'll recognize some of the territory we regularly cover here, as well as some of the common arguments we hear from the religious.

But that's only part of the fun. The post at MeFi that turned me onto it has over 365 comments, which is pretty much a master-class in religious apologetics and hatin' on atheists. There are some of the atheist regulars there, puttin' up a good fight...yet the believers outnumber them, reflecting the overall distribution of faith in our society.

Oh, and the title of this post? Taken from one of the comments in that MeFi thread. Here's the full bit:

How can you tell Atheism isn't a religion?

When an Atheist rapes a child, they go to prison.

posted by Mr_Zero at 10:33 AM on October 30 [15 favorites]

Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

A few days ago, in another post, Jim mentioned that he misses the Colonel. I don't think he meant that literally, instead I think he meant he misses the argument provoking fantastic claims the Colonel would make. In a sense, I agree. It's fun to have someone around who challenges logic and reason. I think we all enjoy a good challenge.

Good news! The Colonel has been immortalized. No, he didn't die and go to heaven. What I mean is that you can listen to the Colonel on YouTube. Well it's not actually the Colonel but if you listen you will understand what I mean. This is a 1 hour debate between a Christian apologist/philosopher named Greg Bahnsen and relatively obscure atheist writer named George Smith.

Bahnsen eerily makes many of the same absurd arguments that the Colonel did right here on UTI going back a few months. He has trouble with the definition of atheism and constantly refers to the atheist's "worldview." He has trouble believing in morality without god. He twists logic so badly it comes out looking like a pretzel. Now do you remember our friend the Colonel?

That line is from this post in a discussion over at BoingBoing about a new book by the Vatican Astronomer, Brother Guy Consolmagno. Full context: the author previously described himself as an "agnostic", and in defense of that position says this:

I would turn that question around and ask if an atheist is sure that there is no 3rd planet orbiting around the star in Orion's left shoulder. We can't see it or demonstrate in any way that it exists, therefore by atheist standards, it must not exist?

Or perhaps we can use atheistic reasoning to suggest that Star Trek Warp Drives, teleporters, holodecks and other "Treknology" are all completely impossible, because physics can't currently produce those effects and therefore, they do not exist.

Atheists seem to suffer from a lack of imagination.

Us poor, poor atheists. So lost, with no redeeming social value. Enemies to all that is good and true and right.

At least, that's what Dr. Roger Olson, a professor of theology in George W. Truett Theological Seminary at baylor University would like you to think.

Oh, he loves us individual, lost little atheists, but considers atheism to be "the enemy"

Well, golly, gee-whiz, Perfesser. You've got that whole "hate the sin, love the sinner" thing going on, don't you? That maker you feel all special and superior to us poor little atheists?

[Dr. Roger Olson] I feel sorry for atheists. They are so much in the minority in American society and they are bound to feel some marginalization if not persecution.

Christians should be the last people to persecute anyone -- including atheists. But that doesn't mean Christians have to accommodate atheism as they tolerate and love atheists.

We have to recognize atheists' full freedom to believe God does not exist, but we don't have to embrace atheism as a social good. In fact, I would argue that atheism has no redeeming social value.

Ah, the bigotry disguised as compassionate tough love. He's got that down to an art form. He's going to love us all into becoming good little Christian robots - whether we like it or not. Because he knows what's best for us, apparently, and we're just all deluded by Satan. You see, atheists don't really exist, according to Doc Olson.

[Dr. Roger Olson] But most atheists demonstrate their basic trust in the meaningfulness of reality by being outraged at evil and injustice, thereby demonstrating that atheism cannot be lived out consistently.

What makes something evil or unjust if nothing like God exists -- if nature is all there is? Only subjective choice either by an individual or a society. But that can change and it often does. Without God, the social prophet has no way out of relativism.

Baylor and universities like it exist to promote objective values and meaningful existence.

For them atheism is not benign, but the enemy -- even if atheists themselves are not.

Finally, let me repeat that I have nothing against atheists as persons and neither does Baylor University.

But in my opinion, they are people of character and virtue in spite of their philosophy of life -- not because of it.

People like this make me nervous. They posses an absolute fanatical certainty in this un-evidenced magical man in the sky, then they combine it with the pursuit of a selfish bit of societal acclaim for their faux-altruistic compassion towards the nasty, mislead atheists. This could lead eventually to rounding us up and herding us all into compassionate, loving "re-education centers" - for our own good, of course. Because we obviously can't be trusted to think for ourselves, according to people like Dr. Olson.

Semantic games aside, Dr. Olson, atheists and atheism aren't the enemy. Asserting that they are is adding to the problem, not helping it.

We don't want your pity, we don't want your twisted brand of selfish compassion, and we don't want your "some of my best friends are atheists" bullshit.

Tell you what - you start treating me like a fellow human, and I'll do the same. Sound fair to you?

A few days ago Jim wrote about Spec. Jeremy Hall, a soldier assigned to Fort Riley's 97th Military Police Battalion, who filed suit against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a "Maj. Paul Welborne". Jeremy's suit claims that after he was given permission to hold a meeting of atheists, he was harassed by a Major, and by his fellow soldiers for being an atheist. The suit also claims that the Major threatened to block his re-enlistment for being an atheist. Lately Spec. Hall has been threatened in emails and blog posts from his fellow soldiers.

The Army replied that they could not locate anyone named "Major Paul Welborne".

Well, today the suit was amended to correct the spelling of the Major's name. It is "Major Freddy Welborn", and lawdy, lawdy, he's got a MySpace page. His "Interests" are:

The study of God's Word, Evangelism, Grandchildren and Family, and those Men called by God to Preach the Gospel.

Major Freddy describes himself like so:

MAJ Freddy & HIS Girl's Blurbs
About me:
Warrior for the Lord Jesus Christ. Currently serving w/3rd Inf Div Civil Military Operations (Governance) in Baghdad Iraq. Carla & I place all our Faith & Trust in our Savior the Lord Jesus - who provides eternal life to anyone that believes that he is the Son of God, that he was born of a virgin, lived as God in the flesh (as man) was crucified, died, and was buried then rose from the grave the third day, then acended to the right hand of the Father - True repentance (turning away from Sin to God) Being born again, Forgivness & Justification occure to the True Believer in Christ when Baptized w/God's Holy Spirit. He who has the Son has life, he who has not the Son of God has not life. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It is by GRACE that we are saved thru Faith - It's a free gift and can't be earned. I love the Lord Jesus more than words can express, and seeking to gain a stronger relationship w/Him. I'll finish Bible College upon returning from Opns Iraqi Freedom.

Farther down, we see this little gem of an image.

I think he's a little, um, confused about the whole "1st Amendment" thing.

Hang in there Specialist Jeremy Hall. Don't let the godbots get you down. Stay safe.

Ron Paul is an interesting candidate on the surface. A Republican, he voted against the Iraq war, and against the Patriot Act. Democrats are starting to support him. Michael, a left-leaning blogger who writes the "Blog For Arizona" blog from my own state, talks about why Democrats should support Paul:

[link] I don't want to see another Republican President any more than the next Democrat. But I do want to see a Republican nominee who stands up for civil rights, who speaks sensibly about America's place in the world, who insists on the rule of law and rejects the exceptionalism and emergency powers advocated by every other GOP candidate. I want to see the Republican part rally around a voice that is not encouraging them to tear apart the Constitution in fear of terrorism. I want to see a Republican nominee who will enable the American people to experience a campaign of hope and ideas, not of fear and McCarthyism.

But does St. Paul really stand up for our civil rights? What about the first one? What exactly is his position on the First Amendment, for example? Separation of church and state and all that stuff?

[Ron Paul] The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers.

Well. Isn't that special? Apparently he thinks it's a dandy idea to have government-sponsored prayer in schools - as long as it's the state's decision, not the Federal government's decision. You know, because when the state forces you to pray to a magical man in the sky that's A-OK.

Not to mention that his supporters come across as - how should I put this delicately - fucking nutballs when they are defending his honor against the heathens who dare to be critical of St. Paul.

"Godless" from the No God Zone, has an excellent analysis of Ron Paul's position on the First Amendment. And Paul's position does not fill me with confidence, to say the least.

[link] But how well does he know the Constitution? He wrote:

[Ron Paul] The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion.

Let us put aside for a second his opposition to "rigid separation between church and state" and concentrate, not on Constitutional theory, but on Constitutional facts. Mr. Paul claims that the Constitution is "replete with references to God". Now replete means abundantly supplied or filled. So if the Constitution is abundantly filled with references to God how many are there? Let's get precise. How many times is God mentioned in the Constitution?

Zero! And if you don't believe me you can go check Ron Paul's own congressional website where he has a copy of the text. Go to the page and read it yourself. It is worth reading now and then. But if you don't have time do a page search for "God" and see all the abundant references on your own. All zero of them.

(Tip of the ballcap to UTI commenter McMillan.)

I read this all over the place, and hear it from my friends and my family almost every day. It is usually something along the lines of "those new atheists are just as evangelical as Jerry Falwell ever was," or, "the new atheist books on the bestseller list are the atheist's scriptures. They just want to convert the religious to atheism."

Zia Haider Rahman, commenting in the Guardian Unlimited, says it like this, referring to atheist authors Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens:

[link] The godless brethren presumably have aspirations to convert the religious and not just preach to fellow atheists.

So, I asked myself - do I indeed want to "convert the religious" to atheism? It is obviously a ridiculous notion that atheism is just another religion that someone may "convert" to. So, putting that aside and instead taking the question as it was intended, which should read like this without the idiotic religious connotations; "Is it your intention with your writing to convince god-believers that god-belief is irrational and silly?"

Well, yeah.

God-belief is irrational and silly. It is also dangerous when it is used as a basis for real-world decision making. I think it is important to speak up about this sort of thing because I am a humanist and I want my species to survive and to thrive. God-belief holds us back. We need to grow up as a species and put away our childhood fears and delusions. So, I suppose in a certain sense I am an evangelistic atheist.

What makes someone an evangelistic atheist? Are you an evangelistic atheist?

I have always been uncomfortable with using religious language to describe secular philosophies or atheism. But maybe it is time to embrace the label and run with it. What do you think?

The Pastor's Husband and I are having an interesting conversation over at his blog. It is ranging from the definition of atheism and theism, to awareness of the numinous and speculation into the evolutionary basis and survival strategy that underlies our species' many thousands of years of god-belief. Check it out if you get a chance.

Alternate Post Title: Who The Heck Is Michael Onfray And Why Is He Being Painted As The Pope Of The Atheists?

Colbert on Onfray:

Best comment from The Last Minority blog:

[link] Being tolerant of religion is like being tolerant of Harvey the giant rabbit.

Indeed it is. Except when the only guy who can see old Harvey starts passing laws friendly to imaginary invisible giant lagomorphs and makes all of us pay for it.

Roy Abraham Varghese, theistic apologist and god-bothering author from the "Institute of Metascientific Research", was recently interviewed by the Dallas Observer. Varghese is widely credited as "the man who won over Anthony Flew", and is now currently working on a book called "There Is A God" with Flew.

Varghese is an interesting character because his contention is that without a meta-intelligence, all science devolves into incoherence if you drill-down deep enough, or pull back far enough.

It's a lot of pseudo-scientific nonsense of course, a philosophically slick update to the theistic evolutionist's mantra.

More below the fold...

This began as a reply to Rick's post below about "Freedom From Religion". Please see his post for context.

[RickU] I think that the theists have a serious misconception which drives them to make the errant statement. The misconception is that we want to push our godlessness onto them and remove god from everything.

This goes hand in hand with the other serious misconception religious folks have about atheism; that it is a religion.

The two are very simple to understand.

More below the fold...

I was all set to respond to Dinesh D'Souza latest wingnuttery - in increasingly harsh tones!

But that would have been a mistake. The reason why is twofold. Number one, D'Souza doesn't give a crap about atheist's responses - he's simply attempting to enhance his "Conservative Pundit" cred by piling-on to the only group of people left in the world that it's A-OK to be a bigot towards.

Atheists.

It makes a twisted kind of sense, when you think about it. He can't be an irrational bigot towards "foreigners", obviously. And being a racist, while a great way to gain cred in the Conservative Pundit universe, is also just a great way to get yourself fired, as Imus found out. So, atheists it is. They're intelligent, and get quite riled up when you stay stupid, untrue things about them, but there not very many of them, so they are safe to mis-characterize, ignore, discriminate against, and blame things on. Publish stupid, simple-minded, untrue op-ed pieces about vile, evil atheist strawmen. Couch it in the most inflammatory language you can, then give each one a headline designed to stir up people's emotions.

That's Conservative Pundit gold right there!

Reason Number Two is a a commenter on D'Souza's second "atheists are stinky" op-ed piece. His name is Sean Goff - and he wrote the response that I wish I would have. He has crafted the most reasoned, persuasive atheist response to D'Souza's tasteless, bigoted inanity out of the hundreds of comments and responses left in the last two days. Seriously. It's brilliant.

More below the fold...

Usually-progressive Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. has written an opinion piece today called "Answers To The Atheists" in which he commits the tired old tu quoque ("you too!") fallacy by insisting that atheists are "fundamentalists" if they point out that the Emperor has no clothes on.

Also, Dionne apparently didn't think that atheists were marginalized and demonized in our society enough. So he has decided to start referring to those of us who won't sit down and shut up, you know, us "uppity atheists" (like Harris, Myers, Bice, Dawkins, all atheist bloggers, commenters, etc.) as "neo-atheists".

It's clearly pejorative, and clearly horseshit. Designed to marginalize even further the most maligned, distrusted, and hated group of people on the face of the planet.

[E. J. Dionne] The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn.

Dogma - the authoritative insistence that your unfounded belief is true and infallible, without any actual evidence that supports the assertion, cannot be present when there is no belief.

How hard is that to understand?

It floors me that ostensibly intelligent folks like Dionne still can't wrap their heads around this one. They still insist and assume that the only way to be a "true atheist" is to make a positive statement that their (demi)(G)(g)od(s)(ess)(esses)(lings)(lets) - whatever - don't exist. something along the lines of "I believe that your God does not exist."

The problem is that most of us don't do that. What we do is a simple statement of unbelief. "I do not believe that god exists." Belief is not present. It is absent. No belief, no dogma, and no way to be "fundamentalist".

Damned uppity atheists.

In closing I would like to point out to Mr. Dionne that he didn't really provide any answers at all in his "Answers To The Atheists" column today. At best he provided an overview of two different books, and presented a small sample of each author's points as interpreted by him.

At worst, he provided the general religious population with yet another way to look down and condemn the uppity atheists - those brash non-believers who have the audacity and sheer, unmitigated gall to ask for evidence when someone makes a fantastic, unbelievable claim.

You know, like the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jeff Hebert of Nerd Country Journal, inspired by Ed Brayton, just issued a "Why I Don't Believe What I Used To Believe Challenge" on his blog to have something more thought provoking and useful than "The Blasphemy Challenge".

Take the challenge here!