The Matt Dillahunty fiasco: Noelplum99 breaks it down

Noelplum99 is about as lucid a commentator on YouTube are you’re going to find.

Here, he summarizes the Matt Dillahunty-Atheism Plus situation and gives some projections on where Atheism Plus is headed in the future. He says he thinks Atheism Plus, as a “movement,” is essentially six feet under. I can’t say that I disagree.

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Georgia lawmaker living in Dark Ages

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun spoke recently Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell and had these enlightening words for the flock:

God‘s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.

I would understand if Broun might claim that evolution and the Big Bang were from the “pit of hell” given his particularly nutty brand of rightwing skulduggery, but as a medical doctor, he would say that embryology, “the science dealing with the formation, development,structure, and functional activities of embryos”  is of the devil? Just bizarre. Even more peculiar, this supposed anti-scientific lawmaker sits on the state’s House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Oh, the irony.

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Response to ‘Atheism’s growing pains’

As a number of folks on Tweeter had posted a link to the Salon.com article, “Atheism’s growing pains,” particularly because it referenced Atheism+, I thought I would have a look. I skimmed half of it because it just summarized the rise of atheism (I won’t call it a “movement”) and later, the prominence (or notoriousness) of Jen McCreight and her ill-named “Boobquake.” I wrote about Boobquake briefly here, but Adam Lee’s statement here is too good to bypass:

At first it seemed like lighthearted fun in support of a good point, but she (McCreight) wrote that it had encouraged some men in the atheist community to view her as a sex object, rather than a person with ideas worth taking seriously …

Again, I ask: ya think? Here is a confirmed neofeminist who is supposedly vehemently against the objectification of women who came up with a title for an event that, itself, objectifies women. I know I’m repeating myself, but this is stunning. But I could get bogged down in this silliness all night. Let’s press on.

Lee then proceeds to Atheism+ and begins to show his hand when he leaves the third person point of view and slips into the second person language of “we:”

The animating idea behind Atheism+ is that atheism isn’t a stopping point, but a beginning. We’re atheists not because we want to gather and engage in collective back-slapping, not because we want to chortle at the foolishness of benighted believers, but because we care about creating a world that’s more just, more peaceful, more enlightened, and we see organized religion as standing in the way of this goal. We consider politically engaged atheism an effective way to demolish this obstacle, to refute the beliefs that have so often throughout human history been used to excuse cruelty, inequality, ignorance, oppression and violence. (Full disclaimer: I identify as a member of A+ and as a proponent of social justice.)

While the “full disclaimer” is appreciated,  I’m afraid, disclaimer or not, it doesn’t do much for his argument. Let me rephrase some of his points here. We’re atheists because we don’t believe in any god or gods. OK, there. That’s all I need. Atheism does not say anything whatsoever, nor should it, about morals, political positions, gender rights, racism or anything else. “Politically engaged atheism” runs the same danger as politically engaged Christianity. Some Christians are as tuned into issues of social justice as nonbelievers. To suggest that nonbelievers do or should have a monopoly on social justice is a hideous and arrogant notion. Some atheists are contemptible human beings; others give abundantly to making the world a better place. To marry atheism with a laundry list of social justice issues not only sullies atheism but commits millions of nonbelievers to political ideas with which they may or may not agree. And it is perfectly OK whichever position they take. It’s their choice.

Lee continues:

Thus, the goals of Atheism Plus: We are atheists and skeptics, plus we defend women’s rights and reproductive choice, plus we fight against sexism and racism, plus we oppose homophobia and transphobia, plus we call for equality of opportunity and economic fairness, and so on.

Lee better be careful here laying out all the precepts of Atheism+ without running it by McCreight, Rebecca Watson or A+ overlords at FTB or the “safe place” forums. Remember the dim view that McCreight took of Richard Carrier’s analysis of A+.

In any case, so, what would the Atheism Plus folks say to a Christian or a Jew with the exact same goals? Would they be dubbed Christians Plus or Jews Plus? The Jains pretty well got it right, and they didn’t need to reinvent themselves time and again.

Back to Lee:

Many of the people who stepped forward to count themselves among its ranks declared that it was exactly what they had been waiting for.

Yes, I bet you could find a bunch of uppity, hyper-sensitive and reactionary folks eager to throw down the “troll” card anytime someone so much as whispered a voice of dissent or walked the tightrope of insubordination.

Lee again:

While Atheism+ has already seen allies flock to its banner, it has its detractors as well. The most common complaint heard from some quarters is that A+ is “divisive,” that it causes us to waste valuable time and energy on infighting rather than accomplishing the goals we all have in common. However, this is a classic example of how privilege makes it easy for people to overlook barriers that don’t personally affect them. The truth is that the atheist movement is already divided, and has been for a while: Surveys show that there’s a significant imbalance of men over women. Some of this may be due to outside cultural factors, but some of it is surely owing to the experiences that many women have spoken out about: belittling language and condescension, unwanted sexual advances, outright harassment, and sometimes violent abuse and threats when they speak up about the other things that make them feel unwelcome.

When this kind of behavior goes unchecked, it’s no surprise that many women will choose not to participate in the atheist movement. (In fact, shortly after the post that gave birth to A+, Jen McCreight announced that she was taking a hiatus from blogging due to the volume of vicious insults and threats she almost immediately received.)

This is stunning. Lee makes it seem that McCreight chose not to be part of the Atheism+ movement because of the responses she had received. Hogwash, since she darn well founded it. The women that I know who are outspoken against Atheism+ do not, in my view, take kindly to the weak and frail image of women that the likes of McCreight and Atheism+ supporters put out there. If they get an insult from a man, they are willing to react in kind and not coil into a ball in the corner. In short, these are emotionally strong women, who first, don’t think all men are misogynistic pigs and second, even if they were, they would still hold their own and not recoil into a pool of fractured nerves and tears. Such is the abysmal image of women that Atheism+ has seemed support, if not explicitly, certainly implicitly. As such, I would suggest that Atheism+ is fostering the opposite of intended goals. In fact, nowhere have I seen “fostering emotional strength in women” as a goal of this quasi-movement. Presumably, it is already assumed that they have emotional strength. The evidence proves otherwise (If I have to dig through FTB and the Atheism+ forum to prove this I will, but I think this point stands on its own).

Back to the column:

It’s clear there’s a small subset of people within the atheist community, mostly but not exclusively male, who are driven into a raving fury by the idea that there should be any limitations on people’s behavior or that we should undertake to make our movement more diverse. It’s unlikely that we can rid ourselves of these people entirely; but at the very least, we hope to ensure that the larger community won’t sanction their behavior, regard it as acceptable or tacitly condone it by saying and doing nothing.

I suppose I fit into this subset, as well as the numerous men and women alike who I know who don’t fall in lockstep with Atheism+. Of course, he’s not telling the whole story here. I doubt many well-meaning nonbelievers would think that people’s actions should be unchecked. For that, we have things called laws, and more to the point, a rather elaborate set of laws that protect people from sexual harassment. I can only wonder what he means by hoping that the “larger community” will not “sanction their behavior.” What behavior is that? Dissent? Speaking out against Atheism+. Plenty of women don’t like Atheism+, but they, like me, realize that atheism is and always will be about one thing: the disbelief in god or gods. Nothing more.

Lee concludes:

Our hope is that, by making our spaces more feminist-friendly and justice-conscious, we can do our part to help push that wave forward in society at large.

OK, so what has feminism been up to the past few decades? Is Lee saying that generations of feminists have failed? What about humanists? Humanism, since it is centered on the betterment of human society, encompasses all the social justices issues within Atheism+. Secular humanism encompasses both disbelief in gods and social justice. What have freethinking humanists been doing the last three or four decades (and longer)? Is their work irrelevant? I’m reminded of a boil: festering, filled with extraneous pus and bloated. Atheism+ is and should burst sooner than later. I’m more than happy to apply the pin prick.

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Vicarious redemption

Most of the following video you can skip if you like because the interviewer, Howard Conder, quizzes Richard Dawkins on some rather absurd questions about evolution, irreducible complexity, etc., that he would already known the answer to if he had bothered to read any of Dawkin’s books.

The best part runs from about 47:00-55:00, in which Conder and Dawkins talk about Christ, vicarious redemption and the need for a “perfect” sacrifice:

Conder seems to not be able to comprehend the point that Dawkins makes, that is, if Yahweh is all powerful and essentially sets the rules on how mankind will be redeemed after the fall of Adam and Eve, why does God require a “perfect” sacrifice, or even a sacrifice at all.

Here is Dawkins:

The idea that God could only forgive our sins by having his son tortured to death as a scapegoat, is surely from an objective point of view, a deeply unpleasant idea. If God wanted to forgive us our sins, why didn’t he just forgive them? Why did he have to have his son tortured?

Conder:

That’s a very good question.

Dawkins:

Well, what’s your answer?

Conder:

Genesis. (OK?)

Conder then recounts the Genesis narrative in which Adam “lost that perfection for us all” when he sinned in the Garden. He then explains why Christ was necessary:

Another perfect being of the same degree of perfection could only be the proper ransom for our redemption.

Dawkins presses, questioning why millions of human beings are responsible for the sin of one man and “have to be redeemed by the torturing of God’s own son?”

Conder in response:

Being the god that he is, allowing for us to have freewill, it wasn’t just scrumping an apple. There was more to it than that. Adam was plainly disobedient, and I think he even admits it himself in the fact that he hid from God that particular evening because there was a fellowship between man and God every day.

Dawkins:

So Adam was disobedient and that sin reverberated down the ages, is inherited by all humans. What kind of a doctrine is that? Inherited by all humans and had to be redeemed by the son of God being tortured to death. What kind of morality are you propagating there.

Conder:

That’s a very good question (Are you noticing a theme? Dawkins raises very good questions to which there are no answers).

Conder then reiterated the point that Christ’s life had to be perfect. In apparent frustration with this exchange, Dawkins agreed that they should move on. Before going to a question and answer part of the interview, Conder said:

Please Richard, see my heart, not my intellect because my heart is for mankind as well.

And with a tinge of sarcasm, Dawkins replies:

Oh I can see that.

OK, so if you didn’t view the whole video, that’s enough to get a general feel for how it went in the last few minutes. As I said, Conder seems unable to wrap his mind around the question that Dawkins posed time and again, that is, if God is all-powerful and all-loving, why the need for a sacrifice at all, much less a perfect sacrifice. At one point, Dawkins hints at the problem when he asks: “Why did God have to have his son tortured.”

Conder didn’t pick up on the subtly, but implicit in the question is if God “had” to do anything, if he is operating under a set of rules outside of himself or if he is constrained in his actions in any way, then he is not God. Essentially, he makes the rules, and the sacrifice that would redeem mankind had to be perfect, then some being or entity other than God is in control. Christ didn’t have to be killed to redeem mankind. Indeed, mankind didn’t have to redeemed by any physical action whatsoever. God could have just done it. He could have said:

OK, the gig is up. It’s been thousands of years now. I think you have toiled and suffered birth pains long enough now. You guys are off the hook. Eat, drink and be merry and enjoy your lives.

But no, believers would continue to have us believe that their God is so obsessed with the notion of vicarious redemption that nothing but a perfect sacrifice for redemption would do. Well, if that’s the case, God’s might, whatever it may be, is not omnipotent, and his love, whatever it might be, is not all-encompassing.

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Question for believers on Satan

Rosa Rubicondior poses this compelling question to believers:

Why doesn’t Satan compete with God to make a paradise we would all be dying to go to?

Clearly, this makes a lot of assumptions, and Rosa outlines a lot of them in the post. First, it assumes that God and Satan are actually real.

Second, it assumes that Satan is able to act as his own agent and that he has freewill. According to Christian teaching, he presumably does have freewill since he disobeyed God and revolted against him. Third, it assumes that God is either unwilling or unable to squash his great nemesis. Finally, the question assumes that Satan is an able creator in his own right. For instance, he can create false gods to lure humans away from Yahweh, he can create false impressions in people’s minds and he can create feelings of hate and contempt in the hearts of potential believers in an attempt to draw them away from the fold.

OK, with those assumptions on the table, since Satan has all this power, why doesn’t he create a place that rivals heaven as a great postmortem destination? Why doesn’t Satan create a hell that can compete in the afterlife free market of ideas. It could be the Key West of the afterlife; heaven without all the groveling and singing. Instead of all the weeping and woe and fire and brimstone that has given hell a bad rap for hundreds of years, Satan could create a hell that’s actually better than heaven, with waterfalls, mermaids, no illness or loss of life, sex without the threat of pregnancy or AIDS, endless buffets, wine and beer on tap 24-7 and perfect weather.

That would make one hell of a spiritual travel brochure.

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Dawkins on why he won’t debate William Lane Craig

I was amused when I recently came across two articles from The Telegraph and The Guardian (here and here) that both bemoan Richard Dawkins’ refusal to debate William Lane Craig.

The first, written by Tim Stanley, says that Dawkins is either a “fool” or a “coward” for not taking the stage with Craig in a debate about God. Stanley proceeds to call Craig an “excellent speaker” with a “witty, deliberate style that often makes his opponents look (and probably feel) a little ridiculous.”

Therefore, everyone just presumed that Dawkins refused to debate Craig because he’s scared. He is, after all, only human (or a talking monkey, depending on your point of view).

But Dawkins is a proud man (or arrogant chimp), and the accusation of cowardice probably ate at him from within. Finally, on Thursday, he gave a proper excuse for his no show to The Guardian. Its intellectual emptiness says so much about his particular brand of atheism.

To call Dawkins scared of debating anyone is completely absurd in the first place, especially considering any notion that Dawkins was or is quaking in his boots about the possibility of debating a professional obscurantist like William Lane Craig. Please.

In the column about why he won’t debate Craig, Dawkins cites this passage from Craig, in which Craig defends the slaughter of the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 20:

“But why take the lives of innocent children? The terrible totality of the destruction was undoubtedly related to the prohibition of assimilation to pagan nations on Israel‘s part. In commanding complete destruction of the Canaanites, the Lord says, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods’ (Deut 7.3-4). … God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. … Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy.  Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.”

Dawkins in response:

Do not plead that I have taken these revolting words out of context. What context could possibly justify them?

Here is Stanley:

Actually, the context is called “Christian apologetics”, and it’s been around for centuries. It’s the attempt by scholars to present a rational basis for belief in God. … Craig’s purpose in writing this piece is to unravel the paradox of a moral Bible that also includes lashings of apparently random violence. Craig stresses that these passages of the Bible are difficult for us to read because we are not of the age in which they are written – they are just as alien to us as Beowulf or the Iliad. That’s because Christian society has been shaped by the rules of life outlined in the New Testament, not in the section of The Bible in which this massacre occurs. Far from using this passage to celebrate the slaughter of heathen, Craig is making the point that the revelation of God’s justice has changed over time. The horrors of the Old Testament have been rendered unnecessary by Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. That’s why the idiots who protest the funerals of gay soldiers or blow up abortion clinics aren’t just cruel, they’re bad theologians.

Bad theologians? Really? How is the God (or gods) of the New Testament an improvement on the Old Testament deity? In the Old Testament, we see Yahweh, through his arbitrarily chosen race of people, wreaking havoc on various tribes (men, women,  children and even livestock) in Israel’s quest to conquer the Promised Land.

Dawkins, then, does not refuse to debate Craig out of cowardice or fear but out of contempt for Craig’s failure to denounce the corrosive morality of the Old Testament. Dawkins simply does have enough respect for the man to share a stage with him, and I think that’s clear if one reads Dawkin’s entire column.

In the New Testament, Jesus, operating under the veil of peace and goodwill, actually introduces a more ruthless form of justice than Yahweh ever did. God in the Old Testament seems satisfied with merely killing innocents in the physical world and going about his business. By the time we get to the New Testament, God, we learn, will not just demand utter servitude while people are alive, but he will demand it for all eternity in heaven, or else, they will face the fire forever.

I ask again, how is this system of justice an improvement over the Old Testament? God has went from a completely carnal system (killing people as a means to conquer territory) to a spiritual judgment for non-believers, a punishment that never ends. And, of course, it is not until the New Testament that we get a more robust picture of the idea of sheol, a place of darkness or, by new Testament standards, a place of never-ending torment. So, God’s justice, while it may have changed from the Old Testament to the New, actually got more brutal and more severe by many large degrees.

Craig also claims in his article that we should not feel remorse for the children who died in the Old Testament because they were bound for heaven upon their death. But here, Craig is reading New Testament and later Christian doctrine back onto the Old Testament text because there is scant little in the OT to suggest an afterlife or a system of eternal rewards or punishments (exceptions being, perhaps, Daniel 12:2 and Psalms 16:10-11).

Of course, if God’s idea of justice did change, as is suggested based on the differences between the Old and New testament, that would also rip holes in the doctrine that God is unchanging, as goes the common church mantra: “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.”