A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy. *** If You Don't Value Truth, Then What DO You Value? *** If we say that the sane can be coaxed and persuaded to rationality, and we say that rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of those who actively reject logic? *** Atheists have an obligation to give reasons in the form of logic and evidence for rejecting Theist theories.
It's not "atheist" or "leftist" vitriol, as the very article you link to points out.
Rather, it's vitriol of the people embedded in a winner-take-all voting system, which forces both sides far to their respective corners where they end up hating each other and never getting anything done. I remember Bill Vallicella recently commenting about how shrill both sides have become, and that it's all the fault of the liberals.
I'm convinced that this voting system will be the indirect death of this country, in the long term.
@Martin: Okay, you made a point. Then you elaborated on it.
Unfortunately, you didn't back it with a single quote from either of the linked articles. Would I be off-target if I said your statement was not only NOT based on anything in either article, but was in fact wrong?
It's not "atheist" or "leftist" vitriol, as the very article you link to points out.
The point of both articles (they read much the same) was that the Reverend's son's suicide seems to be a moment of glee for atheists, who take great delight in rubbing in their conviction that there is no God. And, in many cases, this is also their chance to 'pay him down' for speaking his mind and holding the line on Proposition 8.
And that the whole thing is not only unseemly, but in most cases the very type of behavior the atheists and homosexuals howl most loudly about.
Thus Stan's assertion they are Leftist and Atheist. Their statements contain atheist convictions and their attitude - spewing unrestrained hate at one man - suggests that they are of the Liberal/Leftist persuasion.
That is, they are accountable to no one. The rules they insist everyone follow are manifestly not for them.
I'm convinced that this voting system will be the indirect death of this country, in the long term.
The voting system, eh? Yes, let's get rid of it. Not that anyone has a better idea, or a way to make that better idea more palatable, but by all means, let's get rid of it. Because tearing down is the present business - it's someone else's job to build the new one.
Seriously? Did you really hope to excuse all that flagrant hatred and cowardice by blaming the voting system? Go back to bed. Think this over and try again.
I'm not sure what it is about the forum these days, but it does not seem like the atheo-leftists are bringing their best non-reason to bear. Hell, even I can see through most of this stuff.
>Unfortunately, you didn't back it with a single quote from either of the linked articles.
Yes, as the article says: "It’s a disease that afflicts both sides. The death of Ted Kennedy a few years ago brought out the haters on the right to an unprecedented degree."
It's not an "atheist" or "leftist" thing, it's a "both sides" thing. Here are the righties, carrying on about the similarities between Obama and Hitler. And ten years ago, there were the lefties, going on about how Bush was JUST LIKE Osama bin Laden.
>The voting system, eh? Yes, let's get rid of it.
Yes, I blame the voting system almost entirely, indirectly. The criticisms of it are well known. I believe it is why American politics is just team sports: cheer your team, boo the others. Black and white. Us and Them.
It's really damaging to reason, to think like a robot that just cheers your own side and despises the Other.
Everyone in the U.S. is ALWAYS complaining about how they have to vote for the lesser of two evils, and that is the essence of the problems with winner-take-all voting.
> Not that anyone has a better idea
Of course there are better ideas. Try proportional voting, which would encourage the growth and development of multiple political parties that all have a shot.
As much as you and Stan want to pin this on your Other, it's really just a combination of a horrible political climate and the G.I.F. Theory. It's uncharitable getting worked up about teenagers with anonymity on the Internet, and then concluding "See?! See how those atheists are!"
All this is not to say, of course, that there are serious problems with atheism. I just don't think this is one of 'em. Or one unique to atheism.
I don't remember the vitriol surrounding Ted Kennedy's death, but I do remember the flood of reminders of his drunken cowardly killing of Kopechne in the face of the near sanctification being given him by the press and the pols of both sides. Kennedy did quite a moral strut, considering his amoral history and lifestyle. He was a living demonstration of messiahism, and as a messiah he was forgiven his abominations by the other messiahs.
If there are pointers to the hate, I'd like to see them, rather than just assertions. It is quite possible that there were such.
And the contrast between Rick Warren and Ted Kennedy is like between day and VOID.
I have never cared much for Warren or his books, which I have read. However, he does operate out of principled conviction based on moral values.
Homosexuals,oth, operate out of behavioral defense which they have turned into aggression based on Alinsky and the principles laid out in the book "After the Ball", which outlines the theory of cultural war on morality. They have used this theory of cultural war for around forty years, and have in Hegelian antithesis/synthesis fashion moved the culture into an amoral, pagan, self- and ego-centric morass which was unthinkable in my youth. (Except for the Kennedys, whose foibles went mostly unreported at the time, except for Chappaquidick).
Tolerance has been warped to mean tolerance of ALL behaviors, especially if the group exhibiting the behaviors has enough clout (i.e. can ultimately control the media, the message, the courts, education, and stifle dissent with charges of immorality: "intolerance", only immorality left).
As an observation, in the 50's the future seemed brilliant and couples produced a generation to enjoy the future; now I personally know couples who refuse to produce children who must live in the future. The future has "Changed"(TM), and is not stable, moral, principle-based, or based on rational premises.
The question becomes, if two people love each other, why shouldn't they marry? What about three people? Or mother-son? Or thirty people? Or people of other nontraditional sexual proclivities, say groups of sadists?
After the rise of homosexuality there is no more moral reasoning; the cutural reasoning is purely based on power - and THAT is the change that has been wrought.
As for proportional voting, having a number of smaller parties represented doesn't seem to solve the problem. Coalitions are formed, which means that a single faux-party still exists which compromises the principles of the smaller factions. The power of a dominant party still is in control. Especially if that party is an ubermench.
@Martin: I believe I smell several things going on here.
(1) a Tu Quoque response to the left-based attacks on the minister. "It's not just the Left- everyone is doing it" - so don't point it out at all?
(2) "It's the system, not the people." But you cannot hold a 'system' accountable for anything. At best it is corporate guilt and no individual feels responsible - 'everyone else is doing it' is seen as some sort of moral excuse.
But that is beside the point. Blaming 'the system' rather than an individual's choices based on their personal worldview is to ignore two things... first, the person's worldview causes them to choose that system (of voting, of justice, etc). They want it that way.
And second, the 'system' doesn't come into being by itself, and it certainly doesn't last on its own. Mysterious powerful cabals working behind the scenes don't bring it into existence, though I am sure there are examples that can be made out. They seem to be the exception.
But this is all a red herring.
We were not talking about the system of representation OR the internet fuckwad theory. We were talking about how the death of a young man whose father is a noted Christian minister prompted so much over-the-top arrogance and outright hatred - from a group of people whose primary tactic seems to be accusing others of intolerance, hatred and racism.
In other words, of irrational behavior, because those things are not sourced in reason. And we all know how hateful people just keep hatin'. Therefore everything they say is out of court. Forever.
What Stan has pointed out (Stan, correct me if I am wrong) is that the atheo-left (their insults and choice of epithets identifies them) are guilty of the same disgusting behavior as their sworn enemies - and yet refuse to acknowledge it. As though they were privileged to hate, as if they had some sort of self-granted pass.
I agree with Stan. I know functional insanity when I see it. I agree with you - the internet tends to encourage fuckwads. Christianity states that ALL humans are fuckwads if given the right set of conditions. I see little in my own behavior (and my own heart) to contradict that.
We get the government we want. All people do, more or less. It decentralizes power because the Founding Fathers who, being mostly Christian, knew that ALL men are fallen and that 'in our flesh dwells no good thing'. No man can be trusted with so much power. It corrupts without fail, given time and intensity.
Thus our system of government. It has its issues. But there's a reason the world has been beating a path to our shores for the last couple hundred years, and that's part of it.
Let's not derail the conversation, Martin. Start a new one if you like, but stay on topic. Blaming the system is a leftist tactic. Blaming a single person for the actions of an entire party seems to be a rightist preference.
They are both wrong. And they distract us from the real issues at hand - personal behavior, worldview and accountability.
6 comments:
It's not "atheist" or "leftist" vitriol, as the very article you link to points out.
Rather, it's vitriol of the people embedded in a winner-take-all voting system, which forces both sides far to their respective corners where they end up hating each other and never getting anything done. I remember Bill Vallicella recently commenting about how shrill both sides have become, and that it's all the fault of the liberals.
I'm convinced that this voting system will be the indirect death of this country, in the long term.
@Martin: Okay, you made a point. Then you elaborated on it.
Unfortunately, you didn't back it with a single quote from either of the linked articles. Would I be off-target if I said your statement was not only NOT based on anything in either article, but was in fact wrong?
It's not "atheist" or "leftist" vitriol, as the very article you link to points out.
The point of both articles (they read much the same) was that the Reverend's son's suicide seems to be a moment of glee for atheists, who take great delight in rubbing in their conviction that there is no God. And, in many cases, this is also their chance to 'pay him down' for speaking his mind and holding the line on Proposition 8.
And that the whole thing is not only unseemly, but in most cases the very type of behavior the atheists and homosexuals howl most loudly about.
Thus Stan's assertion they are Leftist and Atheist. Their statements contain atheist convictions and their attitude - spewing unrestrained hate at one man - suggests that they are of the Liberal/Leftist persuasion.
That is, they are accountable to no one. The rules they insist everyone follow are manifestly not for them.
I'm convinced that this voting system will be the indirect death of this country, in the long term.
The voting system, eh? Yes, let's get rid of it. Not that anyone has a better idea, or a way to make that better idea more palatable, but by all means, let's get rid of it. Because tearing down is the present business - it's someone else's job to build the new one.
Seriously? Did you really hope to excuse all that flagrant hatred and cowardice by blaming the voting system? Go back to bed. Think this over and try again.
I'm not sure what it is about the forum these days, but it does not seem like the atheo-leftists are bringing their best non-reason to bear. Hell, even I can see through most of this stuff.
>Unfortunately, you didn't back it with a single quote from either of the linked articles.
Yes, as the article says: "It’s a disease that afflicts both sides. The death of Ted Kennedy a few years ago brought out the haters on the right to an unprecedented degree."
It's not an "atheist" or "leftist" thing, it's a "both sides" thing. Here are the righties, carrying on about the similarities between Obama and Hitler. And ten years ago, there were the lefties, going on about how Bush was JUST LIKE Osama bin Laden.
>The voting system, eh? Yes, let's get rid of it.
Yes, I blame the voting system almost entirely, indirectly. The criticisms of it are well known. I believe it is why American politics is just team sports: cheer your team, boo the others. Black and white. Us and Them.
It's really damaging to reason, to think like a robot that just cheers your own side and despises the Other.
Everyone in the U.S. is ALWAYS complaining about how they have to vote for the lesser of two evils, and that is the essence of the problems with winner-take-all voting.
> Not that anyone has a better idea
Of course there are better ideas. Try proportional voting, which would encourage the growth and development of multiple political parties that all have a shot.
And really, the vitriol lobbed at Reverend Warren's son is mostly an example of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
As much as you and Stan want to pin this on your Other, it's really just a combination of a horrible political climate and the G.I.F. Theory. It's uncharitable getting worked up about teenagers with anonymity on the Internet, and then concluding "See?! See how those atheists are!"
All this is not to say, of course, that there are serious problems with atheism. I just don't think this is one of 'em. Or one unique to atheism.
I don't remember the vitriol surrounding Ted Kennedy's death, but I do remember the flood of reminders of his drunken cowardly killing of Kopechne in the face of the near sanctification being given him by the press and the pols of both sides. Kennedy did quite a moral strut, considering his amoral history and lifestyle. He was a living demonstration of messiahism, and as a messiah he was forgiven his abominations by the other messiahs.
If there are pointers to the hate, I'd like to see them, rather than just assertions. It is quite possible that there were such.
And the contrast between Rick Warren and Ted Kennedy is like between day and VOID.
I have never cared much for Warren or his books, which I have read. However, he does operate out of principled conviction based on moral values.
Homosexuals,oth, operate out of behavioral defense which they have turned into aggression based on Alinsky and the principles laid out in the book "After the Ball", which outlines the theory of cultural war on morality. They have used this theory of cultural war for around forty years, and have in Hegelian antithesis/synthesis fashion moved the culture into an amoral, pagan, self- and ego-centric morass which was unthinkable in my youth. (Except for the Kennedys, whose foibles went mostly unreported at the time, except for Chappaquidick).
Tolerance has been warped to mean tolerance of ALL behaviors, especially if the group exhibiting the behaviors has enough clout (i.e. can ultimately control the media, the message, the courts, education, and stifle dissent with charges of immorality: "intolerance", only immorality left).
As an observation, in the 50's the future seemed brilliant and couples produced a generation to enjoy the future; now I personally know couples who refuse to produce children who must live in the future. The future has "Changed"(TM), and is not stable, moral, principle-based, or based on rational premises.
The question becomes, if two people love each other, why shouldn't they marry? What about three people? Or mother-son? Or thirty people? Or people of other nontraditional sexual proclivities, say groups of sadists?
After the rise of homosexuality there is no more moral reasoning; the cutural reasoning is purely based on power - and THAT is the change that has been wrought.
As for proportional voting, having a number of smaller parties represented doesn't seem to solve the problem. Coalitions are formed, which means that a single faux-party still exists which compromises the principles of the smaller factions. The power of a dominant party still is in control. Especially if that party is an ubermench.
@Martin: I believe I smell several things going on here.
(1) a Tu Quoque response to the left-based attacks on the minister. "It's not just the Left- everyone is doing it" - so don't point it out at all?
(2) "It's the system, not the people." But you cannot hold a 'system' accountable for anything. At best it is corporate guilt and no individual feels responsible - 'everyone else is doing it' is seen as some sort of moral excuse.
But that is beside the point. Blaming 'the system' rather than an individual's choices based on their personal worldview is to ignore two things... first, the person's worldview causes them to choose that system (of voting, of justice, etc). They want it that way.
And second, the 'system' doesn't come into being by itself, and it certainly doesn't last on its own. Mysterious powerful cabals working behind the scenes don't bring it into existence, though I am sure there are examples that can be made out. They seem to be the exception.
But this is all a red herring.
We were not talking about the system of representation OR the internet fuckwad theory. We were talking about how the death of a young man whose father is a noted Christian minister prompted so much over-the-top arrogance and outright hatred - from a group of people whose primary tactic seems to be accusing others of intolerance, hatred and racism.
In other words, of irrational behavior, because those things are not sourced in reason. And we all know how hateful people just keep hatin'. Therefore everything they say is out of court. Forever.
What Stan has pointed out (Stan, correct me if I am wrong) is that the atheo-left (their insults and choice of epithets identifies them) are guilty of the same disgusting behavior as their sworn enemies - and yet refuse to acknowledge it. As though they were privileged to hate, as if they had some sort of self-granted pass.
I agree with Stan. I know functional insanity when I see it. I agree with you - the internet tends to encourage fuckwads. Christianity states that ALL humans are fuckwads if given the right set of conditions. I see little in my own behavior (and my own heart) to contradict that.
We get the government we want. All people do, more or less. It decentralizes power because the Founding Fathers who, being mostly Christian, knew that ALL men are fallen and that 'in our flesh dwells no good thing'. No man can be trusted with so much power. It corrupts without fail, given time and intensity.
Thus our system of government. It has its issues. But there's a reason the world has been beating a path to our shores for the last couple hundred years, and that's part of it.
Let's not derail the conversation, Martin. Start a new one if you like, but stay on topic. Blaming the system is a leftist tactic. Blaming a single person for the actions of an entire party seems to be a rightist preference.
They are both wrong. And they distract us from the real issues at hand - personal behavior, worldview and accountability.
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