Wednesday, October 1, 2014

TIME Indulges Dawkins and His Toady

TIME online has published a - what should I call it? - article By Richard Dawkins and the head of his organization. They are incensed that anyone, especially a pol, would disrespect Atheists. Dawkins, whose mantra at the Reason Conference was to ridicule, RIDICULE, those who Atheists disagree with, declares such disrespect to be HATE, when he is on the receiving end of criticism.
"Unfortunately, not only does Huckabee have to be taken seriously as a possible Presidential candidate in 2016, but his suggestion that atheists who work for the government (primarily elected officials) be summarily “fired” is an applause line in too many quarters in the United States. That nonbelievers somehow deserve to be discriminated against is a view widely shared, particularly among Christian conservatives who seem to think “religion by the sword” is an oldie but a goodie.

This latest bit of hate was offered up – where else? – at the 2014 Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. The ritual hookup between Christian conservatives and Republican presidential aspirants is a right wing, Jesus-loves-us debauch of Homophobia, Intolerance and Militarism, a trifecta easily remembered by the acronym “HIM”."
Atheists are hypocrites of the first order. They cannot comprehend why they are not trusted. But they feel totally justified in slinging their "trifecta" slurs: non-Atheists do this: Hate Homosexuals (homophobia); Are Intolerant of the "Do Anything I please" amorality of Atheism; Are guilty of defending the western nations from the barbarians using The Military. We Atheists will call it HIM for short, meaning The Other.

They are not speaking here to the normal person on the street. They are not even talking to Atheists any more. They are merely berserkoids out on a tear, angry possibly because no one ever listens to them any more. Here they go off on the metaphor "fired" without any comprehension that it means: vote them out:
"Huckabee, in a tortured metaphor about answering phones “God is ringing,” exhorted his audience to answer the God-call by making sure only people with the right values are hired for jobs in Washington and by making sure those who “refuse to hear … God’s heart” are fired. No joke, Huckabee is suggesting that we should: 1) Find out whether government employees are true believers; 2) Fire those who aren’t.

Yes, that is illegal, which makes the suggestion all the more stunning from someone who expects to be taken seriously on America’s national political stage."
Aside from not being an American, Dawkins is also no longer rational. What Huckabee means is that there are values which are "valuable" and which stem from a morality outside the elitist self; those contrast with the Leftist "values" which are merely the opinions of the elitist Leftists who want to dictate their opinions as moral values,which are actually valuable only to themselves.
"This Republican congressional candidate in Louisiana and nephew of “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson, suggested on his faith-based podcast that atheism contributed to the Sandy Hook massacre of 20 children and six adults in 2012.

Apparently, the premier driver was not the mental illness from which shooter Adam Lanza clearly suffered, nor was it that an unstable man was able legally to amass a stockpile of weapons, thanks to his mother supplying them.

According to Dasher, “the reason why (the Sandy Hook massacre) happened is that we have denied as a culture that man is made in God’s image.” He said the “atheist agenda” reinforces a message that says “you don’t matter … all you are is chemical, all you are is material.”
Dasher is right, especially in the case of Columbine, where the two teens were fans of Nietzsche, and likely in the case of Lanza, in an education system that preaches Evolution, secularism, and Atheism, the religion of demeaning human life as purely physical animal, while denying any and all possibility of non-physical existence. Atheism has no common moral base or grounding, no common set of moral principles, nothing at all to base a life and worldview upon except the fact that humans evolved just the same as gorillas, turkeys and bottom-feeding fish.

But they go on:
"Had Dasher bothered to find out about atheism, humanism and the nonreligious, he would have come to understand just how precious this community views life.

Unlike Dasher, who believes there is another existence – a better one — outside the temporal, atheists, humanists and freethinkers believe they have one life and one chance to do something meaningful with it. With no supernatural arbiter to fall back on, nonbelievers know it is up to them and them alone to promote justice, compassion and a fair society."
And if one cares to actually examine Humanism, for example, one would find the totalitarian, intolerant, elitist anti-moral group of misogynists that one finds in any collection of Atheists, Humanists and freethinkers. They always disguise this as justice, compassion, and a fair society. Which is why they are not only not trusted by rational non-Atheists, but are actually trusted to do only that which they "feel" is right for themselves, regardless of any morality of the Other.
"The proof that secular people are good, care for others and build healthy societies is evidenced in cross-national studies. The research of Phil Zuckerman at Pitzer College, demonstrates that secular societies, such as Sweden and Denmark, among others, are more likely to enjoy broadly shared prosperity and a high level of societal health and happiness than traditionally religious ones, and certainly more so than the United States."
Still quoting the fraudulent data from Zuckerman, too. That is pitiful, especially since it is so fundamentally wrong: the real, major Atheist societies in the past 100 years are not Sweden and Denmark, they are the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. When these "secular", Atheist tyrannies are taken into account, Atheism is seen for what it really is: elitist totalitarian destructivism.

And as for "good", well it was this same Dawkins who declared that he could not say that what Hitler did was wrong. There is no "Good" or "Bad", nor is there "Good" or "Evil"; Nietzsche informed the world of that. No Atheist can be Good because there is no Atheist standard for Good. Conversely, no Atheist can be accused of being "Evil" because there is no standard for Evil.

It's so obvious that any competent adult can see it:
Any Atheist who claims to be Good is lying.
And lying is not bad or evil to an Atheist. It's merely consequentialist. It's just a tactic.

And quoting a self-appelled "evolutionary psychologist" doesn't resonate with anyone but the choir: Gregory Paul makes up Just So Stories based on no substance whatsoever.
"The historically unprecedented socioeconomic
security that results from low levels of progressive government policies appear to suppress
popular religiosity and creationist opinion, conservative religious ideology apparently
contributes to societal dysfunction, and religious prosociality and charity are less effective at
improving societal conditions than are secular government programs."
Paul makes the error in cause/effect because he claims to be an Atheist-evolutionist, and fitting the narrative is what these folks do. But reality is that abandoning faith in good times merely refers to the self-centered worldview that one develops when challenges in life lessen. Humans always assume that they are the cause of good times, and therefore, the good times will continue so long as they exist. And it always ends in decadence and the rise of totalitarianism: in other words, Atheist elitist "humanist" dictatorship of "Social Justice".

In fact, Gregory Paul appears to be a non-degreed fraud:
"So who is Gregory S. Paul and what are his qualifications to opine on the salubrious quality of agnosticism? We spent a considerable amount of time attempting to discover where Mr. (Dr.?) Paul received his training in sociology and/or statistical analysis, etc. Here’s what we found:



The above blank space is not a formatting error of some kind. It is the best we could come up with to signify nada, zero, zip, bupkis, nihilo, nothing. Yes, that’s right. We found nothing. As near as we can tell, Mr. Paul has no advanced degrees in statistical analysis, demography, sociology, or any other ology. In fact, it appears as though he holds no advanced degrees of any kind. He is, in fact, an artist and freelance paleontologist who has published two books in the area of dinosaur studies that re-imagine how they may have lived and operated on this planet. And to be fair, Mr. Paul seems to be respected for this work."

Verum Serum
But they, Dawkins and droid, veer ever Leftward as most Atheists do, toward communalism, aka communism, run by the elites:
"“(W)hen we consider the fundamental values and moral imperatives contained within the world’s great religions, such as caring for the sick, the infirm, the elderly, the poor, the orphaned, the vulnerable; practicing mercy, charity, and goodwill toward one’s fellow human beings; and fostering generosity, humility, honesty, and communal concern over individual egotism — those traditionally religious values are most successfully established, institutionalized, and put into practice at the societal level in the most irreligious nations in the world today."
So the actual Atheist nations, those who dominated the past 100 years, "put into practice" all the virtues mentioned above, which are actually attributable to religion, mostly Christianity? Anyone who reads either newsfeeds or cares a single whit about the history of world political cultures would gag at this assertion. North Korea? China? The USSR? Cambodia? Venezuela? Cuba? Really?

No, just the two relatively inconsequential countries mentioned by Phil Zuckerman, data which has actually been debunked.

7 comments:

Russell said...

Smacks of desperation, doesn't it? "No, no, we aren't evil, just misunderstood! It's those Christians that are evil! Here, let's purposely twist meaning and words and show you the evil."

"... [J]ustice, compassion and a fair society."

Uh-huh. By whose lights?

Steven Satak said...

IT's nothing less than I have come to expect from Time. I stopped buying that rag about ten years back when it was obvious they were slanting more and more heavily left. You could tell by the number of leftist assumptions that showed up in any given piece, no matter what the topic.

Funny thing is, I have a copy of Time I kept from August of 1991. Cover article? "Busybodies and Crybabies : What's happening to the American character?"

An interview with Shelby Steele, who defends Clarence Thomas and comments on the growing tendency of blacks to identify as victims.

They still had a slight preference for stories with a liberal slant, but nowadays you don't see anything remotely like 'equal opportunity' reporting in Time. They know who their target audience is - it's the same oldsters who are listening to NPR and sipping their Merlot as their investments roll in and they begin to indulge in their power fantasies.

Unknown said...

"So the actual Atheist nations, those who dominated the past 100 years, "put into practice" all the virtues mentioned above"

I think the more ironic point to be made here is that Dawkins is explicitly admitting that his cherry-picked atheist societies achieved virtuosity only by piggy-backing on religious values. Because, apparently, humanism has none of its own.

Nate said...

Brierley: If we had evolved into a society where rape was considered fine, would that mean that rape is fine?

Dawkins: I … I wouldn’t … I don’t want to answer that question. It … It … It’s enough for me to say that we live in a society where it’s not considered fine. We live in a society where uhm, selfishness, where failure to pay your debts, failure to reciprocate favors is … is … is regarded askance. That is the society in which we live. I’m very glad, that’s a value judgment, I’m very glad that I live in such a society.

Brierley: When you make a value judgment, don’t you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it’s good. And you don’t have any way to stand on that statement.

Dawkins: My value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past.

Brierley: So therefore it’s just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.

Dawkins: You could say that, it doesn’t in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.

Brierley: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.

Dawkins: You could say that, yeah.

He couldn't even figure out why rape is wrong

Robert Coble said...

This is so richly amusing:

"Had Dasher bothered to find out about atheism, humanism and the nonreligious, he would have come to understand just how precious this community views life.

Unlike Dasher, who believes there is another existence – a better one — outside the temporal, atheists, humanists and freethinkers believe they have one life and one chance to do something meaningful with it. With no supernatural arbiter to fall back on, nonbelievers know it is up to them and them alone to promote justice, compassion and a fair society."

Contrast that drivel with this drivel, from his own "high priest" Richard Dawkins:

River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

The Dark Side of the Force is strong in that one. . .

Steven Satak said...

All of that River Out of Eden stuff holds true only if you agree with Dawkin's assumptions.

The first of course is that he is so much smarter than you. Therefore anything he says is automatically true and if it appears to need underpinning with facts, well, he can always wait for 'future science' to vindicate him.

The funny thing is, the speaker himself doesn't appear to believe he himself is subject to any of this. It rather reminds me of Carl Sagan's saying: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". I don't believe the Great Man ever got around to explaining whether that saying held up when it was applied to itself.

I wonder how Dawkins will react when this pitiless universe he envisions finally has its way with him?

Robert Coble said...

Sagan:

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Hitchens on the "razor":

"Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

I know Stan has covered this many times on this blog. Case in point, especially the clarifications in the comments:

The Ignominy of Hitchens’ “Razor” Failure


I had seen "Hitchen's Razor" (obviously shortened to the last phrase of the quote above), but did not realize there was more (less?) to it.

First, there is the equivocation regarding the word "evidence." Is it only physical evidence that is being referenced? I just hammered home that point to my atheist son, who demanded "irrefutable physical evidence" for the existence of the non-physical God. (I guess he wasn't quite "bright" enough to realize that one NEVER explicitly states that "evidence" must be used instead of "irrefutable physical evidence" in philosophical discussions. I'm afraid I extinguished the "brightness" of his question rather harshly, because he is no longer communicating with me.)

Second, I did not realize that Sagan's quote, and Hitchen's addition to it, constitutes "the elementary rules of logic." Obviously, the man was brilliant, a "bright," nay, a veritable "god" in logic. How else to explain his summarization of the "elementary rules of logic" so succinctly? It brings to mind the two-fold summarization of Mosaic Law given by Jesus Christ:

Matthew 22:36-40 (Amplified Bible)

36 Teacher, which kind of commandment is great and important (the principal kind) in the Law? [Some commandments are light—which are heavy?]

37 And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).

38 This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself.

40 These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.


Third, it amazes me that two such "bright" brains (since they don't have minds) steeped in the "elementary rules of logic" could so easily miss the obvious logical refutation of their quotes.

"There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See."

An aside: It is interesting that this proverb resembles Jeremiah 5:21:

‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.’

But unlike the three Darwinian monkeys ("See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"), the "brights" have never understood this old saying:

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and to remove all doubt."