Sunday, February 7, 2016

The Paradox of "Firebrand Atheism" and Other Atheist Paradoxes.

David Silverman's book, "Fighting God", apparently is a hit with aggressive Atheists. Silverman is quoted as saying this:
"The president of American Atheists, David Silverman, defines firebrand atheism as simply telling the truth about religion, with the emphasis on the telling. He says we should make clear that it’s religious beliefs we’re attacking, not the person. He says, “I’m not attacking humans; I’m attacking those humans’ silly beliefs.”
The truth is not available to Silverman. He cannot prove the non-existence of a deity; he is not privy to that information or "truth". So he cannot be truthful by claiming to know the truth. This is a paradox, where the actual truth contradicts the claim of "truth".

Atheism is firmly based in this "truth" paradox; it always has been. It is a necessary condition for Atheism; one cannot be an Atheist without the de facto acceptance of this internal logical failure.

Atheists tend to revel in their "independence". The Atheist position of the gloriousness of being independent of external control is asserted by attempting to assert external control over others. And that is paradox #2.

A third paradox is the rigid belief in the superiority of themselves, since they have gotten their exclusive access to "truth" merely by rejecting outside authority. This allows them to swell with self-endowed elitism, even though true elites earn it, rather than self-administer the title. This, then, is a third paradox of Atheism.

While rejecting the hated "religiosity" of theists, these Atheists become rabidly evangelical in their attempts to convert the benighted small-minded into the religiously evangelical cult of rabid Atheism. Of course, this is internally contradictory, and is a fourth paradox of Atheism.

Most Atheists are known to nearly universally veer strongly politically Leftward. They are jealous of their own autonomy, and yet they endorse totalitarian processes which restrict the autonomy and thoughts of others. This obviously is another internal contradiction, a fifth paradox of Atheism.

Atheism also nearly universally hails itself as "rational, logical, and evidence-based". However, they are driven by paradox and are completely without out rational, logical or evidentiary proof of their own position, which is this: that there is no deity. That is a sixth paradox of Atheism. And because they have neither logic nor empirical evidence to support their truth claims, they do not engage in dialectic; they use rhetoric and all of the rhetorical devices which are outside the realm of logic and evidence. In rhetoric there are no fallacies; it is not logic based.

Atheists, and their organizations, claim Victimhood Class status for themselves: they claim they are oppressed by religion, especially in government. However, since Atheism has no principles attached to it, an Atheist government has no principles, certainly no moral principles, and thus cannot legitimately recognize any action as either moral or immoral, including the anti-intellectual claim of "oppression". So the Atheist claiming "oppression" in an appeal to an Atheist government cannot be "oppressed" according to that government. That is a seventh paradox of Atheism.

In the same vein, Atheists claim that religion is "evil". Yet Atheism has no common set of moral principles, and thus any concept of evil is merely non-existent at best and relative at worst. Thus the concept of evil is without objective meaning. So the Atheist claim of "evil" religion has no meaning under amoral Atheism. Here, then, is an eighth Atheist paradox.

Silverman is promoting "firebrand Atheism" which means screeching in high volume about God. But that's what Silverman hates: theists who screech in high volume about God. Yes, that is a ninth Atheist paradox.

Atheists claim that religion is the most dangerous belief. They ignore (no matter how often reminded) that the worst genocides and mass murders and tortures in history have been racked up by Atheists. And there is a tenth paradox.

Atheism is false, but it is aggressively pursuing the foisting of its logical fallacies onto everyone; Atheists consider the beliefs of everyone who is not them to be silly, held by silly, stupid people. This is the attitude of the Marxist New Man ideologies and the Nietzschean Uberman philosophy. It is classist, because they are the superior ones, in a higher class, by themselves, better than everyone who again is not them.

Viewed logically, without paradox or internal contradiction based in arrogance of presupposed intellectual/moral eliteness, it is quite clear that Atheism is the most dangerous ideology of all, if for no other reason than its irrationality, but also for its lack of moral grounding as the world has seen in Atheist nations ever since 1917. And denial of that objective fact involves still another internal contradiction.

15 comments:

yonose said...

Hello!!

With all the track record he has had, making at least one ad-hominem after another to religious people, it is no surprise this is a ridiculous excuse, made as a self-justification, to repeat such reprisals against people, who may disagree with him, even if those individual are well versed professionals with an honest affiliation to noble intellectual pursuits.

Never ever trust a fundie. Whether Religious, Agnostic, or Atheist, a fundie is a fundie.

Kind Regards.

Robert Coble said...

Hmmm... "Fighting God"

Fighting with a non-existent entity sounds an awful lot like Don(key) Quixote to me.

But then I realize: what a self-congratulatory title. I presume that he intends to convey that he not only "fights" with the non-existent God, but - he wins those fights!

Delusional, at best. Certainly, anti-rational (and totally blind to it) to the core.

Anonymous said...

Check this thread out. This is from the non-topic section of a sports broadcasting site I go on to:

506 Sports Forum: Do You Believe In God?

I made a comment on the bottom of the first page (DnBronc is my username) basically calling Atheism a Clown College (although I said that I wasn't pushing belief on anyone), and a guy on page 2 (username of DK073) accused me of pushing beliefs on them when I wasn't trying to do that.

Steven Satak said...

Sorry, JB. I try to stay out of places that use religious animosity to up their site hits. I also avoid atheist echo chambers, whether they are on FB or the net in general. You cannot use reason to talk a fellow out of a place reason did not get him into.

Anonymous said...

Steven, this site doesn't use religious animosity to raise site hits (it's a sports broadcasting site), but it does seem to have people on it that turn their backs on Christianity without reason.

Steven Satak said...

Without reason? Of course they turn their backs without reason. You maybe thought some of them had been *argued* out of it? I'd like to say the whole thing is decided in a meltdown of towering egoism, but the truth is that most of these folks don't know what Christianity actually is. They're rebelling against - or simply drifting away from - anything that makes them feel bad about themselves.

Anonymous said...

Your last sentence (drifting away from anything that makes them feel bad about themselves) reminds me of ChatPilot, a guy that runs a blog called "God is a myth".

Phoenix and I argued with this guy. He was a Christian for four years in the early-90's before becoming an Atheist (seemingly at the drop of a hat).

Metacrock tried to get through to him on Atheistwatch, but he would just go on and on saying things like "I don't believe in Gods or unicorns or Fairy Tales"

When he said that, it made me mad, so I pointed out that he believes in a big fairy tale: that something came from nothing.

He went on about Abiogenesis or something. I told him that it was impossible (and sent him a link from the Science against Evolution site), and he told me that he didn't want to argue.

Phoenix said...

Here's Three reasons Why Atheists Believe They Are Logical (despite that most Atheists have never picked up a logic textbook in their lives):

1. They don't believe in God

2. They are really good at offending people

3. They probably own a t-shirt with the word "logic" printed on the front.

Unknown said...

Re: truth paradox

I'm confused about the "truth" method by which some statements are assessed as circular, and some are not.

Can't you rewrite any assertion in terms of truth, and attack it in terms of circularity? For example, finding evidence for the truth value of true, you might say:

first principles are consistent with mathematics

can be re-written as:

it is true that first principles are consistent with mathematics.

It sounds like the mere assessment of anything in terms of truth is circular, and requires one to assert, and assume, rather than assess, the truth value of true.

it also sounds like any grounding is really an agreement to live with the intrinsically circular role of the word "truth".

I'm not well read in this area, so I assume I'm missing something really simple written by someone hundreds or thousands of years ago!

Stan said...

The first statement boils down to this:
Silverman claims transcendental knowledge that transcendency is false.

IF [Transcendency = T], Then [Transcendency = F]

Internal contradiction.

World of Facts said...

(Follow-up from http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/2016/02/of-course-they-do-and-of-course-they.html)

-"He cannot prove the non-existence of a deity"
-- That's not the point of Atheism in general; only some limited, very specific, versions of God can be proven not to exist.

-"Atheism is firmly based in this "truth" paradox; it always has been. It is a necessary condition for Atheism; one cannot be an Atheist without the de facto acceptance of this internal logical failure."
-- That does not mean anything; it's just an unsupported attack on Atheists as a whole, with not arguments supporting that conclusion. Claims of internal logical failure need to be demonstrated. Where's the argument?

- "Atheists tend to revel in their "independence". The Atheist position of the gloriousness of being independent of external control is asserted by attempting to assert external control over others. And that is paradox #2."
-- Atheists are not more, nor less, free than others. We all live in societies with rules and regulations. Some Theists follow the rules better, including religious and society's rules, while others don’t'. Same thing with Atheists as a group, which include people who follow the rules and others who don't, both for the rule of law and many conventions that are not written down, such as simple things like being polite...

-"A third paradox is the rigid belief in the superiority of themselves, since they have gotten their exclusive access to "truth" merely by rejecting outside authority. This allows them to swell with self-endowed elitism, even though true elites earn it, rather than self-administer the title. This, then, is a third paradox of Atheism."
-- Exactly the same thing as the so-called paradox #2; just worded differently. Atheists are no more no less the elite than Theists. They don't believe in a God as an authority figure, but that does not mean they see themselves as the ultimate authority for anything. The claims presented here have no support.

-"While rejecting the hated "religiosity" of theists, these Atheists become rabidly evangelical in their attempts to convert the benighted small-minded into the religiously evangelical cult of rabid Atheism. Of course, this is internally contradictory, and is a fourth paradox of Atheism."
-- Voicing opinions does not mean attempt to convert, and again, Atheists are no different than Theists. I would argue that there is actually evidence to the contrary: (1) Atheists on average care less of religion-related questions, as very few are involved in organized Atheist organizations. (2) Atheists don't go door-to-door to try to convince people; only some religious groups do that. (3) Outspoken Atheists are clear on the fact that, yes, they would prefer people to think like them, but that is not the goal when speaking up; every single organization I have ever heard of wants freedom to choose religion, or not, no discrimination against Atheists based on religion alone, no teaching of religious doctrines in science classes, etc... Basically, it's always the promotion of secularity, which is not the same as promoting disbelief in God. A secular society can have members that are highly religious; it just means that the religion is not the driver of the decision made by the members of that society, who may have different religious beliefs.

World of Facts said...

- "Most Atheists are known to nearly universally veer strongly politically Leftward. They are jealous of their own autonomy, and yet they endorse totalitarian processes which restrict the autonomy and thoughts of others. This obviously is another internal contradiction, a fifth paradox of Atheism."
-- There are 2 mistakes here. Atheists may lean to the 'Left' but that just correlation, not causation, and it's a very American-centric thing where the so-called 'Left' is actually anything that is not 'Far-Right'. Stan had issues with the Political Compass I linked to once precisely because of that reason; the people he sees as Leftists were identified on the Right, but closer to the center. Next, the second thing that's wrong is that being a Leftist is not about being totalitarian. This is a kind of unfounded attack, from the Right, to avoid discussing issues; it's basically just name-calling but at the label level. Opposing views are ignored because they are 'Leftist', not because of what they mean. No arguments are presented to support the views here either.

- "Atheism also nearly universally hails itself as "rational, logical, and evidence-based". However, they are driven by paradox and are completely without out rational, logical or evidentiary proof of their own position, which is this: that there is no deity. That is a sixth paradox of Atheism. "
-- This is not a paradox; this is confusing 2 different claims: (1) not believing in God and (2) claiming that there is no God. There are rational, logical and evidence-based arguments to be made to support either position, but they are not the same arguments. And the arguments on the 'there is no God' claims are very different, as they are attempting to cover a wide range of definitions for gods, and cannot possibly disprove all types of God, which are sometimes defined as un-falsifiable.

- "Atheists, and their organizations, claim Victimhood Class status for themselves: they claim they are oppressed by religion, especially in government. However, since Atheism has no principles attached to it, an Atheist government has no principles, certainly no moral principles, and thus cannot legitimately recognize any action as either moral or immoral, including the anti-intellectual claim of "oppression". So the Atheist claiming "oppression" in an appeal to an Atheist government cannot be "oppressed" according to that government. That is a seventh paradox of Atheism."
-- That "paradox" is simply an attempt at dehumanizing Atheists, without any argument to support the position. It is a fact that Atheists, just like any other human being, have values, morality and can discuss ethical issues. The difference is that they don't believe in a God from whom the values come from. What's true is that this disbelief does not inform anything; as such there is no 'Atheist' morality. But this does not mean that 'Atheists' don't have morality or grounding on which their morality is based. For instance, Atheists will often refer to themselves as Humanists, which imply a set of well-defined, moral principles. Moreover, Theists are nor more, nor less, victims of discrimination based on their religion and not more, nor less, capable of discussing moral dilemma. Basically, that 7th paradox is also just about avoiding discussions on morality, from the start, by labeling the Atheists as humans who have no sense of morality, only because they are Atheists. Nothing else is taken into account but that when, in reality, a lot more comes into play in our lives.

World of Facts said...

- "Silverman is promoting "firebrand Atheism" which means screeching in high volume about God. But that's what Silverman hates: theists who screech in high volume about God. Yes, that is a ninth Atheist paradox."
-- Silverman is not my spokeperson in any way, but my understanding is that he is only replying to Theists. The organization he presides goes too far sometimes, in my opinion, but they main goal is to not exist when you think about it. They don't want to be screeching; they do so because Theists have been doing it forever.

- "Atheists claim that religion is the most dangerous belief. They ignore (no matter how often reminded) that the worst genocides and mass murders and tortures in history have been racked up by Atheists. And there is a tenth paradox."
-- What's being ignored is the fact that people act based on what they belief. So yes, religion 'can' be dangerous in many cases, when people act on blind beliefs they see as sacred, untouchable, and this can lead to great harm when the beliefs include the need to kill others from the "wrong" religion. This is the same kind of beliefs that has driven Atheists mass murderers to commit atrocities; they had a belief that killing was justified. It's that belief that was the driver of their actions. It's not because they did 'not' believe in something that they did that. There is no logical reasoning behind 'I don't believe in God therefore I will kill these people'. It does not make the 'I don't believe in God' less rational; it means nothing at all. Just like it means nothing when a crazy religious person says 'I believe in God therefore I will kill these people', it does not make the 'I believe in God' part less rational because of that.

-"Atheism is false"
-- Argument, evidence? Where is the logical reasoning for that claim?

-"Atheists consider the beliefs of everyone who is not them to be silly, held by silly, stupid people. "
-- Argument, evidence? Who are these Atheists who say such irrational things? As an Atheist, I think that belief in God is silly. That does not mean I find the person holding the belief stupid, and it means nothing regarding other beliefs. I have never heard Atheists claim that 'all' Theists are 'stupid' because of that 1 belief.

World of Facts said...

-"Viewed logically, without paradox or internal contradiction based in arrogance of presupposed intellectual/moral eliteness, it is quite clear that Atheism is the most dangerous ideology of all, if for no other reason than its irrationality,"
-- Argument, evidence? There is no defense of what Atheism entails anywhere in this post. Nothing to explain why Atheism is false, which would be evidence that that Theism is true. There is no way to prove Atheism false other than that. At best, one could argue that some arguments in favor of the claim 'There is no God' are wrong. But even then, that would not prove Theism right and Atheism, without making the claim 'There is no God', would still be the rational position to hold. Until Theism has been demonstrated to be true, there is no reason to believe in it. God's existence is not something that we should accept without reason, even if that's why the vast majority of Theists believe, having been raised without even considering the possibility that Theism is false.

-"but also for its lack of moral grounding as the world has seen in Atheist nations ever since 1917. And denial of that objective fact involves still another internal contradiction."
-- It's not an internal contradiction to point out the fact that Atheist nations have no bearing on the truth of Theism. Even if Theism was proven false, horrific actions done by Atheists would still be horrific, and vice versa; even if Theism is proven true, horrific actions done by Theists would still be horrific. Claiming that Atheists have no moral grounding is am unjustified claim of superiority, the very thing this blog post said was wrong.

World of Facts said...

TL;DR I don't see anything here that supports the idea that belief in God is more reasonable than not believing. The so-called contradictions assumes that God exists and that Atheists are irrational, and then claims that Atheists are irrational... well, of course they are when defined like that from the start. The only way to prove Atheism wrong is by proving Theism right; they are mutually exclusive positions. With no argument in favor of Theism being presented here (maybe somewhere else?) this post is not really above Atheism vs Theism.