Valerie Tarico Analyzes Evangelicals

Evangelicals are hurting the GOP: The movement is now synonymous with bigotry and abject stupidity
Republicans have long sought the vote of Christian fundamentalists. This election cycle they may prove a liability

"But how much, really, is the Trump brand antithetical to the Evangelical brand? Humanist commentator James Croft argues that Trump is what Evangelicalism, in the hands of the Religious Right, has become:

“The religious right in America has always been a political philosophy based on bullying, pandering, projecting strength to hide fear and weakness, and proud, aggressive ignorance. That’s what it’s been about from the beginning. Trump has merely distilled those elements into a decoction so deadly that even some evangelicals are starting to recognize the venom they have injected into American culture.”

"Here is what the Evangelical brand looks like from the outside:

[Each of the following is expanded at the source; ed.].

Evangelical means obsessed with sex.

Evangelical means arrogant.

Evangelical means fearful and bigoted.

Evangelical means indifferent to truth.

Evangelical means gullible and greedy.

Evangelical means ignorant

Evangelical means predatory.

Evangelical means mean.

"The Evangelical brand is toxic because of the stagnant priorities and behaviors of Evangelicals themselves. Desperate to safeguard an archaic set of social and theological agreements, Evangelical leaders bet that if they could secure political power they could force a halt to moral and spiritual evolution. They themselves wouldn’t have to grow and change.

"They also believed that they could get something for nothing, that they could sell their brand and keep it too. They couldn’t have been more wrong."

Tarico is a poster child for Atheism. She demonstrates the ability to remain in the Atheist Void for her entire life, while creating an alternate reality of the purest and deepest hatred which she has based on her own set of facts. And of course she is not alone; she has many fans on the one hand, and always manages to find sources with the same level of bilious vitriol as herself for justification of her hate attacks.

Valerie Tarico, on Something...

“There is no god — now what?”: How to find meaning in an atheist world

Tarico interviews Filmmaker and photographer Chris Johnson on the dangers of religion and his new documentary, “A Better Life”

“Our public conversation about atheism is two dimensional,” says Johnson. “It’s time to open the next phase. For ten years we’ve talked about what we don’t believe in. The dialogue kicked off by the New Atheist movement was much needed, but after we strip away gods and superstition, what is left? How do we see ourselves and our lives and our relationships? That’s what we need to talk about next.”

This is the necessary admission that they have nothing else, beyond rejection and personal opinions for moral constructs.

"Some people were expecting to hear the same thing from everyone—why religion is wrong. But instead, the atheists in the film were talking about really big questions: How do we find meaning and purpose? How do we relate with each other? How do we deal with our own mortality? How do we interact with the world around us? They talked about dimensions of the religious experience that are accessible to people outside of religion. So many people get incredible experiences going to church. But if you assume that all of this is natural, then these powerful experiences have natural causes. So we can ask, how can we have the same rich experiences without the things we don’t like about religion?"

Blatantly groping for religiousness without a deity. For blessings without a blessor, in a creation without a creator. Creating meaning in a material universe which has no meaning. Consider this sentence, excised from its context:

" If we can get that without the false truth claims of religion, we get the best of both worlds."

Atheism, being purely rejection without evidence or rational argument, gives the Atheist nothing. It empties the soul of hope. It empties the mind of logic. All because of rejecting the fundamentals: the single moral authority; the single source of rationality in a universe based on laws which are not man-made. Atheists have nothing but the accident of their existence in a cold and dying universe which cares nothing for them.

"People think that to have profound meaningful experiences and commitments takes religion or some higher power outside of yourself. But it doesn’t.

In fact, an evidence-based rational perspective can make you more understanding and compassionate. The naturalist worldview recognizes many complex causes and effects in people’s lives and that can lead to compassion. If you look at the bishop in Les Miserables who lies and saves Jean Valjean from going back to prison, that is an act of grace—an act of compassion. This idea of grace, the idea of undeserved forgiveness—we tend to think of that in a religious sense. But if you look at the world as purely natural, then you could be inclined to think of that in the same sense. I’m an atheist and the story of Les Miserables resonates with me in the same way it does with many believers. The ideas of compassion and forgiveness are universally human and not strictly religious."

This is a common Atheist lie.

The huge Atheist experiments of the 20th century, Marxist-Atheist Communism, were the exact opposite of compassionate and forgiving, and on a hugely bloody, torturing-murderous exercise of Atheism in power. This is evidence. It is the evidence-based rational perspective to which Atheists are blind and seemingly intellectually immune. And that places Atheism into the blind belief category.

Fact: compassion and forgiveness are NOT universally human; and they are strictly religious, in fact they are primarily Christian. (Not Islamic, for certain). The author is co-opting Christianity at every turn, while leaving out the deity. This is because Atheists want themselves to be the pinnacle of existence. By stealing Christianity from its deity, the Atheist may pretend to be what he is not: the deity himself.

But this Atheist is just a thief; without the prior existence of Christianity he has nothing new to offer. At least Atheist philosophers have contrary moral/ethical programs (all starting with consequentialism) which they wish to promote.

"If there is no god pulling the strings, then all that is left is the world and the people around us."

Nothing for the Atheist, except Christian precepts to steal.

Atheists are always suspect. That is because there is no moral authority behind any of this or any other Atheist moral/ethical proclamation. Only the presupposed "elitness" of the Atheist exists as a source for authority, and that is a delusion, an affect which Atheists try to maintain, despite their failures to ever produce either evidence or logic for their position, which flies in the face of their claim to be grounded in both evidence and logic.

There is more at the site, if you care to read it. I didn't.

A Message to Valerie Tarico

I left the following comment over at Valerie Tarico's site. I hope she responds, but few Atheists actually do, especially when they are asked to defend their Atheism. They cannot, so they don't. We'll see.

"Valerie,
Your visceral hatred has truly colored your view of the world, to the point of spreading your distortions to other haters who feed on your hate. Atheism has been the most destructive ideology that the world has ever known, even in just the past 100 years, torturing and killing several hundred million humans and enslaving entire continents under the slavery of Atheist ideological oppression.

Yet you act as if "religion", under which generalization you categorize Christianity along with all other "sects", is the world's only issue. Atheism starts with rejection of principles, including morality, thereby placing itself into an unprincipled void of pure rejectionism (euphemistically called "doubt" by yourself, but really just blind rejection supported by cherry picking certain self-assigned offenses about which to complain). Doubt and rejectionism become solipsist and pyrrhonian, rejecting all knowledge, yet they are thought to generate logical arguments without the benefit of actual disciplined deduction. Skepticism never generates actual knowledge. Taken to emotional limits it prevents analysis of concepts and thus denies possible truths merely on the basis of its own presumed truth claim.

Atheism ultimately self-entitles the Atheist to believe in the inferiority of all non-Atheists, and hence creates the self-perception of the personal superiority of the Atheist. This leads directly to the elitism of self-endowed Messiahism described by Thomas Sowell, and the three-class system of the Leftist elites, who thrive on placing people into Victimhood Classes and Oppressor Classes in order to maintain themselves in their elitist Messiah Class.

You are a Messiah Class elitist who demonizes your preferred enemy, "religion", as the Oppressor Class. You, like feminists and black racists, are also in your own Victimhood Class, as an officially oppressed victim of the Oppressor Class. The three-class system clinches your superiority by your inclusion into a phony class. But it self-authorizes your class war on the Other, the Oppressor Class which you have designated as such by yourself.

The three-class system derives directly from Marxism, and is imbued with the same elitist, savior mentality which involves the Nietzschean will to power for the elites, and the domination of the inferior "herd", and the Leninist claim to a "scientific" basis (in your case psychology, the least empirical of sciences save anthropology which renounced its scientific basis in a spurt of intellectual honesty).

As is common, this is all falsely predicated in "science" (a la Lenin), in your case the faux science of psychological "interpretations" which in your hands become moral judgments, from an ideology which denies the existence of morality (again per Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil). Yet you and Atheists in general create your own moral principles, and fully condemn those who are Othered by their differing ideology from your own personal creation.

Your site is strikingly similar to white supremacist sites I have stumbled onto.

In fact, the morality of the modern western Messiah Class is eliminationist, just as are all supremacists. Tolerance now means tolerance for all Classes except the Oppressor Class, whose opinions of dissent must be quashed under hate crimes. Equality now means equality for all Classes except the Oppressor Class, which must be held back in education, have its wealth redistributed, and its "privilege" revoked and reversed in order to favor the Victimhood Classes.

Atheist supremacism has demonstrated its vile character sufficiently in the Atheist domination of the USSR, China, S.E.Asia, Cuba, etc, with political genocides and gulags - all similar to the Atheist French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.

Atheism and its complete moral and intellectual void is the world's biggest hazard, even today, as the Russians re-invade their previous captive nations and China arms itself beyond the capabilities of free nations. Atheist domination differs from ISIS only in the fact that Atheism has no morality attached to it, and thus is free to assert any atrocity, anywhere, any time.

Actually, Atheism is on the same moral plane as ISIS, isn't it?

Your own pretensions of morality and moral judgment are purely derived from yourself as the determiner of what is moral and what is not, under your own personal moral authority to decide morality for the masses. It cannot come from Atheism, because Atheism has no morality attached to it. So it is purely your own device, your own opinion, which you pass off as definitive morality from your presumed position of moral (and intellectual) superiority. Thus you have self-elevated to godhood, and the self-perception of elitism and perfection, purely based on three words: "ain't no God". And that enabling phrase has created (in you) a moral authority over your designated Oppressor Class.

Being the elite, then, perhaps you can prove that there is no God other than yourself. No Atheist has ever done that, though, certainly not using the intellectual tools of disciplined deduction, nor the functional tools of materialist empiricism. Yet if you have managed to do so, then how about providing that proof over at this site:
atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com

We'll watch for your proof.
Stan
"

Valerie moderates comments, so this might not make it onto her site. We'll see.

UPDATE:
My comment did not make it onto her site, but many hundreds of others did make it, well over 700 so far. Tarico is a magnet for the eliminationist AtheoLeft, it appears. And Tarico censors criticism that is dangerous to the ambient narrative, although some cannon fodder is allowed in to feed the Atheist site dwellers.

Valerie Tarico, Atheist Psychologist, Explains Why Religions Are Guilty, Not Guilty and Are Guilty of Violence.

Valerie Tarico gives us another lesson in the Atheist attack on religions, this time throwing in a little false psychological melodrama to boot things down the path. It's a twisty, turny ride toward Christian guilt. Well, all religions, but let's face it: Christians are the most hated; this time around it's for their violence.

When going after religionS (frequently plural and non-distinguished or differentiated), Atheists always ignores their own Marxist history, and the Enlightenment's creation in the genocidal French Revolution. Tarico is certainly in line with that.

”Is monotheism inherently violent? Is religion an excuse or cover for other kinds of conflict? Are Western colonialism and warmongering in the root of the problem? Do blasphemers make themselves targets? Is the very concept of blasphemy a form of coercion or violence that demands resistance? Is killing in the name of gods a distortion of religion? Alternately, is it the real thing?

Each of these questions is best answered “yes, and” rather than “yes/no.”

With the possible exception of Buddhism, the world’s most powerful religions give wildly contradictory messages about violence. The Christian Bible is full of exhortations to kindness, compassion, humility, mercy and justice. It is also full of exhortations to stoning, burning, slavery, torture, and slaughter. If the Bible were law, most people you know would qualify for the death penalty. The same can be said of the Quran. The same can be said of the Torah. Believers who claim that Islam or Christianity or Judaism is a religion of peace are speaking a half-truth—and a naive falsehood.”

Fortunately for us, Tarico answers her own questions because we might have gotten it wrong. For example, that religion is the root of the problem. I, for one, would not have guessed that the KGB or the Maoists were all that religious. But they are not the “root”; religion is. Further, it is a naïve falsehood to claim otherwise, so all the Atheist Marxists are safe from her condemnations, as are the Atheist heirs of the French Revolution.

The AtheoLeftist always goes straight to the biblical rules made for historical Jewish communities while they wandered without a homeland, and ignores the New Testament completely (almost), or at least trivialize it as much as possible. By basing their rhetoric on the Old Testament they can claim that Christians must be violent, despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary. Evidence is important only when it confirms the narrative, and that also explains the lack of interest in the Atheist bloody ravages in just the past 100 years, far more bloody and moral-free than Christianity has ever been, even cumulatively. And it is always necessary to associate Christianity with Islam; otherwise the accusation would fall flat, even on cynical Atheist ears.

Further, her reference to the Christian “ethnic cleansing” in the Central African Republic seems to be false: there is no reference for this at the UN Security Council page specifically for the CAR itself, and all other reports seem to be based on a circular rumor, while none give any link to an actual report.

The obvious fallacy, Guilt By Association, is the only weapon that the AtheoLeft has against its major enemy, Christianity. And to do that AtheoLeftists must accept the fact that Islam, their own partner in Christian-hating, is extremely violent. That partnership is temporarily ignored just so that Christianity can be falsely associated with the violence and totalitarian barbarism of Islam. The ploy is so transparent as to be obvious at the primary school level.

”I would argue that, like alcohol, religion disinhibits violence rather than causing it, and that it does so only when other factors have created conditions favorable toward aggression. I might also argue that under better circumstances religion disinhibits generosity and compassion, increasing giving and helping behaviors. Religion often is centered around authority and text worship (aka “bibliolatry”). Because of this, it has the power to lower the threshold on any behavior sanctioned by either a sacred text or a trusted religious leader and is at its most powerful when one is echoed by the other.”

This psychologist gives nothing but her Atheist opinion, no evidence, no references. Actual evidence consistently shows that in the west, Atheists give almost nothing to charity while the religious give generously to secular as well as religious charities. Further, studies show that Atheists have a decreased empathy level compared to Christians, in that they are far less likely to help a particular needy individual. Atheists think they are empathetic if they get teary eyed over a TV documentary alleging society’s persecution of polar bears. AtheoLeftists are known to be tax dead-beats as well, putting the lie to any claim that they “gave” to the government for distribution.

Also she promotes the concept of Authoritarian or forced worship, despite the lack of authority in western religions (save cults). She is thus equating the generic class, “religion”, with cult properties in order to support her Atheist needs. Atheism comes closer to cult thought, enforced by peer ridicule, but she ignores the worshipful reverence for Richard Dawkins who has “saved” millions for Atheism. That would not be helpful for her narrative.

”Despite the fact that violence is repeatedly endorsed in sacred texts, most Christians, Muslims and Jews never commit acts of violence in the service of their religion. Similarly, millions of people consume alcohol without insulting, hitting, kicking, stabbing or shooting anyone. Most of us are peaceful drinkers and peaceful believers.

You know there is another shoe to drop:

” Yet, [here it is, the contradiction of the previous statement] statistically we know that without alcohol assaults would be less common. [Start with False Association; justify what "we all know": Fallacy Argumentum Ad Populum ] - So too, we all know that when suicide bombings happen, or blasphemers and apostates are condemned to die, or a rape victim is stoned to death, Islam is likely to be involved. And when we hear that an obstetrics doctor has been shot or a gay teen beaten and left for dead, or a U.S. president has announced a “crusade”, we know that Christianity was likely a part of the mix.”

This is the ultimate in stretching reality via demonstrable logic fallacy in order to support an ideology. First compare religion to alcoholic violence; then compare that to Islamic violence; find the remote violence by alleged Christians which occurs once every decade or so. Claim that Christianity, despite previous disclaimers, is known to be actually violent, imply that it is to be feared more than the excesses of world wide Atheism. Claim that war on terrorists is an illegitimate “presidential crusade” and thus Christian violence, as if no Atheist or Leftist approved it.

Only the deranged would believe these claims.

And the final claim, dredged from past millennia:

”American Christianity retains shadows of the inquisitor’s hood and implements of torture.”

If this is so, then Atheism is to be fully condemned based on the hundreds of millions killed by atheists in very recent history, and even their brutality in major Atheist nations still today. So I feel free and comfortable in condemning her as an Atheist under her own principles of condemnation.

”As Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity spread across Nigeria and Congo, thousands of children are being beaten or burned or disfigured with acid after being condemned by Christian ministers as “witches.” ”

There is nothing in Christianity about witches; the Vulgate says “wizards”, not witches; i.e., treasonous deceivers. Period. And the right of all punishment belongs not to Christians, it belongs to the deity, to be meted out only by the deity. The doctrinal abuse of Cults are again being equated as if they are exemplary of Christian doctrine and Christians in general.

”Meanwhile in Uganda, American Evangelicals have helped to advance prison terms and death penalties for African gays. The Family, an American Christian organization with members in congress helped to convert Uganda’s president to their form of politicized Christianity. American activists attended a conference in Uganda aimed at “wiping out” homosexuality. ” [It’s Family Research Council, not “the Family”; obviously no research done here for supporting her false conclusion].

That is true, they (FRC leaders) did go to the conference, but not to support the “wiping out”; they went to attempt to instill tolerance per the actual Christian faith which is voluntary, but they failed, probably because of the AIDs epidemic which homosexuals spread throughout their country. The lie, once told to liars, becomes truth; what she and the Atheists push is the lie which by its prevalence is now a received, dogmatic “truth” despite being a lie. Narrative always trumps truth.

”Were the Fort Hood and Charlie Hebdo murder sprees or Boko Haram massacres caused by Islam? Are the Central African murder sprees caused by Christianity? A yes answer is far too simple.”

Oh really? Religion is not the cause? That sudden disclaimer seems out of place, being lost amongst the other prior claims to the contrary. After all, it's "what we all know".

”But violence, tribalism, and mutually exclusive truth claims are built into in our sacred texts and traditions. As a consequence, religion around the world continues to disinhibit lethal violence at a horrendous rate

Oh. OK, then. Religions ARE guilty after all.

” For us to vilify Muslims or Christians or any group of believers collectively is to engage in the familiar act of cowardice we call scapegoating. It means, ever and always, that we end up sacrificing innocents to appease our own fear, anger and thirst for vengeance.”

Oh. Wait. Religions are NOT guilty again. It’s the Atheist’s own “thirst for vengeance”? Hmm.

”But for us to ignore the complicated role of religion in violence is a different kind of cowardice, one that has been indulged by peace-lovers among the faithful for far too long.”

OK, now we’re back to “religions ARE guilty after all.” Whew. I'm glad she stopped here. I was getting whiplash.

HT: Anshuman Reddy - thanks for the link!

Valerie Tarico Attempts to Warp the Abortion Issue

Tarico compares abortion to spontaneous death of fertilized eggs, claiming that the spontaneous failure of many fertilized eggs to attach to the uterus proves that abortion is not the major cause of embryonic death. Thus it is that anti-abortionists should be morally concerned more about the moral issue of the natural deaths of those embryos than the killing of normally developing embryos in the mother's womb. The obvious discrepancy in the attitudes of the anti-killing crowd somehow shows an irrationality, in Tarico's estimation, or at least a potentially exploitable hypocrisy.

"The fact that fertilized egg death is so common means that all birth control methods available today reduce the rate of embryonic hari-kari, and the more effective the contraceptive the more this is true. Top tier contraceptives, including the IUDs so hated by the Hobby Lobbyists, prevent more egg death daily than every pro-life picketer in America combined. And that's not even counting how much therapeutic abortion decreases when women have access to better birth control."

So this psychologist "reasons" that preventing embryos reduces the natural death of embryos; for some reason that is more moral in her book, or should be at least for the Other. But if preventing the death of fertilized eggs is suddenly moral for the Left, then Plan B is immoral as well as is murdering fertilized eggs at all regardless of the stage of development.

That's not her point though. It's not that she, herself, believes that fertilized egg death is any sort of an issue. She is attempting to use Reductio to prove that it is actually not important to anyone, ever. Thus, if it's not important, then by considerable convoluted extension, no embryonic death is actually important. It's an argument to support, however obliquely, the human killing of other humans from fertilized egg through whatever age they care to designate, if any. Because fertilized egg death is not important.

(Gotta love the term "therapeutic abortion", though - very creative twisting on "killing half the people who enter the abbatoir")

The fact is that Plan B kills fertilized eggs that might have attached, developed, and become children, teenagers and adults. It is human induced killing of innocents. The issue is specifically the presumptive right to actively kill normally developing humans. She does not in any manner address this as she tries to obscure the issue with faux moral principles and false equivalencies.

The further issue of the hatred for Hobby Lobby stems not from any moral issue or ethical base; it stems from hatred of the inability she has to force Hobby Lobby to pay. It's as simple as that. The Left is incensed at the restrictions on their hegemony into the lives and jobs of their opponents. They MUST be allowed to interfere in Hobby Lobby's business. They MUST be allowed to dictate what Hobby Lobby will pay for beyond wages for labor. The issue is purely what they can force their enemies to do. They are totalitarian to the end, and they are morally authorized by themselves to be totalitarian.

It's that simple.