Store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven
where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal

Saturday, June 5, 2010

I Don’t Think So

There’s a few atheists hanging around that seem beyond desperate to have me ask them about what they believe and why. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I would do that.

To me, that would be like Thomas Edison wanting to tell me about all the ways that didn’t work for making the light bulb. It would be like someone in the U.S. government telling me about it’s foreign policy successes over the last 200 years. It would be like interviewing every person who has come in last in each Olympic event for the last 40 years. It's like a junkie asking me to admire the needle tracks on her arms. It would be like reliving the first 30 years of my life.

I’m not interested in failure.
I’m not interested in what doesn’t work.
I’m not interested in absurd world-views, illogical conclusions, incoherent thought systems.
If you like to revel in being a fool, go crazy -

But don’t expect me to be fascinated with your trip to hell.

. To me, it’s like watching a rich world stand idly by as 10,000 children starve to death each and every day.

. It’s like hearing about people die from malaria when there’s a stack of 10,000 mosquito nets right outside the door.

. It’s like reading about a well-head blow out that wrecks the ocean and knowing that it could have been prevented with one extra valve but that was ignored because - well - that might cost a couple thousand extra.

Atheism is tragic, self-destructive, self-defeating ultimately and literally futile.

And you expect me to be fascinated by it?

I don’t think so.

18 comments:

  1. "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." -- Stephen Covey

    From the prayer of Saint Francis:
    "O divine Master,
    grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
    to be understood, as to understand"

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  2. Atheism is tragic, self-destructive, self-defeating ultimately and literally futile.

    And you expect me to be fascinated by it?

    I don’t think so
    .

    And yet you post about everyday.

    (Long time reader, first time comment poster),
    Nic

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  3. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ...well then. Mak, the strange content of your text, self-perpetuates from the ever burning furnace of contempt you so adamantly fuel with faith. If we, atheists are the flies buzzing around your blog, then your writing is surely the shit by which out attention is fixed.

    The truth is, your addicted to atheists. We have all the reason to know this. Your undivided attention is spent composing dialogue designed to maintain a constant flux of conflict between us and yourself, so that you can return to your "Christian blog" every morning to service your fetish. And you do a great job, if I may say so.

    Surely you've noticed the ratio of atheist to Christian visitors to your blog.
    One would think with only "1.6%", your atheist crowd should be overwhelmed by Christians. Nope! You don't sing to Christians. You pick fights with atheists.
    It's very curious how someone can get so worked up over a mere 1.6%.

    But we all know why. You sir, have an atheist fetish. Congratulations, your more effected by atheism than atheists.

    Yours truly,
    snacky

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  4. "atheists are the flies buzzing around your blog, then your writing is surely the shit by which out attention is fixed."

    THAT's Good!
    ===========

    The hook for me, regarding atheism is that as people move away from Christianity, their children are left in a spiritual vacuum. They are exploring other belief systems, atheism being just one of them. I seem to find it my responsibility to point out the absurdities of atheism to those who are "seeking." Why atheism and not, say, Buddhism? Well, about three years ago I sat down and was about to type in Islam but instead typed atheism.

    There, atheists would write things like, “If you tell me why you don’t believe in Zeus or Thor, then you’ll understand why I don’t believe in your god.” I’d read that and blink in amazement that an atheist, a person who thought of h/himself as an especially intelligent person would see that as a valid argument. I mean, did they really and truly think that Jesus was as mythological as Zeus? Did they really think that? Or were they just trolling?

    Atheist author Richard Dawkins would write - [The Christian God is] “Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynist, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

    Atheist author Chris Hitchens said, “All religions and all churches are equally demented in their belief in the existence of the divine.”

    Richard Dawkins wrote, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.”

    Sam Harris said, “Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”

    And I thought - these people want to make my children believe this. these people want everyone to believe this.

    I came to see that those who adhere to “scientism,” are unable to comprehend any truth or see anything as valuable unless it’s understood from a scientific perspective. They also believe that there are no limits to what science can discover. In their minds, ‘there is no truth but scientific truth.’

    Rather than a deeper understanding of atheism, I want those wandering through this blog to know the absurdities of atheism. If you want other people to know why you believe what you believe, tell it to them at your own blog.

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  5. scientism isn't an actual ism. scientism is a term coined by denialists who misunderstand what science is and assume that the scientific method shares their same cognitive bias. it does not. anybody who understands the scientific method and practices actual science is doing the opposite of "scientism".

    it is akin to those who mistakenly call science a religion, proving that they don't understand what either means.

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  6. I'm talking about atheists, not scientists. I've given many examples of where the atheist bias has made claims on behalf of the scientific method that science itself would never allow.

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  7. Your belief entails a talking snake, walking on water, magic fruit, seas parting, coming back from the dead, the world being 6000 years old, a flooding of the whole earth, people turning into salt, using magic to create fish and bread out of thin air, non-surgical magic methods of curing blindness, predicting the future, whispering telepathically to the creator of the entire cosmos, surviving in a whale for 3 days, building a boat that can fit every animal in the world, using magic to kill all the firstborn children in town, turning water into blood, Virgin birth, talking donkeys, spirits, demons, magic, witches, angels, spells, warlocks, a massiah, giants, Satan, fallen angels, prophesies, and everything inbetween from a monotheistic religion that believes god is a trinity AND you want us to know the absurdities of being skeptical about all that stuff?

    Sure, mak. Yeah, it's the atheists who are crazy, sure.

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  8. You've really let yourself turn into an intolerable asshole, congrats.

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  9. So what do you want me to do Ginx? Something that is common among atheists, or at least with the ones tha blog, is that they like to sit around, like first year college students babbling away to see how clever they can sound.

    While we both of us might be wrong, we obviously cannot both be right. If Jesus is right, then what you believe is a huge tragedy. I take that seriously.

    If people only consider the surface arguments for atheism, you might be responsible for convincing other people to choose hell. “Temptation to sin will always come but woe to him who does the tempting.”

    So what do you want me to do? Act as though that’s not important? Atheism is absurd from beginning to end. Even whateverman knows at some level that our existence is not an accident. Yet we are born in rebellion to the idea of being accountable to our Creator. Atheism is just one form that rebellion takes.

    I may do a lousy job of saying it, I may come across as crude and insensitive, but I will not stop telling people what is wrong with atheism. I'm not going to pretend that it's worth my time, nor am I going to pretend that I'm interested in why Hugo denies the existence of his Creator.

    On the other hand, if I thought that he had even a flake of interest in a serious discussion, if he was actually trying to sort this out in his head, that would be different. He isn't. His mind is made up. So what is the point of pretending otherwise?

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  10. I might be wrong, but you are wrong, even if you're "right," because Jesus didn't ask you to act like a dismissive jerk to people.

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  11. Oh, more than that, He said don't be a dismissive jerk. But again, who I am has no bearing on what Jesus taught. You're not going to have to answer for my screw-ups.

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  12. If you wanted to convince, you would be interested in why "Hugo denies his creator.", as an army recruiter would be in his or her attempt at overcoming the objections held by the individual he or she is determined to persuade. You will not be very successful in persuading anybody that their contention is false, if you don't understand their contention to begin with. You may have some threshold of genuine desire to "save" individuals of other ideologies than yourself, but it's seemingly giving way to an accelerating interest in intolerance.

    Nobody here is "sitting around trying to sound clever", and suggesting this does not exempt or dilute the quality of the arguements put forth, simply because you've declared them as such. This is merely the reaction from a man who has no intent on processing such arguments due to a vested interest in blissful and sedating ignorance.

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  13. A quick summary of this blog...

    Thesauros say things like:
    Atheists believe 'A'. They think that 'B' is true. Their thinking process consists of 'C'.

    Non-believers replied:
    You're wrong, Atheists do not believe in 'A' or 'B' and their thinking process is nothing like 'C', and it varies from one individual to another anyway.
    Why do you say this?
    Why are you are misrepresenting Atheists?

    Thesauros:
    I would not use the word misrepresenting. I am just point out errors.

    Non-believers:
    No you are not, the "errors" you point out do not represent their beliefs, because you never asked, you just assume that you know, partly because you claimed to have been an Atheist before.

    Thesauros:
    I don't give a shit. Their beliefs are irrelevant, they are just idiots, and wrong.

    Or, in other words...

    "I’m not interested in absurd world-views, illogical conclusions, incoherent thought systems. "

    ... that I do not know anything about.

    *******
    *EPIC!*
    *******

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  14. Why would I ever follow something that you obviously don't even bother to practice?

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  15. "You may have some threshold of genuine desire to "save" individuals of other ideologies"

    It's not my job to "save" anybody or convince anybody. "No one comes to Jesus unless God draws him." John 6:44.

    Ginx, waiting for my or ANY Christian's perfection isn't going to do you any good.

    While on any given day you could look at my life and say, "Ech, who needs it?" On the other hand, if you compared the today me with who I was in my pre Christian days, you may well say, "If God can do that, I want some."

    Or not.

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  16. ". . . if you compared the today me with who I was in my pre Christian days, you may well say, 'If God can do that, I want some.'

    Or not."

    True, some of us are more likely to say, "If God had done that, I might want some." But we know you did it and you deserve more credit than you're giving yourself. Your belief in God certainly may have helped you, but for most of your loyal commenters, the benefits of believing do not outweigh the drawbacks.

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  17. the benefits of believing do not outweigh the drawbacks.”

    No doubt! While I’ve certainly crossed a line from time to time, I’m not convinced that my approach is entirely wrong. By and large, I’m dealing with people who have zero interest in challenging their beliefs. Therefore, in my mind I think, “What’s the point in discussion? We’ll just arrive right back where we started.”

    I think the atheist who writes at whispersessions said it best:

    "It’s imperative to understand that not all atheists are advocates of reason. We are all born atheists, therefore it is our default state. Many atheists don’t believe in a god because they simply never gave it a thought. They could very well be dishonest, angry people who have no moral code whatsoever. Some are atheists out of rebellion to their family. They may have never given a thought to philosophy or science, let alone ethics and morality. Some are atheists simply because they despise religion. Their “lack of belief” is actually a vicious anti-belief, and when asked about what they do believe, they’ll generally have nothing more to say than how badly they hate someone else’s beliefs. They will tell you that religion is wrong, but they’ll have nothing to say about what is right. They’ll say theism is false, but they will have nothing to say about what is true. To be sure, many atheists’ atheism rests upon nothing at all. They are not advocates of reason. They are advocates of nothing. They are atheist, non-rational, amoral, and anti-reason all at the same time." While he, like the guys hanging around here was certain that none of these reasons applied to him (he was an atheist because he was so logical and reasoned in his thinking) he explained the situation very well.

    And that, my man, is why I put almost no effort into getting to know you. Perhaps some people blog looking for friendship but I assure you, I'm not one of them. Anger is a powerful hook for me. I told you about the comments of Harris and Dawkins and such that hooked me to atheist issues.

    I grew up with the philosophy that five of my punches for every one of the other guys was quite effective. That has been an attitude that has been profoundly difficult for me to believe that I should be willing to let go.

    Your beliefs, because they fail to deal with the human condition, in fact, because they overtly ignore and condone the human condition present a danger to the world. Corruption is destroying us. Atheism has no answer for corruption. Jesus does.

    And there we are!

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  18. am I the only one who LOL each time I read "Your beliefs" around here?

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