Things that annoy me.

An atheist did write a post[I can’t vouch for the blog. I haven’t seen the original version or where it is claimed to have come. In the meantime I will consider it a case of Paulines lying for Paul] about his view of what his views of atheism is and how we shouldn’t sugarcoat stuff.  We will write about his post someday when we get the time to do so, but as of now, there is a portion of the apologist trope I need to deal with.

He/she writes

I see a lot of atheists these days thinking that they can help themselves to a robust notion of consciousness, to real libertarian free will, to objective moral values and duties, to objective human rights, and to objective meaning in life, without giving credit to theism.

Which is loaded with lies, innuendo and misinformation. As I have oft repeated, atheism answers only one question. It is kinda annoying if one has to be told time and again that beyond the existence of gods, all other topics, they will have different views. I have friends who think we have free will to some extent, not the libertarian type, and those like me whose view is that we are biological automatons.

I don’t know what adding the word objective to morals or human rights does to the rights or morals in question. The apologist, in parroting WLC, claims there must exist objective moral values without telling us which these are and also demonstrating that these values and duties couldn’t have been developed by man and are objective to the extent that they apply to most societies given that we share a common humanity with small cultural differences? Why must a god be responsible for our duties and obligations to one another?

I don’t know atheists who claim an objective meaning in life. I have asked why must life have meaning to be lived. Why is the theist not satisfied with living and wants transcendence to have a meaningful life. If life has to have any meaning, an individual has to find those things that make it so. It is meaningless and absurd for all of us. To the theist, his life has meaning in god, to the non believer, whatever his fancy. We are all however, at the same place with regard to meaning in life and that it is meaningless. It is therefore a display of ignorance and arrogance to claim that for atheist who asserts that her life is meaningful can only do so through theism!

I have been advised not to call theists stupid, but this utterence cannot be thought of in a different light other than sheer stupidity and arrogance. Why for all that is reasonable should a person write

 I think it’s particularly important not to let atheists utter a word of moral judgment on any topic, since they cannot ground an objective standard that allows them to make statements of morality.

Morals have no meaning to an individual living alone in an isolated planet doing whatever gods do. Atheists, being human can utter and do utter words of moral judgement. And why shouldn’t they? What do belief in gods got to do with our morals. Am tired of apologists repeating this trope. I would want to ask, as Socrates did ask millenia ago

Is something loved because it is pious or is it pious because it is loved?

And while the theist is making claims about objective moral values, I want him to give a list of such examples and to demonstrate how these differ from those that man have developed since they began to live as social animals.

It is therefore stupid to continue to write

Further, I think that they should have every immorality ever committed presented to them, and then they should be told “your worldview does not allow you to condemn this as wrong”.

There is nothing in atheism that warrants me to transgress against my neighbour. Atheism is not a worldview. It is a conclusion on a question that has existed in the community consciousness for a long time. In fact, I must add here that among the Romans, the Epicureans and Stoics had in their numbers many atheists and these group represent some of the most excellent men who have lived on the planet. On the contrary, the Spanish Inquisition was led by religious men, the Aztecs were driven extinct by religious groups, in which case it can be said there is nothing about religion that guarantees that a person will be humane and moral, whatever moral is.

And she should explain to us why

They can’t praise anything as right, either.

Unless of course he denies our humanity.

And am waiting for the day I will be shown the truth of the statement below.

but if the opportunity arises to point out how they are borrowing from theism in order to attack it, we should do that in addition to presenting good scientific and historical evidence.

It is easy to repeat trope one has heard WLC or other apologist say, it requires independent thought to see that they are full of BS. You don’t just go repeating stuff because you have heard it said. It doesn’t hurt anyone to do some thinking for self. In fact, in the words of William H. Clifford,

it is wrong always and everywhere to believe anything on insufficient evidence.

I need to add a small thing to this already long post. She writes in one of the comments

If was Christians who hid Jews during the Holocaust, and Christians who took in abandoned infants in Roman times, and Christians who are leading the fight for the unborn today.

While ignoring it was the same Paulines killing the Jews during the holocaust. And well, Paulinity is new on the landscape and when it took form, Rome collapsed. I don’t like to engage in the abortion debate, but I must inform this apologist that they have little concern for the living. Their main campaign is about birth and after that they will wait for you to be ready to join the army to go and die in a cause that you nor your grandmother before you can make head and tails of.