Monthly Archives: July 2015

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of fundamentalists

we know a fundamentalist believer holds it that their particular god exists.

that their holy book and only theirs is the true word of this god

that their interpretation of the said holy book is the only valid interpretation

and if they believe hell and heaven exist, then everyone else is damned to eternal damnation.

I have read claims on theist blogs that there are fundamentalist atheists.

Am I a fundamentalist atheist for believing the word god is meaningless

for holding that religion* has no redeeming feature

for writing about atheism consistently

for asserting all religious believers are misguided?

How does one become a fundamentalist atheist?

*Religion here means the belief in the supernatural

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if there is no god

why do emotions exist? If you can’t measure emotions, and you can’t measure God, do neither exist?

is part of a comment on SB’s blog, finding hope without god. And while I agree with Nietzsche that

hope is the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeals of man

I wonder which planet creationists goddites come from. As a shout out to David, the comment author, I invite everyone to list the absurd questions they can think of. To start off,

if there is no god, why do we have cancer?

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of the most excellent men

according to Montaigne.

If you are thinking Jeebus made the cut, too bad, he didn’t even get a mention.

The first is Homer, not Homer Simpson. He says he is the father of poetry. There was none greater before him and none has imitated him since. In the words of Montaigne

And for this reason he may be called the first and the last of the poets, according to the fine testimony antiquity has left us of him, “that as there was none before him whom he could imitate, so there has been none since that could imitate him.”

Alexander the Great for his achievements starting from such a very young age.

The third and in my opinion the most excellent, is Epaminondas. Montaigne says The Greeks have done him the honour, without contradiction, to pronounce him the greatest man of their nation; and to be the first of Greece, is easily to be the first of the world. He elsewhere says

Antiquity has judged that in thoroughly sifting all the other great captains, there is found in every one some peculiar quality that illustrates his name: in this man only there is a full and equal virtue throughout, that leaves nothing to be wished for in him, whether in private or public employment, whether in peace or war; whether to live gloriously and grandly, and to die: I do not know any form or fortune of man that I so much honour and love.

I know each of you knows some excellent man.

Have a great day/ evening one and all

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additional thoughts on previous post

In his response to SB, Lyle writes

I did not say a person without faith could not or does not understand The the transcendental concepts I spoke about. To the contrary the Bible says that God has written his law in everyone’s heart. However, if there was no deity to write those laws on humanity’s heart there would be no laws. In theology they call this natural law. The founding fathers believed in natural law and therefore could say that these truths are self evident. They were self evident because they were revealed by God to all men. That is all men. Unfortunately, the younger generation knows nothing about natural law and therefore finds the declaration and Constitution difficult to understand.

You sound like a civil person if you would like to continue a discussion I would be glad to do so. However, I am turning off the comments on my blog because of the language an the attitudes reflected by some of the new atheist which have responded to my blog. I have agreed to respond to a few, but I am not excited about it because most of their ideas are self assertions with no quotes from authorities In philosophy or science. They are an authority unto themselves. Such people no one can debate with nor take serious. if you would like to share send your blog.

Natural law is

a philosophy of law that is determined by nature, and so is universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature — both social and personal — and deduce binding rules of moral behavior from it.

It allows no room for the supernatural. It has nothing to do with gods. To claim natural law is given by god is a contradiction in terms. They are self-evident because they are derived from nature. A person feels pain, they don’t like it. They infer they shouldn’t inflict pain on others. No god is necessary. To posit a god is superfluous.

The world is a big place. It is bigger than the US of A. And anyone with an IQ greater than my shirt would know natural law was spoken of long before the American Declaration of Independence. I believe Thomas Aquinas wrote way before the founding of the US of A and he wrote on natural law as deriving from the nature of man. I think instead of Lyle saying the younger generation being clueless on natural, it is him that is clueless. And what have I to do with the declaration or constitution of the US. You have written a post about atheists and morality not American jurisprudence. These are not related topics.

It is true SB is very civil and polite. I try civility once in a while.

It is strange that a guy who is berating atheists is closing comments on his post because he doesn’t like what he is hearing. Stranger though is that only SB had commented by the time of writing this post. Unless of course he is referring to GC’s and my response.

And then he dismissed our responses by an appeal to authority! Our criticisms are not valid because we have not quoted a bible verse or a theologian! What nerve some believers have?

I make no apologies for being an authority unto myself. In the event you want me to quote an authority, just ask. I know they are not in short supply.

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New atheists and morality

Godless Cranium has written a post, which I will read after I finish writing mine for fear that should I read his first, I may find it so good I will be unable to go ahead. It is a response to Lyle who has written the amazing new atheists.

In his brief essay, The Necessity of Atheism, Percy Bysshe Shelley writes, and I paraphrase that ignorance of nature created the gods, its knowledge will be the death of gods. If this has not been true at any time in our history, then it is more so now.

Lyle starts his post thus

I am truly amazed at people that claim they are atheist and then spent a great deal of their time talking about or even arguing about transcendental concepts like love, justices and truth.

and one wonders if these are not human terms? Anyone, as long as they are human, can use them. Or does Lyle intend to tell us there is only a special class of persons to whom love, justice and truth should matter?

He goes on

If there is no God, are these concept not just empty expressions? Why spent the time and effort to try to convince the theist or for that matter anyone that there is no God?  If there is no God, is not truth just a subjective term that has no real content?

I don’t speak for other atheists, but I am not busy trying to convince a theist there is no god. I already know and that is enough for me. What does god have to do with justice? Is Lyle telling us without his belief in a phantom, he will be robbing his neighbour, killing their pets? What does he mean by betting justice on a god? And while he keeps throwing truth around, what does he mean by truth?

I don’t know how gods non-existence

would necessitate the complete remaking of everything, our language, our culture, values, civilization and in essences the very way we think about everything.

Is culture so dependent on god that if men stopped believing in some ghost, it would collapse? Hasn’t humanity progressed in spite of culture, religion and not because of it?

And he represents Nietzsche when he writes

We are talking about the world of Nietzsche, a world, which has gone beyond good and evil, a world of a mad man

for he( Nietzsche) dreamt of a higher man. He writes for the free spirit. Not held back by custom, by religion or dogma.

He asks

can mankind survive as man without the idea of God?

and I say a resounding yes. I hope also he recognizes, god is just an idea and one which hasn’t even been coherently defined. It means whatever the believer wants it to mean.

Someone said, and I paraphrase, all great ideas start as heresy and I find these words

For this reason I believe that atheism is the most dangers and destructive ideology in the world

by Lyle to capture the spirit of that quote. Yes, any idea that leads to a revolution in the way of thought is dangerous. It can’t be any other way. And Lyle has every reason to be scared. Religion cannot stand the assault of reason without transforming itself into something entirely different.

When he writes

Some may respond by saying that they feel religion is evil and that they are simply trying to do away with evil and replace it with something better. Well I would have to agree that some religion is evil but not because religion itself is evil but rather because there are evil men in religion.

I have to disagree. Religion is inherently harmful. No man is evil. It is judgement that makes it so, and this judgement is not on the person but on their actions rather consequences of their actions.

It is odd that the person berating atheists as being relativist[s] says

You might reply, because religion hurts people. My answer is, it has not hurt me,

Is a god necessary for one to know genocide is harmful or that war is? Is the believer so handicapped? Who ties their shoelaces?

That the Nazis thought exterminating the Jews reasonable doesn’t make it so. I don’t want to be exterminated. In the words of John Donne,

Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee

I must think theists very ignorant of the church history. When the church had divine guidance, witches were burnt, men and women burnt at the stake and religious differences settled by crusades. As Arch would say, religion is trying to bring peace to a world torn apart by religion.

Anytime a theist brings up the reign of Stalin as a counterpoint to atheistic society, I am convinced the fellow has an IQ less than that of my shirt, and I mean no insult here. Stalin was for lack of a better word psycho. The religious represent about 58% of the Chinese population. The government is authoritarian. Nobody denies that the ruling party is atheistic. It’s faults are not, in my view, because it is atheistic but because it is authoritarian.

It is a fact that

The truth is that belief in God is as much a matter of the will as the intelligent.

and this explains why there are those who regardless of anything reason can show them, they would still believe in god.

I don’t want to go beyond here. It is no argument for the truth of religion that some intelligent person believed.

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thoughts out of season

We all die, this is certain. Maybe not. Some are born dead and some never live.

Each life is just as important as the next.

Why do politicians walk around with bodyguards? Does this phenomena happen only here in my neck of woods or elsewhere?

What type of idiot walks around another idiot to take for them a bullet should one be fired?

What loss do we suffer if a politician idiot is killed other than having to go for elections? Shouldn’t we, to keep these thieving people in check, take away their security details? Maybe they may just become reasonable.

It’s a chilly morning here, with some showers. I don’t know how it is wherever you are.

Wishing you all a godless Sunday.