Arragonce vs. Delusion vs. Stupidity

And, here we have a three way cage match of Arrogance, Self-Delusion, and Stupidity. I just can't make up my mind which comes out on top in "Everyone Needs Jesus...Even You." It is a truly pathetic piece of writing from an equally shitty website, Reign Drops. Just the fact that these assholes never seem to notice that virtually every single "argument"* they use only sort of works if they completely ignore everything and anything that contains even a hint of reality. There is no possibility of them accepting that other people actually are capable of thinking for themselves. They are the type of morons that you could demonstrate in person undeniable proof of "x" and if it doesn't fit their beliefs they will refuse to accept or even acknowledge "x."

So, be wary of sites and pieces like this one. Just reading such horrendous tripe can temporarily drop your IQ, or raise your blood pressure a few points.

*Just to clarify, the piece in this instance doesn't actual contain a single argument. It's more of a one direction rant.

"Why Atheism Is Dead on Arrival"?!

From the very first paragraph of his piece in the Christian Post Dan Delzell makes it clear that he is a complete dip shit.

"Atheists try not to think about the question: 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'Atheism has no rational answer to this fundamental question, and even considering the question has the potential to chip away at the beliefs of an atheist."

Delzell seems to be be making multiple mistakes. First, I think he is conflating atheists with scientists. The "something from nothing" bullshit is a common straw man argument that narrow minded fools have favored for quite some time. Consensus among Astro-physicists is that something, namely energy and matter, has always existed. The "Big Bang" shaped that existence into the universe as it currently is. As for atheists not thinking about it, why would we waste time on something so assinine. Something has always existed. What would be the point of questioning that?

Delzell also never seems to notice the bit of projection he's employing. Where did God come from? Without the use of special pleading doesn't this mean that theists try not to think about how God (something) came from nothing? If God has always existed what makes God any more plausible than energy and matter having always existed? Oh wait, that would be more plausible since it would not require intention or agency.

There is nothing rational about Delzell's tired apologetics. It is just more of the same mish-mash of logical fallacies and slight of hand semantics that so many theist try passing off as legitimate arguments.

Unapolegetic Fact-checking

I have one other occasions point out that apologists, especially Christian ones, tend to be willfully ignorant, delusional, stupid, or a combination of the three. A recent post by Justin Steckbauer on the Christian Apologetics Alliance' website does an excellent job confirming this view. "The Facts on Christianity: A Quick Examination" is certainly "quick" but bears no resemblance the rest of its title. Steckbauer fails to provide any facts or even the slightest attempt at examining anything he states. The short piece is especially entertaining since he does a pretty good job destroying his own claims. Of the 5 points he tries to make 3 take the form of rhetorical statements ("Does God exist?", Is the Bible really God's word?", Did Jesus really exist historically?") with the last two being meant as persuasive questions ("But was Jesus Christ really God come to Earth?", "What will you do?").

He starts the first point by stating, correctly, that you do not need absolute proof to reach a reasonable conclusion. He immediately dips into idiocy by trying to use the cosmological argument. Predictably, what follows is a jumble of logical fallacies and double standards. Basically, its the old BS that the universe needs a cause but God doesn't. No attempt at justifying or explaining why God should be exempted. Steckbauer's approach to the Bible is just as feeble. He does make an interesting half-assed attempt at acknowledging what actual scholars have known for quite some time by stating, "But there are over 25,000 whole and partial ancient manuscripts of the Bible, and they all match nearly identically." I don't know what the estimate is currently up to be but the number of fragments that make up the Bible is in the tens of thousands. However, he is blatantly wrong about there being even a single whole manuscript. dating to ancient times. Not one! He further proves what an ill-informed fool by trying to claim, "The Bible when compared with recorded history is 99.7% accurate." Not even close. I would be genuinely shocked if it was .3% accurate since the very few references in the Bible that have any connection to established history tend to be grossly inaccurate. His approach to Jesus is just as false. He mentions but does not reference "historical accounts by witnesses." There are no such accounts. All the earliest information relating to Jesus come from scriptures. There are no historical accounts of Jesus. The earliest historians wrote about Christians not Christ. Most accounts are at best third or fourth hand. You would think if someone wanted to write about "facts" that they might at least spend a few minutes fact-checking.

Apologist really are only good for a laugh. Their "arguments" have not changed in centuries. They have been so thoroughly refuted that there isn't anything more to do beyond satire and ridicule.

"God stepped in"

So, according to a certain sub-set of Christians God has to be one of the laziest, most clueless, incompetent assholes to ever exist. The only other possible interpretation (assuming God does exist) of comments from dim-wits like Debbie Dills is that she and her type of theist is willfully ignorant and/or self-deluded to an astonishing level. The Religious News Service commentary "God stepped in, says Debbie Dills, who spotted alleged S.C. killer" is yet another example of how easily religious beliefs can turn peoples brains into tapioca.

The very notion that God deserves any praise for allegedly being involved in any way with the tragedy that occurred recently in a South Carolina Church is disgusting. Why give this supposed supreme being any praise? God "stepped in" to help catch Dylann Roof after he committed murder but what about before the actual crime? Was God playing golf while this scrawny little asshole was plotting the murders? God couldn't get off his ass to give the little bastard a heart attack while loading his gun?

This is the type of thinking that infuriates me. Praise God on one hand and ignore everything else. It isn't just sloppy thinking it is downright fucking stupid. It is contradictory and a clear sign that this type of theist hasn't a fucking clue what they are talking about. Even if you accept this version of the God concept it is a being far from praiseworthy. None of the apologetics that have been tried to cover such a worthless piece of shit comes even close to being coherent let alone plausible. The most common excuse for such tragedies when they are actually questioned is "free will." One of the more irritating flaws in this stupid response, setting aside the innate contradiction with God's perfection, is that the "free will" of one scumbag somehow must out weigh the "free will" of numerous decent human beings.

Dill belittles herself and everyone else who sought to apprehend Roof by crediting a villainous fictional character. It's pathetic

Not intended as satire

When I first read Jeffery Krall's "The 12 Difficulties of Christmas" I was pretty sure an atheist had managed to dupe the Christian Post into publishing a spoof. Nope. Krall is serious. The piece really is intended to be some type of amateurish apologetics. He really seems to think his ponderings are deeply meaningful. The level of self-deception easily loans itself to my initial impression.

His first four seem to be aimed at some of the more conservative Christians but is so shallow I don't see why even the most devout right-winger would bother with them. Krall also seems oblivious to how unnecessary such an approach is since many theists of this stripe have already fully deluded and insulated themselves from any serious questions let alone his trivial take on them. The initial set of his difficulties are:
"1- A virgin conceives…God does something that has never been done before.
2- God uses a peasant teenage girl to bring His only Son into the world.
3- God impregnates someone’s daughter.
4- God impregnates another man’s woman."

To start with, virgin births are not uncommon in mythology. The Jesus narratives do not in fact contain any unique features. Virtually every aspect of the Jesus tales are variations of common elements found in legends and folklore throughout the Middle East/Levant. Also, if he were looking for serious questions why not ask about how God can hold to a lower standard than we pathetic mortals. Krall implies that the question of infidelity and/or adultery can be brought up but never really goes into it. God did knock-up a teenager who was at the very least promised to another man. By other passages of the Bible (Old Testament) Mary should have been stoned to death for a variety of reasons. Depending on your flavor of Christianity this is also potentially an instance of incest. According to some Jesus is God incarnate which would mean that God impregnated his own mom. That's some pretty twisted metaphysical baggage. Labeling that as "Difficulties" seems to be rather superficial and even flippant.

Those disturbing aspects are just from the first third of his list. Most of the others are just as silly and nonsensical. I'll only bother with a few more. His 5th difficulty, "God does this in the most religious culture on the planet", is completely baseless. What makes this part of the world the most religious is not elaborated on. His criteria would have to be either incredibly feeble or non-existent. In ancient times religion was woven into the very fabric of society. Even today that level of theocracy is still being felt.

"6-They were required to submit to the government decree to get registered." is just as full of shit. This one is a reference to one of the elements of the Jesus narratives that can be definitively proven false. We have more than enough historical records to establish not just that the Romans did conduct censuses but how they carried them out. They did not conduct them in the manner the Gospels describe. The Romans didn't give a shit where you were born. They only cared about where you were living at the time of the census. They wanted to know what they could count on for resources and labor within specific geographic boundaries of their empire. Of course, once you accept that this part of the Jesus narratives is a complete fabrication many of Krall's points after this one are nullified.

The real difficulties related to Christmas have far more to do with accepting that it is just a mash up previous myths, legends, and customs. No atheist I know could have done a better job ridiculing "the reason for the season" than Krall's bumbling list of silly inept questions.

It's a twofer!

While reading online a recently posted interview at Christian Century I could not stop laughing. The combination of two ridiculous approaches created such an absurd tapestry of nonsensical bullshit I had to laugh. David Heim's interview with Francis Spufford, "Right-brained apologetics", is so surreal I can't begin to think of how to adequately describe it. I will just state the main premise and then leave it to others to read.
Spufford insists that apologetics as a whole relies far too much on reason and rationality. He believes that injecting more emotion/sentimentality into the field is necessary. Seriously! I'm not kidding. He really believes that apologetics is based on reason.

It's fucking hilarious! Keeping in mind the title and it's allusions to the false right brain-left brain dichotomy just adds to the unintended humor. Though, I would caution readers not to apply too much reason of their own. If you think about it in any meaningful way it could lead to the opposite effect. Once I did re-read it I was a bit depressed. That people can be this idiotic is rather disheartening. So, it's better to laugh than cry. Read it once for its absurd humor and move on.

Exceptioanlly weak Apologetics or Mental Diarrhea?

The overwhelming majority of apologists seem to share the same penchant for willful ignorance, self-delusion, and logical fallacies. Yet another example of this intellectual bankruptcy is clearly demonstrated by Brandon Jones in his recent piece at The Global Dispatch, "Evidence of Jesus Christ’s life, resurrection and how atheists are foolish." Jones lobs numerous definitive statements without the slightest reference or support. It is hard to summarize the massive doses of bigotry, bias, and plain stupidity contained in this rather short piece but I'll give it a shot.

"Jesus is on ancient Roman records to have been crucified in 28 AD.  Even Orthodox Jews, who still hate Him, acknowledge His existence and death, but have trouble with his birth and resurrection....The tomb of Jesus, which can still be seen today in the Garden Tomb area (not the Catholic traditional site), still has the metal spikes which were sheared off when the angel rolled the stone away....The tomb of Jesus, which can still be seen today in the Garden Tomb area (not the Catholic traditional site), still has the metal spikes which were sheared off when the angel rolled the stone away....Why was the body of Jesus never found…, at least by unbelievers?  How is it that God managed to have the Ark of the Covenant hidden for 600 years, right under the place where Yeshua was crucified, so that His blood would flow down the earthquake crack of the hill of rock, and drip 24 feet down upon the West end of the Ark?"

All of that came from the first page of his two page rant. The first thing I noticed was that unlike many other apologists he makes no attempt at citing anything. Usually, they try to make some bogus claim that this historian or that stated something about Christ in one of their works. In each instance it is either a completely fabricated "source" or the source actually refers to what Christians said about their beliefs, which the historian was simply conveying. The historian makes no value judgement on the beliefs themselves. It's pretty pathetic that this asshole is as lazy as he is deluded. There are no Roman records related to Jesus Christ. In point of fact, Roman records discredit most aspects of the Jesus narratives. The supposed court case against Christ, for example, never would have proceeded the way it is described in the Gospels. There are certainly no accounts of such a noticeable event as an earthquake of the magnitude and consequence that he recites.

Then, of course there are all the other ridiculous things he manages to cram into such a short space. The Jews knew/know Christs existence and hate him. Really?! Jones knows this, how? Even if another group of theists accepted something as true what makes that factual? There is a lot of blind bigotry that Jones conflates with historical fact. The Garden Tomb, as he implies, is one of a handful of sites theists have speculated is the site of Jesus resurrection. There is no archeological evidence for this assertion. There isn't even any remotely objective reason to favor his preferred site over the various other proposed one. Also as Jones implies, many Christians refute this as a legitimate holy site. A fact about the Garden Tomb that can be easily confirmed is that it is a highly profitable tourist trap. Just follow the link to it's official website to check it out.

And, what the fuck is with his reference to the Ark? The supposed Ark of the Covenant, if it were real, would have pre-dated Christ and has no direct connection to any aspect of the Jesus narratives. Referencing multiple mythical events and figure does not provided reinforcement to any of them being historical. Its almost as if he contracted some type of mental diarrhea that he was then compelled to put down in writing. And remember the excerpts above are from just a handful of paragraphs on the first page. It doesn't get any better. You really have to read it to fathom the level of stupidity it contains. There is far more to ridicule than just what little I've pointed out.

"Not What God Intends"

Karyn Wieseman's HuffPo piece, "Not What God Intends", is another example of the innate contradictions and/or self-delusions that exist within faith. Personally, I agree that society and life should be more peaceful but the conclusion that violence and conflict must be against God's intentions does not follow. There are a number of problems with Wieseman's line of thinking.

One of the biggest problems, theologically and philosophically, with her primary assertion is that it is not compatible with one of the main traits of Christianity. If Christianity really is monotheistic then God has to be perfect and all-powerful.* It logically follows that if God is all-powerful we cannot possibly have free will. Every detail of the universe is exactly as it has to be. It would literally be impossible for things to occur that are not caused by God. In this sense everything is as God intends it to be.

There is also the question of whether it is even possible for God to have intentions. To have intent you first have to have a mind. Does God have a mind? How is that possible? Most contemporary theologians don't agree on much but most seem to agree that God does not have a physical body. Since the mind is a product of the brain it seems unlikely that God has a mind from which to form let alone project intentions.

Even for the sake of argument simply accepting God has intentions and that somehow we mere mortals can defy God's will there is still another problem with Wieseman's assertion. How the fuck can imperfect beings possibly know what the intentions of a perfect being are?

I find it hard to believe that most religious people either understand what they claim to believe or believe them to the extent they want to think they do. Most religious concepts are either incoherent or contradictory.

*I've previously written about this. Some previous posts in which I have talked about this include "Monotheism and Morality" (12/10/11), "Monotheism and Christianity" (12/31/11), and "The Same God" (9/8/13).

It's not just about Separation

Even if you set aside the fact that the bill S. 1274 is a gross violation of Separation of Church and State, which it is, it causes a number of problems in terms of theology. The bill in question would require FEMA to help pay for the reconstruction of places of worship that have been damaged by natural disasters.

When you think about it it can be seen as a demonstration of how little religious people themselves think of their "all-mighty." The same group of people who uses phrases like "God's plan", "act of God", and "playing God" now want the rest of us to pay to counter "God's will." Seriously?! They don't see the contradiction and hypocrisy in this type of bullshit. If God does and exist and is all-powerful then that place of worship was meant to be destroyed according to "God's plan". Wouldn't rebuilding it be "playing God"?

By even the most basic interpretation shouldn't this bill be seen as sacrilegious by believers. Attempts to reconcile this type of thing with apologetics also seems to lead to a variety of contradictions. If it is a "test of faith", a favorite excuse for all sorts of nonsense, should the test be answered by the faithful without the aid of others? Does this type of insistence on external help show weak belief? Do they fail the test?

It seems to me that this is a bad bill both in terms of its constitutionality and on theological grounds. It is just another example of unfounded pathetic beliefs needing to be propped up by government assistance.

Inadvertent Revelations from Concilium

     "The new atheists have failed to refute God, for one cannot prove the falseness of belief in God based on any particular scientific result. Science is simply not about God, one way or another - this is the point that both the new atheists and Intelligent Design theorists have failed to appreciate This is why they are both appear as strangely symmetrical positions, warring fundamentalisms engaged in a carefully choreographed dance that is based, in the end, on false assumptions."

The above excerpt is from a piece by Philip Clayton that appeared in the 2010 4th quarter edition of Concilium: International Review of Theology. It is not only fairly representative of his entire piece but also of the contents of the whole issue. It is chock full of ignorance, bias, false equivalence, and plain old bull shit. Most of it is rehashed nonsense. The paragraph opens with the notion that the burden of proof should rest solely on atheists. Why? Personally, I think atheists should provide reasons but the main focus should not be on us. We are not the ones making exceptional claims. It should also be noted that Clayton, like so many others, uses the term "new atheist" as if it is a synonym for contemporary atheist and has any real validity as a label without ever explaining why it should be seen as such.

One of the most amusing implications is his inadvertent admission that God is not real. It is rather indirect but it is there. In trying to claim that "Science is simply not about God" he implies that God is not part of our reality. Science, after all, is all about studying what the universe contains and  how it works. The only possible way God can be left out of that even indirectly is if God in fact does not exist. I've heard numerous other theologians and apologists make similar attempts at insulating the God concept from Science by claiming God is outside time and space or that God is beyond our sense of reality/existence. The result is the same. By definition such claims would have to mean God is not real. How can anything be outside "reality" and still be "real"? It can't.

He also makes a few false equivalents. The "new atheists" are not a mirror image of Intelligent Design proponents any more than they are of fundamentalists. Clayton never provides anything resemble proof of this comparison. He relies on numerous myths and stereotypes that are informed only by his own biases and those of like-minded faux-scholars. He also never clearly lays out or proves that atheists make "assumptions" at even the same level as theists. Throughout the piece Clayton makes use of a variety of assumptions without ever acknowledging that he has done so. His approach to the burden of proof is a good example but far from the only instance.

Concentrated bullshit is an apt description of his ludicrously named article, "Why Theism Must Evolve in the Age of Science." His view on theism are rather standard fare. Many of the ideas he puts forth have been around for at least a century. His grasp on even basic concepts and methods related to science is weak. If this is the best contemporary theistic scholars can do perhaps there is hope that religion will fade away.

More Baseless Attacks on "Mythicists"

The latest sniping comes from the dip shit behind the Exploring Our Matrix blog. "Announcing TalkHistoricity: An Index of Mythicist Claims" is an interesting title for the post since the Index does not actually exist. Premature announcements for the sake of drumming up interest is a fairly common and useful tactic but as you read further it becomes clear that not only has he not actually started working on this index he hasn't even worked out some of the basic structural issues. Of course, given the manner of the announcement my expectations of it being even remotely accurate are near zero.

Part of this announcement is a ridicilous pot-shot at Jerry Coyne.
"It continues to be the case that even a well-educated scientist like Jerry Coyne, who in his own field works hard to combat pseudoscience, is happy to jump on a fringe bandwagon in the domain of history on this particular topic and use his blog to promote those fringe views, in a manner that sadly and ironically parallels the sort of thing he finds frustrating in his own field."

McGrath includes a link to Coyne's post that sparked the above criticism. I was confused as to why he included it since it clearly shows how assinine his reproach is. Coyne does not really make any claim of his own. He points out how dubious the claims of a particular theist is in regard to the historicity of Christ. His insistence that definitive claims be backed up by clear evidence is a routine part of Coyne's "own field." There is nothing ironic about that. What is ironic is that Coyne, to the best of my knowledge, is not a "mythicist." He expresses doubt about the historicity of Christ but does not actually state a position or any interest in staking out one on the topic.

At this point I have to assume that the index in question will just be a mish-mash of apologetics and smears of "mythicists." I will keep looking for it out of basic curiosity.