The War on Stupid™
I found article written by Angie Vogt for PNW Local News, which we talk about in episode 14. This is the full text of my frothy rebuttal.
Enjoy!
It’s difficult to ignore the big story from our state that made the national news. No, not the one about Jim McDermott sending the “Impeach Bush” Christmas ornament to the White House as Seattle’s contribution to the national Christmas tree. I’m talking about the other warm, holiday story from Olympia. The one about the atheists’ “holiday” display in the capitol building that Governor Gregoire has refused comment on. (I’m waiting to see how she can blame Bush for this, myself).
In our hip desire to be inclusive, somewhere along the line we forgot that hate speech and antagonism should be discouraged. Governor Gregoire has allowed for an atheist display in our capitol building that is nothing more than a public scolding that mocks people of faith during this season of Christmas and Hanukah. The “display” is simply a sign that says, “There are no gods, no angels or devils, only reason. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition and hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
Ironic that this woman is publicly stating her opinions about someone else publicly
The statements made, while frank, are also demonstrable.
This is not a symbol and to the best of my knowledge, atheists do not have any “holy-days,” so I am not sure why they were even considered for a display during Christmas and Hanukah time.
While the word “holiday” is a contraction of “holy” and “day,” this is plainly a poor argument.
Since Christmas is a federal holiday and enjoys the benefit of some degree of government support, it must therefore be a secular holiday in which all people are able to participate.
Christmas is the ONLY religious federal holiday in the United States. The argument that a “holiday” must be a holy-day falls flat on its face in light of other days of the year that Christians enjoy the day off such as Memorial Day and Labor Day.
- Also along these lines of thinking, Christmas was not originally a Christian holiday either, and thus Christians espousing their beliefs and celebrating their traditions on this day is inappropriate.
- There are several “Christian Holiday Traditions” that aren’t particularly christian including:
- The “Christmas Tree”
- The “Yule Log”
- Mistletoe
- Several “Christmas Carols,” or singing songs and circular dancing—the tradition of which can be traced back to the roman orgy / feast of Saturnalia.
- Santa Claus and his various alternate incarnations
- Advent Wreaths have a Scandinavian origin.
- And finally, the nativity scene itself is full of pseudo-christian baloney. Such as the wise men, who were scripturally not present for the birth.
If atheists have a day during the year honoring one of their heroes, by all means they should build a statue and have a ceremony. They are not Wiccans, so calling it a “Winter Solstice” should have no special significance for their beliefs against a creator. Their only intent is to express their disdain for people who do have faith and who do express it this time of year.
This is a vast oversimplification of the myriad of reasons why the atheist community comes out to speak their peace at this time of year. A straw man.
I do take note though of their gross inaccuracy of religion being something that “hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” How does that explain the millions of people who have been served by Christian organizations, such as World Vision, a Christian organization that has people literally in the thick of horrendous and dangerous situations in the world, all in the name of being servants of the poor?
This is a false dichotomy. She implies that one cannot have a hardened heart or be brainwashed into believing absurdities of heroic proportions and also be involved in charitable organizations. This is plainly not true.
It was the Catholic Church after all that preserved the Western world during the dark ages, by organizing what we now call “cities,” into community hospitals, libraries, food stores and orphanages. It was religious faith that inspired the abolition movement against slavery and it was Martin Luther King Jr.’s faith as a Baptist preacher that emboldened him to lead the Civil Rights movement.
I just puked in my mouth. It was the fucking Catholic Church that was the REASON for the dark ages in the first god-damned place!
The dark ages and the resulting cultural stagnation endorsed by the church saw an end to schools, hospitals and orphanages and the collapse of society. It was the Renaissance (which was mostly political) that saw an end to the dark ages. Things didn’t really turn around until the Enlightenment and it’s radical idea that we needed to re-think ethics from a secular point of view.
From Handel to Mozart, the greatest works of music were inspired by deep faith and the desire to worship worthily; as were the greatest works of art and architecture, such as mosques in Istanbul, and cathedrals like St. Peter’s Basilica and Notre Dame.
In a world in which religiosity is compulsory, it is impossible to know this is true.
How do atheists explain the extreme persecution and torture that early Christians were willing to take rather than renounce their faith?
The same way that I can easily explain people that are willing to blow themselves up in the name of Allah. Call it what you will, it’s the same thing.
Or what about the Christians who risked everything to protect Jews from Nazis?
First of all, the vast majority of Nazi’s were Christians. Doubly damning is the fact that the vast majority of atrocities committed against Jews outside of the holocaust were also perpetrated by Christians. How might you explain the massacre of 800 Jews at Worms when crusaders took the episcopal palace and murdered them when they refused to convert to Christianity. How about the 10,000 Jews killed in Poland in 1290. Or the 350 Jewish towns in Germany that were burned to the ground in 1349. How about the Catholic Ustasha group in Croatia (many of which were run by Franciscan friars) that put Jews in concentration camps and burned them alive in kilns? I could quite easily rattle on like this for 15 or twenty minutes, but you get the point. The second failure of this statement is the supposition that only Christians helped protect jews from the Nazi’s.
If I were relying only on reason, I would make my daily decisions based on what gave me the greater immediate gratification. What is the purpose of doing the noble thing, the self-sacrificing thing, if it weren’t for a greater good beyond myself? How is it a rational thing to sacrifice something of my own comfort for someone else’s benefit? How is love for another human being even rational?
This statement simply underlines the problem with this entire narrative: the author doesn’t understand reason, yet sees fit to comment upon it.
Nobody with a sufficient capacity for rational thought would base their decisions entirely upon what brought them “immediate gratification.” What of consequences? And as to the root cause of altruism, anyone who owns a fucking dog can see that it occurs naturally. The difference between rational thought and religious thinking lies in how the two sides approach questions such as these. The rationally minded looks for (and eventually finds) natural reasons. The religious mind ignores those reasons and then say stupid shit like this.
This is an incredibly weak argument on my part, but I personally don’t hold a belief in a god or gods, and yet I feel guilt when I do wrong and joy when I do what I feel is right. Therefore, I personally know this argument is a load of crap.
If I were an atheist, what precisely is that “greater good?” Atheists pretend that there is some objective, agreed upon definition of “good” and “bad.” Who defines good and bad when there is no religious appeal to something greater than ourselves? I believe that even people with no professed faith have an instinctual need to recognize something greater that is beyond themselves. They may not want to call that something God or even supernatural, but atheists have never offered a satisfactory answer for this timeless human need.
Nobody defines good or bad because there is no such thing as good and bad as they pertain to the timeless cosmic forces that religious typically paints them to be. It is the infantile need to have something as complex as morality compartmentalized into two black and white catagories that make the religious so gulluble. The ethical spectrum is all shades of grey. If someone came to your house and kicked you in the ass as hard as they could, I don’t think you’d have to consult your bible to figure out if they were in the wrong or not. Get some sense in your head.
I would like to discourage my fellow people of faith and reason from over-reacting to this pitiable display from the atheists. I think their behavior is a sign of something quite explainable, called sibling rivalry.
Paul Vitz, a Catholic psychiatrist wrote a book called, “Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism.” His thesis is quite simply that atheism, which has only existed on our earth for the past century and a half, exists among people who feel orphaned and resentful.
I can’t believe I have to waste my precious breath refuting this line of bullshit.
First of all, unless the first creature that was born upon this earth that was genetically compatable with modern humans was also the progenator of religion–a prospect I find highly doubtful–then it’s safe to say that atheism is older than religion. And just to give you something solid, I’ll drop you a quote. “The gods are not to be feared; death cannot be felt; the good can be won; all that we dread can be conquered.” that was Epicurus. He quite voiciferously did not believe in the gods. He lived 341 BC. For the mathematically challenged, 341BC was more than 150 years ago. Paul Vitz is a twit. Don’t quote twits.
It’s the oldest story in the world that goes back to Cain and Abel. Two brothers are raised with the same faith and each brother chooses the path he will take. One brother notices that God seems to favor the other one more, though no evidence is really offered for this. The brother eventually is blinded by his envy and hatred of his brother that he actually murders him. Envy is a wrathful sister to the emotion of jealousy. Jealousy merely wants what another has. Envy seeks to destroy what another has. Atheists will come up short in their attempts. They cannot destroy faith. It’s weathered far worse attacks than their simple protest signs.
I think Christians should continue to do what probably irks the atheists most of all: pray for them and love them. It’s the reason for the season after all.
The story of Cain and Abel was probably created around 500BC. The story of Gilgamesh was probably created shortly after his reign in 2600BC. To be fair, she was only off by 2100 years. The prattling about Envy and Jealousy is nonsensical. Jealousy is the emotion one experiences when one feels that they are in danger of loosing something that they covet, but generally already posess. Envy is the desire for that which another posesses. PROTIP: look things up in the dictionary before you decide to get all yoda on people about their meaning. And no, you are wrong. Faith in lies has never endured something as terrifying as the stark and unforgiving light of the truth.