Philosophy Basics for Atheists (i.e. morons)

So I just read this truly stupid comment on tumblr in reference to my blog that historically any country that legally enforces atheism is far more violent and genocidal than nations that enforce other religions.*

“OK, atheism is not a religion and it’s certainly not a moral code. Atheism is just the non-belief in a god. That’s all it is. Now stop throwing straw men about and use that brain of yours you so proudly claim to have in your blog description.”**

This is a statement typical of the absolute idiocy of atheism. At least Christian nutjobs will admit that it’s faith and not reason that is behind their stupid ideas…but Atheists have not only the idiocy to mistake their faith for reason, but also the arrogance to then believe what they mistake for reason makes them better than anyone else.

So just to be clear I see two explicit lies here and on implicit lie.

1. Atheism is not a religion: Lie.
2. That the faith based metaphysical beliefs of not believing in a God have no effect on a moral code: Lie.
3. Thus atheism does not come with a moral code: Lie.

So let’s go over these.

First, I’ve dealt with this dozens of times, but let’s go over it again: to not believe in God is an act of faith.

You have no proof that God doesn’t exist. Further it is logically impossible, let me repeat LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, to prove a negative.  Thus to believe in something that cannot be proven in any way, shape, or form, is an act of faith.  It is believing in something you can’t know, and can’t prove, ever.  That’s faith.  That’s about as close to the definition of faith and religion as you can get.

And if you have a belief system based on an article of faith, that’s a religious belief.  It may not be an organized belief, it may be the very antithesis of the colloquial meaning of spiritual, but it is a religion.  Webster’s defines religion as: “7. a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith” and any atheist who wants to argue with me on that is insane, your belief in no God supplies the “cause, principle, or system of beliefs” the fact that you have no proof provides the “faith” and the fact that you’re arguing about it provides the “ardor.”  And it comes with its own sets of dogmatic beliefs.  There is the big bang, there is evolution. The fact that those theories still have some big holes in them, does not matter…nothing must deviate from the dogma.  Anyone who points out that the jump from random chemical to self replicating cells is a statistical impossibility and requires more than just the theory of evolution to make sense must be shouted down and burned at the stake.

But here let me pull another objection to my statement that atheism is a religion from the internet:

“Atheism isn’t a religion, and there are no atheists that I’ve ever heard of that have claimed themselves to be a “religion” of anything.  You’ve heard the arguments about atheism not being a religion before no doubt; you’ve just chosen to ignore them.”

Oh, so because atheists themselves don’t claim they’re a religion then they’re not.  You know, I’ve never heard any Nazis claim that they’re the personification of evil, and I’ve even heard arguments from Nazis that they’re right and good and true…I guess they must not be evil because they said so.  After all they said so.  Just because you argue you’re not something doesn’t make it true. O.J. tried to argue that he’s not a killer…reality said something different.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you’re a religion, you have a belief based on an article of faith that is utterly impossible to prove.  It only adds to the fact that this person is an idiot, that he thinks that dismissing the pointless claims that atheism isn’t a religion is stupid, yet the fact that there is evidence that God exists (not entirely conclusive evidence I’ll grant you, but evidence) and he just chooses to ignore that isn’t a problem for this moron at all.

“But you don’t have any proof that God does exist either” the standard line goes.   You’re right, except for the logical impossibility of an infinite regression series in causality***, the fact the big bang statistically should have produced as much matter and anti-mater making a psychical universe all but impossible, the fact that random chemicals can’t just turn into self replicating cells, the fact that evolved chimps can’t just magically become sentient, the fact that near death experiences show that memories are formed when there is no electrical charge in the brain, and a thousand other pieces of evidence that suggest that there is a soul and a God…yes, I have no evidence. And while each piece of evidence I could bring up could be explained away on its own, the totality of it suggests quite strongly that there is a God.

“But you don’t have iron clad arguments” the argument goes.  True, but I’m not claiming that I’m not relying on faith to fill in the places reason can’t provide an answer, you are.

When you lose the reason for causality the whole story just sounds stupid.

But then the idiot Atheists like to bring up the truly idiotic thought experiment called “Russell’s Teapot.”  It’s a silly thought experiment that says there might be a teapot orbiting the sun, but since no one has provided any proof then we must assume that it doesn’t exist until someone provides proof.  And thus the burden of proof is on people who believe in God to prove that he exists.  (This again ignores all the evidence that does exist, it’s very convenient that Atheist always equate lack of absolute proof with lack of any proof).  First of all whether there is or isn’t a teapot has no effect on my life which is one of the reason why it is totally incomparable to God.  There might be a massive asteroid hurtling toward earth that could destroy the whole place, since this will have an effect on our lives, we have telescopes looking for it even though it may not exist.  Just because you come up with a charming example that uses a teapot doesn’t just mean you get to decide who has the burden of proof.  If you want to be purely based in reason you take no stance and be an agnostic.  If you want to believe there is no God and hold that as a belief, then you have no burden of proof other than your own feelings. But if you want me to believe you don’t say that you don’t have to prove your beliefs—if you’re going to publically make a statement of fact (that there is no God) you better back it up.  You cannot say reason is on your side but someone has to prove you wrong and you don’t have to prove your case.

And finally Atheists I now see are trying something really stupid.  Now they’re calling themselves agnostic atheists.  In this bizarre argument, there are agnostic atheists and gnostic atheists, agnostic theists, and gnostic theists. The gnostics in both groups (in a bizarre perversion of the English meaning of the word Gnostic) believe deeply, whereas the agnostics aren’t sure and try to portray themselves as being purely reasonable. This of course is preposterous as every idiot I have heard describe themselves “agnostic atheist” (and thus should not feel the need to argue about a belief they do not hold strongly) will attack you like a rabid Doberman if you even so much as question the logical basis of atheism.  It’s like socialists describing themselves as “progressives” or “moderate” or “centrists” or anything else, doesn’t change the fact that you’re batshit crazy. Think of this being a gnostic theist would mean you believe you can prove God doesn’t exist (logically impossible) or a being an agnostic theist would mean you believe in something you believe you can’t know, even through faith (which would be just dumb).  So I doubt you’ll find anyone dumb enough to be in those two categories. So really you have atheists and theists…and you have people who don’t have a real opinion agnostics, which this stupid 4 part chart doesn’t account for. You may try to make yourself sound more logical, but you’re an atheist, end of story.

Further this distinction ignores that it doesn’t matter how strongly you believe in your atheism, it matters which side you picked.

And this brings up to the second lie, the implicit one, that being an atheist doesn’t affect the rest of your philosophical beliefs. Actually it does.  Choices have consequences.  Philosophy is not a buffet where you can pick and chose beliefs as the writer of lies above would have you believe.

So first some quick background (this will be a refresher course if you already read Republicans and Reincarnation).

 

There are four**** main branches of philosophy: Metaphysic, epistemology, ethics and politics.

Metaphysics: the philosophy about the nature of the universe, what is true, what exists, teleology, and of course religion.

Epistemology: the philosophy of how we know or if we can know.  It’s a really annoying field of lots of hair splitting and hypotheticals.  But this deals with the acceptability of reason and faith in finding truth.

Ethics: How individuals should act and what is the purpose of their actions.

Politics: The ethics of groups and how the individual relates to the group and vice versa.

The lie above would have you believe that these four branches are separated.  That my beliefs about God (i.e. metaphysics) has nothing to do with my beliefs about epistemology, ethics, or politics.

Wrong. Oh so wrong.

Metaphysics affects your beliefs about epistemology. If there is not God there is not Truth beyond the laws of nature, there is no ethical Truth, there is not political Truth, no moral Truth…no truth at all outside of the laws of physics…and even then epistemologically you’re on shaky ground finding a philosophical basis for getting past skepticism because without God all that brain of yours is a sack of meat and electrical signals, there is no philosophical ground to trust it actually knows what it’s doing.

And your Metaphysical and Epistemological beliefs directly create your ethics.  What is true and what you can know is what creates value and what has value is what we direct our life toward.  The values of life if there is a soul and God are radically different from the values without them.

And obviously this change in ethics forms the basis for radically divergent forms of government.

And this then all comes to the third lie, that Atheism is not a moral code.

Atheism holds there is no God. Thus there is no soul.  Thus there cannot be free will.  You cannot rationally hold that there is free will if there is no soul, because free will to be free must be free of the laws of physics.  Choice doesn’t exist, if all your actions are determined only by chemical reactions in your brain. If there is no soul then your brain is simply a collection of chemicals running certain chemical reactions based on stimuli from the outside environment.  Without a soul your brain is nothing but an extremely complex computer running a program.   It may break, it may not work properly, but there is not choice in the matter, there are only reactions determined by the laws of physics.

And if there is no soul and there is no free will the question of value becomes extremely difficult.  Why are you a collection of chemical reactions more valuable than a tree, or a rock, or chemical reaction in a high school chemistry lab?  All are just collections of chemicals operating without choice by the mindless sequence of physical reactions of the their base elements.  Now, atheist Ayn Rand tried make the argument that since we are self-aware and beings of reason we are ends in ourselves…but even her argument depends on free will and an intrinsic value of the human life (both dependent on the soul) and if she ever applied her logic that contradistinctions cannot exist to her own beliefs she would have seen this.

Without the soul and free will human life cannot have value in and of itself.  And any atheist who would like to claim that human life has value in and of itself, I would like to know how you can possibly claim one set of chemical reactions can have more value than another.  And to believe that life has no value is a moral code with very definite moral implications. Ah, but maybe it’s because we’re really complex systems of chemical reactions (why complexity should be valued more than simplicity is a moral judgment without philosophical basis in a Godless universe…also the universe prefers the simplicity of complete chaos and entropy…complexity can only occur in order and lack of chaos, very against the nature of the universe)…but let’s say for the moment it’s because of complexity.  That immediately requires you admit that something more complex would be of more value of human life…let’s call this more complex thing, oh I don’t know, the Herrenvolk…do I even have to explain where that moral code leads?

Not to say all atheists are immoral or act as if human life has no value, most act as if human life has value…but that’s kind of odd for people who rail about how their reason is superior to everyone else’s but somehow are acting on a belief they have no reasonable or logical cause to believe in.  I guess they take that human life has value as an act of faith.

You can’t logically say we should all treat each other with respect and dignity if you no metaphysical reason why humans are so special.

And politically this gets really screwed up, because if there is no intrinsic value to human life, then there are no natural rights, then at best the most you can come up with is a utilitarian system that aims for whatever goal or end you decide (because without the value of the soul, the individual ceases to be the ultimate value and thus value can be whatever you want it to be).  And under utilitarianism anything is permissible (as history has shown time and time again), any atrocity is acceptable so long as it accomplishes whatever your final goal and final solution is.

Now Atheists will like to tell you that this is wrong.  That they do believe in the value of the individual, but they can’t exactly give you a philosophical reason for it.  That they don’t believe in the evils of Unitarianism in practice (Nazism, socialism, communism) but oddly enough all of these governments in history have done everything they can to outlaw, to abolish and to prevent any religion other than atheism.  Why?  Because religion gives value to the individual, and thus rights and reason and free will and value and a soul. Something other than the State to believe in and follow.

To say that atheism does not come with a moral code is to say that ideas do not have consequences.  It is to say that they believe in reason but refuse to follow ideas to their logical conclusions.  You cannot have it both ways. Either you embrace reason and thus metaphysical points affects ethics and morality, or you don’t believe in reason.

And history has shown that the logical conclusion of atheism on any grand scale is never something we would call ethical.

Yes there are some truly psychotic and idiotic beliefs and morals in various religions, but the flaws in certain religions does not negate the massive flaws at the very heart of atheism:  Calling it faith, believes that choices do not have consequences, and believes that a belief that destroys the value of human life is not someone’s perverted moral code.

But please tell me where my logic is wrong…other than just whining that “Atheism isn’t a religion, atheism isn’t a religion.”

*Just in case some idiot doesn’t bother to read the article and want to make an argument without doing even the slightest bit of research, like, I don’t, clicking on the link, I do point out that enforcing any belief leads to bloodshed and that secular pluralistic governments are best…but as few atheists actually want a pluralistic society as shown by their vicious push to have everything but their beliefs banned by law, it’s not really a valid point.

**Before you ask I’m not linking to the fucking idiot who said this, they don’t deserve a higher hit count.

***The argument by cause is actually a very strong argument, as it logically requires something infinite, outside of time and space, with volition, and intelligence.  It is logically impossible for there not to be something like this, and as Aquinas would say, this we call God.  The problem with the argument by cause is it doesn’t tell you much about God, and that is why it is a weak argument–the other arguments are required to tell you anything about God.

****Five really, but aesthetics has little to do with this discussion.

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