In a remarkable feat of unlogic, a Christian reveals the evidence that atheism has been defeated. I include his argument below, but I haven’t copied over his links, all of which are to his own blog, or to that paragon of trustworthy truthiness, Conservapædia, so just take his backing support as given.
1. Most atheists are men.
Yes, this seems to be true. Point, Christian!
However, I don’t see how this shows that atheism is weak or has failed. Many of us do take this as a sign that we have biases that we need to correct, but as you’ll see, that’s not why this guy has a problem.
I would also point out that most priests are men. Which means…?
2. Feminist women conquered atheism.
Uh, what? He’s just announced that atheism has a male majority. How does it follow that feminist women have “conquered” atheism? What does it even mean to say a set of ideas has been “conquered”?
Unfortunately, this is one of his claims that lacks a supporting link, even to Conservapædia.
3. Despite atheists being a minority in the world, atheists activists engage in constant bickering among themselves which reduces their effectiveness in terms of turning things around. Behold the poor interpersonal skills of atheists (See: Atheism and interpersonal skills and Atheism and romance and Atheism and love).
Why do so many atheists have such poor interpersonal intelligence? For further evidence of the poor social skills of atheists, please see: Atheists are quarrelsome, hypersensitive, egotistical crybabies. Atheists have no chance of victory over the global evangelical Christianity explosion
Many atheists adhere to an anti-authoritarian philosophy called freethought. It is not about poor interpersonal intelligence
, it’s about a refusal to submit to dogma and a willingness to argue to converge on the truth. It is a strength, not a weakness.
It’s curious to see someone arguing that we’re weak-willed because we refuse to follow the Christian model of submission to authority.
But also, speaking of bickering, how many Christian sects are out there?
4. Atheism, as defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and other philosophy reference works, is the denial of the existence of God (see: Definition of atheism).
Paul Edwards, who was a prominent atheist and editor of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, defined an atheist as “a person who maintains that there is no God.” .
Atheists lack proof and evidence that God exists. The academic field of atheists apologetics (defense of atheism) has stagnated (see: Stagnation of atheist apologetics ).
There is a abundance of evidence that God exists and an abundance of rebuttals to the spurious claims of atheists (see: Evidence that God exists).
Therefore, most atheists are weak-minded.
The logic showing that most atheists are weak-minded is inescapable!
I looked at this abundance of evidence that God exists
. It’s mostly crap from Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Science, and a collection of well-worn and often rebutted nonsense from conservative Christian apologists. Citing a definition of atheism is in no way a refutation of atheism, and asserting that gods exist is not evidence that they do exist.
But what does this point have to do with the previous points about feminists “conquering” atheism or atheists being argumentative? Nothing in this follows. There is no chain of logic here. It is a succession of feeble brain farts.
But you ain’t seen nothing yet. He is kind enough to tell us what atheism needs to do to correct its flaws.
If only boorish and quarrelsome atheist men did not spark atheist women resentment (a potent seedling of atheist feminism). In evangelical Christianity, Christian husbands are instructed to love their wives as Christ loved the church.
If only atheists were more like evangelical men whose wives were taught to obey them. In biblical Christianity, women cannot teach men and they cannot exercise authority over men as far as church matters. If only atheists women could not exercise authority over atheist men about atheist matters. The humiliation of atheism being conquered by feminist women could have been avoided!
Oh, atheist men! Feel the sting of atheism being conquered by feminist women.
There’s the answer! Atheist women wouldn’t resent those quarrelsome atheist men if only they were taught to be obedient and submissive!
Don’t worry. I think there’s a subgroup of atheist men who are way ahead of this guy, and who agree that atheist/feminist women should sit down and shut up and quit bossing them around.
unlike Christians
Hey chigau, be fair. It’s not like they ever waged bloody pogroms over how many fingers to make the sign of the cross with or anything.
Vivec
He’s probably a Protestant, so he’s going to Hell anyway.
Despite atheists being a minority in the world, atheists activists engage in constant bickering among themselves which reduces their effectiveness in terms of turning things around.
100 years’ war
crusades
taiping rebellion
Accusing atheists of “bickering” is sort of like, I dunno, complaining about the mote in your neighbor’s eye when you’ve got Muir Woods in your own…
One. The speaker’s. All those other sects are “Christians.” (Note scare-quotes.)
Feel the sting of atheism being conquered by feminist women.
Is it wrong for me to be a bit turned on by that?
@4 Marcus Ranum, “Accusing atheists of “bickering” is sort of like, I dunno, complaining about the mote in your neighbor’s eye when you’ve got Muir Woods in your own…”
Hey, don’t bring that lovely place into it! :) But of course you’re right.
People bicker. People argue. Some do it in good faith, attempting to converge on the closest thing to reality they can muster. (A whole lot of people do this within the context of something called ‘science’.) Some bicker/argue because they have an agenda. My father used to describe these people with a muttered “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind’s made up.” I think we’ve all been those people at one time or another. Let’s all try our best not to be them going forward. It’s hard work, but worthwhile.
Thanks for leading me down the rabbit hole of conservapedia. I’ll leave this one here for your enjoyment, everyone.
In 1994, the arch-evolutionist Dr. Eugenie Scott made this confession concerning creation vs. evolution debates:
“During the last six or eight months, I have received more calls about debates between creationists and evolutionists than I have encountered for a couple of years, it seems. I do not know what has inspired this latest outbreak, but I am not sure it is doing much to improve science education.
Why do I say this? Sure, there are examples of “good” debates where a well-prepared evolution supporter got the best of a creationist, but I can tell you after many years in this business that they are few and far between. Most of the time a well-meaning evolutionist accepts a debate challenge (usually “to defend good science” or for some other worthy goal), reads a bunch of creationist literature, makes up a lecture explaining Darwinian gradualism, and can’t figure out why at the end of the debate so many individuals are clustered around his opponent, congratulating him on having done such a good job of routing evolution—and why his friends are too busy to go out for a beer after the debate.[14]”
Christians feeding a strawman through the chaff cutter of christian logic again.
Dammit, you mean our only chance at success is to subjugate our personal women into mindless obedience? I asked and my wife and she said no. But she still identifies as an atheist. Mind blown.
Oh no! HTML fail!
Nah, this guy is pinging my FemDom radar.
There’s a list somewhere of more than 33,000, but it’s out of date; a more recent estimate is close to 50,000 denominations. [http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a106.htm]
They seem to suffer from a curious lack of method to resolve differences in fact claims.
So, I guess that means leave them by themselves to masturbate for a couple thousand years. I don’t know, do evangelicals ever really live up to that standard? Whatever. I’m not sure what that has to do with being an obedient wife, and I don’t know how they find the time to have a close relationship, what with all of those furious millennia-spanning masturbation sessions….
We should at least grant that there hasn’t been any bickering between the Church and its Husband. That much is true. On the other hand, it’s at best a very tenuous long-distance type of relationship. He never calls, never writes. How are we to know he’s not cheating on her or something? Maybe he’s not that interested in her anymore. Maybe he was just out drinking with his buddies all this time. Maybe he forgot something at the office. Maybe something frustrating or embarrassing happened, so he felt like circling around the universe a couple of times before he made it back home. All sorts of possibilities there. We should probably just make one of them up.
“Feel the sting of atheism being conquered by feminist women!”
Am I the only one who heard this in The Monarch’s voice? It sounds like he’s getting kinky with Doctor Mrs. The Monarch again.
Dear Christian,
Thank you for your wise and sensible suggestions. However, I do not have any women to oppress and subjugate. How do I contribute to the revival of world Atheism instead?
Ah, our good old deluded friend Conservative… He is the main reason I browse Conservapedia when I need a laugh. This guy is telling us about the end of atheism for years now, always with absolutly bullet-proof evidence for it. My favourite is still from a few years ago when he had a countdown towards a mistery event that would mark the end of atheism for real. In the end it showed that this event was a life internet chat between a Christian blogger from the U.K and a priest from the Philippines. Funny, but atheism still exists last time I looked.
I always hate to do this, but…
…who?
I admit, I’m not the most up to date on who’s prominent within atheism, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of this guy, and that seems to be my standard reaction to hearing about prominent atheists; like that prominent atheist, What’s-His-Name*, who did a book and a tour with the prominent theist, What’s-His-Other-Name, about how he’d become a deist or something, thus conclusively proving atheism to be dead, and Christianity entirely correct in all things?
I’m willing to grant that this is really an issue we have. But, personally, I think it’s more down to the fact that atheism is philosophical stance which is relatively easy to come to intellectually, but which can be quite difficult on a personal level for those who rely on the social support structures that are most commonly provided by religious institutions and which are often otherwise entirely lacking in much of the world than… oh, he doesn’t seem to have provided an answer of his own.
What’s odd about that? The only surprising – and incredibly frustrating – thing about it is that apparently not a single fucking one of those atheists who feel the need to argue that everyone who is anything other than the default human pattern should just sit down, shut up, and let a pure atheist movement win its freedoms has bothered to look at the history of every single other progressive social activist movement in the history of the fucking universe. Every social movement that ever existed has had subgroups who were rejected by the greater group in the name of political expediency or the exact same kind of prejudice that they’re fighting against for their own benefit. Considering that most atheists consider themselves to be rationalists and evidence-based thinkers, I do find it utterly baffling that it is a problem even in our movement, but, just like the problem of evil being handily solved by simply accepting that the god of the bible actually is evil, this apparent contradiction is resolved by accepting that most being an atheist doesn’t actually make you a rationalist or evidence-based thinker.
…
I am a millionaire.
Therefore, this yacht belongs to me.
…
Nope. Didn’t work.
Has anybody told this guy that feminism exists outside of atheism? True, even among the earliest feminists, there were atheists, and socialists, and anarchists, and all kinds of people with all kinds of political and theological philosophies, but there were also plenty of theists – plenty of Christian feminists who were raised in churches that taught that women cannot exercise authority over men, and who believed in their god with all the passion that any petty anti-feminist can muster while they stood against the patriarchal nonsense spouted in its name.
I do look forward to the day that atheism is strengthened by the recognition that feminist women are natural allies to any movement that seeks to weaken the hold of authoritarian religions over society, though, and have no interest in seeing it be avoided.
*Anthony Flew? Sounds like a name…
When I read this kind of bulletproof logic, I’m reminded of what Scott D. Weitzenhoffer wrote about creationists;
“Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory”
He’s saying this as if it were a bad thing…
Oh, wait I’m one of those conquering unsubjugated feminist women. I also bought an axe today. Those items are actually connected.
@3chigau (違う)
He’s probably a Protestant, so he’s going to Hell anyway.
I don’t get it. Aren’t protestants Christians? What am I missing?
What.
@22: I think the point is that he’s the “wrong sort” of Christian. At times that has been “worse” than being a non-Christian for various sects.
Of course god exists, I mean, how else do you explain pareidolia? God is pulling faces at you just about everywhere!
#4 Marcus Ranum
?
I think you mean the 30 Years War. The 100 Years War was just a property dispute.
# 22 hotspurphd
He’s probably a Protestant, so he’s going to Hell anyway.
Well I thought it was funny.
I don’t get it. Aren’t protestants Christians? What am I missing?
Well, I’m not positive but I read it as a jab at some of the more extreme Protestant evangelistic cults whose members will assure you that Catholics really are not “Christians”.
This, in part, seems to explain the presence of evangelical proselytizers in places like Central American (saving the pagan Catholics) and in the former Yugoslavia (saving the heathen Orthodox).
Tangentially related to this is Joan Walsh’s article here https://www.thenation.com/article/how-donald-trump-is-helping-white-christian-america-commit-suicide/ where she discovers that she is not a White Christian American
I don get it. Here is some guy (not sure, but I picture him as a guy) calling himself Question dedicating a whole blog to insulting atheists. So when I start beating my wife, will he admit atheists have a point?
Not all Christians are Christian to other Christians. Catholics tend to think any Christian sects that don’t follow the edicts of the Roman sea to be un-Christian, so they’re going to Hell. This is especially true of Protestants, as opposed to Orthodox, Anglican, and a few other sects that aren’t Protestant per se. The opposite is true. Protestant preachers use Revelations 17 to rail against the Harlot of Rome, equating it with the Catholic church. Revelations 17 probably is about Rome, but the Catholic church didn’t really exist at the time of its writing. There was plenty to hate about the Roman Empire before the Catholic church took the mantle of the Empire.
Sometimes internal “bickering” is healthy — and a necessary prerequisite for eventually turning things around. Social movements which don’t have a lot of self-criticism tend to either stagnate or become ideological, I think.
Proof is for math and whiskey — but proofreading is your friend!
You think religious apologists are making breakthroughs into new territory? You’ve been moving the same dreary arguments around for hundreds if not thousands of years. There are only going to be so many ways to refute Aquinas.
And none of it very good.
Here’s a quick little test: is “X exists” considered a faith? Do the people who believe X make a big song and dance about how the struggle to believe X is a hard struggle, one which takes a lot of faith?
If so, then that’s a little red flag that we’re not dealing with a science theory here. Nor are we dealing with the obvious.
When I was a child and in religious class it was always about faith there might be some reasoning involved but the basis was faith first and last. It amazes me and amuses me no end that the religious seem to feel this need to use reason to supply a proof for what is in the end a faith
uncle frogy
I thought this sounded like one of Andy Schlafly’s cronies. It’s all there; the constant incestuous linking to their own articles, the disjointed leaps in logic, the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” insults against atheists, even the stiff, robotic writing style. I’m thinking that the reason why Schlafly’s reasoning skills are so bad is because he’s never really had someone challenge what he’s saying. He runs conservapaedia like a tin pot dictatorship, so any stupid idea that crosses his mind is treated as holy writ. He apparently even decided that the bible was “too liberal” and had to be rewritten to fit into modern conservative values.
It’s also not wise to insist that atheists are “weak minded”, and then back it up by citing a bunch of PRATs. It’s a cliche at this point that fundamentalist Christian apologetics is so static and oft-refuted that you can play bingo with it.
I don’t feel humiliated to be taught things or led by women. I consider women to be intellectual equals to men, and I think men like this guy are just insecure assholes. It’s like he wants to feel entitled to dominate and control women just by virtue of being born male. The fact that he thinks feminism and atheism overlapping is humiliating says more about him than it does about us. Really, it seems like atheism incorporating feminism is the best way to correct for the gender disparity.
Also, I don’t see how he thinks that evangelicals are winning. Atheists and “nones” are becoming more numerous as time goes on, and last I checked millennials outright despise conservative fundamentalism. Where is this supposed explosion of evangelical Christianity?
I’m sure a Deep Thinker will be along shortly to fill in the documentary gap.
What both the fundamentalist dipshits and the atheist dudebros fail to recognize is that feminism is one of the best ways to correct for atheism’s gender disparity. I’ve heard about many young women who were raised in a religious family and later left because of the misogyny they experienced. Fundamentalists often buy into rape myths and discourage women from any ambitions outside of raising children. Doubling down on attempts to subjugate women, like this guy is suggesting, would only make atheism’s problems worse. If women can rely on atheists to support reproductive rights and to help correct gender imbalances in the STEM fields, they’re more likely to become atheists themselves.