I agree that agnosticism is annoying as hell, especially those that start accusing non-believers of being dogmatic. Yeah, because rejecting a poorly constructed cosmogony means that you have a closed mind…How about showing me some fucking proof? That’s all we want. Until then, my own agnosticism will remain open to the possibility of someone showing evidence of an all powerful entity, and that’s about it.

Only criticism: the back and forth camera shit makes me dizzy, honestly.

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Watch Robby as he attempts to dodge every pertinent question from a real journalist who isn’t content throwing him softballs. The best he can muster is this answer:

“Christians have built whole dogmas about what happens when you die and we have to be very careful that we don’t build whole doctrines and dogmas on what is speculation”

Umm, you wrote an entire book that is noting BUT speculation, dude! Even some of your equally deluded buddies think you’re a heretic for suggesting that it’s not necessary to convert to Christianity in the here and now.

Kudos to Bashir for asking him why he doesn’t believe in some of the different views of early Christianity. It’s a topic you won’t find many modern Christians willing to answer. Why do you believe in the specific dogma that you do? Because morons like Rob Bell keep filling people’s mind with utter nonsense.

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A couple in their mid 60′s was recently denied the right to adopt children by a High Court in England because of their anti-homosexuality views.

…Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

The truth is, because of the risk that they might foster a gay son or daughter, the court decided that the well being of the child was more important that the dogmatic, nonsensical belief that same-sex attraction is considered a bad thing by sky-daddy. The couple, oblivious to the fact that society has stopped accepting bigotry outright, is confused that society is still making a big deal about “all them homos”:

“We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.”

Is there a small tinge of irony that these people are of African decent, and that only a few decades ago their skin pigmentation would have made them subject to similar discrimination? Perhaps. It makes me sad that an otherwise nice couple seems to be completely unaware of just how poisonous their views actually are. You can thank the power of religion for that, folks!

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Homophobic crime is on the rise in England, and as you might have already guessed, the culprits are hiding behind a vail of religion to justify their bigotry.

The backlash is due to the growing recognition of gay rights, both to marry and adopt, and this has prompted groups motivated by improvable dogma to retaliate. One unidentified group is putting up stickers that say “gay free zone” along with a quote from the Koran.

In response to this, gay rights activists have gone on a campaign of “defacing” the stickers with the word “love” in an effort to combat this vile hatred.

Actor Wendy Richardson explained the rationale behind the group’s response.

“Rather than get angry with the people who did it, we decided to counter it with some love. We’re a cross section of people, of all races and sexualities – gay, straight and bisexual – saying its just not appropriate.

“But we thought- you know what? We’re not going to hate you back. It sounds a bit wet, but takes a lot of courage.”

It’s nicer than the tactic I would have employed, but then again I’m a crusty bastard with little tolerance for stupidity and blind bigotry. Good for them for taking the high road!

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Oregon has finally started coming to its senses, and all it took was a bunch of kids dying of highly preventable deaths. The State is introducing a bill that would end religious immunity for parents who rely solely on “faith” to heal their children.

I’ve written about the “Followers of Christ” on many occasions; it’s a church that so far has an appalling death toll, all from illnesses that were extremely treatable. The parents, who had previously been able to get off scot-free or with an extremely light sentence, would no longer be able to hide behind their stupid dogma to defend their parental failure.

Legislators and prosecutors hope the threat of long prison sentences will cause church members to reconsider their tradition of rejecting medical treatment in favor of faith healing.

“This will level the playing field so all parents will be operating under the same rules,” said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote. “It’s going to make it easier to hold parents accountable who don’t protect their children.”

What I like about this proposed bill is that if finally recognizes that the lives of children supersedes improvable and dangerous dogma. Now, if we could only make people realize that religion is itself a form of child abuse, we’d be halfway there.

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If you thought a country like France was free from the influence of religion on their science programs, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. The government was planning on easing restriction on embryonic cell research, but the Catholic Church lobbied hard to prevent this, and it appears they’ve had some success.

“The Catholics have succeeded in imposing their view on embryos and seem to be succeeding in their attack on this method,” said François Olivennes, a leading fertility expert, told Europe 1 radio. “We already have a very retrograde law compared to those in Spain, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands and all of Scandinavia. Nothing is advancing.”

This can of worms was opened after scientist produced a number of stem cells for a child suffering from a rare blood disorder. And because the Catholic Church opposes abortion because of some confused interpretation of their mythology book, they feel compelled to arrest the development of life saving technology.

If they were still in control, do you have any doubt that medical science would essentially grind to a halt? I think this nonsense is a wakeup call for Western countries. Our religious institutions are effectively preventing a vital branch of science from progressing all because of their idiotic dogmas. In their deluded minds they think they are saving “babies” from annihilation, but in reality they only further our misery in their tireless efforts to save a few blastulas.

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There are two things that will never change in this world: 1) people will always have reasons to hate others, and 2) religions will always provide a way to make this exceedingly easy.

Take the Mormon Church for example: they’ve been diligently working to ensure that gays and lesbians aren’t allowed to marry out of the ridiculous notion that doing so “violates” the sanctity of marriage. Because of a few passages in the Bible (next to the ones that condone slavery and selling your daughter for money), Mormons have fought tooth and nail to deny the rights of their fellow human beings.

And because they are convinced of the superiority of their ideas, they now feel as though their OWN rights are being violated when society tells them politely to go fuck themselves. They recognize the way the tide is shifting, and it’s not something that’s a pleasant prospect. Tolerance, it seems, is not that Christian a virtue.

One of their elders recently said that as gays get the rights they deserve, the Church’s religious freedoms are being threatened:

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of 12 leaders, known as apostles, who help govern the Mormon Church, delivered his message Friday in a speech at Chapman University in Orange: The 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion is under siege, he said, threatened by a growing secularization of society and constrained by the inroads made by a vigorous gay rights movement.

“For some time,” he said, “we have been experiencing laws and official actions that impinge on religious freedom.”

Oaks, a former law professor and Utah Supreme Court justice, has been making speeches along these lines for more than 25 years, and says the climate has been getting worse for religious rights. “It was apparent 25 years ago, and it is undeniable today,” he said.

It’s funny he didn’t say 35 years ago, when the Mormon church didn’t allow black men to be ordained into the priesthood (and they weren’t allowed to be included in their “celestial marriages” either). You might recall that their racism was a direct result of their own religious conviction. Sound familiar?

Hey, it would be fucking effortless for Mormons to abandon their own bigotry and get with the program. In 1978, elders said they had received a “revelation” decreeing that African Americans were suddenly granted the same rights as everyone else in their church; this after strong public pressure to change their policies. It’s easy to change your stupid dogma when you’re just making shit up, isn’t it?

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Religious people are hilarious. How many times have we been accused of being “just another religion”? I imagine just stating this baseless canard must be a way for them to feel comforted by the idea that atheists base their beliefs on the same dogmatic mechanism they use. Unfortunately for them, it’s ludicrously easy to demonstrate just how wrong this idea is.

I fell upon an article this morning claiming that atheism is a religion (it wakes you up better than coffee). I thought it might be fun to pick apart these 8 pathetic arguments one by one, for your reading pleasure. I also suggest reading the comments, as I’m not the only one who’s done this.

1. They have their own worldview. Materialism (the view that the material world is all there is) is the lens through which atheists view the world. Far from being the open-minded, follow-the-evidence-wherever thinkers they claim to be, they interpret all data ONLY within the very narrow worldview of materialism. They are like a guy wearing dark sunglasses who chides all others for thinking the sun is out.

2. They have their own orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is a set of beliefs acceptable to a faith community. Just as there are orthodox Christian beliefs, there is an atheist orthodoxy as well. In brief, it is that EVERYTHING can be explained as the product of unintentional, undirected, purposeless evolution. No truth claim is acceptable if it cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

3. They have their own brand of apostasy. Apostasy is to abandon one’s former religious faith. Antony Flew was for many years one of the world’s most prominent atheists. And then he did the unthinkable: he changed his mind. You can imagine the response of the “open-minded, tolerant” New Atheist movement. Flew was vilified. Richard Dawkins accused Flew of “tergiversation.” It’s a fancy word for apostasy. By their own admission, then, Flew abandoned their “faith.”

4. They have their own prophets: Nietzsche, Russell, Feuerbach, Lenin, Marx.

5. They have their own messiah: He is, of course, Charles Darwin. Darwin – in their view – drove the definitive stake through the heart of theism by providing a comprehensive explanation of life that never needs God as a cause or explanation. Daniel Dennett has even written a book seeking to define religious faith itself as merely an evolutionary development.

6. They have their own preachers and evangelists. And boy, are they “evangelistic.” Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens (Speaking of which, our prayers goes out to Christopher Hitchens in hopes of a speedy recovery for his cancer, we need more time with him Lord) are NOT out to ask that atheism be given respect.

7. They are seeking converts. They are preaching a “gospel” calling for the end of theism.

8. They have faith. That’s right, faith. They would have you believe the opposite. Their writings ridicule faith, condemn faith. Harris’s book is called The End of Faith. But theirs is a faith-based enterprise. The existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. To deny it takes faith. Evolution has no explanation for why our universe is orderly, predictable, measurable. In fact (atheistic) evolutionary theory has no rational explanation for why there is such a thing as rational explanation. There is no accounting for the things they hope you won’t ask: Why do we have self-awareness? What makes us conscious? From what source is there a universal sense of right and wrong? They just take such unexplained things by … faith

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1. So a world-view constitute a religion now? Religious people “postulate” a world that exists beyond what we can measure. They have the gall to call this imaginary world “supernatural” (as in “above nature). We simply chose to reject a notion that offers nothing in the way of proof. Materialism is simply postulating that everything in the Universe is the result of material interactions. So far, it’s the only explanation that holds any water.

2. If something needs to be subjected to scientific scrutiny, then it’s not orthodoxy. That word is defined as “of, pertaining to, or conforming to the approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology, etc.” By its very definition, Orthodoxy is not open to debate or refinement. All beliefs must conform to previously held dogma. This is the very opposite of the way science work.

3. We’ll admit to being surprised if someone goes from atheism to theist, but that’s mostly because of how utterly rare it is. There’s certainly no punishment for it, and the only thing you lose is respect from fellow intellectuals. Where are the Inquisition and death threats you get from religions?

4. Nietzsche wasn’t an atheist (at least not a self professed one), and if you think Bertrand Russell is a prophet, then I think you’re profoundly confused as to what the word actually means. Prophets conjure messages they claim come from a supernatural entity. Philosophers attempt to use epistemology (the theory of how we know things) when formulating theories. Prophets just make shit up.

5. Charles Darwin, the anointed one who died for your sins, people! No doubt we can agree that evolution destroyed the religious argument for design, but that hardly makes Darwin messianic. The idea of evolution wasn’t new by the time Darwin postulated his theory of descent with modification, and isn’t even a hard one to grasp (if your mind isn’t polluted by religious dogma). We may respect him, but we certainly don’t revere him, or consider him our “Lord”.

6 +7. By this guy’s definition, someone trying to spread the word about vaccines and their benefits is “evangelizing”. We don’t use threats of hellfire, damnation, promise of eternal bliss for conversion, or any other tactic that religions use to try and “convert” people. We simply use reasoned arguments and logic to destroy superstitious notions about the world. What people do with that information is up to them.

8. If it required faith to believe in evolution, then it wouldn’t be science. Science is based on testable hypotheses. If you doubt the validity of the idea, you’re free to research it for yourself. Faith is not about questioning anything; it’s the persistent belief in a dogma DESPITE evidence to the contrary. That’s why whenever you have a conversation with a theist, they’ll fall back on this word as though it means something. “You can’t question my faith”. If an evolutionary biologist ever said that concerning a particular pet theory about some evolutionary process, he’d be laughed at.

While it’s true that we have only conjecture about consciousness and the evolution of morality (though still strongly supported by evolutionary mechanisms), this does not mean that religious ideas are therefor correct. They offer nothing in the way of verifiability, and are therefore invalid. The only recourse for believers is to disregard any competing idea in favor of a rigid persistence to maintain their belief structure. We call this process “faith”

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If you’re a long-time reader of the site, you might remember a guy by the name of John Freshwater. I wrote about him in 2009 after he was facing dismissal for 1) teaching creationism in his science class, 2) telling his students that gays are evil sinners, and 3) burning crosses in the arms of some of his students. A shittier science teacher, there is not.

Well, it finally looks like the lengthy process of firing him is almost over. After a bunch of appeals and sporadic hearings, a report issued by the state has recommended that Freshwater should be fired:

“(Freshwater) persisted in his attempts to make eighth grade science what he thought it should be – an examination of accepted scientific curriculum with the discerning eye of Christian doctrine,” Shepherd wrote. “He used his classroom as a means of sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion in the minds of impressionable students as they searched for meaning in the subject of science.”

Freshwater had for years asked the school board to consider allowing a curriculum that includes arguments against evolution. Shepherd wrote that after no changes were made, Freshwater took it upon himself to hand out Christian materials and push creationism.

I can see that removing shitty teachers who push their ridiculous dogma on others is going to be an uphill battle if each one takes almost 2 years to dismiss. What does a person need to do to get the boot right away if burning a cross with a electrical laboratory instrument doesn’t do it?

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It’s funny that whenever a non-believer states plainly that no evidence exists that would satisfy the “God question”, we’re accused of being snobs, elitists, mean, or even fundamentalists. Have you noticed that no one seems to accuse us of of having the weaker argument or of being wrong. Instead, we’re vilified as being “spiritual buzzkills”.

I’ve long had doubts about S.E. Cupps atheism, if only because she seems to lack the kind of insight and critique one would expect of a true non-believers. She continues to hold that the religious are somehow morally superior in their unsubstantiated beliefs. It’s not entirely surprising: her audience tends to lean heavily to the right. What bothers me is that she tends to jump on the same weak arguments her theological colleagues rely on to slander us:

Which brings me to the problem with modern atheism, embodied by the likes of Harris and Hitchens, authors of “The End of Faith” and “God Is Not Great,” respectively. So often it seems like a conversation ender, not a conversation starter. And the loudest voices of today’s militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don’t seem to want to do too much thinking at all.

I wonder exactly what she considers “thought” to mean. Apparently, thinking means having emotions and then using those emotions to justify your beliefs about the natural world:

I wonder what they’d say to someone like Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who says that her faith in Jesus Christ got her through 91 days of hiding in a 3×4 foot bathroom while her family was murdered outside. Would they tell her she was crazy? Delusional? To just deal with it? I would hope not – but I am not sure.

Actually, they would have simply pointed out that the Catholic priests who held the very machetes that cut down their fellow countrymen may have equally been comforted by their religious beliefs. The Catholic hierarchy is well known to have had close ties with the extremists who committed the genocide in the first place. Had Cupp bothered to do a little research, she might have chosen a different example altogether (or am I being arrogant pointing out how stupid that example was?).

It’s these snarky and condescending rejections, not of faith itself but of those who profess it, that reflect a total unwillingness to learn something new about human nature, the world around us and even of science itself. While the neoatheists pay only cursory attention to dismantling arguments for God, they spend most of their time painting his followers as uncultured rubes. The fact that religion has inexplicably persisted, even despite Copernicus, Darwin and the Enlightenment, doesn’t seem to have much sociological meaning for them.

Religion persists the same way ignorance does, and often for the same reasons. Simply because the majority of humans believe in absurdities certainly means nothing about how true it is, does it?

When the esteemed theologian David Martyn Lloyd-Jones asked C.S. Lewis when he would write another book, Lewis responded, “When I understand the meaning of prayer.” It was an acknowledgment that he – a thinker with a much sharper mind than, say, Maher’s – didn’t know everything. I implore my fellow atheists to take this humility to heart. There’s still a lot to learn, but only if you’re not too busy being a know-it-all.

Are we really the arrogant ones? It’s ironic that people convinced of the certainty of their impossible beliefs think that we’re the ones who could use some humility. How exactly is the dogmatic faith of religion anything but the most abrasive arrogance in the world?

**NOTE** One of the comments in the article hit the nail on the head better than I did:

The word “faith” means: acceptance without benefit of knowledge. By declaring that one has “faith”, one has already admitted that one is ignorant. There should be no shame in being ignorant. Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge. But, stupidity is the willful rejection of knowledge that is available. If religion is the glorification of “faith”, then religion is the glorification of ignorance. And, since there is a preponderance of actual knowledge available to remedy one’s ignorance, and since religion instructs the “faithful” to willfully reject knowledge, one is forced to conclude that religion promotes stupidity. And this is the paradigm that “people of faith” wants the general public to accept as a standard for civil law and the electability of political candidates? Hmmmm….

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