I normally let theist rants go without comment, since I prefer discussion and debate to ranting, but I’m feeling snarky today. True Believer responded to my Atheist turns Theist thread.
Ok, so why are there so many atheists-ridiculing-religion bloggs popping up lately? I got little theory on that. It may be because atheistic people tend to be attention hungry. It’s only natural, considering amount of egoism that is required for a fulltime atheist to be able to produce enough ignorance to stay such.
Since it’ll be without doubt too abstract for you materialistic simpletons, I reckon we’ll definitely need a scientific study on smart arsing, attention whoring and their relations to atheism, because I wont be able to clarify it to you otherwise. Let’s drop this for now and wait for study results.
Seriously, I for example don’t give a fuck about atheism. Why do you keep tagging it as religion? DO NOT WANT! You are only proving your already obvious moral and educational deficiency. Atheism is NOT RELIGION, and morons aside, your artificial relation between random “comical” objects and objects of religious worship isn’t funny to other people. It’s just pitiable instead and also exceptional basis for a decent anti-atheism rant.
Now that you’ve seen it in its entirety, I’ll respond to it point for point.
Why are there so many atheist blogs lately? There are several very good reasons. First, because blogging has become much more accessible and popular in the last several years. According to Wikipedia, the first mainstream blog was published in 1998. In 2007, it was estimated that there were 112 million blogs. It’s estimated that between fifteen and eighteen percent of Americans are either atheist or nonreligious. If there weren’t a lot of atheist blogs out there, we’d be quite shocked.
Incidentally, I did a search for “Atheist Blog” on google and 22,300 hits were returned. A similar search for “Christian Blog” returned 224,000 hits. Christian blogs apparently outnumber atheist blogs by about 10 to 1, which would seem to indicate that per capita, there are actually more Christian blogs than atheist blogs. Perhaps, TrueBeliever, you are just experiencing something known as cognitive bias.
As for your theory that atheists are attention seekers at a higher rate than theists, let’s consider. How many atheist tracts have you been handed in your life? Personally, I’ve never had the experience, and I’ve never handed one out. On the other hand, I toss Christian tracts from under my windshield wiper at least once a week. If a week goes by where I don’t see someone out witnessing for Jesus, it’s quite surprising. There are seven channels on my satellite package devoted to nothing other than Christian programming, and at least two others that are descended from religious channels. (Hallmark, for instance.)
It’s been a little difficult for me to find an accurate count of churches in America, but it appears there are over 300,000. Granted, all of them are probably not as advertising heavy as the Lakewood Church, listed as America’s largest, with over 43,000 in attendance each week. Still, churches are in the business of growing and gaining converts. There are denominations which teach that Jesus put the blood of sinners on the heads of the faithful, and anyone who does not go forth and preach the gospel to all men is guilty of sending his fellow man to eternal damnation!
And you’re suggesting that atheists are attention whores? Do a quick search on Amazon.com for Christian books. (Here. I did it for you.) Over a hundred thousand books about Jesus. Atheist books? Yeah… that would be a little over a thousand. A hundred to freaking one ratio, and atheists are the attention whores. Got any bridges you want to sell me?
It’s only natural, considering amount of egoism that is required for a fulltime atheist to be able to produce enough ignorance to stay such.
It turns out that there are no tax breaks for atheists, but Christians get to run enormous financial empires tax free. It’s not that full time atheist writing takes egoism. It’s that it requires another full time job to make ends meet.
Since it’ll be without doubt too abstract for you materialistic simpletons, I reckon we’ll definitely need a scientific study on smart arsing, attention whoring and their relations to atheism, because I wont be able to clarify it to you otherwise. Let’s drop this for now and wait for study results.
Who’s being the smart-ass? You’re the one who just threw a blanket over all of us atheist writers and lumped us all as attention whores, and now you’ve got the audacity to admit in as many words that you have no idea whether that’s true or not because you have no evidence??
Seriously, I for example don’t give a fuck about atheism.
Yeah. You care so little you just had to come onto an atheist blog and run your mouth. I’m buying it.
Why do you keep tagging it as religion?
ME?
Kiddo, take a look around the blogosphere. CHRISTIANS are the ones who say atheism is a religion. In fact, I have said repeatedly on this very blog that atheism is definitely not a religion. In fact, it’s not even a philosophy. It’s just a binary qualifier for the existence of exactly one belief in an individual’s mind. That’s all it is.
You are only proving your already obvious moral and educational deficiency. Atheism is NOT RELIGION, and morons aside, your artificial relation between random “comical” objects and objects of religious worship isn’t funny to other people. It’s just pitiable instead and also exceptional basis for a decent anti-atheism rant.
I dunno. I got a lot of laughs from most of the people I’ve shown. Might it be that you’re a little upset that someone’s picking on you and you have no response to their point? Why don’t you prove me wrong! Explain to me why his logic is wrong and the exact same logic proves that God heals sick people.
Anyway, thanks for weighing in.
Natura naturans: atheists restore to nature its “innocence”
The de-deification of western culture (including the sciences) is our task for the next 100 years.
1. we free culture from the dead hand of near eastern mythological speculation
A mishmash of near eastern magical texts makes spurious claims of being god-given. Their nihilistic dualism and androcentric understanding of the universe and paternalist model of human nature are too damaging to contribute to a humane planet-wide ethos.
2. we free culture from a death impulse characterized by “sin” and “guilt”
The universe evinces neither affect, nor morality, nor intellect. Neither physical nature nor human nature say anything about a superordinate, supernatural realm populated by creators or law givers.
Nature is silent. There is no concept of truth in nature. Indeed, there are no concepts whatsoever in nature. Nature obeys nothing. Nature knows nothing. Natura naturans. Nature acts.
Nature is neither meaningful nor meaningless. Neither a source of comfort (natural theology) nor a source of despair (existentialism). Both are rooted in the same mistaken presupposition that meaning can be found by searching “the starry heavens” for gods or by quarrying human inwardness for “the moral law within [us].”
3. we show that religion is a cultural artifact
Religions belong to cultures embedded in nature. And cultures are our distinctive human-all-too-human handiwork. Religions are obsolete, replaceable cultural artifacts.
Any specific religion reenacts and institutionalizes cultic myth. It gets spread through recruitment, custom and conquest — financially supported by tax code and state funding — enforced by indoctrination, intimidation or violence.
4. alleged god-given morality is rooted in ancient imperial propaganda
Xian mythology, like related big-4 monotheisms zoroastrianism, post-exilic judaism, and islam, posits a moralized universal order which never existed. No more can be found than the ancestors put there in the dream-time. (All commentary, aka theology is fifth-rate fan fiction.)
Some pseudo-meaning derives ultimately from Sargon I’s (2334-2279 BCE) imperial propaganda when the very first violent yoking together of disparate city-state cultures occurred in what is now Iraq. The first myth of divine status of the emperor and of an empire-spanning morality turns out to be ancient political spin. (Still works today, doesn’t it?)
5. we present a “way” superior to world hating monster-theisms
Adjust your understanding, adjust your expectations, and you will have a right relationship with the only total reality there is natura naturans. Nature naturing —
the anti-supernaturalist
Posted by anti_supernaturalist | October 24, 2009, 1:17 pmHambydammit,
I just read that whole original rant and exchange between True believer and everyone else, on “An Atheist Converts. . .”
I was going to leave a comment, but yuck! – I don’t know if it struck anyone else at all like me – but it’s enough to make you feel like you need a bath, ‘n maybe some clean clothes (all except True Believer, who’s no doubt already been washed . . . or at least dipped ‘n rolled).
Rushhumble
Posted by rushhumble | December 23, 2009, 12:00 am