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May 24, 2006 Once in a great while, someone posts a rant on atheism that is so absurd and so mind-bogglingly inane that it deserves special recognition as a masterpiece of irrational and muddled thinking. Patrick Hurley's recent article is such a piece, and please, if you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and give it a go (The Absurdity of "Atheism"). Try not to laugh too hard, though. I'll cover some of his "points" below, but I'll leave the one on top of his head alone. The so-called theological "experts" are only pseudo-intellectuals who have an ax to grind against religion for a variety of reasons. Maybe they were never loved as a child. Maybe their father abandoned them at a young age. Maybe they were beat up by a nun. I've never understood this nonsensical argument. Because the atheist rejects belief in God or gods, he must have had a bad experience as a child that would have caused him to give up on religion or be hostile toward god. Following this logic to its natural conclusion, I also must have been attacked by a psychotic unicorn as a child, since I reject belief in unicorns, too. For that matter, talking purple dinosaurs, invisible dragons, a raving band of leprechauns and a horde of 6-foot pink bunnies must have unleashed their wrath upon me as well, as my intellect cannot seem to muster belief in them, either. I suspect Patrick's smug superiority complex feeds off of his ability to dismiss all non-believers as psychologically damaged, and that is why he makes this ridiculous argument. But in case he is truly as ignorant as he sounds, let me spell it out for the millionth time: Atheists merely withhold belief in God or gods because there is not sufficient evidence to warrant the belief, much as a believer will withhold belief in the gods of other religions. This isn't a difficult concept, and I suspect Patrick knows this truth perfectly well. But, as I said, admitting that atheists are merely engaging in rational thought would not feed the fire of his hatred. Of course, what they fail to mention in their crusade against faith, is that it takes just as much faith to not believe in God as it does to believe in God. I cannot believe how many times I hear this stupidity and how much time I waste having to refute it. Again, I suspect Patrick already knows what I'm about to say. If I say that I don't believe in leprechauns, am I practicing an a-leprechaunist faith? If I say that I don't believe Elvis is still alive on another planet, am I practicing an anti-Elvis faith? According to Patrick's "logic", we cannot withhold belief in anything without stumbling into the chasm of faith. This is preposterous. We withhold belief in things for which there is no rational evidence; that is all. I am an a-leprechaunist because there is no rational evidence for leprechauns; I am an a-theist because there is no rational evidence for gods. This is the complete opposite of "faith", where belief is held in spite of the lack of evidence. Faith is anathema to the atheist. For sake of argument, let's agree that anyone who claims to be an "atheist" in UK possessed 3% of the knowledge in the universe. (This is really a STRETCH, trust me!) Is it thus possible that in the remaining 97% of knowledge they DON'T have, that God could exist? The answer is an unqualified yes. So, they are not really atheists, they are agnostics. An agnostic is defined as someone who is not 100% positive there is a God. Yes, it's possible that God could exist. It's also possible that the aforementioned unicorns and dragons and 6-foot bunnies and leprechauns could exist. Does that mean that you, Patrick, have "faith" in all those things? After all, your knowledge is not omniscient, either. Yeah, didn't think so. The fact is, we don't need omniscience to reject belief. We just need a lack of evidence. Rational thinking demands that we reject belief in all concepts for which there is no supporting evidence. The "agnostic" definition is laughable. According to Patrick's definition, everyone would be an agnostic. The fact is, an agnostic is someone who feels that the "god question" is simply unanswerable, beyond the reach of human knowledge. And because of this, there is not much difference between an agnostic and an atheist. An atheist merely takes the next logical step: Because the question is unanswerable, belief in such a being should be rationally rejected. The most hilarious thing about an agnostic who rips on Christianity is that they have nothing substantial to offer in the place of their venomous blatherings about Jesus Christ and His wonderful plan for our lives. Their substitution theology is usually a mixture of nonsensical rules that only brings logical meaning to them. It may be a mixture of "love", "peace", "George Bush is an idiot", "abortion rocks" and, "did you see Madonna's great concert the other night when she hung on a CROSS!" The fact is, Patrick Hurley knows nothing about what an atheist offers in place of 2,000 year old dogma. Patrick, some advice: read the Humanist Manifesto. I'm sure you can find it online. The Humanist Manifesto talks about love instead of hatred, about tolerance over intolerance, about rationality over blindfolded fear. It is a manifesto based on our own inherent self-worth, and it is light-years beyond the primitive, barbaric morality of the Bible. The ultimate justification for any agnostic is that THEY are the masters and mistresses of their own destiny. They will live and die on THEIR terms. The theological and philosophical buck stops with THEM! They have met god and he happens to be...surprise, surprise...THEMSELVES! It took me a while, years actually, to fully understand why Christians bring up this argument so often. Now that I have it solved, I wonder why it took me so long. In the atheistic world-view, humans are just one species of animal that inhabit one unremarkable planet in the backwater portion of a not-so-extraordinary galaxy, in a universe of a hundred billion such galaxies and countless trillions of such planets. Contrary to the Christian assertion that the atheist thinks nothing is greater than him, the atheist actually wonders what could possibly be less than him. The notion of an atheist promoting himself to King Of All Creation is so absurd, therefore, that I had a hard time understanding why Christians always assumed we did this. Then I got it. The Christian is thinking like a Christian when he makes this assumption. In the Christian world-view, you have God/Jesus, then Christians, then the rest of humanity, then the "lower" animals. Therefore, when you think like a Christian and remove "God/Jesus", what's left is "yourself". The Christian naturally assumes, then, that when the atheist rejects God/Jesus, the atheist automatically promotes himself to "God". But this would only be true if the atheist subscribed to the same hierarchical world-view that the Christian subscribes to, which, of course, is absurd. The atheist's world-view is not hierarchical at all, let alone with humans on the top rung. Now that you all understand the skewed thinking that brings about this "argument", can we give it a rest? Please? Someday we will all meet Jesus Christ on that day of judgment. We will then let Him decide who had the truth safely ensconced in their soul. Until then, enjoy your abortion beliefs and your Madonna concerts making fun of Him. The rest of Patrick's piece is just inane fluff like the above and not worth addressing, except to say this: There are many flavors of atheism, just as there are many flavors of Christianity. Some atheists are jerks, some are thoughtful, and some are idiots. The same holds true for Christians. Arguments, however, stand on their own. I am an atheist because I am not swayed by Christian arguments, just as I am not swayed by Muslim arguments or Buddhist arguments or Taoist arguments. If you want me to believe in your God, or you want to make a case for your God, then show me the evidence and make your case. Otherwise, stop wasting my time. ------------ About the author: David Gleeson lives in Colorado with his wife and two children. He is an aerospace engineer and skeptic of all things supernatural. You can find a website of his opinion pieces at http://homepage.mac.com/coskeptic/blog/index.html. 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