Frames of Reference - Atheism

Freedom of Religion - Atheism has it Wrong

yeager — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:35:30 +0000

Freedom of religion makes the news quite a bit as atheists attempt to stomp out any and all references to God frequently claiming “separation of church and state” as meaning a valedictorian can’t mention God in their commencement speech, or nativity scenes can’t exist in public places, or crosses on hills, or any public display of religion anywhere.

It’s important to understand that opinion only recently came to light; from the inception of the country until recently, the original intent, meaning, and application were quite different. And if anyone knew what the Founders intended, it was the men who wrote it; by studying the early application a picture becomes clear of what the Constitution intended for freedom of religion.

First off, it’s freedom to religion, not freedom from; atheists have it wrong. But how many of them have actually read the first amendment and understand the history?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Simply reading it, two obvious points can’t be missed:

It concerns Government—specifically Congress.
It states Congress shall not pass law establishing religion. In other words, a national church.

If you just read the Constitution, you’d never arrive at the absurd conclusion a student couldn’t mention God in their speech, or a state could not have prayer before convening the legislature. Simply put, it’s a restriction on legislation of the Federal government only (14th amendment issues included, it still only applies to legislation, and certainly can’t apply to private citizens).

So how does “Congress” morph into “private citizen”, and “law” change into “any expression” when that clearly isn’t what it says? The prohibition involves law (legislation) only, not expressions, as freedom of religious expression is specifically mentioned not to be prohibited. God in speeches? Fine. Prayer before legislature? Acceptable. Crosses in cemeteries or memorials? Perfectly legitimate. None of those are law establishing a national religion, rather they’re free exercises of religion.

More importantly, would any lawyer or judge with an IQ above single digits arrive at a conclusion the Founders really meant “citizen” when they wrote “Congress”, or “law” really means “expression”? The atheist version of the first amendment reads:

No person shall have any expression of religion in public, and it’s acceptable to prohibit the free exercise thereof…

Turning “Congress” into “citizen” and “law” into “expression” provides the very definition of judicial activism — judges making up what the law clearly doesn’t say. Worse yet, in this case, it’s obvious the Founders (and the Supreme Court until the 1940’s) most definitely would not agree with the “no religion allowed” view of it; that opinion is a relatively recent idea; even in 1952 the Supreme Court acknowledged the founding of United States on religious principles.

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. … When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952)

It’s absurd and laughable when some groups attempt to deny the country’s religious foundation. That can only come from someone who hasn’t studied history, or attempts to rewrite it to suit their view. Even atheist groups begin their Supreme Court history on this subject in 1948, simply because it’s a recent opinion.

How the activist interpretation became popular provides an interesting story, but for now understand it’s a very recent theory, beginning in the 1940’s and culminating in the 1960’s to provide the current model of open hostility to religion.

But that’s not what the Founders intended, as even a casual glance at both the Founders, and history until the 1940’s proves abundantly obvious.

More on Dawkins and Morality-No absolutes

yeager — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:51:29 +0000

Previously we noted in an interview with Richard Dawkins, when asked for his definition of morality he responded “Moral philosophic reasoning and a shifting zeitgeist.” In short, society defines whatever it believes is right and wrong. That is, of course, value relativism where nothing is right or wrong—absolute morality doesn’t exist according to Dawkins.

The interviewer noticed this, and when prompted to respond Dawkins replied “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right?”.

A bizarre place to find yourself in to be sure; Dawkins expresses such contempt for religion and God he finds himself in the strange place in justifying his atheism he can’t even say Hitler was evil. Our previous article pointed that problem out, and asked why Dawkins isn’t troubled by his strange conclusion.

After some discussion of this on Twitter, a person sent the following:

@darrinyeager Here is his response to that question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxdgCxK4VUA I hope this clears it up for you https://twitter.com/GodlessAtheist/status/14930339818

That’s another interview with Dawkins when he was asked again the atheism and morality question. Would Dawkins offer a different view or clear up what he stated? Is it possible in his previous interview he simply didn’t express himself clearly?

Here’s part of the exchange:

Question: Considering that atheism cannot possibly have any sense of absolute morality, would it not then be an irrational leap of faith (which atheists themselves so harshly condemn), for an atheist to decide between right and wrong?

And Dawkins replied:

Dawkins: The absolute morality that the religious person might profess would include what, stoning people for adultery, death for apostasy, punishment for breaking the Sabbath; these are all things which are religiously based absolute moralities.

I don’t think I want an absolute morality. I think I want a morality that is thought-out, reasoned, argued, discussed—based upon, almost say—intelligent design. Can we not design our society which has the sort of morality, the sort of society we want to live in?

First off, his first idea contains the classic “Ignoratio elenchi” logical fallacy, more commonly known as Red Herring—it’s an attempt to change the question, or make yourself look good against a straw man which isn’t relevant to the question. “Look at how bad those religious people are, thus my solution must be better”.

If a God exists, and if He’s all-powerful, all-knowing, and so on, by definition His morality must be exactly what Dawkins wants—thought-out and reasoned. Since Dawkins recoils and the mere thought of God, this possibility doesn’t make sense to him.

Dawkins is so overwhelmed by God-denying he simply can’t help but commit logical errors in his response, involving religion even when the question had nothing to do with it. It’s surprising for a man who desperately wants to eliminate religion and God from all thought he injects it into a question which doesn’t involve religion and God at all; his first thoughts reveal much about his bias, lack of free-thinking, and poor logic.

But on to his response on morality, which doesn’t differ from his previous answer (“Moral philosophic reasoning and a shifting zeitgeist”). Dawkins doesn’t want absolute morality, only a morality which shifts and changes as society desires. Thus, as Dawkins said previously, “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right?”—it completely agrees with his moral view.

In other words, if a society wants to exterminate six million Jews, Dawkins can’t say it’s wrong, as if a policy was thought-out, reasoned (in a perverse way), argued, and discussed (it also was legal and popular), it must be acceptable to Dawkins, which is why Dawkins remains unable to state Hitler was wrong. After all, if a society wants to live without Jews, that’s fine using Dawkins moral process, as long as it’s thought-out and discussed.

That’s a bizarre world to live in, and unlike Dawkins, we’ll state Hitler was wrong and evil, and it’s unacceptable to exterminate six million people. Absolutely. Additionally, any view of morality unable to state evil as evil isn’t a system for morality at all—simply philosophical justification (i.e. handwaving) for mob rule (or has been said, without God, anything is possible—including justifying attempted genocide).

As we concluded before (and this interview didn’t offer anything different from the previous interview):

Naturally, Dawkins’ suggestion about Hitler likely repulses most (all?) people, but while many atheists might attempt verbal twister to avoid the conclusion, Dawkins gets credit for not denying the logical conclusion of his atheist position and the lack of standard morality it spawns.

Why this position doesn’t bother him remains troubling. http://www.dyeager.org/post/2009/12/problem-morality-where-does-it-come

Far from changing his view, this interview reinforced Dawkins’ previous statement nothing he views nothing in his atheist bubble as absolutely right or wrong, only “Moral philosophic reasoning and a shifting zeitgeist”, more commonly known as value relativism.

Why this doesn’t bother him still remains troubling.

Bill Maher Show and Intolerant Atheists

yeager — Sat, 22 May 2010 13:24:15 +0000

Bill Maher may hold strange views, but one thing we admire him for—he’ll state his views straight out, without any attempt to sugar coat it or show tact (at least he’s honest and proudly proclaims his views, in contrast to others who attempt to hide it. He’s consistent in his atheist far-left elitist views). Recently on his show atheist S.E. Cupp appeared, whose latest book titled “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity” created some interesting discussion, and displayed the paradox of atheism.

That show generated the following response from one of S.E.’s fellow atheists.

Religious people are deluded, regardless of whether they’re good or bad people.

Religion is often bad in and of itself, even without people doing bad things in the name of it.

Teaching ignorance (via Creationism) is a form of child abuse, whether it’s done with the best of intentions or not.

Atheists generally hold themselves up as defenders of tolerance, masters of free-thinking and logic, free from all bias and dogma they associate with religion. Yet notice the assumptions from someone likely considering themselves a free-thinker:

God doesn’t exist (“Religious people are deluded”), in other words atheism is a fact by his personal fiat. Of course atheism is illogical, so this point by itself displays a lack of logic and critical thinking.
Religion is bad in and of itself, apart from any actions. That displays a clear bias and a lack of free-thinking as ideas are already assumed good or bad apart from any proof or logical analysis. Who gets to make these fiat rules? What makes this person the arbiter of things good and bad? As atheism has no basis for morality according to Dawkins, those kind of absolute moral statements are quite bizarre; without any absolute standards (as Dawkins noted), nothing can be stated as good or bad.
Evolution is true by fiat without any scientific base behind it. We’ve written much on evolution, and consider evolution’s case closed as it has no experimental scientific evidence for its foundations. It’s taken on faith, without proof. You’re free to believe in the philosophy of evolution and the beginnings of the universe if you wish (“first there was nothing, and then it exploded; from the goo to the zoo to you”), but it’s not science.

Another “tolerant free thinking atheist”—the very definition of oxymoron (self-contradicting phrase).

People are free to believe whatever they want, but it’s rather bizarre (and illogical) to hold yourself up as a beacon of free-thinking, tolerance, and logic, while promoting such absurdly illogical views that don’t stand the smallest scrutiny (atheism), displaying intolerance toward others (religion is bad in and of itself) and attempting to proclaim absolute morality while simultaneously denying it exists, and even attempting to silence and censor opposing views you don’t believe in (teaching alternative theories is child abuse).

That’s not very tolerant, free thinking, or logical—it’s too bad atheists miss the irony of their illogical position.

The First Amendment: Separation of Church and State

yeager — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 01:21:03 +0000

The “separation of church and state” phrase gets thrown around frequently as a first amendment issue, but you’d be surprised to see the phrase doesn’t appear where it’s frequently credited—in the first amendment to the Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Whoops — the magic phrase doesn’t appear. Notice what the amendment does say regarding religion:

Congress shall not force (establish) a national religion.
Congress shall not prohibit or restrict freedom to worship or other expressions of religion.

The founders wanted to make sure no one either forced a particular religion nationally, or prevented anyone from worshiping whatever they wanted. If you’re a Christian, great, if you follow Buddha, no problem — if you’re a druid and worship trees, good for you. If you’re an atheist and worship Darwin and Dawkins, glad that’s working out for you.

But we are not to have a national religion run by the federal government—a theocracy if you will. Yet many people attempting to force the country into an atheist secular humanist mold dwell on the first part of the amendment, and forget the second. Paul Fidalgo, the communications manager for the Secular Coalition for America makes that mistake as he responds after Sarah Palin called the United States a Christian nation:

While the founders’ views on religion varied from person to person, there is no doubt that they believed strongly that religion had no place in government…

Our Constitution established a secular government and has no mention of Jesus, Christianity, or a god of any kind, despite the false message spread by figures such as Sarah Palin who claim that America was founded as a Christian nation,” Fidalgo continued

No place in government? Not so—they prayed before sessions, posted the ten commandments, and so on; history shouts the error of Mr. Fidalgo. As they included religion in their government, Mr. Fidalgo remains factually incorrect just as if he claimed the sky is orange or 2+2=5; his statements are absurd in their stunning factual errors; we’ll just cite examples of God and Jesus in government, which contradicts his assertion the founders believed “religion had no place in government”.

Whereas, the people of these United States, from their earliest history to the present time, have been led by the hand of a kind Providence and are indebted for the countless blessings of the past and present, and dependent for continued prosperity in the future upon Almighty God; and whereas the great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it eminently becomes the representatives of a people so highly favored to acknowledge in the most public manner their reverence for God: therefore, Resolved, That the daily sessions of this body be opened with prayer and that the ministers of the Gospel in this city are hereby requested to attend and alternately perform this solemn duty. Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1854)

And for the objection of using chaplains in Congress? If, as Mr. Fidalgo, says the founders believed “religion had no place in government”, perhaps he could explain the following as well:

The whole view of the petitioners seems founded upon mistaken conceptions of the meaning of the Constitution. … If [the use of chaplains] had been a violation of the Constitution, why was not its character seen by the great and good men who were coeval with the government, who were in Congress and in the Presidency when this constitutional amendment was adopted? They, if any one did, understood the true purport of the amendment, and were bound, by their duty and their oath, to resist the introduction or continuance of chaplains, if the views of the petitioners were correct. But they did no such thing; and therefore we have the strongest reason to suppose the notion of the petitioner to be unfounded. … They had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people… The Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States for the Second Session of the Thirty-Second Congress, 1852-53 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853)

Quite a difference exists between government forcing national religion on its citizens, and freely allowing religious expression even (gasp!) in government. The first is unconstitutional, the second most certainly is not (as we’ll get to shortly).

The first amendment involves freedom to religion (whatever religion means for you—Christianity, Buddhism, atheism, Judaism, etc), not the freedom from religion many people try to make it; examining how the founders and government acted in those early days makes this abundantly clear. By attempting to force their religion of atheism onto others, those people try to prohibit the free exercise of someone’s religion.

Freedom of religion isn’t freedom from religion, it means if your faith lies with Jesus, Buddha, atheism (yes, atheism requires faith), or the tree in your backyard, you’re free to do so. It does not mean you won’t hear other points of view, or you have the right to force others to refrain from religious expression simply because you don’t want to hear it. What happened to tolerance and honoring diversity? If someone has beliefs you don’t hold, sit quietly and respectfully while they observe their faith. Is that not the very definition of tolerance and honoring diversity?

Thus if a student wants to mention God, Jesus or Buddha in their school speech, it must be allowable, as it can’t be a government establishment of religion for the simple reason the student isn’t a government official. Additionally, the early founders included religion in daily government activities; the idea the founders meant the first amendment required an atheist secular society fails to stand the test of history.

But some atheists attempt to twist the first amendment into an I-never-want-to-hear-God idea, which it clearly was never intended to be—by studying how the founders acted in those early years, this becomes abundantly obvious; a Supreme Court ruling in 1952 noted the country is religious, and should not prefer atheism over religion.

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. … When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952)

The Supreme Court acknowledged the religious background of the country which should end the silly discussion about the historical religious nature of the country; a debate can ensue whether the founders had the correct idea in the way they handled religion in government (that’s a matter of opinion, not fact), but by examining history it’s obvious Mr. Fidalgo’s laughably absurd claim demonstrates a stunning and complete failure to acknowledge facts.

No matter how often he, other atheists, and history-deniers repeat erroneous claims, the claims remain factually wrong.

This case is closed—next time, we’ll discuss more credible theories … like the moon landing hoax.

Atheists say the Funniest Things

yeager — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 23:46:38 +0000

It’s even funnier (actually sad) they take their God-denying rants seriously.

… I do not know of ANY who think they [atheists] are “just as good” as Christians. That, quite honestly, is an insult to me as an Atheist. Not only do I believe that those who have evolved beyond religion, stand on a higher moral ground, but that most Atheists have a much better grasp on reality, are more open minded, more compassionate, and just simply have more common sense than any Christians that I have met.

Atheists “stand on a higher moral ground”? They don’t have any reference for morality, as even the atheist prophet Dawkins admits (Dawkins can’t even say Hitler wasn’t wrong in what he did). That doesn’t mean they can’t be moral people, only that they obtain their moral values somewhere else — the atheist worldview has no method for absolute morality — atheism by itself is without morality.

How about atheists “simply have more common sense than any christians”? Atheism is by definition illogical and absurd. If you want to call that “common sense” you can, but it makes you look silly to everyone else who understands atheism is by definition illogical. Perhaps that’s why the “New Atheists” frequently use Dialectic thought to use two different definitions for atheism. In private, they use the dictionary definition of atheism (“There is no God”), while in public they revert to a more agnostic definition — lack of reason to believe in God, but not denying His existence.

Thus, in public they attempt to avoid the logical absurdity of atheism, while in private stating as an unproven fact no God exists. A classic case of Orwellian doublethink — “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

What about open minded? Are atheists open minded? Not at all. They’ve eliminated any discussion of God from their thoughts, and the “New Atheists” are actually quite militant in their God-denying. Open-minded? We think not.

Compassionate? That’s difficult to measure, but where are the atheist hospitals? Atheist charities? Atheist organizations helping the homeless and disaster victims? For the compassion measure, we’ll just say he doesn’t have any evidence in support of his position, although any measure would be difficult.

The fact they actually believe rants like this is sad, but it demonstrates the logical absurdity of their position. You’re quite free to be a God-denier if you wish, but calling it open-minded and common sense is laughable.

Atheism and the Poison of Liberal Theology

yeager — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:54:46 +0000

For some reason, atheists aren’t happy unless they convert religious people to their dogma. Why? I don’t know, but they frequently display intolerance, expressing a deep conviction to win converts to the religion of atheism. Here’s a statement which isn’t very remarkable, except for the revelation of the methods atheists should use to win converts.

If we want to change the mind of the believer then the most effective way is to drive a wedge between their arguments for the existence of God (i.e., natural theology) and the other things they believe based in the Bible.

Once we do this the believer will see very soon afterward that those arguments for God’s existence don’t make a good case. What I’m doing undercuts their faith at the most fundamental level.

And so first we must make them liberals, then agnostics and then atheists. If we attempt to argue them from Christianity to atheism in one fell swoop we will not do it.

Make them liberals? We’re not talking politics, liberals means liberal Christians, and may or may not relate to a political view. “Liberal Christianity” might not be familiar to you, but it’s taught in major seminaries across the country. For them, denying the foundational concepts of orthodox Christianity is all in a days work, and these people exist as Christians in name only.

Atheists do quite well creating liberal theologians. Just watch any show “investigating” Jesus, the Bible or similar and you’ll see professors from national seminaries denying the inerrancy of the Bible, resurrection of Jesus, virgin birth, and more. These aren’t in any meaningful way Christians, as atheist Christopher Hitchens says I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

Those “liberal Christians” aren’t Christians, any more than calling yourself the President gets you a ride on Air Force One.

The cult of liberal theology is dangerous and heretical. As Paul warned Timothy these have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. These liberals are ever learning, yet never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:7), with corrupt minds, and disapproved concerning the faith. They may have a PhD and other accolades, but they’re utterly unqualified in basic Biblical knowledge.

Liberal Christians may posses the warm-and-fuzzy felling of religion, but share nothing with Jesus except ripping off his name.

Once you start accepting liberal theology like Isaiah didn’t write the book bearing his name, replacement theology (where the church replaces the Jews and Israel in God’s plan), Daniel was really written later or other liberal theology garbage, it’s at that point you’ve denied God and become an atheist, not later. Liberal theologians deny most of the major tenets of Christianity — how can they call themselves Christians?

The progression from orthodox Christianity, to liberalism, finally arriving at atheism can be subtle, as the change to atheist actually comes in the first step after rejecting the foundational tenets of Christianity, not the last small step to atheist.

In a warning, the atheist notes his techniques don’t work on the traditional Christian, those who reject liberal theology and stand firm on the Word of God. But if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything — including the cult of liberal theology.

Stand firm on the truth, and reject liberal theology which has nothing in common with Christianity except the name — liberal scholars have created their own religion and abandoned Christianity. For more information, Walter Martin has a message titled “The Cult of Liberal Theology” available at http://waltermartin.com.

Avoiding Logical Error - There is No God

yeager — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:38:35 +0000

Atheists frequently don’t recognize contradictions while attempting to defend the logical inconsistencies created by atheism. Atheists claim there is no God; after the statement is made (usually as an unproven “fact”), and the logical contradictions of that statement are pointed out to them, instead of admitting they made an error they go to great lengths to disavow the problem. Here’s a case in point during an exchange with an atheist who claimed there is no God, and when he was made aware of the the logical absurdity of the statement “there is no God”, he responded thusly:

@darrinyeager Pay attention, please: most atheists do not assert that gods do not exist. You’re attacking a strawman, coming off as ignorant

He accused us of using a strawman (an argument deliberately misrepresenting his position). But is that true? First, consider the definition of atheism:

athe-ist (n.) A person who believes that there is no God.
ag-nos-tic (n.) A person who believes that the human mind cannot know whether there is a God or an ultimate cause, or anything beyond material phenomena.

First, an atheist by definition believes God does not exist.

Next, let’s go to the replay booth and see what this same person said about the existence of God:

The good news is, there’s still #nogod.

@misscleva But there is no god, silly!

Upon further review we’re discussing exactly his claim — “there is no god”. Either he didn’t understand his own words (or didn’t mean what he wrote), doesn’t understand the definition of atheism, doesn’t understand logic, uses dialectic instead of didactic thought, or he’s simply confused about what a strawman is (or a combination of any or all of them).

Atheism remains trapped by it’s logical absurdities. It persists because atheists have a deep seated need to deny the existence (for many, even the possibility) of God. Unfortunately, this desire to deny God forces them into bizarre contradictions no amount of verbal twister can free them from (even contradicting themselves), and they remain oblivious to the logical contradictions in their position.

That’s not very free-thinking, is it?