High priest of the Atheists? More like word warrior..

The picture at top starts with a dig at Richard Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins – High Priest of the Atheists, and one of only two people to ever appear on the ABC’s “Q & A” who were more smug than host Tony Jones

I actually felt embarrassed that Richard was plonked amongst the group he was. Some slippery worms of politicians who had the most childish elusive answers and comebacks.
Sounds like Anthony’s just pissed that on his side of the religious the Jewish representative on the show that night was pretty vague and the Christian representative(s) downright embarrassing. Fielding certainly couldn’t give a straight answer as to whether he thought the world was less than 10,000 years old.

Family Guy on Creationists vs retarded intelligence.

But back to Anthony’s rant (I appreciate a good rant, especially when it’s in disagreement):

When people point out Nazis, Soviets, etc, then people like Richard Dawkins say that those atheists didn’t commit their atrocities in the name of atheism.

Dawkins is right in that atheism  “an absence of belief” does not provide any justification for atrocities. It’s like saying not believing in the Easter bunny would give me the arguments to justify me killing those that do believe in Easter Bunnies or justification for jumping off a building. Any justification for that has to come from somewhere else (either self made reasons or in the teachings of a political/religious viewpoint). I would also argue that without a belief in an afterlife: atheism provides a disincentive to lay down your life or jump into violence lest someone snuff out the one and only provable life we have.

God might tell you though
Not believing in a god doesn’t imply you have to kill those that do. Nor does it demand you force others to not believe (or kill if they refuse).
Let me think whether I could find justification for that sort of thing somewhere? Hmm…

Another swing and a miss for Biblical morality

Belief in another god might however provide reasons/justification if that god has supposedly told you in some book (or via some prophet) that non-believers need to die. There’s no book, list of sins, directives, moral suggestions or any such thing involved in simply “not believing in the fairy tales”.

Combining Atheism with Ideology to justify

There could be an atheistic viewpoint that the damage to society caused by religion was worth killing believers, but that would be justification found in utilitarian (greater good) philosophy, not atheism/not believing in itself.

The magic card from magic skygod religious book. Justify anything you want!

History lesson for Anthony
Anthony is also quite ignorant (or glossing over the realities) of history by the sounds of it (like most religious types who spend far too long reading bibles/torahs/qur’ans rather than anything useful).

Put it down, pick up another book, any book will do!

Atheism most definitely wasn’t the driving theology/philosophy of the Nazis, it was very much a Christian inspired thing if we want to get down to it.

Hitler the Christian

Hitler thought he was the chosen leader and was not an Atheist. The ever wise Vatican didn’t think he was an atheist either when it gave support back in the 1930s (oh, don’t worry, they realised that god’s first contact on earth wasn’t so faultless later.. but hey, it helped get rid of a bunch of their long despised Jewish followers).

From http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm we get an idea of Hitler’s religious views:

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people…. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.”
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922

Yep, ever the rampant Atheist there in old Adolf.. That’s how I identify myself as an atheist: by spouting on like a bible thumper about how much of a Christian I am. Although I guess maybe he was Atheist in private and a huge hypocrite like Mother Theresa (who did not buy the theology she was peddling to the poor and desperate).

The “Hitler was an atheist” and “nazis were atheists” is a Christian cop out because he was not only a very publicly declared Christian, but he used Christian theology to strengthen his own ideology (nothing adds that bit of marketing “wow!” like throwing God’s name around a bit). He also got approval from the church while he was doing his evil romp around the world. I’d go further and point out that god bears a lot of similarities with Hitler (authoritarian, genocidal dictator) except that Hitler only got to torture people up to the point when they die; God gets to extend that to “all eternity” if you fall on his wrong side.

Stalin and Mao the Atheist-ideologist butchers
Stalin/Mao however were more what you’d call atheists. But the justification for doing what they did was most definitely from something else (the old “Stalin had a moustache too (and Hitler too!!), was that to blame for killing people?” argument).

Socialism/communism which in effect created a living deity out of its heads of state (ask Chinese about the miracles and reverence toward Mao.. or go see their tombs) or an unquestioning belief in some prime directives a la “commandments of the party” type stuff.
Stalin and Mao viewed religion as weakening the authority of their regime and by the self serving rules of their regimes: it was just another threat. Just like higher education and the middle classes were a threat. Religions that have a head of the religion (e.g. exiled Tibetan leader, Catholic pope) are banned in their original form in China to this day. You can keep the religion if you ditch the leader nonsense is the Chinese view.

Killing off the “elite” under Mao had absolutely nothing to do with religious beliefs or not, it was just eliminating a threat to the communist movement. Just like clamping down on democracy protests and political activists is regarded as necessary under China’s current system: because it is a threat.

Piles of atoms
Anthony then strays into the topic of whether or not human beings are worthless if we don’t have a god watching over us at all times:

A genuine atheist ought to agree that there is neither anything sacred about a human being, nor any other living thing.  Thus, a living thing is simply a complex arrangement of a bunch of atoms or chemicals, as is a tennis ball, a tin of paint, or a laptop computer.

and:

“what is their justification for having a morality and a purpose?”  Why does a bunch of atoms (regardless of complexity) require a code of ethics and morality?

Define “sacred” as it is a bit of a bullshit word when used like this. If sacred means “belongs to god” then it’s meaningless, if sacred just means important: lots of things are important to lots of creatures without any idea of what god is. Food is important to everything from single celled organisms up to elephants. Is food sacred? Or are only things that can pick up a bible and switch off their proof centre of their brains?

I am not the centre of the universe

You are not a unique snowflake.

An atheist tends not to believe that the world was created specifically around the needs of themselves. They don’t believe that our sole purpose to hang around praising god until that god decides at some point to wipe out all life (again supposedly!) based on some rather poorly thought out morals that bear striking unenlightened resemblance to the rules men lived by in the barbaric time in which they were written.

Yes, we are just a complex arrangement of a bunch of atoms (but driven by some absolutely amazing biological processes). The insides of us are common amongst other animals (there’s no magic fairydust/god wound clock mechanism/soul keeping us going compared to them). Perhaps the author hasn’t poked their nose out of the bible long enough to hear an old saying “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
Anthony: I’ll by your car for the sum of the raw components if you truly believe that anything is only worth what the smallest individual bits and the concept of value adding escapes you.

You might as well ask: why does a bunch of copper atoms need electricity passed through it? The answer is: it doesn’t, but if the bunch of atoms happens to be part of a light-bulb: then it can produce light/heat if it has it. Humans don’t need morals/laws so long as they’re happy with complete anarchy. Fortunately we’ve realised over time that we can achieve more if we have some laws (and collective agreement to stick to those laws) that stop people murdering you for food/sex/shelter. So the collective realisation of humanity is that with a bit of structure and some broad agreement to get along – the sum total of humanity can burn so much brighter than an anarchistic mess of individuals clawing over each other for basic needs.

So of course we’re more complicated than our atoms! Of course with a highly sophisticated brain we’ve developed the ability to reason (well, sometimes), so it’s part and parcel of being able to discuss, debate etc. that we would have communication and discussion of behaviour (aka “morals”). Or simply the lessons might be learned that if you often fight, steal, kill, rape etc: then your chances of survival are reduced simply through the process of “common sense karma” (e.g. piss enough people off: one will put you down permanently).

I really don’t know where to begin with how wrong the idea that conscious animals like humans would not use their brains to think without some belief in a god.

People have a brain, occasionally they use it.

One might ask the author as a believer, why, if your fate is so decided and you’re living at the whim of a universal dictator: you worry about doing anything at all if your life is so heavily influenced by a god.

Flip the switch you fool!

“Finally, I suspect that so-called atheists deep down aren’t really atheists at all.  Like most of us, I suspect they are agnostics.  They just lie at the atheistic end of the agnostic spectrum.  Likewise, deep down most God believers lie at the theistic end of that same spectrum.”

Atheist just means some variety of “without belief” not absolute denial (as religious people are used to). So it isn’t “in denial of god when faced with evidence”.
You can generally assume that Atheists = agnostic as the vast majority would be most welcome for evidence of a god. The religious have been dodging giving any proof for so many thousand years. Agnostic is a subset of Atheist. Difference with believers is that all that’s probably needed is some sort of evidence to sway an atheist/agnostic to accept that new piece of information; for the religious no amount of proof is required for any of their beliefs, they simply point at a cloud and say “see! God exists!”.

Can we vote God out?

I’d describe myself as Anti-theist. That is, I’m more than willing to accept some definitive proof (not walls leaking oil or cancer patients getting better after chemotherapy), but upon that realisation: I’m as opposed to supernatural authoritarian dictatorships as I am to Earthly authoritarian unquestionable dictatorships. It amazes me how people can want to fight for the right to vote, but accept that in the big picture (and with the notion of eternal torture if you disagree) they’re more than happy to have god in the picture. If we are to believe the religious texts: a consistently evil genocidal (more than genocidal, as all life was supposedly snuffed out by a global flood), murdering, eternal torturing (if we buy that there’s a Hell) sadistic being.

God's slaughterfest far outstrips the Devil. So who is the bad guy again?

If being god is put to a vote every few years and everyone has an opportunity: I might come around from my anti-theist position. But as there’s no even half way plausible proof as yet: I don’t have to worry really. I guess given the schizophrenic nature of the biblical god (old god = wrathful, new god: divided amongst father/son/holy spirit = schizophrenic) perhaps there already IS a voting, because without complete change of personality there’s no way to consolidate the stories of god.

So my dislike of the idea of a universal dictator doesn’t give me any justification for any earthly action, it’s just a particular position of thought. My experiences/views on speaking my mind or participating in debate might motivate me to talk about it (but not my being an atheist). My inability to just let illogical/irrational statements go unchecked might result in me speaking up (just like my view of fairness and views against violence might prompt me to break up a fight, as I did a few weeks back).

Fairness as a secular source for morality

As I am (I hope!) a decent human being and adhere to principles of fairness: I lack any drive to enforce my view on others via the sword or suicide vest (nor will I be likely to find any without the word of god and promises of supernatural rewards). So without need for reading the bible: we inherently know what is horrible/distasteful because it violates the concept of fairness.

Golden Rule in religion. Pity it generally conflicts with what the religion says.

If we wouldn’t want to put ourself in the other person’s shoes then we’ve got an answer as to how we judge morals.

Golden rule for Atheists.

We certainly don’t get them from biblical times (thankfully!), although the golden rule pops up in lots of religious texts in amongst the fluff and silly stuff.