Gairney Bridge

2 Responses to “The Fool Hath Said in His Heart…”

1. on 22 Oct 2007 at 11:26 am1 D.S.B.

   What a load of hypocritical propaganda and total BS.

   Let’s not even begin to mention the times where religious factions and religious rulers have forced their religion onto peoples unwilling, and have killed in the name of their religion. The COUNTLESS times, versus the few times in history an atheist has decided to do it.

   One key reason why it is so hard to pin that on Atheists is due to the fact that, simply put, when using reason, it is hard to come up with a logical argument on why you should kill someone over your ideas.

   Versus religion, which abandons logic and favors irrationality.

   Thanks for wasting two minutes of my time, I’m glad I found this trash so I could be affirmed as to why I am strictly agnostic (even having been to a Christian school previously).

   - D.S.B. (US Army Infantry, CompSci major, and self-taught recording artist)

2. on 22 Oct 2007 at 12:17 pm2 tempe

   DSB, thanks for commenting on the blog. I will warn you, though, that I usually am not fond of “angry” posts nor substitutes for vulgar language, so I would encourage you to refrain from such in the future. Believe it or not, there are very proper ladies who sometimes frequent this blog (and some younger folk as well), and I would appreciate that you show respect. I “approved” this comment out of respect for you, but I am not inclined to do so in the future.

   A few comments:

   As far as “hypocritical propaganda” goes, you seem to be unfamiliar with the works of Dawkins and Harris. Both make terrible misuse of historical data in their books, and they need to be called on such. On the other hand, perhaps you have read their works and been mislead, which would explain such hostility.

   Your second paragraph would seem to be an indication that you have been mislead in such a way. An average day in the Russia of Joseph Stalin (an atheist, btw) resulted in more deaths than in three centuries of the Spanish Inquisition. The total deaths from the Inquisition and Crusades combined is less than 1% than the deaths of atheistic Communist regimes of the 20th century. Not that we do right and wrong by counting numbers (which is probably a good thing from your perspective, since there are many more “theists” in this world that “anti-theists”; I say only to point out that when Dawkins says something silly, like that faith or the belief in God is a mental disorder, he is not only being very unscientific, but overlooking the obvious: namely, that since the condition of his brain is the rarity, perhaps he should investigate the possibility that anti-theism is actually the problem in the brain). I personally find the Crusades and Inquisition despicable events in history (which were certainly “religious” to some degree, but being “Christian” may be another story — as I once heard someone say, not everyone who wears a red coat is a member of King George’s army), but they have also often been greatly exaggerated by folks that should know better (which would seem to fit your definition of “hypocritical propaganda” — one only need to read Harris and Stalin to see how they does this with men like Stalin). Of course, one also needs to include a list of atheists like Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, both Kims, Ho, Castro, Honecker, et al. And to say the vast majority of the wars of the 20th century had nothing to do with atheism (and Communism is atheists at its core, I’m sure you know) is either historically naive or historical revision (or both). People who hunger for power will often do lots of things — including killing — to achieve their goals, and they will used anything (including religion, political philosophy, and even Darwinism) to support their cause. That speaks more to the evil hearts of men, not necessarily to the tools they use to carry out their evil desires.

   Need a logical reason to kills someone for their ideas? Plenty of the men above did. How about this: “I thirst for power and you desire freedom. Your ideals are standing in my way. Therefore, I must dispose of you.” Sounds like a reasonable application of natural selection. But ask Dawkins; I’m sure a zoologist would have no problem explaining animal aggression and its results to you.

   Religion, at least Christianity, does not “abandon logic and favor irrationality.” It sounds as if you’ve been reading Dawkins and Harris here. It might interest you to know that both of them operate on definitions of faith that are completely ahistorical (I assume made up by them for their own purposes, but perhaps I am wrong on this). Both show great unfamiliarity what what Christians have historically believed and though on these issues. Dawkins has even been publicly corrected on this, but still continues to say the same things. That sounds neither very logical nor rational.

   Of course, if you’re going to refer to things like morality, logic, and being rational, it would seem that you should be able to account for those things instead of “assuming” they are true. I would encourage you to do this, although I would hope you would do so in a less hostile manner in the future.

   Once again, thanks for posting!

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