An exercise in tired anti-atheist nonsense

“Thou shalt not make sense in thy argumentation against atheism …”

Perhaps trying to divert public attention away from the mounting clerical child molestation scandal(s) weighing against the Catholic Church, some high-ranking leaders from Australia used their Easter sermons to unleash a few feeble swipes at atheism and godless folks, with their speeches sounding as though they were trying their darnedest to draw upon nearly all the nonsensical claims and excuse we spend so much time continually refuting. For example, we start with this amusing silliness:

Several church leaders have used their Easter sermons and messages to condemn the increase in atheism, with Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen describing non-belief as an "assault on God".

So merely not believing in God is an attack against him? Who knew such an all-powerful and eternal divine being could be so weak and needy?

Now, get ready for the serious stuff:

Dr Jensen said in his Good Friday sermon at the city's St Andrew's Cathedral that atheism was a form of idolatry.

"As we can see by the sheer passion and virulence of the atheist - they seem to hate the Christian God - we are not dealing here with cool philosophy up against faith without a brain," Dr Jensen told worshippers.^[1]

"Atheism is every bit of a religious commitment as Christianity itself.^[2]

"It represents the latest version of the human assault on God, born out of resentment that we do not in fact rule the world and that God calls on us to submit our lives to him.^[3]

"It is a form of idolatry in which we worship ourselves."^[4]

And I’ll take empty talking points for $200, Bob.

1) Atheists do not hate the Christian God, nor any other god(s). We cannot hate something that we don’t believe exists, no more than one can be angry at leprechauns or the tooth fairy. What they do get upset and vitriolic over is the concept of your loathsome and petty little sky-tyrant, the ever-greedy attention whore who relishes in the death, destruction and suffering of anyone whom he doesn’t like and then starts whining if people dare criticize him. But more than that, though, it’s how religious leaders use said concept of fetish deity not only to rule over others and have them kowtow to their irrational blabbering, but especially, to promulgate blind faith, willful ignorance and poorly-veiled bigotry towards others. That is what atheists get angry at.

2) Atheism is indeed a commitment – to reason, to open-mindedness and critical thought, and to cold, hard logic. (Generally speaking, of course. Different atheists will have different beliefs, so these values certainly don’t apply to all.) But nowhere is dogma, indoctrination or spiritual leadership – ie. the components of religion – present in atheists’ manner of thinking. It’s a logical impossibility, considering how, to use the old but never tired analogy, atheism is to religion what bald is to hair color.

3) This point is, I believe, quite telling. The main focus of Christianity (if not the whole point altogether) is subservience and submission to the Lord – which, of course, translates into subservience and submission to the Church, viewed as the vessel through which the Lord connects with humanity. Atheism may be a much colder and starker worldview – no afterlife, no benevolent divinity watching over us, and no intrinsic “purpose” to anything – but one cannot deny how liberating it still feels to understand that you have no allegiance to hand over to any demanding supernatural entity(s), once you realize that said divine being(s) most likely simply don’t exist. No more bending over backwards to kiss the ass of some revolting fictional dictator. If that’s not a major “selling point” (if we may call it that) of atheism, I dunno what is.

4) Helpful tip: it’s atheism, not autotheism.

Enough of Archbishop Jensen’s tripe; let’s move on to someone else’s:

Cardinal Pell at St Mary's Cathedral delivered a similar attack on atheism in his Easter message on Thursday. He praised government organisations "paid for by the Christian majority" for helping make the Australian way of life the envy of the world before saying atheists sponsored no community services.

Nice subtle inclusion of two bogus myths – the implication that “the Christian majority” is more moral and ethical than the rest (which seems to discriminate against more than just atheists, but other non-Christians as well), and – of course – the ever-much-repeated “no atheist charities” crap. I’m too tired of dealing with this particular bit of stupidity to bother digging up and posting links, so go ahead and Google around. You’ll find more atheist and humanist benevolent organizations than you can count.

But of course, what anti-atheist fool could try and make their case against godlessness and godless folks without playing the Stalin/Hitler/Pol Pot card?

The new Catholic Bishop of Parramatta, in Sydney's west, Anthony Fisher, drew broader comparisons.

"Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating: Nazism, Stalinism, Pol Pot-ery, mass murder, abortion and broken relationships - all promoted by state-imposed atheism," he said.

The only thing worse than an anti-atheist religious kook is a historically ignorant anti-atheist religious kook. Religiousness during the Nazi regime was a complex issue that is difficult to gauge with any accuracy, but in no way were the Nazis, and the society they strove to build, completely secular or remotely “atheistic”. As for Stalin, he did effectively implement a very harsh anti-religious discipline into his reign, promoting state atheism and the likes, but even so, this is a completely irrelevant issue. Atheism is about the nature of the universe and the existence (or lack thereof) of any god(s). How some less-than-benevolent leaders may choose to do with atheism is utterly immaterial. The same thing also applies to Pol Pot and his own despotic anti-religious rule.

In conclusion:

Dr Jensen went on to say in his sermon that religion can be an "even more dangerous" form of idolatry than atheism if incorrectly interpreted.

He almost made sense when he started with saying that religion “can be ‘even more dangerous’” – until that nonsense about religion being “incorrectly interpreted”. How many ways are there to correctly interpret any given religion, I ask? This is just another incarnation of the No True Scotsman fallacy. A Christian is a Christian, regardless of his/her views on doctrine and scripture. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

(via Diaphanitas)