Deck Knight's entire argument is based on the consequences of belief rather than objective truth, which, in case anyone needs reminding, is an
informal fallacy. In his world, religion has utility solely because it provides a convenient framework to keep the general populace in line with patriarchal order, just as bogeyman stories are used to make children behave.
I mourn for the education system that produced a being capable of spouting such drivel. Sadly, the funeral for such post-modernist BS is probably premature. "Patriarchal order." Did akuchi possess you or something? The post-modernists should have stuck to art because they only operate in frameworks.
Whether or not religious beliefs conform to reality is of little concern, which is why believers of various stripes with theoretically irreconcilable doctrinal differences are willing to form alliances to attack atheism.
I was unaware atheism was important enough to attack. Generally, adults ignore children who whine "I'm right, daddy! I went to college and I'm more enlightened than you now! Why are you ignoring me daddy! I'm smarter than you, daddy!" Which is pretty much what capital-A, in your face Atheism does. Most religions are more concerned with instructing their own faithful how to live moral lives than to gang up on poor little old "reality-conforming" atheism. The number of times any of my pastor, clergyman, or religious instructors have referred to atheism in any light is approximately zero. The world really doesn't revolve around atheists. Theists can think each other's belief systems are flawed or incomplete without making conjectures about how they don't conform to "reality."
The accusation that atheists believe might makes right smacks of projection coming from someone whose belief system attempts to coerce supposedly moral behavior through supernatural
threats. If I wanted to be generous I could say the threat is replaced with the promise of a
reward, but that's merely the difference between a carrot and a stick. The problem is that the incentive, whether positive or negative, falls apart under rational scrutiny and, without being replaced by a new framework, leaves a void, which is what that Nietzsche
quote that everyone loves to misinterpret was getting at.
Or it could be that atheistic regimes of the last century went on a campaign of brutal mass murder once those damned theists got plowed out of the secular state's way. In short: when allowed to be taken to its logical conclusion, the secular insistence that Man is God (or if you prefer, the highest authority) leads to brutality. Secularism falls apart under historical scrutiny. Give a godless man enough power and he subjects his neighbors, because that is man's nature. His only commitment is to himself, he does not even pretend there might be a higher rule than his own. All the supernatural "threats" as you call them by definition do not carry temporal consequences. I suppose you think it's nobler to do something at the point of the police officer's gun than God's wrath because God's wrath isn't tangible, but its the same difference. Except the police officer's gun doesn't tell you to do better than the bare minimum.
Please excuse me for using "he," if you are reading akuchi. Women can and will do the same thing. The difference between Margaret Sanger and the other eugenicists is Margaret Sanger was never in a position to control every lever of a totalitarian state. But since no women have ever yet been in such positions, well, you can understand. I wouldn't want people to accuse me of defending patriarchal order or something.
''Ironically, Nietzsche himself would sit better with Deck Knight's philosophy than my own, given his rejection of egalitarianism as slave morality. On that note, all this ranting about worship of the state is bizarre. There is no political philosophy inherent to atheism, and everyone who isn't an anarchist expects governments to enforce behavior in certain ways. I know Deck Knight would love to start ranting about godless communists, but that's a red herring to avoid having to present material evidence for his religion.
"Might is right" is the logical conclusion of an atheistic society, as pointed out for us by the entirety of the 20th century. Each atheistic society concluded in a pile of bones, economic desperation, and general poverty and destitution. Excuse me if I'm loath to find the rationality in a system with no universal morals. I don't believe its rational to base a system around non-belief to begin with. Atheism's entire existence is shaped by a reactionary anger to the beliefs of others and the core conclusion that they are irrational.
Agnostics at least lack the hubris to call others irrational for not reaching the same conclusions about reality. The only agnostic state I can think of is the fictional "Neutral Planet" in Futurama.
It's called faith for a reason SSBM Roy. I couldn't present to you physical evidence that you would accept anyway, as any evidence I present would be outside the realm of your understanding. All I can say is that the previous century lays to waste the idea that if your society gets rid of God then it will bring us into a new age of rational enlightenment. God does not need to prove himself to you, and I don't need to prove him to you. All the evidence I need can be obtained from the distinct effects a societal lack of belief in God produces. As different cultures as the Chinese, Russians, Germans, and Italians all tried godless societies, and they all ended up the exact same way.
Besides, how would anyone explain the existence of Ayn Rand?
Same way they'd explain your or my existence, I imagine. I don't know what makes you believe your existence is somehow more explicable than Ayn Rand's. Mine certainly isn't.
Atheism may be true. Atheism may be logically consistent. It's no way to run a nation or a life, though. Logical consistency is not the highest value in the universe, and that's the only valuable thing a non-belief in something provides.
Politics is the study of power. Because humans value power, it will always exist. It is thus ridiculous to separate atheism with secularism, because ultimately atheism will concentrate its power in the highest form of secular human organization, a federal government. Atheism only functions safely in the vacuum of theory, where logical consistency is the only acceptable value.
