Brits De-Baptising

More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" from the Internet to renounce their Christian faith.

The initiative launched by a group called the National Secular Society (NSS) follows atheist campaigns here and elsewhere, including a London bus poster which triggered protests by proclaiming "There's probably* (emphasis mine) no God."

. . .

The bus-side posters that hit London in January sported the message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Full Article.

*I'm not sure how comforting I would find the assertion that there is probably no God, but whatever... I find it terribly ironic and hilarious when people say that religion, particularly Christianity, is the opiate of the masses.

As Dinesh D'Souza points out in What's So Great About Christianity, it is atheism and atheists that engage in wishful thinking and self-deception convincing themselves that no God exists. If Christianity, for example, were an opiate, why would the peddlers have included the doctrine of Hell? Or the most rigorous, demanding moral standard of any religion?

Interesting and Hilarious.

Dinesh D'Souza seems to be the most frequent debater on the "Great God Debate" circuit taking on the likes of Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Peter Singer. If you are interested you can find all the debates on youtube with a quick search.

I cannot find a link to the D'Souza/Singer II debate (I will eventually, though), but here is D'Souza's column discussing the debate, and his surprise when Singer refused to defend his views on atheistic morality, when in fact the debate discussion was "Can We Have Morality Without God?" which would be a topic Singer ought to be adept at defending in the positive.

READ!

Also, lest I forget this gem of hilarity over at Atheism is Dead.

Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens have tabbed themselves rather unoriginally the Four Horsemen. Apparently, the starting lineup for the atheist team decided to sit around Dawkins living room with some scotch and discuss the impenetrability and infallibility of their views.

It's a few hours, but if you'd like to see a four men stroking egos and an afternoon spent in frivolity, you have arrived at the correct train station: WATCH!

Hume's Test Failed Itself...

David Hume, a Scottish skeptic from the 18th century, is credited to this day by many atheists and freethinkers as a really smart dude who drove the nails into the coffin of Christianity.

I've read this in D'Souza's book What's So Great About Christianity, and I've also heard Ravi Zacharias talk about this, and I got a laugh both times.

One of David Hume's popular philosophical statements was "If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school of metaphysics, let us ask these questions

• Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or reasoning?
  
• Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence?

If the answer to both is "no," commit it to the flames for it can be nothing but sophistry and illusion."

He is saying, take a book in your hands and ask if it is being mathematically reasoned through, if it isn't--commit it to the flames. Or, if a statement isn't mathematical or scientific it is sophistry and illusion.

But, Hume's statement is a philosophical test for meaning that fails its own test. His statement does not contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or reasoning, nor does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence.

D'Souza Rips Maher and His Offensive, Anti-Intellectual Irreverence

In another blog entry on another blog I wrote this after reading 100 pages of The God Delusion:

After the torment and agony of reading the first one hundred pages of "The God Delusion," you can color me underwhelmed. And I don't just say that because this guy is batting clean-up for the wrong team.

Dawkins naked, baseless assertions and irreverent jabs at Christians are in nearly every instance what I would expect out of a hack like Bill Maher. The only difference being that Dawkins is well-educated and cleverly articulates otherwise thoughtless points where Maher drops an F-bomb, or substitutes humor for anything that could be considered throught-provoking.

Either way, they are both appealing to the lowest common denominator: people of faith - concrete scientific evidence + (insert bigoted joke about Christians) = Christians are stupid, delusional = God is a myth...
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This evening I found a column by D'Souza just ripping Bill Maher and his feaux-intellectual game. Excellent and quick read...

Bill Maher is a very irritating fellow. Now surely he would say that he irritates people because he is so iconoclastic, shattering entrenched orthodoxies with his rapier wit, but the truth is that Maher is offensive because he has an offensive personality. He seems chronically unable to wipe the smug arrogant smile off his face, which is especially galling because this arrogance is entirely unsubstantiated by intellectual ability.

Even Maher’s humor seems, well, gratuitous and condescending. His is not the wry, gentle wit of Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld. Nor does he exhibit the outrageous, side-splitting humor of George Carlin or Richard Pryor. Rather, Maher employs his trademark sneer to poke snide, sarcastic fun at people, usually people who are markedly less sophisticated or culturally established or economically well off than he is.

Full column ripping Maher HERE.

Opiates and Masses

Dinesh D'Souza in his book What's So Great About Christianity put a pretty big dagger through the idea that religion is an emotional crutch for people who can't otherwise make sense of their difficult life or struggle (i.e., "religion is the opiate of the masses").

I'm not quoting because I don't have the book nearby but he said along the lines of

• If I were going to create a religion or belief system in order to make me feel good about myself, and about life in general, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made up something that has the most demanding level of obedience and behavior found in any religion or worldview.
• I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made something up with a consequence for rejection of God that includes the idea of eternality in a place where I am totally separated from God. That's not very relaxing to me. Fire and brimstone is rather unsettling actually.

He went on and on, about this and the rest of it escapes me, but he then went on and turned the tables saying atheists and secular humanists are the ones to whom the phrase "opiate of the masses" applies.

• If you want to live a life where everything is permitted, and nothing is condemned, and there is no divine retribution, and you get to avoid ever having a guilty conscious, then try atheism. Atheism is a true opiate.

Dinesh D'Souza wrote probably one of the clearest books on Christianity and Christian apologetics that you can find. Excellent read.

Unshakable Faith...

I'm reading What's So Great About Christianity right now, and Dinesh D'Souza presents some very amusing anecdotes about the fundamental dogmatism of scientists in their materialist and naturalist approach.

• Biologist Franklin Harold in The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life explains that evolution presumes the existence of fully formed cells with the power to replicate themselves. And explains the origin of the cell with: "Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process."
  

Not exactly the explanation one expects after reading Dawkins. But the next is far better and much funnier.

• Francis crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA posits an opposing, and rather unique theory: "Space aliens must have brought life to Earth from another planet." This theory can be found in Crick's book Life Itself.
  

Look at the lengths people will go to to avoid the concept of a creator God! It's rich, and provides great entertainment value; although, it may not be the best for their spiritual eternity. How would you like to explain to God that you doubled down on the "Space Alien-Human Germination" theory (that you invented no less)instead of giving the Bible a fair chance. Wow!

• With respect to the understanding of the human conscience, Nicholas Humphrey without shame proclaims, "[o]ur starting assumption as scientists ought to be that on some level consciousness has to be an illusion."

Spectacular. The human consciousness is not real. Where does that leave unconsciousness? Really unreal?

More to come later, there is tons of fodder that D'Souza gives in this excellent chapter in his book.