The American Atheist organization has put up the above billboard in Huntsville, Alabama to promote its upcoming conference in that city.
In an effort to follow up on earlier posts, LOVE IN THE RUINS challenged the atheists to put up a billboard critical of Islam and not just Christianity. To their credit, the above advertisement insults everybody (note the cresent, representing Islam).
Of course, the cowards put it up in Alabama. Huntsville, Alabama is probably about 90% Evangelical Protestant Christian. There ain't many Muslims in Alabama! Why not put this up across the street from a Mosque! (Better yet, hold your conference in a Muslim country and see what happens).
This post, and your dare for the atheists to put their sign up across the street from a mosque, simply underscores the reason to behave as the atheists do: People are killing each other over fairy tales, and it should be the goal of any decent, civilized society to raise its children to believe the truth, not to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Mohammed flew to heaven on a winged horse, or that Buddha was born through an opening in his mother's flank, or any of the other ridiculous and insipid lies that the religious foist on people as soon as they're born. And do not think Christians are any better than others. Not long ago in Belfast were Christians killing each other because of their beliefs, and the same is true in Croatia only ten to twenty years ago (and possibly more recently than that). Sure, if the atheists put up their sign in Syria, they'd probably be killed, just as Christians are being attacked and killed in Pakistan or wherever it is I saw on the news last week where they are protesting because they are not receiving more protection from the government against their Muslim brethren. But that says more about the Muslim attackers (or actually the danger of religious beliefs in general) than it does about Christians or atheists.
ReplyDelete"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." Stephen Henry Roberts
"People are killing each other over fairy tales." Yeah, like the fairy tale that Stalin's five year plan will actually work, or the fairy tale that Chairman Mao's Little Red Book is the fount of all wisdom, or the fairy tale that everything will be great once Chairman Pol Pot cleanses society, or the fairy tale that der Fuhrer is the savior of the Aryan Race, or that Proletarian Revolution will lead to Utopia . . .
ReplyDeleteG.K. Chesterton was right. Mankind is going to worship something. When we stop worshiping God we will worship anything.
Frank Schaeffer is right that dogmatic atheism is just as much of a fundamentalist belief system as the hardest of Hardshell Baptists. This billboard shows that Dogmatic Atheism has even become a proselytizing faith which is seeking to make converts.
If there is full tolerance and love and peace in an Atheistic society then the old Soviet Union should have been paradise.
That's it? That's all you've got? "Mankind is going to worship something." Says who? Many millions of people worship NOTHING, except perhaps the truth, so that quotation is an absolute lie. You cite Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot to show that atheists can be cruel, but what about the crusades, what about the Spanish Inquisition, what about Joshua (whom God told to kill every man, woman and child), and what about God himself, who sent the angel of death to kill the first-born son of every family in Egypt? Christians can be just as full of cruelty and murder as atheists. Here's the difference: the atheists you mention weren't murdering because of religion. They were murdering to keep themselves in power, or to advance the Aryan race, or to build a certain kind of society. We can probably never hope to eliminate murder from our societies or from the hearts of men, but we can darn sure eliminate one of the reasons for it: religion. "My god is better than your god!" BANG. Happens all the time (and it happened over 3,000 times on 9/11/01). When people refuse to give credence to the ridiculous fairy tales of religion, and raise their children to believe in truth instead, one more reason to murder will have vanished.
ReplyDeleteTwo more points very quickly: I notice your post doesn't even try to argue that people should believe in any religion because it is the truth. I commend you on your honesty on that matter, at least, if not on your logic. Also, you state that militant atheism is just as fundamentalist a belief as anything else. Here you mistake passion for fundamentalism. Allow me to quote from Richard Dawkins: "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal force, the truth does not necessarily lie midway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. And that justifies passion on the other side." The God Delusion, preface to the paperback edition, p. 19.
Atheists, or agnostics, simply do not pretend to know, whereas the religious are absolutely certain. Based on that, I leave you with this quote: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." W. K. Clifford
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteMust we go over the same tired old arguments over and over and over again? I cannot “prove” the existence of God any more than you and Professor Dawkins can “prove” that the entire Universe is just the product of an accident.
There is really no such thing as Atheist. What you really are is a Pantheist. If everything is just the result of mindless chance, then something (the universe) sprang from nothing and, in a sense, the Universe itself is “God.” Even Professor Dawkins admits that the odds for the existence of the conditions for life are astronomical. The problem with Professor Dawkins’ argument is that, apparently, everything is possible due to random chance except the possibility that God exists. You have to take your nihilistic philosophy on faith just as much as the most dogmatic theist.
Our beliefs are based upon probabilities. I find that believing that everything which exists is just the result of random chance totally improbable. I find the evidence that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead to be very good. A group of uneducated fishermen suddenly became bold preachers willing to risk their lives for a lie? This is very improbable. A strange Jewish cult based upon the alleged resurrection of a dead rabbi spreads like wildfire and becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire within 300 years. Very improbable.
I am a lawyer. I make decisions based upon evidence all the time. Absolute certainty is impossible with regard to anything. Moral and reasonable certainty is all that can be expected. How do we KNOW anything. How do I know that Henry VIII was the King of England? I wasn’t there, I never met him. Somebody has told me that Henry VIII was the King of England and had six wives. All the books and the history professors could be lying. Under your contention that nothing should be accepted that cannot be proven for sure, most of what we accept as history must be rejected. Religious faith is of the same nature. And make no mistake, Dogmatic Atheism is a religious faith.