Tis the Season to be...well, misinformed mostly but also persecuted!

Came across this lovely little article where Atheists are taken to task for their pesky mean Christmas spirit, I just thought I'd critque the piece found here http://richarddawkins.net/articles/566680-atheists-numbers-doom-them-to-irrelevance .

Atheists are once again trying to bring attention to themselves by attempting to denigrate, insult or demean religions and, in particular, Christianity and therefore Christians. [Well I guess it beats them once again trying to alter legislation, demean a gender or persecute a demographic with late Bronze Age myth.]

This time it is a billboard advertising [the horror] stunt in New Jersey; the billboard was placed [paid for by them and completely within the law] there by some atheist activist group that calls itself American Atheists. Once again an attempt to put down Christianity will be doomed to irrelevance. [Well done you for making it less irrelevant by writing an article.]
Polls show atheists to be 3 percent or less of the total population of the United States, a number that has remained about the same over past years.[In fact the non religious in one of the fastest growing minorities in the United States.] However, in a desperate attempt to make the number appear higher, the president of this organization now claims that there are many more "closet atheists."[A claim you seem to want to refute but can’t seem to provide actual evidence for.] He goes so far as to say that there are many who attend religious services during the holidays but don't believe in them. Kind of pathetic if you ask me. [I’d say that’s a bit naïve of you but lets not split hairs.]

Fortunately, the country is headed back on the right track to sanity.[You are implying that belief in a deity and private conversation with something untestable is sane, your standards are wide open.] A few years ago only 20 percent of the nation's top companies dared to make any mention of Christmas in their stores. A great many were simply intimidated by the American Civil Liberties Union or similar organizations. The number mentioning Christmas has reversed itself and is now up to 80 percent and continuing to rise.[People must’ve caught on to the fact that it has nothing to do with Christianity in any real sense.] It's also nice to see the Salvation Army bell ringers back in places where they were previously banned. [I’m guessing you see no problem with their homophobic perspective.]
Why are atheists so afraid of Christianity that they feel they have to go out and aggressively attack it every year around this time? [First of all it’s not an attack on Christianity, I would see it as Christianities attack on other religious faiths and people of non belief. You are free to pray and go to church and do what you will, why this feeling of persecution].Why don't you instead proudly proclaim your "atheistic religion" [because its not a religion, it contains no tenets or dogmas, there is nothing you must take on faith or without evidence.] and explain all the reasons and research that led you to your stance.[For the good it would do you as you have set you stall out already, plus we don’t feel the need to proselytize] Maybe you can't?[Presumptuous] Maybe your choice was made out of laziness and you didn't even give religion a chance?[Presumptuous squared] Are you going to give your children the right to choose? [I can safely say they will not be told something that is not provable as fact.]

Tell you what; why don't you pick a day, any day, call it Atheist Day, and spend the day celebrating your atheism.[Celebrating a lack of belief is a bit silly and shows sheer lack of understanding. Shall you join in for all the other gods you don’t believe in? Or should we have a ‘I don’t Believe in the Loch Ness Monster Day?] Get yourself an atheist tree, exchange atheist gifts and have a great atheist meal. [I think you’ll find that we already do, it’s called Christmas. The tree is pagan, the gift giving isn’t original, the date is stolen and as far as I recall they didn’t eat turkey in the bible.] Call all the other atheists you know (won't take long) or send them a card and exchange happy atheist wishes.

Since you believe that there is no being more supreme than yourself (a rather egocentric viewpoint), [In fact there is no more supreme to our knowledge than each other and that is the reason we should all be equal in rights and freedoms. Call that egocentric if you so wish.] you can celebrate you by staring at yourself (or small groups staring at each other) in the mirror all day. Isn't this a better idea than going around and putting other religions down?[ I wouldn’t say Christianity is being put down. It’s an obvious and historical fact hat the 25^th of December has nothing to do with Christianity, There is no impact on your ability to have your personal relationship with your g, you are free to go to church, you are free to pray and you are free to do as you wish…which is the same right extended to everyone else] At least you are doing something more positive for yourself if you follow my strategy for you.

We Christians are on the Right Side of this issue [I’m sure Muslims and Jews would tell me the same, but I guess you are just super special.]. Atheists have no real beliefs; [Now that’s closer] they just want to tear down one more longstanding tradition and belief.[You lost it again] How can they claim that a baby in a manger, a cross, a Christmas tree or some innocent Christmas songs cause them untold suffering and still keep a straight face?[I don’t recall someone mentioning ‘untold suffering. Strawman for Christmas?] And then they tell the rest of us to be more sensitive to their feelings. Wrong, atheists; you are the ones who need the sensitivity training sessions. Your claims of hurt and pain are bordering on the side of ridiculousness. [Unlike the persecuted Christian majority who don’t mention their hurt feelings?]
As has been shown over the past few years, Christians can make their feelings known by voting with their feet and their wallets. As much as the atheists hate to admit it, their impact is becoming smaller each year.[Who is asking who to admit what?] Remember the movie, "The Passion of The Christ"? It is now No. 15 of the top 1,000 grossing films of all time in the United States.[ And Phantom Menace is 7^th, so people who recognise themselves as Jedi’s have more credibility?] On the other hand, Bill Maher and his classic film, "Religulous," is number … well, I can't find it on the list. As a matter of fact, I wonder if it even covered its costs. I think it was popular for about three weekends.[ To date, Religulous has grossed over $13 million after having a production budget of $2.5 million. It is currently 7th among the highest grossing documentaries in the US and is the highest grossing documentary of 2008. But hey its not like you need facts on your side when you believe what you are saying is true.] Examples like this abound. [Yet no need to supply them to back up your argument.]
The same thing holds true for retailers. Whose business do they want? [Jesus would be so proud as he was quite into commercialism] Do they want 3 percent of the population frequenting their stores or a much larger percentage?[Depends on the wealth of the people in those percentages, but again its easy to assume people are dazzled by numbers.] I think the answer is obvious when you look at all the establishments that realized they made a huge mistake a few years back and have since rethought their positions. [Who? And what did they do?]

Even though I do push back hard against you atheists, [I think we can take it, even though it is brilliantly researched and irrefutable.] I still hope you will rethink your position and change before it's too late. You are making the biggest mistake of your lives by not at least giving religion a serious try.[Which one? And it’s near the end and you are still making assumptions.] In the meantime I wish you a Merry Christmas and I will be praying for you. [Merry Christmas also, if I pray for you can we call it a cheap Christmas present?]

Tom Sears is a local professor of accounting in Oneonta. He can be reached at searsthomas16@gmail.com. His column appears every other week. His columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/tomsears.

The lady doth protest too much

Over at the National Post writer and editor of Holy Post Charles Lewis has felt the need to let atheists know that he in fact does not care what they think at a reasonable length(http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/12/05/dear-atheists-most-of-us-dont-care-what-you-think/). It’s very rare to see someone defeat their own point before they manage to make it but these are indeed strange times we are living in and as such I guess we should see why his toys left the pram and perhaps help him put them back in.

Launching into his diatribe, which is definitely about something he definitely doesn’t care about, we find the catalyst for this article is the recent debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair. Lewis goes on to lament that, “Blair probably should not have even bothered and instead should have gone to mass that night or spent an evening helping out at a shelter or visiting someone who was lonely and sick in a hospital.” I can’t help but think by his own standards surely he himself would be better off tending to the needy rather than writing, editing, proofing and publishing his letter. Surely Mr Blair giving a defense of his faith to a sold out auditorium is a worthwhile endeavour and in many ways a requirement of his faith ( 1 Peter 3:15, Phillipians 1:7, Corinthians 10:5). What we have is Lewis telling us that Blair shouldn’t have wasted his time while at the same time doing the same thing himself, imposing an approach that he himself cannot follow.

So, what did Mr Lewis make of the Blair apologetic? Well, I’m not sure because while he is saying that Blair should’ve stayed at home or went out and helped the needy he also shows that he in fact didn’t watch the debate, “I have read bits and pieces about who bested whom.” Now, I may be being slightly picky but I find that I like to actively see the evidence before I make a decision but then again if I didn’t really care about it, why would I? In absence of taking the time to understand the arguments it seems that Lewis has found good filler, a good old fashioned ad hominem attack. Nothing sells ‘I don’t actually care’ better than attacking someone personally and he exquisitely demonstrates this with his not quite indifferent opinion of Hitchens as, “a pompous ass whose main intellectual arsenal is sneering and using sarcasm.”  Now I have read a lot Hitchens work, I have watched the majority of his debates and I think that there is a lot more to his ‘intellectual arsenal’, after all there are forty years of publication that would immediately dispel this idea of an intellectual myopia. If perhaps Lewis could’ve addressed Hitchens points and then explained how they were intellectually void and covered up with sarcasm then we may have had a case. I don’t want to judge Charles Lewis too strongly as I understand that his level of care when approaching the subject was minimal so he is likely to make mistakes, no matter how glaring.

So, in absence of having heard what Hitchens actually said and judging Blair for taking part where does Lewis take his non-interested article? Well apparently atheists, and one must wonder if he includes agnostics in with this, do not have the necessary understanding of religion and what it is and he feels, “the debate is useless for one simple reason: most atheists do not have a clue what religion is about.” There seems to be no accounting of the fact that a lot of atheists, and I would definitely count myself in this group so I know of at least one, migrated from belief to non-belief. I struggled to really understand what he was trying to say with this, after all if I don’t understand something I will engage with someone who does and based on that communication and a further examination of all evidences I can then make a judgment. It seems that Lewis doesn’t want to go this far, it seems that if you don’t understand by now then its tough because it turns out believers shouldn’t be wasting time explaining it to you.

Just when I thought he had ticked all the ‘bad apologetics’ boxes Lewis then reminded me that there was more in his ammunition and reminded us that, “..Godless societies have not done too well, unless you consider North Korea a success.” What impresses me more than a good sentence is a bad one that is self assured; a person who can confidently assert something that’s not based on fact must take a really special effort in blocking out reality. Firstly on the issue of North Korea we need not waste time other than point out that this has more in common with a theocracy and the atheism here is not organic, this argument has been knocked down more times than a bad stuntman and really does not hold up under serious discussion. If Lewis had in fact read any of the ‘new atheist’ writings, that on one hand he describes as having, “…captured the secular imagination.” and on the other says are written by a “dreary crew”, then perhaps he would’ve seen this argument beaten down with great confidence.

So what do we make of the implied claim that religious societies fare better than Godless ones? Firstly I would not claim that there is a causal link from religiosity to bad societal health but it does seem that there is a correlation between the two. Looking at Gregory S. Pauls study on ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) we can see quite clearly that there is actual real world evidence of a correlation between religious societies and increased homicide/teen pregnancy/abortions etc. It might be too much for Lewis to do a quick Google or Wiki search on the subject he apparently doesn’t care about but I think it would do him the world of good. I wouldn’t commit myself to draw the causal line with absolute confidence, as societies are complex organic things, but as a starting point of research I feel it helps direct the necessary questions.

Mr Lewis has little left in his back catalogue of apologetics at this point of the article and jumps on Hitchens opinion of Mother Teresa. I found this quite bizarre as he seems to think Hitchens is wrong about Mother Teresa as a fraud because of his view on her crisis of faith. I can only guess that he has never read Hicthens “Missionary Position” or his documentary “Hells Angel”. Hitchens had much more to hold Mother Teresa to rights for and it far outweighs her crisis of faith, her belief that poverty and suffering as a good thing and her fund raising from questionable figures are among those reasons.

With the straws firmly clutched Lewis then launches into what can only be described as some abstract literary hand waving such as, “Real faith is like real love — something that endures after the first attraction and then sustains life itself.” I struggle to grasp what he is trying to say coming to the end of his piece, perhaps as an atheist I just don’t get it, but this statement that faith sustains life is just a bumper sticker for his understanding of the human condition. The waning pace of the article is almost indicative of someone who has slowly realised that he is in fact the beast his wishes to slay. All I can say is that if this is what he produces about something he absolutely does not care about then the bar for his writings for things he does care about is set low enough for him to succeed next time.