Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Guess What "Rational" Non-Believers Believe?

This is a typical post from a garden-variety atheist, taken from Craigslist Rants and Raves. My comments follow each section.


“Then there is a god. Just not the one you're worshipping.
The fruits of the last 100 years are advances in medicine and science,
longer life spans, healthier lives and lifestyles, more acknowledgment
of civil rights for women (that'd include you, honey) and
minorities....... NONE of which are attributable to Christians.”



This is funny. Many atheists actually believe that Christians and other religious believers are opposed to any kind of scientific advancement, and therefore, no Christian is credited for anything that might have improved our lives in the last 100 years.

I guess many of these people slept through High School History, because they never heard of:

Edward Jenner, the most famous champion of vaccination, who did his work against fierce opposition and in the teeth of threats against himself. In effect he wiped out smallpox from among the diseases that terrify mankind.

Crawford Long, one of the three Americans who discovered anesthesia. James Young Simpson, who championed its use in Britain was also a professing Christian, an ardent New Presbyterian.

Joseph Lister, the Quaker doctor who first championed antiseptic surgery against tremendous opposition. Antiseptic surgery was based directly on the theories of Louis Pasteur. And what of Pasteur? Although not a churchgoer, he was a Franciscan Tertiary and detested atheists and atheism. He proved the impossibility of the spontaneous generation of life.

Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian priest (who proved the Big Bang Theory), PREDICTED from his reworking of Einstein's theories, that space would be found to be expanding. Einstein himself at first resisted the implications but later applauded them. The expansion of space was soon confirmed.

Robert Boyle, who is called by some the Father of Chemistry. His science sprang directly from his faith.

John Dalton, a Quaker, gave us the atomic theory behind chemistry.


Sir Humphrey Davy claimed faith and is noted for his chemical researches.

Michael Faraday, who first liquified chlorine.

Sir William Ramsay, The isolater of inert gases, also was a man of Christian faith.

Sir William Wilberforce, the deeply religious member of Parliament who led the abolitionist movement in England.

President Abraham Lincoln, who saw the abolition of slavery in America, and reunited the United States after the Civil War.

Lucretia Mott, the Quaker minister who was one of the early founders of the Women’s Rights Movement in America.

The list of religious believers that have made changes in our lives fills volumes. I chose these people because their work has affected today’s society in very profound ways.


“However, we can attribute the rise of Communism to two Christians --
Stalin and Marx. And we can attribute both of the world wars to
Christians -- Hitler among them.”

I never met an anti-Christian Urban Myth that an internet atheist didn’t like. These are 2 of their favorites.

First of all, does anybody besides this guy really believe that Karl Marx was a believer, when Marx is listed in Wikipedia under the topic of “Famous Atheists”?

The Urban Legend about Stalin is even funnier. Josef Stalin vacillated between atheism and religion, and his religious views were hard to pin down towards the end of his life. Nonetheless, during his early years as head of the Soviet Central Committee he saw to the destruction of the Church in Russia as an institution and the imprisonment and killing of the clergy. It was only later that he changed his mind and allowed the Church to grow once more, possibly for political reasons. Now does he sound like a real Bible-beater to you? Only if you’re an atheist!

The claim of Hitler’s supposed “Christianity” is just as funny as the Stalin legend. Atheists always claim that Hitler was a Roman Catholic, basing their assumption on Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf. What atheists choose to omit is that Mein Kampf was not an autobiography, so much as it was a manual for proselytizing people into Nazism. Hitler’s favorite tool for making converts was propaganda, and Mein Kampf is pure propaganda from cover-to-cover. In actuality, the Third Reich targeted the clergy for elimination the same way the Communists did. If you want to read about how Hitler really felt about the Christians he was duping, get a book called “Hitler’s Table talk”, which contains the transcribed notes taken at meetings between Hitler and his staff.


“So, what have Christians done, besides rape children, start wars,
b**** and moan about the advances in science and medicine that
improved the quality of their lives, and actively rail against the
recognition of civil rights for all? “


You mean, besides NOT doing any of those things the atheist accuses Christians of?

Well, for openers, there’s the Salvation Army, the world’s 2nd largest social welfare and assistance organization, topped only by the United Nations.

Then there’s World Vision International and Christian Children’s Fund, which allow regular joes like you and I to “sponsor” the feeding and education of millions of children, living in desperate poverty all over the world.

Christians run the biggest skid row rescue missions in the country.

And, as I mentioned before, Christians are actively involved in all areas of academia, science, engineering and government. In other words, as hard as it is for a militant atheist to believe, Christians are real people too.



"Oh, that's right -- Christianity has given us Jim Bakker, Jerry
Falwell, Oral Roberts, Bob Jones, the KKK, Christian Identity, the
Boer Wars, neo-Nazis, resistance to every advancement in medicine from
birth control to antibiotics, continuing hatred of anyone different,
etc. "

And atheism has given us Frederick Nietzche.

Even though he’s quoted quite regularly by the atheist crowd, Nietzche is not found in too many lists of “Famous Atheists”. Guess why?

Nietzche contracted syphilis in his 20’s and spent much of his life slipping in and out periods of dementia as a result of his disease. He was also a practicing homosexual who hated women so much, he remarked that the best way to approach a woman was with a whip in hand. Because Nietzche wasn’t able to make a decent living, he sponged off of his mother. Nietzche spent his last days a raving lunatic from advanced syphilis, and only then did people get interested in buying his books, because they were interested in the writings of the “crazy philosopher”.

This is the real story of the “great man” who pronounced God “dead”.

Personally, I wouldn’t want the man on my “who’s who” list, either, because I wouldn’t want anybody to know I’m quoting philosophy from a man who was certified as insane.


Don’t you just love the way atheists spew their favorite “rogues gallery” of Christian hate targets, while choosing to ignore the overwhelmingly positive contributions of visionaries like William Booth or Mother Theresa? And just where are the atheist or humanist equivalents of these well-known Christians? I’m sure there are plenty of humanist heroes, and just as many humanist villains, like Nietzche and Pol Pot. It’s time for the atheist crowd to accept the fact that they’re a minority and most likely they will always be, instead of constantly lashing out at Christians and trying to convince the world that Christians are the overwhelming source of all the world’s evils.


4 comments:

Hector said...

Abraham Lincoln was not a Christian.

The Stoogemaniac said...

Uh, Hector, yes he was. He was historically known as a very religious man. Try reading "books" sometime.

By the way, Lincoln wasn't known for being a scientist, which was what the blog entry was about. You might go out on the 'internets' and google 'non-sequitur'.

Anonymous said...

"I never met an anti-Christian Urban Myth that an internet atheist didn’t like. These are 2 of their favorites."
True but unimportant since Marx wasn't a mass murderer like Hitler or Stalin.

"Nonetheless, during his early years as head of the Soviet Central Committee he saw to the destruction of the Church in Russia as an institution and the imprisonment and killing of the clergy."
Stalin constructed a religion around his personality cult. Linking such a devian regime like the UdSSR or Nazi Germany to atheism is laughable since atheism does NOT instruct poeple to behave in a particular way and/or kill believers.
Religion, on the other hand, does.

"Mein Kampf. What atheists choose to omit is that Mein Kampf was not an autobiography"
So where do atheists do omit this? Do you have any evidence for this? Or is it just made-up nonsense to discredit atheists?
Also why does the fact that Mein Kampf isn't a autobiography imply that its contenc can't be used to evaluate Hitler's belief system? It was written by himself. Is there any logical argument why Mein Kampf can't serve as a source for Hitler's world view?

"so much as it was a manual for proselytizing people into Nazism."
That doesn't mean that everything Hitler said about himself in Mein Kampf was a lie.

"Hitler’s favorite tool for making converts was propaganda, and Mein Kampf is pure propaganda from cover-to-cover."
So Nazi-Germany was an atheistic regime which spread religion instead of atheism - completely makes sense.

"If you want to read about how Hitler really felt about the Christians he was duping, get a book called “Hitler’s Table talk”, which contains the transcribed notes taken at meetings between Hitler and his staff."
Hitler's belief system is a controversial topic in history, but gladly you can name a book that knows it all.
Gladly, there's Wikipedia, where all opinions are listed (contrary to believer sites like yours): "According to the controversial collection of transcripts edited by Martin Bormann, titled Hitler's Table Talk, as well as the testimony of some intimates, Hitler had privately negative views of Christianity. Others reported he was a committed believer. Some recent works have asserted that he was in no way an orthodox Christian or an atheist, and may have been a deist." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler)

The Stoogemaniac said...

Anonymous:

Marx wasn't a killer, but his works inspired a lot of them. Ironic, huh?

Now tell me how many abortion doctors Jesus told his followers to kill. In fact, show us any executions that Jesus ordered.

Mein Kampf was a masterwork of propaganda. Every word in that book is questionable, especially where Hitler tried to portray himself as a Christian, when a Third Reich pamhplet was discovered that showed the Reich's intention to eliminate religion.

That supercedes "Hitler's Table Talk", which itself is a questionable work.