The Delusion of David Aikman: A Refutation of The Delusion of Disbelief

Preface

I've written a handful of fairly scholarly works attempting to debunk various theistic authors (for example, Ray Comfort, author of The Evidence Bible: Irrefutable Evidence for the Thinking Mind; Bridge-Logos Publishers, 2002 and David Marshall's The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity; Harvest House Publishers, 2007) and this one that you're about to read now is one of my most favorite of these accomplishments. The reasons are because to date no one has been able to refute any of my arguments in it; I've gotten more kudos on this refutation than any other I've written, and I would consider it a labor of love because of the amount of research I put into the main parts of the book.

I've taken the time to create this new version of the review because I was unsatisfied mainly with the layout of my sources. I wanted to create footnotes and make the review look more scholarly and professional. I also made a few minor changes for this edition as well, but nothing important enough to worth noting.

Just a quick note. The original review can still be found here.

Finally, I thought I'd write a little bit about the writing of the review and the research done.

Like all reviews that I've begun, I've never set out to write long rebuttals to the books I read. I simply wanted to buy a few books detailing the arguments used by various theistic apologists. Once I read a book and see it has many factual errors I'm often compelled to write about them and attempt to set the record straight.

That is what compelled me to write this review, though an additional reason also cropped up. I had read that this book did a good job at refuting the “new atheists” (of course they all say that, don't they? It never turns out to be true though) and I wanted to read Aikman's scathing arguments.

To be quite honest, despite my current confidence that I have successfully refuted the claims of Aikman's about linking atheism to Communism, when I first read his book I was actually somewhat convinced of his argument (though judging from some reviews I found, even by other atheists, I wasn't the only one who was fooled. In the beginning, at least). I anguished for days reading and rereading the fifth chapter trying to find an obvious hole in his arguments. It look me a little while to see that his entire premise was false, by basing it on an incorrect definition of atheism.

In hindsight my reaction was completely unnecessary, but I suppose I was just intimidated to a small degree by Aikman's credentials in the area of Russian history and Communism (he has a Ph.D.) and the many quotes he used in an attempt to prove that atheism was what caused the hatred of religion, and thus the destruction of it.

Of course, as I finally realized, this is completely false and I've yet to come across any evidence linking atheism to the Communist atrocities after my more in depth research into the topic.

The same with the founding of the country, though I was a little bit more prepared for that subject since I had briefly read and written about that subject in the past. Though, with Aikman being a historian I had to play 'catch up' and do some reading about the founding of the country and the place of religion in america myself. That is when I turned to my main sources of information for that chapter: Frank Lambert's The Founding Fathers and The Place of Religion in America and David L. Holmes' The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Both of these books I would highly recommend to anyone seeking knowledge about the religious beliefs of the "founding fathers" and religion in America and the role the founders wanted it to play.

Something that astounded me, though, was the fact that despite Aikman being a historian, many of his historical "facts" were just so obviously false even to someone who just had a basic knowledge of history. How could someone so well schooled make such glaring mistakes? One example is blaming atheism for the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Just a cursory glance at its history will show that the Terror was executed by deists! It wasn't an attack upon religion itself, as Aikman makes it appear, but a revolution; an uprising of the common people demanding that their place in society be bettered. It wasn't atheism at all!

Another accomplishment of mine regarding this review was my definitive refutation of Aikman's claims about some study that had been done (see chapter 6) about the influences of the "founding fathers", and claiming the bible was the most influential, not the enlightenment thinkers. Well, this is false, too, as I prove later on. It's kind of funny how I came upon the information to debunk Aikman's claims. I was reading an online article at Talk2Action.org by Chris Rodda, author of the excellent (and very helpful at times for this review) book Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 1, in which she exposes the deceit of Congressman Randy Forbes about the founding of the country (she mentions another "liar for Jesus" in David Barton, a Christian history revisionist who tells the same lies in his books) and mentions the Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston, Donald S. Lutz, and a study he did about what had the most influence upon the "founders". Curious what Lutz's research showed about the founding of the country and its influences I bought his book The Origins of American Constitutionalism and while reading it I came across a chart in the book and while looking at it two numbers seemed so very familiar. I knew I had seen those figures before; I ran to my bookshelf and pulled out Aikman's Delusion of Disbelief and flipped to the section where he was talking about the influences on the "founders" and that's when I confirmed my hunch. The figures Aikman used were from Lutz's study. Of course, I now believe that perhaps Aikman had read one of David Barton's books, and not Lutz's, but since Aikman didn't give any source for his information I doubt I'll ever know.

The rest of the chapters were fairly easy to rebut. I'm familiar with many arguments about the bible so the chapter on that subject wasn't too difficult. I severely demolished most of his arguments in that chapter; some of them were honestly a little dumb. I actually laughed out loud when I read some of Aikman's arguments. One example was his claim that "legends usually require at least one to two generations to bring to life" regarding the accusation that the gospels are legendary and it would take at least that long for legends to develop.

Another observation of mine was the fact that, like other apologists that attempt to rebut the “new atheists” (David Marshall for example), Aikman was guilty of a few misquotes and taking some of the “new atheists” out of context a few times. This phenomenon seems rampant within apologetic circles. They can't seem to understand many of the claims and arguments of the “new atheists.” They seem to project what they want to see, instead of what they actually say.

Finally, a reader might notice that chapters one through five are fairly short. That's not because I couldn't answer most of his arguments; not in the least, but only because I was trying to focus on the main argument; the main focus of each chapter and refute that. In this way I was hoping to make the review more precise and to the point instead of trying to point out every little error I found. This was especially true (as I say at the end of this review) since this was likely be the last refutation that I was going to write and I wanted my final one to be one of the best; to go out with a bang and write a great refutation that demolishes my opponent. Judging from the feedback I gotten I've accomplished this objective.

Another reason for the shorter earlier chapters was because while I was writing the earlier chapters I was doing research for the up and coming chapters, starting with the fifth one. The fifth and sixth chapters, I felt, were his most important chapters and I wanted to hurry and get to them. I was looking forward to pointing out all the errors he made. Though, I don't think that harmed the earlier chapters. I made it a point, as I said, to refute the main argument in each chapter; it's just that I went into more detail in the later chapters because those were his more important ones.

I hope you enjoy reading this new version of my review and if you like it, if you hate it, if you have any comments or criticisms, by all means come to my blog and tell me about it. Leave me a message in the comments section or email me.

Thank you.

"Arizona Atheist"

May 15, 2009

Forward

Previously, this was a PDF version of my review of Aikman's book but I've decided to copy the new version directly to my blog so I can host it locally from now on.

“Arizona Atheist”
June 10, 2010

Introduction

This is a review of David Aikman's The Delusion of Disbelief: Why the New Atheism is a Threat to Your Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness, published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008.

Before I begin with the chapter by chapter break down I thought I'd express some thoughts about the book. Aikman, like every other theist, tries to place the "four horsemen" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel C. Dennett, and Sam Harris) in a bad light, seemingly trying to discredit them before he even begins to address their arguments. If theists don't attack the four authors directly they try the old atheism is responsible for Communism and Nazism bit (Aikman does exactly that in chapter 5). As I've said before, I think this new strategy is an attempt to discredit the logical philosophy of materialism by equating it with evil acts, which is just a logical fallacy in itself (the 'poisoning of the well' fallacy).

In my opinion, this new approach is due, at least in part, to the fact that theists have had their arguments critiqued and destroyed and they have been unable to prove their case. Because of this, they've decided to attack the materialistic philosophy directly, but again they have failed, as I will prove in later chapters of my review.

That's enough of the introduction, so let's get to it.

Chapter 1: The Four Horsemen

This is a fairly short chapter and basically just talks about the rise of atheism in America, "the four horsemen" and their books.

One of the things he says, on page 3, were the names that the four authors have been called, such as "the new atheists," "the new godless," and he adds his own with, "The Gang of Four," referring to communist leaders. I felt this was a little preview for his readers about the distortions of history that one will come across later in his book.

He comments briefly about the "brights" movement which reeks of snobbery and I do agree with Aikman on this. However, even though it's a term that is condescending I think it's also true, regardless of how 'pretentious' it sounds.

On page 10 Aikman goes over what he feels are some of the failings of the "four horsemen" such as "their view that the discoveries of science have invalidated religious truth," and their critiques of the bible.

I can understand how Aikman must feel to have his silly beliefs torn apart as they have in recent years, but science has disproved religion, and has been for hundreds of years, and I don't think that trend will slow down any.

Aikman aims to answer the question about why the sudden surge of "atheistic propaganda" and he answers with the political reasons, with many in the Bush administration being Christians and speaking out about their faith publicly. But I don't think that's exactly the right answer, though that is partly to blame. I think Aikman is going around the question and doesn't want to highlight the bad consequences of religion. The tearing down of the wall between church and state is one very good reason many are upset, and the heavy influence of evangelicals in recent years in the law making process and other realms of politics. He does mention some of these issues very briefly, but highlights the "religious content of the public discourse of recent years," as being the main reason. He only gives lip service to a few of the consequences that have taken place by allowing religious beliefs to take control of many important decisions that affect many peoples' freedoms, not to mention the violence.

Chapter 2: The Attack of the Four Horseman

At the beginning of chapter 2 Aikman claims that "the four horsemen are not a coordinated or coherent group," despite each other giving many kudos to each other in their books. He claims that they each contradict one another, and have different opinions on the same religion, but what else does he expect? It almost sounds as if he is arguing that just because the four men don't agree on everything, everything they say must be false! Each is their own person, and is reflective upon the fact that atheism is not some little club with a set of beliefs about religion, or any other topic for that matter. The only thing that makes a person qualified to be an atheist is a lack of a belief in a god. Even Aikman somewhat admits this, but if that is so, why make a big deal out of it?

Next, he covers some background information on each of the atheist writers; some of it a bit unflattering, which I feel is an attempt to discredit the men at the outset so anything they say might be discredited.

For example, he states that Christopher Hitchens "was no great scholar," and "graduated with an undistinguished 'third class' degree." [1] He also says that Hitchens had been a Marxist and a Trotskyist which, in my mind, is another jab by Aikman in an attempt to convince people that atheism will lead to socialism and communism.

Hitchens does hold opinions that some might frown upon in regards to politics, but how does that make anything he says about religion any less true?

I also think it's a little hypocritical of Aikman to talk about Hitchens' past beliefs. His own religion's "holy" book seems to condone communism in some passages. Two being Exodus 16:16-18 and Acts 2:44-45.

Exodus 16:16-18: "This is what the lord has commanded: 'Gather of it, every man of you, as much as he can eat; you shall take an omer apiece, according to the number of the persons whom each of you has in his tent.' And the people of Israel did so; they gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat." (RSV)

Acts 2:44-45: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need." (RSV)

This sounds strikingly similar to Karl Marx's phrase, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Having said that, I think it needs to be stressed that communism is not a purely atheistic concept (I further discuss Aikman's claims about communism in my review of chapter 5). There have been several Christians who have held communist beliefs including, it seems, Thomas Aquinas. "He recognized the right to property for personal 'use,' but believed that any superfluity should be distributed to others who are in need. The right to property is therefore strictly speaking a right of administration or stewardship. The possessor of wealth is an administrator who should distribute it according to his judgment for the good of humanity. Possessions are not merely private property for personal enjoyment: 'Quantum ad hoc non debet homo habere res exteriores ut propias, sed ut communes.' The holder of wealth therefore has a continual duty to practice almsgiving according to his individual conscience. Wealth is held in trust for the public good. Property is not an indefeasible right: where death threatens or there is no other source of sustenance, it is permissible to take what is necessary for others. Such an act cannot be considered robbery or theft."

Another early church father, Ambrose, seemed to hold the same opinion as Aquinas: "Nature has poured forth all things for all men for common use...Nature therefore has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few."

It should also be noted that "Jesus' voluntary poverty, his attacks on riches (it is more difficult for a rich man to go to heaven than to pass through 'the eye of a needle'), and his sharing of goods (particularly bread and fishes) all inspired many early Christians to practice a form of communism. The communal life of the early christian church endured throughout the ministry of Paul." [2]

He also talks briefly about Sam Harris' past and says that "[Harris] and a friend experimented with the hallucinogenic drug MDMA, better known by its street name, 'ecstacy.' Harris experienced some kind of mind-altering epiphany and decided to drop out of college, apparently to write a novel. He spent the next eleven years traveling through India and Nepal and experimenting with meditation techniques...[h]e then returned to Stanford and completed his degree." [3] Even though Aikman does say that Harris is a "pleasant-mannered young man with impeccable West Coast credentials," I again feel that Aikman's reference to his drug use is an attempt to discredit Harris because of many peoples' negative feelings toward the use of drugs, which might reflect negatively upon Harris.

I just don't see what the big deal is about the personal lives of these men? They are not being hypocrites or harming anyone, unlike some religious "leaders" such as Ted Haggard. If you don't remember, in November of 2006, Haggard admitted to using methamphetamine and his accuser, prostitute and masseur Mike Jones, also claimed to have had sex with Haggard. After initially denying some of the charges Haggard finally admitted, "The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.” [4]

On page 29 Aikman is discussing a problem with something that Christopher Hitchens had said in his book god is Not Great and says that he caught Hitchens contradicting himself. Sorry to tell you, Mr. Aikman, but Hitchens did no such thing. Aikman says of Hitchens: "In the very first chapter, on page five [Hitchens] writes, 'Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith.' Then, on the very next page, he writes, 'We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion.' Huh? Hitchens is not only inconsistent in his dogmatic definitions of what atheism is or is not..."

What Hitchens was saying is that atheism is not a belief, and that it is possible to live a decent and moral life without religion. That is not some contradiction; a person can have beliefs about things in life and still be an atheist. Hitchens was referring to a religious type of belief. With this statement I think it's pretty clear that it's Aikman and not Hitchens who is confused about the definition of atheism.

On page 32 on his discussion of Sam Harris, Aikman does something which many other theists are guilty of: taking a quote of Harris' out of context. Aikman says, "Even more chillingly, he also suggests that people espousing certain ideas that he considers truly harmful to society ought simply to be put to death."

The quote on pages 52-53 of The End of Faith that many refer to is the following:

"Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas."

As can be plainly seen, Harris is not advocating that people go and kill others just because of their religious beliefs. He is talking about the fact that the Islamic terrorists killed themselves and many others because of what they believe, and was talking about self-defense, not just going and killing someone over what they believe. It's been demonstrated that the terrorists do murder people because of what they believe, and if your life is threatened I see no problem with attacking someone first (this is probably my self-defense/martial arts mentality coming out).

Harris, himself, has even written about this often misconstrued quote:

My discussion of killing people “for what they believe” (pages 52-53 of The End of Faith):

The following passage seems to have been selectively quoted, and misconstrued, more than any I have written:

The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas.

This paragraph appears after a long discussion of the role that belief plays in governing human behavior, and it should be read in that context. Some critics have interpreted the second sentence of this passage to mean that I advocate simply killing religious people for their beliefs. Granted, I made the job of misinterpreting me easier than it might have been, but such a reading remains a frank distortion of my views. Read in context, it should be clear that I am not at all ignoring the link between belief and behavior. The fact that belief determines behavior is what makes certain beliefs so dangerous.

When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri, the answer cannot be, “because they have killed so many people in the past.” These men haven’t, to my knowledge, killed anyone personally. However, they are likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what they and their followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc. As I argued in The End of Faith, a willingness to take preventative action against a dangerous enemy is compatible with being against the death penalty (which I am). Whenever we can capture and imprison jihadists, we should. But in most cases this is impossible." [5]

At the end of the chapter, Aikman claims that the biggest weakness of the "New Atheists" is their lack of a coherent set of principles to govern morality. He claims that Sam Harris is the "most philosophically confused" of the "four horsemen" and that Harris' claim of some kind of "psychological laws that govern human well-being...[and] provide an enduring basis for an objective morality" is 'breathtakingly presumptuous.'

I think it is Aikman who is the one who is confused. The reason is because there is research that is on-going in the field of evolutionary psychology, and the roots of morality. Aikman might not like science treading where religion has usually dominated, but from the looks of research by the likes of Marc Hauser, Robert Wright, and others, there seems to be a legitimate basis to those claims (For more information please read Hauser's Moral Minds and Wright's The Moral Animal). [6]

Chapter 3: They Don't Like god

In this chapter, Aikman wonders why the "new atheists" speak hatefully about a god who they don't believe in to begin with. Since he couldn't really answer that question, claiming instead that they really do believe; it's just that they're in denial, I think I'll give it a try. I think the reason the "new atheists" talk angrily and unfavorably about god is to shock believers into seeing reality; see that the god they are taught to love and worship is actually a cruel monster, and not this loving being. Then maybe they will snap out of their blind faith phase and actually read the bible for all the horror it contains; if that happens, maybe they will see all the lies that their belief system is built upon.

For several pages Aikman scolds Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris on their critiques of the bible, and claims they don't all agree (which means in his mind they must all be wrong, right? Wrong!). Just because Hitchens doesn't feel there is any truth to the bible, and the other "new atheists" do to a degree, he makes it sound as if they are all wrong. Aikman next berates the atheists because a few of them talk badly about Mother Teresa and other religious individuals. I concede that she did quite a bit of good for people, but after seeing some pictures of her hospices with the uncleanliness, the men and women either on the floor or on cots (if memory serves), without any pain medication, I don't see what's so dignified about that. I wouldn't want to die in such conditions, and I wouldn't want anyone else to either. I think with all the money she got she could have given those people a more dignified death.

For the most part this chapter was just Aikman ranting and raving about pointless topics so I won't comment much further.

He blasts Hitchens for not accepting that people of faith can do good things because of it, which I do agree, but I think his criticism is a bit pointless. Religious belief has done more harm in the world than good, and I think that's the point of view of most of the atheist writers. The facts of history speak for themselves: Yes there have been many good people who are religious that did good things, but I argue that the number is much higher for the pious who've done more harm than good.

Chapter 4: The Science Problem

This chapter was a bit of a helter skelter of various subjects: Aikman droning on and verbally insulting Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and Harris on various things they have said about memes, Einstein, and religious belief. He states that Dawkins' idea of a meme is "entirely speculative," and that "no scientist has ever found a way to observe one or measure it" [7]. I'm a bit confused by this because all memes are is a "unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation" (emphasis in original) [8]. I don't see what's so hard about observing how fads or clothing fashions pass from one person to another, and finally to other places. But, Aikman insists that Dawkins' ideas regarding the evolutionary ideas of religion are just wrong, but doesn't really provide any evidence for his claim. He just tries to shoot down Dawkins' ideas, as if by doing that, the supposed truth of his religion is somehow legitimized.

Aikman criticizes Dawkins for not looking favorably upon those who might try and team up with religious people who accept evolution, and scientists who have religious beliefs, or who tolerate religion. He criticizes Dawkins for being "aggressive and extremely hostile" [9] and claims that "Dawkins [can't] discuss any topic about which others might hold a differing view without getting angry" (emphasis in original) [10]. Dawkins did criticize some scientists in The God Delusion, but I wouldn't say he was "aggressive and extremely hostile" to any of them. I think that's just Aikman's bias showing. In his book, Dawkins simply says that biologist Stephen Jay Gould is wrong about the fact that science does have things to say about religious topics, and I completely agree with Dawkins. Think about it. Science has disproved the old religious claim that the earth was the center of the universe; many religious people claim there is life after death, and cite NDE's (near death experiences) as proof of that, but science has been able to discover that the most likely cause of these experiences is nothing supernatural, but is simply a physical biological reaction of a person's brain (For more information please read Evidence Against the Supernatural, Parts One and Two). Religious claims are well within the bounds of science, and many things can be tested, such as prayer, which has not had very promising results.

Aikman quotes some scientists such as Francis Collins, who is the author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief and Owen Gingerich, author of God's Universe, who make pretty silly claims to be honest about how belief in god is rational. All I have to say about their books is that they're nothing but "god of the gaps" explanations, and I won't comment any further. Their religious convictions blind them from thinking critically. I'm not completely sure why Aikman quoted these men, but I think it has to do with his last claim in this chapter: that religion built the foundation for science and Aikman claims that "Dawkins is more medieval than he knows. Hitchens is more monastic than he knows" [11].

It is true that it was Greek theists who laid the foundations for future scientific discoveries, but I think science and religion parted ways long, long ago. It was due to the order in the universe that man saw which lead him to study that order, but with science advancing; discovering truths about the world, and religion pretty much not advancing at all, it's obvious why religion began to condemn scientists for spreading facts that disproved their holy books, and their myths.

Maybe before the two disciplines diverged one could say that science doesn't have much to say about religion, but with the advancement of knowledge I don't think that's possible anymore.

Chapter 5: The Problem of Wicked Atheists: Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot

In this chapter, Aikman makes a few claims. One is that when adopted completely by a country, atheism leads to disaster because without religion, people have no true sense of morality. The other, I feel, is that he is claiming that atheism basically caused communism because the communist leaders were influenced, obviously, by Karl Marx, who in turn was influenced by Friedrich Hegel, who was influenced by deists during the enlightenment. The reason I think this is the case is because on page 101 Aikman says, "...the twentieth-century ideologies that produced the greatest totalitarian evils, communism and Nazism, both grew out of a sustained philosophical rebellion against religious faith - in essence, atheism. That philosophical rebellion was birthed in the eighteenth - century French Enlightenment and first gained expression in political life during the 1789-1799 French Revolution; it attained its apotheosis in the Bolshevik regime that came to rule Russia after October 1917." Of course this is incorrect (as is his definition of atheism) as I will prove later.

He cites the communist countries and the period in France near the end of the 1700's which is called the Reign of Terror. The period during the Reign of Terror basically evolved into a totalitarian-like state because of "external danger and internal disorder." The revolution was breaking apart, the economy was a mess, and war was causing much upheaval [12].

The only problem is that he leaves out some important facts about these events. When you read his book it almost sounds as if during the Reign of Terror it was nothing but a bunch of atheists who went around and murdered religious people. On page 101 Aikman says:

"...[B]y the time the French Revolution approached the paroxysm of the Reign of Terror in 1793, atheism was in conflict with deism. Dechristianization had become the policy of the revolutionary regime (my emphasis), leading to decrees that priests and those who harbored them could be killed on sight. In the wholesale bloodletting of the ten-month Reign of Terror, 18,500 to 40,000 French men and women were executed, including thousands of priests and their protectors."

It wasn't the intention of the Convention, during the Reign of Terror, to set up a totalitarian-like state and attack religion. Georges Danton stated:

"We never intended to annihilate the reign of superstition in order to set up the reign of atheism...I demand that there be an end of those antireligious masquerades in the Convention" [13].

From my reading, it seems that a task force was set up to suppress any revolts against the Convention, in which its goal was to "repress anarchy, civil strife, and counter-revolution..." The "Reign of Terror," as it was called, was a group of "political police" that would work to stop any counter-revolutionary action, or "internal enemies" against the Convention.

The number killed "has often been exaggerated" but about 40,000 people died, while hundreds of thousands were arrested and held in custody. "The Terror showed no respect for, or interest in, the class origins of its victims. About eight percent were nobles...[f]ourteen percent of the victims were classifiable as bourgeois...[s]ix percent were clergy (my emphasis), while no less than seventy percent were of the peasant and laboring classes" [14].

Near the end of 1793 there briefly was a "cult of Reason" that developed, which attempted to "dechristianize" France, but as I noted above, this was "severely frowned upon" by Robespierre (Danton took Robespierre's side [15]) and the suppression of religion was put to an end.

The cause of the religious persecution was that some members of the Convention believed that "all religion [was] counter-revolutionary," and so they launched the movement of dechristianization, which was soon stopped by Robespierre [16]. It was a bad time, but it should be noted that only a portion of the members approved, and mostly it was another group called "Herbertists," "who were accused at Robespierre's instance, found guilty and executed" [17]. Jacques-Rene Hebert, who was the leader of the Herbertists, was an atheist and Robespierre sent him to the guillotine, so right there that should tell you that this wasn't some atheistic regime who murdered Christians [18].

As you can see, it wasn't actually atheism that caused these problems, but it was the "Herbertists'" beliefs about religion being counter-revolutionary, and in their minds any action of that kind had to be stopped. In fact, many of the key players during the enlightenment disliked the Reign of Terror; one such person was Immanuel Kant [19]. Another fact is that the number of religious individuals killed was small when compared to other groups (only 6 %), but Aikman neglects to mention this. "The Terror showed no respect for, or interest in, the class origins of its victims," as I said before, so to say it was purely religious in nature is incorrect.

As for the communist nations, I insist that atheism was not the cause of it; it was a combination of Marx's teachings and the communist leaders' own lust for power and control. The reason I think this is the case is because during their reign, they sometimes veered wildly from the communist ideology if it served their personal interests. For example, in 1917 Lenin allowed workers to take over factories and peasants to seize land, even though these actions violated Marxist doctrine [20].

It's also clear from my reading about Stalin that he seems to me to be just a very calculating psychopath, murdering anyone who got in his way of his attaining his power and authority. Stalin didn't just murder many priests and religious people, but other communists and even friends, just to attain his power within the communist ranks. In Aikman's book, he mainly focuses on the religious persecution, which to me, makes it sound as if Aikman is trying to portray communists as being nothing more than atheists who hated religion, and wanted it destroyed, when that's a distortion of the truth. Judging from their actions it seems that it was absolute power and authority that they wanted and they would use any means to attain that power.

Another fact is that communism, as seen in the totalitarian regimes, was a distortion of Marx's (and many of the enlightenment philosophers') teachings. Yes, Marx's personal beliefs were that religion should be abolished, but the method was to make people no longer need its consolations because the loyalty and adoration of the state was to replace it; there would be no reason to ban religion because it would simply become unnecessary because the state would be there in its place. Plus, soviet communism is a perversion of original Marx's communism, which didn't advocate the oppression of religious people [21].

Marxism's positions on religion were that "the state should regard each person's religion as a 'private matter,' and not discriminate on grounds of religious practice or affiliation." Also, "with the coming of socialism, but not before, religion will spontaneously disappear" [22].

Marx felt that "religion is a symptom of inadequacy in the human condition and can therefore ultimately only be exorcized by changing the actual human condition through Communist revolution" [23].

After the communists gained power they found that religion wasn't going to wither away as easily as they originally thought, so they began to initiate anti-religious campaigns. By doing this, they thought perhaps they could force people to give up their religious beliefs and help the "classless society" to develop, as was required of Marxist doctrine. It was their attempt to initiate this phase of socialism by forcing religion out of the communities and gain this "classless society," and had nothing to do with atheism itself. But, as I said, this contradicted the teachings of Marx [24].

Now that I've shown that Marx didn't advocate the totalitarian regimes that reigned in Russia, and is thus not directly responsible, I can turn my attention directly to the atheism of the communist leaders. Before I do that, though, let me make myself clear. Yes, Karl Marx developed the idea of communism and did influence Lenin, but because Marx did not advocate such atrocities, I don't think he can be blamed for the persecution and murders of religious people in Russia. Those acts were thought of and carried out by the leaders of the communist regimes and because of this only they are responsible. This is my argument that the enlightenment ideals were not responsible for the religious murders and atrocities. The reason is because I look at this argument as if it's a chain - a chain of causation. If each person in this chain - the people of the enlightenment, Hegel, Marx, Lenin, etc. - all wanted to destroy religion and murder believers then I think the chain would hold up, but this isn't the case. Their chain is severely broken since most of the people who may have influenced the communist leaders didn't feel the need to eradicate religion.

The enlightenment itself did account for a lot of religious persecution, but much tolerance also developed for religion during that period, which one cannot ignore.

From A History of the Modern World, by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, page 291, "All this prompted the spirit of secularism in Europe. Intellectual developments reinforced social and economic causes in turning people away from the old religion. Churches and churchmen lost out in leadership and prestige. Economics and politics, business and the state, were no longer subordinated to religious ends. They threw off the restraints imposed by moral or religious judgments. At the same time religious toleration spread. Persecution of religious minorities became less common. In any case, in their attempts to enforce acceptance of religious doctrine, churches no longer used the barbaric methods of former times, such as the fagot and the stake. Barbaric methods as used by the state, against persons suspected or convicted of crimes or political offenses, also became increasingly into disrepute."

In many ways, the places that the enlightenment influenced, it had a positive impact. In Russia, for example, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences, and education. This time gave birth to the first Russian university, library, theatre, public museum, and relatively independent press [25]. For a short time at least, Catherine the Great's foreign policy was "brilliantly successful," and she also attempted to improve the legal system. "She appointed a large and fairly representative Legislative Commission which was instructed to propose reforms, and she gave explicit directions as to what she expected from it, relying on such French thinkers as Montesquieu for her ideas" [26].

The "founding fathers" of the united states were also influenced by the enlightenment, and it was also because of it that Thomas Paine wrote his influential books The Rights of Man and Common Sense. It seems to me that without the enlightenment, the united states that Aikman reveres would not even exist, so I think it's a little hypocritical of him to speak badly about it.

I want to pose an issue with something that Aikman says about the "new atheists" and what they have to say about the atheism of Stalin, and other communist leaders.

On page 95 Aikman quotes Dawkins from The God Delusion: "What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheist," Dawkins continues, framing the issue to his liking (emphasis mine), "but whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things. There is not the smallest evidence that it does..."

What Aikman doesn't seem to understand is that the "new atheists" are not saying that just because a person is christian they will do bad things. It is the beliefs that motivate some Christians to do bad things. Christians believe that a soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception and so they murder abortion doctors to stop it, many feel homosexuals should be put to death because their bible says so (Leviticus 20:13), many Christians wish to end homosexual marriage because they feel it "harms" marriage in some un understandable way, and again they infringe upon innocent peoples' rights all because of what they believe.

Because of this misunderstanding, many theists have been attempting to claim that because some atheists have done bad things, they can turn the argument back around on atheists. Well, there is a huge problem with this, because they don't understand the argument in the first place! In their zeal to defend themselves, they are blind to what the "new atheists" are saying.

The beliefs are the reason for the actions: because Christians believe certain things, their beliefs motivate some of the cruel actions against humanity. However, there is no evidence that atheism has the same effect simply because it is a negative and has no beliefs associated with it; just the lack of a belief in a god or gods. It is logically and philosophically impossible for such a negative to have any power over one's actions.

Richard Dawkins is not "framing the issue to his liking," but is actually telling it like it is: Atheists blame the beliefs for the inspiration of the actions, and because atheism lacks any beliefs to motivate, how can atheism cause someone to do something - either good or bad?

One last objection to this claim: The majority of the most influential men responsible for the enlightenment were deists, or was some kind of a believer in a "god of nature."

Some are listed below:

- Voltaire was a deist [27]
- Rousseau was a deist...at the very least he was not an atheist [28]
- Maximilien Robespierre was a deist [29] NOTE: I wouldn't consider Robespierre to be part of the enlightenment, but according to my source at Wikipedia, he was a "disciple of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among other Enlightenment philosophes, and a capable articulator of the beliefs of the left-wing bourgeoisie."
- Sir Isaac Newton was either a deist or monotheist, depending on the source [30] [31]
- Thomas Paine was a deist (This is pretty common knowledge)
- John Locke's religious beliefs are debatable, but he is considered a "believer," but he held to a form of "liberal religion" which favored evidence over blind belief. Locke also "challenged the Trinity and the Incarnation" [32]
- Thomas Hobbes was a deist [33]
- David Hume was possibly a deist, but maybe was an agnostic [34]
- Montesquieu was a deist [35]
- Adam Smith was a deist [36]
- Baruch Spinoza was considered a pantheist [37]
- Denis Diderot was an atheist [38]
- Jean le Rond d'Alembert was an agnostic [39]
- Benjamin Franklin was a deist [40]
- Immanuel Kant was a "non-christian theist" [41]
- Joseph Priestley was a unitarian [42]
- Marquis de Sade was an atheist [43]

(Some other figures I was unable to get information on their religious beliefs)

As you can see, several of the major players in the enlightenment were actually deists, and not atheists, though a few were (in fact, many deists despised atheists). I do not see how "atheists" and the "enlightenment" could ever be considered a cause of the massacres which took place because of communism with the facts I've presented.

I also want to stress again, the fact that communist principles were not developed by some of the men of the enlightenment but was expressed in the bible and by early church fathers long before anyone during the time of the enlightenment. I must also note, too, that Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his much later years, did "call for a corporate State based on a totalitarian democracy," but as I noted earlier, he was not an atheist, so I don't see how "atheism" could be considered an influence on communism [44].

The next issue I want to tackle is Aikman's belief that, without religion, there would be no ultimate source of morality. He expresses these thoughts throughout his book:

On page 100, "The point that needs to be made about the role of atheism in the depravities of twentieth-century secular totalitarian dictatorships is this: Simply put, atheism sets mankind at the center of the universe. That is, atheism makes the assumption that there is no authority for rightness or wrongness of human behavior outside of human beings themselves."

On page 133 he says, "...it is exceptionally difficult to define 'wicked' in a precise way without reference to some transcendent moral authority of good and evil."

Also on page 122 Aikman says, "If you declare humanity to be the only ultimate value in the world, from whence do you derive the authority to pronounce moral judgment on regimes that themselves do not recognize any authority higher than humanity?"

First of all, I want to say that religion and morality were probably not originally thought of as one and the same. Logically looking at what most likely happened, I think some form of morals developed first, and then later on did religion begin to preach about morality. At first, religion mostly tried to appease the gods with offerings, and other such things, in an attempt to understand and/or control nature. I have to say also, that Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on ethical teachings (depending on if you listen to a pastor, or read the bible - you get two different kinds of "morality"). Buddhism teaches many of the same things that Jesus supposedly taught, and the Buddha predates Jesus by about 500 years.

Another problem is the fact that most of the "morals" taught by religion are oppressive and counter-intuitive. For example, the bible sanctions the oppression of women (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), and the murder of homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13). It also allows slavery (Exodus 21, among other passages), and the murdering of children for harmless acts (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21). Obviously these "laws" are of a barbarous age that's come and gone, and so religious people today preach about the "love" and "peace" that Christianity stands for. Well, many people may proclaim this, but many religious people do the opposite. They use the vote to force their skewed religious ideas of morality upon everyone else. They want to get abortion banned, the marriage of homosexuals banned; some even want the entirety of the ten commandments placed into law, and if a true theocracy develops it could make it legal to murder all atheists and anyone else who didn't believe in the christian god, just as it says in the bible (2 Chronicles 15:12-13). Many religious people don't even believe in modern medicine and instead rely on hocus pocus and their child dies of some ailment because they wanted to try prayer instead. And these people think an atheistic society would be worse???

Another problem with Aikman's claim that wide spread atheism would cause tons of problems is he is using communist nations as his example of atheistic countries. The problem lies in the fact that communist nations are totalitarian at their very core and these kinds of societies are violent and oppressive to begin with. While countries with high levels of natural atheism (a brand of atheism that is not forced, but is fostered through education, etc.) are much better off than countries that have high levels of religious belief.

Other than the forced atheism (totalitarian governments), there have been no full-scale atheistic societies, however, there are several countries that have a very high percentage of atheists and agnostics, and all the studies show that these places are better off than ones with high levels of religious belief. Such examples are Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom, and each of these places, according to a 2005 united nations human development report, are the most healthy, according to life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality [45].

The sociologist Phil Zuckerman's research also confirms these facts:

"If this often-touted religious theory were correct - that turning away from god is at the root of all societal ills - then we would expect to find the least religious nations on earth to be bastions of crime, poverty and disease and most religious countries to be models of societal health."

Zuckerman continues,

"A comparison of highly irreligious countries with highly religious countries, however, reveals a very different state of affairs. In reality, the most secular countries - those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics - are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies. And the most religious nations - wherein worship of god is in abundance - are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor and destitute (Zuckerman, 2006)." [46]

In a 2005 study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, independent scholar Gregory S. Paul found an inverse correlation between religiosity (measured by belief in God, biblical
literalism, and frequency of prayer and service attendance) and societal health (measured by rates of homicide, suicide, childhood mortality, life expectancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion, and teen pregnancy) in 18 developed democracies. "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies," Paul found. "The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so”. [47]

Finally, I think that Aikman's argument is silly anyway. The reason is because, ultimately, the "morals" of Christianity did come from human beings!!! His delusional belief in some god is distorting his thought process. Human beings were responsible for the good and bad morals that are taught in the bible, so I don't see why anyone would need some artificial belief system surrounding the morals that are taught in the first place for them to be effective.

One thing is for sure though, I don't see how Christianity could be a good thing to wholly adopt for any place because every time it has gotten a lot of influence and power it has not been good for society, as history can attest to.

I feel Aikman implies that the "new atheists" don't want religion taught to children when he is talking about communist Russia on pages 115-116, when he says, "...the Soviet Constitution's language on religious freedom was changed to abolish the previous guarantee of freedom to propagate the faith (this freedom did not apply to the proselytizing of children)..." He doesn't come right out and say this, but it's very clear. His attempts at contrasting the "new atheists" to communist leaders are very clear throughout his book, and I think this is one example.

I don't know what it is about so many theists who want to read too much into Richard Dawkins' statement about "child abuse." Dawkins never once says that he doesn't want kids to be taught religion, only that parents should wait until they're older so they can make up their own minds, instead of the beliefs being pushed down their throats when they're too young to understand what they're being taught.

He says this all too clearly when he said in The God Delusion on page 327, "If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure."

Another blow to this silly comparison is this interview that Dawkins gave in The Guardian, from February 10, 2003:

Interviewer: "'I tell him I've been thinking about his point that children should not be defined by religion, and that I have a solution. Why not ban religion till you're 18? I expect him to be delighted by my initiative, but he looks horrified.

Dawkins: "Oh no. I don't want to lay down a law that says when you get a driving license, you can call yourself anything you like. It's a consciousness-raising issue.' "

Dawkins also says, '"I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.'

Interviewer: But you've still got parents infecting the kids with their dogma, I say, playing devil's chaplain.

Dawkins: 'Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that'" [48].

From Dawkins' own mouth, you can clearly see the immense distortion by many theists about his actual opinions.

Throughout the chapter (and even the entire book) Aikman continuously makes references to the fact that Christopher Hitchens is a former Trotskyist; he mentions how communist Russia didn't allow the teaching of religion to children, and how Marx, and other communists, criticized religion. With these examples, I think it's pretty obvious that he is trying to insist that the "new atheists" are in the process of doing the exact same thing that the communists did, but he is wrong. As I mentioned before, the idea of kids not being taught religion at all is a distortion of what Dawkins says, and Hitchens is a former Trotskyist, and I haven't seen him insist that this country be plunged into communism. Also, just because someone criticizes religion, doesn't mean they want to abolish it. In fact, many of the "new atheists" have made direct statements saying that that they would not want to impose secularism upon anyone.

With these facts I've presented, it seems apparent that his comparison between atheism and communism goes flat under closer examination.

NOTE: I chose to refrain from discussing Aikman's claims about Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot because I have already shown how none of the main figures responsible for most enlightenment ideas were atheists to begin with, and communism is a distortion of many of those writers' thoughts (which include Marx). Hitler's religious views are debatable and "open to interpretation" [49] even according to Aikman, and since he couldn't prove that Hitler was an atheist, who committed the atrocities because of atheism, I decided not to mention him either.

For more information about various claims about Hitler please see my other post at http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2008/08/hitler-nietzsche-and-evolution.html

Chapter 6: The Christian Worldview is the Foundation of Liberty

I find this chapter's title to be extremely ignorant. More times than not, religion has actively stifled scientific thought and freedom. Aikman starts off by claiming Dawkins doesn't know what he is talking about when he says in The God Delusion, that "the greatest of [the "founding fathers"] might have been atheists." This is indeed not true, but Dawkins asserts that despite the men's religious beliefs, they were secularists. Next, Aikman exposes his own ignorance when he refers to the MayFlower Compact, which was the very first document created once the two groups of settlers arrived at present day Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Aikman claims that because this was the very first document signed in America, and it was by religious individuals, and they included the actual wording of "god" in it, then this must be a christian nation (he didn't say exactly that but while reading that is the impression that I got). Such ignorance. The constitution was adopted in 1787, and the Mayflower Compact was signed in 1620, over 150 years earlier! The MayFlower Compact talks about how the two groups (the "Separatists" and the "Strangers"), who landed in present day Massachusetts, were to abide by certain rules which would be for the good of the entire colony. The constitution, however, simply refers to how the United States government will be set up, and the rules that the government will follow. The constitution has no references whatsoever to any religion, other than the fact that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office..." and that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." The United States of America and the colony that was set up in present day Massachusetts are two separate entities.

On page 138 he claims that the MayFlower Compact is often referred to as the "foundation of the U.S. constitution..."

Other than the vast differences that I pointed to above, the Compact doesn't seem to have had much - if any - influence upon the constitution, or any other document. According to Wikipedia on the influences of the constitution:

"Several of the ideas in the Constitution were new, and a large number of ideas were drawn from the literature of Republicanism in the United States, from the experiences of the 13 states, and from the British experience with mixed government. The most important influence from the European continent was from Montesquieu, who emphasized the need to have balanced forces pushing against each other to prevent tyranny. (This in itself reflects the influence of Polybius' 2nd century BC treatise on the checks and balances of the constitution of the Roman Republic.) John Locke is known to have been a major influence, and the due process clause of the United States Constitution was partly based on common law stretching back to the Magna Carta of 1215.[8] The English Bill of Rights (1689) was an inspiration for the American Bill of Rights. For example, both require jury trials, contain a right to keep and bear arms, and prohibit excessive bail as well as "cruel and unusual punishments." Many liberties protected by state constitutions and the Virginia Declaration of Rights were incorporated into the United States Bill of Rights."

No listing of the Compact there...

A book I have called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen, has a chapter on the first Thanksgiving and what really happened, despite what many text books say. Well, he says on page 80 about the MayFlower Compact: "Regardless of motive, the MayFlower Compact provided a democratic basis for the Plymouth colony. Since the framers of our Constitution in fact paid the compact little heed, however, it hardly deserves the attention textbook authors lavish on it." [my emphasis]

With it not being listed as an influence in any of my sources, and the two documents having different subject matter, and the constitution not referring to the christian god, I think Aikman's delusions about the founding of the country are becoming more apparent [50] [51] [52] [53]

On page 138 Aikman appears to have made another mistake when he says, "the christian purpose of the United States has been woven through the warp and woof of every major constitutional document that has followed [the MayFlower Compact] ..." Is that so? Tell me, then, why the constitution has no mention whatsoever of any religion (other than the partial passages quoted above)? The "Creator" and "Nature's God" mentioned in the declaration of independence are non-specific words that favor no particular deity, except maybe the god of deism (and this is far from the god of Christianity), which is another bit of proof showing that the "founding fathers" did not want any one religion to dominate, and wanted freedom for all religions. How Aikman can claim that is just at the height of stupidity.

Many of the "founding fathers," such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, were Deists and not Christians. This country actually was founded as a secular nation, as any non-biased historian will tell you. The founding of the country was also based upon some of the ideals of the Enlightenment, whether Aikman wants to admit it or not [54], and not Christian principles as he seems to think.

It must also must be said that it is the fact that because this country was founded as a secular one, that is the precise reason why there is such a freedom of religion, and Christianity was able to flourish in the first place. James Madison wrote a letter to his friend Robert Walsh in 1819 and stated that, "there has been an increase of religious instruction since the Revolution." He also noted that "the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state" [55].

Historian Alexis de Tocqueville, in his visit to the United States in 1831, noted the large diversity of religious belief and said the following:

"On my arrival in the united states the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different sects; I sought especially the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different creeds and are especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my astonishment and explained my doubts. I found that they all differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point" [56].

I also cannot forget this classic argument with the Treaty of Tripoli, in which article 11 states:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Now, I've read several christian apologists' arguments against this, and to some they seem to think it's a debatable point, but let me explain.

Some claim that the government wasn't founded as officially christian but the country was. Well, I don't see how, when the majority of the "founding fathers" were deists or Unitarians, and they included non specific religious language in all of the documents. The "Creator" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence is used in a general way, not favoring any religious belief (or lack thereof), but still acknowledging the fact that a great majority of people were religious. The whole point was freedom for all as spokesman for the National Liberal League, Francis Abbot, said in a letter to senator George F. Edmunds in 1878:

"...Our government is not for Christians alone, but also for vast multitudes who are not covered by that name. If the government should allow partiality to Christianity, it would compel all to pay homage to a religion which is not the religion of all..." [57].

Besides the many quotes of people who wanted freedom for all, and not just for particular denominations, it would be a violation of the natural rights of anyone who was not christian if this country was turned into a "Christian nation." From the beginning of the formation of this country there has been an abundance of religious individuals living here, and not just Christians, and certainly there were many who were of no religion, or outright atheists. Trying to turn this into a "Christian nation" would be an insult to anyone who was not Christian and would ignore the fact that there have always been atheists, or non-believers of various stripes living in the U.S.

Another argument of apologists is that the English translation, done by Joel Barlow, was a distorted version, and the original Arabic treaty did not have article 11 in it. Whether or not that's true doesn't do anything to refute the fact that the Barlow translation was the one that was read aloud, shown to all senate members, and even signed by John Adams. There was even a copy of the treaty printed in several widely circulated newspapers, along with the following:

"Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof."

There is no record of one person objecting to the wording of the treaty. So, regardless if it was a legitimate translation or not, everyone from the president down, agreed that the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion [58]. This fact clearly illustrates the "founders'" intentions.

The separation of church and state is also a relevant factor: No religion was going to dominate in the country, so it would ensure freedom for all religions. The "founders" knew what could happen if one belief system became more dominant. In fact, James Madison, in one of the times he used his veto powers, denied a bill incorporating a church in the District of Columbia because he believed it to violate the separation of church and state [59].

A third argument used by apologists (including Aikman on page 159) is that after 1805 Article 11 was not included in the new treaty. Apologists make it sound as if this fact is significant - as if it wasn't the true intention of the "founders" to include the "not founded on the christian religion" phrase, and was purely for political reasons. The reason Article 11 was no longer included was because recent events made it necessary to rewrite the treaty. As of 1797, the United States had never "entered into any voluntary war or act of hostility against any Mohametan nation," as was stated in Article 11. As of 1805 this was no longer true, so the treaty needed to be revised. It had to be added that the only exception to this had been to defend the right to navigate the high seas. In rewriting the sentence, Tobas Lear left out the phrase "is not in any sense founded on the christian religion." A likely reason Lear left it out was because it was unnecessary, and with what was added to the revised treaty it made the Article too long. This fact doesn't do anything to prove an apologists' case because the intention of Jefferson was to rewrite the treaty with the current situation in mind, and not with trying to prove this was not a christian nation [60]. With no one, even citizens, complaining about the wording of the original treaty, it seems pretty apparent that it was the intention of the "founders" that this was not a "Christian nation."

Despite Aikman's claims, it was Deism and Enlightenment ideas, not Christianity, that had the most profound impact upon the United States. It was during the Enlightenment that Montesquieu formulated the principles of the separation of powers and Rousseau's "social contract," which rested on the (at that time) revolutionary foundation of a general will of the people [61].

One last observation about the "America is founded upon Christian principles" claim. I feel as if this wording has been changed from a claim of the "Christian nation" to principles because those who would like to distort history can't get away with that silly claim anymore...there is too much counter evidence. But, one thing I've noticed is that no one outlines exactly what Christian principles the U.S. was supposedly founded on... even Aikman is silent in his book. Strange isn't it?

Well, you know, on second thought maybe they are right that this country was founded upon Christian principles because it's a fact that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and if my information is correct, DNA evidence proves that Jefferson (most likely) raped one of his slaves and she had his child (For more information, please see this link: http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2008/02/founding-father-exploited-slave-for-sex.html).

Yeah, I know it's a low blow (but a good one!) and it's true if you read the contents of their "holy" bible.

Something Aikman said on page 140 completely blew my mind. He said, "...it is clear from their actions in life and from their writings that the founders were overwhelmingly not Deists..."

Here is where Aikman displays his immense ignorance. The "founding fathers" were Deists or, at most, Unitarians. It just seems that Aikman doesn't know much about Deism. Deism has no set creed, no leader, etc., so many times it can be hard to tell who is a deist, but Edward Herbert formulated five general beliefs of deists, though each person is also not restricted to these and some may even reject a few:

1. There is a god
2. He ought to be worshiped
3. Virtue is the principal element in this worship
4. Humans should repent of their sins
5. There is a life after death, where evil will be punished, and the good rewarded [62]

Two quotes from a few clergymen might also help clear things up:

"The deists were never organized into a sect, had no creed or form of worship, recognized no leader, and were constantly shifting their ground...so that it is impossible to include them strictly under any definition."

"Deism is what is left of Christianity after casting off everything that is peculiar to it. The deist is one who denies the divinity, the incarnation, and the atonement of Christ, and work of the holy ghost; who denies the god of Israel, and believes in a god of nature" [63].

With Deism being, essentially, a watered down version of Christianity without all of the absurd claims I would consider the "founding fathers" to be Deists. Thomas Jefferson was identified as a Deist as this quote from a critic of Jefferson's proves: "...my objection to [Jefferson's] being promoted to the presidency is founded singly upon his disbelief of the holy scriptures; or in other words, his rejection of the Christian religion and open profession of Deism" [64].

An even larger blow to this claim is a speech given by Bird Wilson in New York, on October of 1831. Wilson knew each of the men personally and of the "founding fathers'" beliefs he said, "Washington...had not been an orthodox Christian; in reality he had really been an eighteenth-century Deist. Wilson cited support on this point from clergy who had known Washington and whom he himself knew. Then - in significant words - he went on to state that 'among all our presidents downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism" [65].

On page 143 he misunderstands Dawkins, when he quotes a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew Peter Carr. Aikman claims that "Dawkins implies that by encouraging Carr to question everything, Jefferson himself had come to the conclusion that god doesn't exist."

Sorry, but Dawkins is being misquoted. On page 43 of The God Delusion, after Dawkins cites the letter, he says that "the remarks of Jefferson are compatible with deism but also with atheism." Dawkins also displays caution when he is discussing what Jefferson believed, when he says, "Whether Jefferson and his colleagues were theists, deists, agnostics, or atheists, they were also passionate secularists..."

Dawkins wrote that what Jefferson said could be compatible with either atheism, or deism, and expressed caution when trying to pin down what exactly they believed. That's a bit of a distortion on the part of Aikman.

Other than these few errors, the rest of the chapter's premise is that the "founding fathers" disliked atheism, and felt that Christianity was necessary for morality. He claims that out of the many quotations the "founders" used in their writings, 34 percent came from the bible, while only 22 percent from the Enlightenment authors [66].

I wonder just how accurate those percentages of biblical and Enlightenment references are because in Frank Lambert's book, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, he says on page 246 that "...the delegates to the Constitutional Convention [of which the "founding fathers" were a part] in Philadelphia appealed primarily to secular, not sacred, authority. An analysis of citations in American political pamphlets and treaties in the late eighteenth century indicates that almost 90 percent of the references are to European writers who wrote on Enlightenment or Whig themes or who commented on the English common law. Only about 10 percent of the citations were biblical, with most of those coming from writings attributed to Saint Paul."

In fact, the Federalist Papers include several mentions of Montesquieu, a famous Enlightenment thinker. Alexander Hamilton references Montesquieu in his Federalist Paper number 9 [67]. James Madison also references Montesquieu in his Federalist Paper number 43 [68], and so does Hamilton again in the Federalist Paper number 78 [69]. These are just a few references of Montesquieu throughout the Federalist Papers.

[Note: The following is an additional edit providing more evidence that the percentages Aikman used are false.]

I must also note that it seems that Aikman got his percentages from a chart in Donald S. Lutz's book The Origins of American Constitutionalism (this is just a guess since he doesn't give a source for his information), which included the following chart on page 141:



It would seem that this is damning evidence for Aikman's claims, but there is a problem because Aikman doesn't give Lutz's explanation for these percentages.

On page 140 of The Origins of American Constitutionalism Lutz says:

"If we ask which book was most frequently cited in that literature [the public political literature], the answer is, the Bible. Table 1 shows that the biblical tradition accounted for roughly one-third of the citations in the sample. However, the sample includes about one-third of all significant secular publications, but only about one-tenth of the reprinted sermons. Even with this undercount, Saint Paul is cited about as frequently as Montesquieu and Blackstone, the two most-cited secular authors, and Deuteronomy is cited about twice as often as all of Locke's writings put together. A strictly proportional sample with respect to secular and religious sources would have resulted in an abundance of religious references.”

“About three-fourths of all references to the Bible came from reprinted sermons. The other citations to the Bible came from secular works and, if taken alone, would represent 9 percent of all citations - about equal to the percentage for classical writers. Although the citations came from virtually every part of the bible, Saint Paul was the favorite in the New Testament, especially parts of the Epistle to the Romans in which he discusses the basis for and limits on obedience to political authorities."

So, the three-quarters of that 34% total came from a sub-category of one of the categories of the documents in the study. This would cause the bible (as Lutz explains above) to be knocked down to about nine percent, more in agreement with the figures I cited in Frank Lambert's book, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America.

In an attempt to make this clearer, allow me to quote Chris Rodda from her Talk2Action article about this issue:

"The 916 documents included in the study were not official documents, legislative proceedings, etc., but writings 'printed for public consumption,' such as books, newspaper articles, and pamphlets. Only items of over 2,000 words were included. Taking into account that three-quarters of the biblical citations came from the subcategory of sermons, which comprised only 10% of the category of pamphlets, the Bible is really in the same range as Classical influences for documents that weren't sermons" [70].

It also seems that Jefferson didn't feel Christianity was necessary for morality. Aikman seems to claim that Thomas Jefferson felt religion was necessary for morality when he quotes Jefferson when he replied to a letter from John Adams, in which Adams stated, "Without Religion, this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in polite Company, I mean Hell." Jefferson is quoted as agreeing with Adams [71].

There is evidence which contradicts this, however:

"David Hume...shaped Jefferson's and Madison's understanding of how people of many faiths, as well as those unaffiliated with any religious tradition, could find a moral center. Jefferson believed that the Creator had endowed all persons with a moral compass, with a 'sense of right and wrong.' Moreover, he regarded this sense as being as 'much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling, it is the true foundation of morality.' Such a perspective placed Jefferson and those who shared his viewpoint at odds with orthodox Christianity...

Jefferson contended that the conscience, or moral sense, was not only intact; it was as 'much a part of man as his leg or arm'... [Jefferson] believed that while the moral sense was guided by reason, very little thought was required to guide it aright. 'State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor,' he reasoned, and 'the former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.'" [72]

Another quote of Jefferson's on this subject is the following:

"... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814. From Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 358) [73].

Many of the "founding fathers" did feel that religion was a worthwhile component of a good and moral society, but they didn't feel it was absolutely necessary for a good society. As the above quote suggests, it seems as if Jefferson felt, much like what evolutionary psychology is beginning to understand today, that there is an innate moral sense that influences our decisions. If that's so, then it would also suggest that Jefferson felt that religion is not needed for morality if we all have this moral sense.

Another fact that is relevant here is that all of the founding documents, like any other legal document, use language which is supposed to bind certain individuals to an agreement. There is no such language in the constitution binding future generations to that agreement, and so we can create whatever kind of place that we wanted (Please see http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2008/01/constitution.html). And for anyone who thinks this means someone can create a theocracy if they wanted, I would not agree. No one can hold power over us unless it's by our permission, and because of that, I don't see how that would happen - unless religious fundamentalists used force as in the past and made us comply, but this is where the idea of self defense would come in. Using some form of coercion to force people to follow your way is opposite of anything that a normal person would consider moral, and from reading about the "founding fathers," it seems to me that they were all for total freedom as long as someone did not interfere in another's life (with some obvious restrictions of course - as I mentioned before, only white men had any real rights in early America).

On pages 157-159 Aikman mentions the Treaty of Tripoli and uses the same apologist excuse that I anticipated someone might use (damn I'm good!) and so I've refuted that claim already.

Conclusion: The New Atheism Offers Nothing New

Before I begin to tear up this chapter, I'd like to say that this statement is extremely hypocritical because religion offers nothing new whatsoever! Yes, it's true that these same arguments - on both sides - are pretty much the same, but what the atheists have is science on their side, which constantly updates its facts and expands our knowledge. Religion does neither. Since the time of the "founders" of the country (and many others) expressed their religious beliefs, there has been massive amounts of new scientific data that exposes religion to be the false, dogmatic, and oftentimes harmful left-over from the human species' past. Now that I've got that out of the way I'll get to what Aikman has to say in this chapter.

Essentially, this chapter consisted of Aikman trying to make a case that Christianity is the source for almost everything good, while atheism leads to immorality, uncertainty, and violence. I won't deny that Christianity has done some good things throughout the world, but I think it's absolutely naive and, well, just plain idiotic to give credit to Christianity to all that Aikman does. To me, and I've stated this in the past, Christianity can be compared to a man who has been guilty of murdering one-hundred people, but to his credit, has also saved five. Now, all things considered, would a rational person see this person as 'good?' No. So, how in the hell can someone say that Christianity is a good thing in the world when the bad clearly outweighs the good? It's just not logical.

He goes through several pages giving examples of 'immoral' atheists like Madalyn Murray O'Hair and Annie Besant, airing their dirty laundry, making it sound as if all atheists are immoral, slutty, evil people. He says of Madalyn Murray O'Hair:

"...O'Hair was an exceptionally hateful person who made no attempt to conceal her anger and hostility towards anyone who opposed her...views..." [74].

He says this because of her son, who later became "born again." However, it must be said that O'Hair received hundreds of death threats throughout her life from Christians, so the fact that her son became one obviously upset her, and explains her hostility.

Of Besant, Aikman insults her for her supposedly having multiple sexual partners:

"Annie Besant was something of an archetypical hitchhiker through the anti-god universe, picking up and discarding beliefs with the same frequency with which she took on new lovers" [75].

Next, he takes us on a tour on the bus of delusion, and restates his claims about how Christianity forms the basis of morality and freedom, which is a completely silly statement. On page 178, after going through several pages detailing the immorality and vices of various atheists throughout history, Aikman claims, "A link has indeed existed throughout modern history between conscious rejection of moral restraint and atheism." Of course, as I'm about to prove, this statement is very inaccurate.

Aikman leaves a lot of facts out of his book though. Here is a list of unbelievers of various stripes throughout history who have had positive impacts upon the world, or have contributed to society in some way.

1. Thomas Edison - He invented the carbon microphone, record player, incandescent lamp, among many useful things [76].

2. Susan B. Anthony - She was a major leader in getting women rights over their children, control of property, and over wages. She also supported the abolition movement [77].

3. Warren Buffett - He donated 37 billion dollars to charity [78].

4. Bill Gates - He donated 30 billion dollars to charity [79].

5. Terry Sanderson - He is a gay rights activist [80].

6. Deng Pufang - He is a Chinese handicap people's rights activist [81].

7. Norma Kitson - She was a South African anti-apartheid activist [82].

8. Klas Pontus Arnoldson - Even though not a wealthy man, he spent most of his money in the cause of peace. He opposed the war with Norway in 1906. In 1908 he was Nobel Peace Prize [83].

9. James Watt - He was the inventor of the improved stream engine; he also coined the term "horsepower," and the unit of electrical power (watt) is named after him [84].

10. Alexander Graham Bell - He invented the telephone and devices directed to the needs of the deaf [85].

11. George Pullman - He invented the railroad sleeping car and also introduced dining cars [86].

12. Frederick Douglass - A former slave, he became an American abolitionist activist [87].

13. William Lloyd Garrison - He founded the Liberator, in 1831, which helped to organize the American Anti-Slavery Society [88].

14. Wendell Phillips - He worked for social reforms, prohibition of liquor, women suffrage, abolition of capital punishment, labor rights, and was a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention [89].

15. Elisabeth Cady Stanton - She was a leader of the woman suffrage movement [90].

16. Emily Jennings Stowe - She was a Canadian leader for womens' rights, and founded Canada's first woman suffrage society [91].

17. Elizur Wright - He was a secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society and was editor of the Abolitionist [92].

18. Louis Pasteur - He is best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease. His experiments supported the germ theory of disease, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever (childbed), and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He was best known to the general public for inventing a method to stop milk and wine from causing sickness - this process came to be called pasteurization [93].

19. Ivor Jennings - He was vice-president of the National Council for Civil Liberties [94].

20. Hippocrates - The Greek physician who is considered to be the "father of medicine" [95].

These 20 men and women (which is by no means anywhere close to an exhaustive list of freethinkers) who contributed - in some cases immensely - to modern society should not be overlooked simply because they doubted, or outright did not believe in, god or Christianity.

There are also studies which seem to prove that nonreligious individuals are just as, if not more, moral than religious individuals.

"In 1934, Abraham Franzblau found a negative correlation between acceptance of religious
beliefs and three different measures of honesty. As religiosity increased, honesty decreased.

In 1950, Murray Ross conducted a survey among 2,000 associates of the YMCA and discovered that agnostics and atheists were more likely to express their willingness to aid the poor than those who rated themselves as deeply religious.

In 1969, sociologists Travis Hirschi and Rodney Stark reported no difference in the self-reported likelihood to commit crimes between children who attended church regularly and those who did not.

In 1975, Ronald Smith, Gregory Wheeler, and Edward Diener discovered that college-aged students in religious schools were no less likely to cheat on a test than their atheist and agnostic counterparts in nonreligious schools.

In 1996 George Barna, a born-again Evangelical Christian, in his Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators, based on interviews with nearly 4,000 adult Americans, revealed: 'Born again Christians continue to have a higher likelihood of getting divorced than do non-Christians.' And: 'Atheists are less likely to get divorced than are born-again Christians.' Barna found that the current divorce rate for born-again Christians is 27 percent, while it is only 24 percent for non-Christians. In addition, the Baby Boomers -- that generation often criticized for sexual indulgence and moral relativism -- has a lower rate of divorce (34 percent) than the preceding generation (portrayed in popular culture as the idealized 1950's Ozzie and Harriet family), who hover at 37 percent.

Five years later, in a 2001 survey, Barna found that '33 percent of all born again individuals who have been married have gone through a divorce, which is statistically identical to the 34 percent
incidence among non-born again adults.'

The July/August 2007 issue of the Annals of Family Medicine published the results of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital that religious doctors were no more likely (and even slightly less likely) to employ their craft among undeserved patients than were physicians with no religious affiliation. Specifically, Farr Curlin, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and his colleagues surveyed 1,820 practicing physicians from all specialties: 31% of physicians who were more religious practiced medicine among the undeserved, compared to 35% of atheist, agnostic, and nonreligious doctors. Religiosity was measured by religious service attendance and self-reported 'intrinsic religiosity' questions that measured the extent to which individuals embrace their religion as the 'master motive that guides and gives meaning to their life.' Curlin noted his own response to the data:

'This came as both a surprise and a disappointment. The Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures all urge physicians to care for the poor, and the great majority of religious physicians describe their practice of medicine as a calling. Yet we found that religious physicians were not more likely to report practice among the undeserved than their secular colleagues'" [96].

Starting on page 185 Aikman lists some people whose lives have been changed due to their "conversion," "coming to the faith," or whatever you'd like to call it - as if these peoples' personal experiences validate the supposed truth of Christianity at all.

Aikman claims, using Thomas Kuhn as his source, that "the real reason scientists prefer a new theory to an old one is not the persuasiveness of the new hypothesis backed by testable evidence, but because the new theory is, well, more appealing aesthetically. In other words, scientists no longer investigate material reality as though there is a logical thread connecting old theories and discoveries to new ones, but out of rather arbitrary reasons" [97].

Of course, this means nothing since it's backed by no evidence, and thus, is nothing more than an argument from authority. The fact is that each scientific theory is backed by evidence and that's that. It might not be what some people want to hear, but truth is truth. Another fact is that science deals with only the material because that's all that's been observed! I've debunked this claim in the past, but that pretty much sums up why science gives no real credit to the supernatural. No proof, so why should anyone take anything seriously that's only backed by appeals to the immaterial? No one has even proven the immaterial in the first place!

Appendix: The Four Horseman and the Bible

This chapter has Aikman attempting to refute the many claims about the bible's historical and scriptural accuracy made by the "new atheists." He begins with talking about the ten commandments and how "the consensus of biblical scholars is that the Ten Commandments and other stipulations of the mosaic law were part of a covenant ratification ceremony that, to a high degree, mimicked what is known about suzerain-vassal treaties describing mutual legal obligations in the ancient near east" [98].

A few sentences later Aikman says, "But what is beyond dispute is the fact that both the ancient and the modern worlds offer up abundant examples of serious moral confusion for which Harris and Hitchens seem to assume that universal human consensus exists about what is right and what is wrong."

I don't really see how this refutes anything that the "new atheists" say about the Ten Commandments. Aikman claims that the "new atheists" say everyone everywhere should have some consensus about what is right and wrong, but I think that's a bit of a strawman argument because yes there is research that shows certain universal moral decisions are made by many people, but that doesn't mean that there is no longer confusion. It's just a fact that some have different ideas about what is moral and what isn't.

I would say there is consensus universally that it's wrong to steal, to kill, etc., and many of these things are reflected in many of the earliest attempts at writing down a set legal code, such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments. In fact, the code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments have some similar laws, and some of the laws that are in the Code of Hammurabi are also found in the bible. Laws against theft, which the punishment is death; slavery is allowed and has laws regulating its practice. Laws against adultery are also found, and the law # 195 in the Code of Hammurabi says, "If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off" [99]. This sounds similar to another unnecessary punishment that is in the bible: Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which says, "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard. Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death." (NIV)

The main problem, though some atheists use various arguments, is that there is nothing special about the ten commandments. Many of the laws were borrowed from other sources (possibly the Code of Hammurabi for example), and half of them are pointless religious dogma about not worshiping other gods and other religious nonsense.

Aikman talks about the new testament next and says that the following arguments by the "new atheists" are false:

1. all the gospels were written so long after Jesus died that they cannot be considered reliable, and in any case, they contradict one another,especially in regard to the genealogy of Jesus and the virgin birth

2. apart from the point raised above, the gospels in general are not reliable accounts of what happened

3. none of the gospel writers knew Jesus personally, nor are their identities even known

4. the translation of the Hebrew word almah as "virgin" is incorrect (as in "a virgin shall be with child")

5. Jesus never claimed to be divine

6. the gospels differ in their accounts of the resurrection of Jesus

After he lists the various claims made by the "new atheists" Aikman states that, "[a]t one level, most of these assertions could be dismissed with the flick of a rhetorical fly whisk: not one of the 'four horsemen' seems to have any detailed understanding of either Christianity or of new testament criticism. The only biblical critic cited as an authority for his attempts to debunk the authenticity of the new testament is Bart Ehrman..." [100].

That's pretty presumptuous of him because even though the "new atheists" aren't biblical scholars, they cite a few well schooled scholars for their evidence, such as Bart Ehrman. Other biblical scholars whose opinions coincide with Ehrman's are Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty, among others. Personally, I've referenced John W. Loftus and Randel McCraw Helms in some of my writings. All these men have legitimate credentials, and some have even studied with well known christian apologists, such as William Lane Craig (in the case of Loftus), so I wouldn't simply dismiss their criticisms like Aikman seems to do.

It's also hypocritical of Aikman to say that the "new atheists" can't cite experts because Aikman's entire eighth chapter has been written using other biblical scholars for his counter claims! So, according to Aikman I could just say that his 'assertions could be dismissed with the flick of a rhetorical fly whisk,' but I won't, because I know I can prove him wrong.

He gives a brief biography about Ehrman and how he "starts from the premise that none of scripture is truthful" [101]. That's, for the most part, accurate but Ehrman says that because we don't have access to the original manuscripts we cannot know for certain what was originally written, though Ehrman doesn't seem so pessimistic when he says the following in his book Misquoting Jesus, on page 210:

"A number of scholars - for reasons we saw in chapter 2 - have even given up thinking that it makes sense to talk about the 'original' text.”

“I personally think that opinion may be going too far. I do not mean to deny that there are difficulties that may be insurmountable in reconstructing the originals...all of these manuscripts were copied from other, earlier manuscripts, which were themselves copied from earlier manuscripts; and the chain of transmission has to end somewhere, ultimately at a manuscript produced either by an author or by a secretarial scribe who was producing the 'autograph' - the first in the long line of manuscripts that were copied for nearly fifteen centuries..."

Seems to me, with this quote from Ehrman's book, that he doesn't think that it's impossible to get back to the originals, it's just that it can be extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible with some parts of the bible. But he doesn't seem as pessimistic as Aikman makes it sound.

Aikman next begins with his attempts at debunking various claims about the bible which he outlined previously:

1. all the gospels were written so long after Jesus died that they cannot be considered reliable, and in any case, they contradict one another, especially in regard to the genealogy of Jesus and the virgin birth.

Aikman's rebuttal:

He basically claims that because there are more manuscripts of the bible than any other ancient work, such as Gallic Wars, people should accept that there is more than enough information to obtain much of the original wording of the bible.

Just because there are many copies of many books of the bible, doesn't mean they are accurate to begin with. This argument isn't a very good one.

2. and 3. The gospels in general are not reliable accounts of what happened and none of the gospel writers knew Jesus personally, nor are their identities even known.

Aikman's rebuttal:

Aiman's claim is absurd. He claims that "[e]arly church tradition...ought to count for something in the history of Christianity..." and states that because it's tradition, it can be counted on as reliable. He is really stretching it this time. He has no evidence whatsoever that any of the writers knew Jesus and according to some biblical scholars, such as Randel McCraw Helms, no one even knows who wrote the gospels at all.

As for the claim that none of the accounts are reliable, Aikman didn't even answer that objection. All he said is that many archaeological discoveries have revealed that many of the places mentioned in the bible are real, so that qualifies as "proof" that the stories are true. That line of "reasoning" is about as good as me trying to claim that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are real because there is a place called New York City in real life.

4. The translation of the Hebrew word almah as "virgin" is incorrect (as in "a virgin shall be with child")

Aikman's rebuttal:

He says that, overall, the atheists are right, but"[i]n the overwhelming majority of usages of almah in the old testament, however, it clearly designates a woman who as not been married and was, according to the norms of the time, by definition a virgin" [102]. Even if that was true (maybe it is, maybe it's not) it does nothing to prove that a virgin got pregnant and gave birth.

5. Jesus never claimed to be divine

I won't even bother to go over this one because theologians can't even prove a Jesus existed. I'm not going to waste my time trying to refute something that they can't even prove was real to begin with.

6. The gospels differ in their accounts of the resurrection of Jesus.

Aikman's rebuttal:

Basically he claims that one, there are many things in each of the accounts that are the same; second, he says that the tomb was empty, and so something had to have happened to the body; and third, he claims the stories were not products of a legend, because "legends usually require at least one to two generations to bring to life" [103].

These arguments are pathetic. First, yes there are several similarities but there are many more discrepancies:

What time did the women visit the tomb?

* Matthew: "as it began to dawn" (28:1)
* Mark: "very early in the morning . . . at the rising of the sun" (16:2, KJV); "when the sun had risen" (NRSV); "just after sunrise" (NIV)
* Luke: "very early in the morning" (24:1, KJV) "at early dawn" (NRSV)
* John: "when it was yet dark" (20:1)

Who were the women?

* Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
* Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1)
* Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)
* John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

What was their purpose?

* Matthew: to see the tomb (28:1)
* Mark: had already seen the tomb (15:47), brought spices (16:1)
* Luke: had already seen the tomb (23:55), brought spices (24:1)
* John: the body had already been spiced before they arrived (19:39,40)

Was the tomb open when they arrived?

* Matthew: No (28:2)
* Mark: Yes (16:4)
* Luke: Yes (24:2)
* John: Yes (20:1)

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?

* Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)
* Mark: One young man (16:5)
* Luke: Two men (24:4)
* John: Two angels (20:12)

Where were these messengers situated?

* Matthew: Angel sitting on the stone (28:2)
* Mark: Young man sitting inside, on the right (16:5)
* Luke: Two men standing inside (24:4)
* John: Two angels sitting on each end of the bed (20:12)

What did the messenger(s) say?

* Matthew: "Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead: and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you." (28:5-7)
* Mark: "Be not afrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." (16:6-7)
* Luke: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." (24:5-7)
* John: "Woman, why weepest thou?" (20:13)

Did the women tell what happened?

* Matthew: Yes (28:8)
* Mark: No. "Neither said they any thing to any man." (16:8)
* Luke: Yes. "And they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest." (24:9, 22-24)
* John: Yes (20:18)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?

* Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)
* Mark: Yes (16:10,11)
* Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)
* John: No (20:2)

When did Mary first see Jesus?

* Matthew: Before she returned to the disciples (28:9)
* Mark: Before she returned to the disciples (16:9,10)
* John: After she returned to the disciples (20:2,14)

Could Jesus be touched after the resurrection?

* Matthew: Yes (28:9)
* John: No (20:17), Yes (20:27)

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?

* Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)
* Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14)
* Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)
* John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)
* Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?

* Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)
* Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14)
* Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)
* John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

Did the disciples believe the two men?

* Mark: No (16:13)
* Luke: Yes (24:34--it is the group speaking here, not the two)

What happened at the appearance?

* Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)
* Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19)
* Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air, reprimand, supper (24:13-51)
* John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no reprimand (21:19-23)

Did Jesus stay on earth for a while?

* Mark: No (16:19) Compare 16:14 with John 20:19 to show that this was all done on Sunday
* Luke: No (24:50-52) It all happened on Sunday
* John: Yes, at least eight days (20:26, 21:1-22)
* Acts: Yes, at least forty days (1:3)

Where did the ascension take place?

* Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee
* Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19)
* Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)
* John: No ascension
* Paul: No ascension
* Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12) [104]


Aikman states that because there was an empty tomb, something must have happened. Well, if you accept that the gospels and the legends are true, it would make sense, but Aikman is making a huge assumption if he does that. If Jesus was crucified a more logical explanation would be that someone stole the body, but given that there is no evidence outside of the bible that any of this happened, this line of argumentation is pointless.

Another fact is that Mark 16:1-8 is the earliest version of the resurrection story, where women discover the empty tomb, and an angel tells them that the disappearance of the body means that Jesus has risen. In the earliest and best manuscripts the gospel ends there, then later on a scribe adds Mark 16:9-20, which speaks of his disciples seeing Jesus after he has risen [105].

Right there, it's proof that the resurrection story has been changed, and added to, so how does anyone know that this really happened? Not only is the available evidence (the bible) unreliable, but logic dictates that dead men can't rise from the dead.

His other claim that "legends usually require at least one to two generations to bring to life" is absolutely false because in Robert M. Price's book Jesus is Dead, on pages 36 to 37 Price recounts a few miracle stories developing within weeks or days.

Price recounts the story of Sabbatai Sevi, who was a false messiah in the 17th century.

"Gershom Scholem speaks of 'the sudden and almost explosive surge of miracle stories' concerning Sabbatai Sevi within weeks or even days of his public appearances....

Letters from December of the same year related that Sabbatai 'command a Fire to be made in a public place, in the presence of many beholders...and entered into the fire twice or thrice, without any hurt to his garments or to a hair on his head. Other letters tell of his raising the dead.'"

"Twentieth-century African prophet and martyr Simon Kimbangu became another 'living legend' against his own wishes. One group of his followers, the Ngunzists, spread his fame as the 'god of the blacks' or 'Christ of the blacks,' even while Kimbangu himself disavowed the role. Legends of Kimbangu's childhood, miracles, and prophetic visions began within his own generation."

These two stories prove Aikman's claim to be absolutely false.

I've finally reached the end, and Aikman's arguments were horrible, and his continuous comparison of atheism to Communism was tiring; none of the "new atheists" have ever said they want to ban religion, so allowing them to influence people is not going to cause another communistic country. That is just absurd, as some quotes from the authors in question have confirmed (and Aikman even acknowledges this on pages 30 and 32).

This review has been like pulling teeth, though I tried my best to take my time and find good, factual information that would defeat many of his absurd claims. Well, I guess that's it. As I said in the beginning of the seventh chapter, religion is stale and stagnant and people who embrace it are still living in what are popularly called the "dark ages" of humanity. This is the last review that I will do on theology, or put more aptly, bullshitoloy. I've successfully refuted several well known theistic authors and none of their arguments stand the test of reason and science, so I don't feel I need to waste my time on this anymore.

So, all in all, I've proven that the "new atheism" is not a threat to anyone's life - none of the "four horsemen" have said they want to kill religious people. Nor is anyone's liberty at stake - neither Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, or Dennett have said they want to deny religious believers the freedom to worship how they want, as long as they respect others' beliefs and not interfere in others' lives. Finally, each individuals' happiness is not in danger because no one is denying anyone their freedom (unlike some religious individuals).

Note: Because it's been nearly a year since this refutation was written many of the websites I cited may or may not still be online. If they are I will cite the access date of when I last accessed them during the revising of this new edition of this paper to ensure they are still active and accurate.

1. The Delusion of Disbelief: Why the New Atheism is a Threat to Your Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness, by David Aikman; published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2008; 21

2. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, by Peter Marshall, Harper Perennial, 2008; 75-76

3. The Delusion of Disbelief; 25

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard#Homosexual_sex_and_
methamphetamine_drugs_scandal; accessed 5-15-09

5. http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/; accessed 5-15-09

6. These two books by Marc Hauser and Robert Wright are excellent. The full title for each is the following:

Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, by Marc D. Hauser, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology, by Robert Wright, Vintage Books, 1995

7. The Delusion of Disbelief; 66

8. The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press, 2006; 192

9. The Delusion of Disbelief; 81

10. The Delusion of Disbelief; 82

11. The Delusion of Disbelief; 93

12. The Story of Civilization: The Age of Napoleon, by Will and Ariel Durant, Simon and Schuster, 1975; 62

13. The Story of Civilization: The Age of Napoleon, by Will and Ariel Durant, Simon and Schuster, 1975; 74

14. A History of the Modern World, by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1956; 359- 360

15. The Story of Civilization: The Age of Napoleon, by Will and Ariel Durant, Simon and Schuster, 1975; 73-74

16. A History of the Modern World, by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1956; 361- 362

17. http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1886/sru/ch8.htm; accessed 5-15-09

18. http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/robespierre.htm; accessed 5-15-09

19. A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell, Touchstone, May 2007; 705

20. Communism: A History, by Richard Pipes, Modern Library, 2001; 157-158

21. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, by Julian Baggini, Oxford University Press, 2003; 81-88

22. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 520

23. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 523

24. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 621

25. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Enlightenment; accessed 5-15-09

26. The Western Heritage: From the Earliest Times to the Present, by Stewart C. Easton, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970; 570

27. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire#Religion; accessed 5-15-09

28. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 673

29. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robespierre; accessed 5-15-09

30. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_newton; accessed 5-15-09

31. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 801

32. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 509

33. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 515

34. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 554

35. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 762

36. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1022

37. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1039

38. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 294

39. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition, edited by Robert Audi, Cambridge University Press, 1999; 203

40. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 395

41. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 607

42. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 885

43. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 277

44. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, by Peter Marshall, Harper Perennial, 2008; 122

45. Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; 43

46. 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a god, by Guy P. Harrison, Prometheus Books, 2008; 296

47. http://skepticforum.mu.nu/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8994&p=119811; accessed 5-15-09

48. http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Media/2003-02-10guardianprofile.shtml; accessed 5-15-09

49. The Delusion of Disbelief; 95

50. The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History, by Alan Axelrod, Ph.D., Alpha Books, 2006

51. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution; accessed 5-15-09

52. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution#Historical_influences; accessed 5-15-09

53. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact; accessed 5-15-09

54. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment; accessed 5-15-09

55. The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, by Frank Lambert, Princeton University Press, 2006; 288

56. Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 1, by Chris Rodda, Self Published, 2006; viii-ix

57. The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, by Frank Lambert, Princeton University Press, 2006; 290

58. Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 1, by Chris Rodda, Self Published, 2006; 289-290

59. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, edited by Tom Flynn, Prometheus Books, 2007; 242

60. Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, Volume 1, by Chris Rodda, Self Published, 2006; 315-316

61. The Knowledge Book: Everything You Need to Know to Get By in the 21st Century, by various contributors, National Geographic, 2007; 32

62. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, by David L. Holmes, Oxford University Press, 2006; 46

63. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, by David L. Holmes, Oxford University Press, 2006; 39-40

64. The Separation of Church and State: Writings On a Fundamental Freedom By America's Founders, edited by Forrest Church, Beacon Press, 2004; 124

65. The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, by David L. Holmes, Oxford University Press, 2006; 162

66. The Delusion of Disbelief; 156

67. The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter, Signet Classic edition, 1999; 68

68. The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter, Signet Classic edition, 1999; 274

69. The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter, Signet Classic edition, 1999; 464

70. http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/4/24725/53989; accessed 5-15-09

71. The Delusion of Disbelief; 146-147

72. The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, by Frank Lambert, Princeton University Press, 2006;177

73. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html; accessed 5-15-09

74. The Delusion of Disbelief; 176

75. The Delusion of Disbelief; 175

76. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 321

77. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 38

78. A video about atheists on YouTube, put together by "zakiechan." It can currently be found at http://youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU (accessed 5-15-09)

79. Ibid.

80. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_%28Activists_and_educators%29; accessed 5-15-09

81. Ibid.

82. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080812072029AAncmnT; accessed 5-15-09

83. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 47

84. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1163

85. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 90

86. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 90

87. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 306

88. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 421

89. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 859

90. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1043

91. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1056

92. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 1204

93. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur; accessed 5-15-09

94. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 589

95. Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists, by Warren Allen Smith, Barricade Books, 2000; 512

96. http://skepticforum.mu.nu/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8994&p=119811; accessed, 6-10-10 (was previously unable to access, but the page has since been restored)

97. The Delusion of Disbelief; 194

98. The Delusion of Disbelief; 198

99. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi; accessed 5-15-09, however cited information is no longer available.

100. The Delusion of Disbelief; 202-203

101. The Delusion of Disbelief; 203

102. The Delusion of Disbelief; 207

103. The Delusion of Disbelief; 210

104. Dan Barker's article called Leave No Stone Unturned: An Easter Challenge For Christians, from http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=stone; unable to access 5-15-09

105. Jesus is Dead, by Robert M. Price, American Atheist Press, 2007; 4

Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse"

After Richard Dawkins wrote his best-seller The God Delusion there has been a rash of backlash by many theists who misrepresent his position about religion and children and what Dawkins calls "child abuse."

Throughout the reviews I've written of the books that misrepresent his position I've tried my best to foil such propaganda. Of course, not that Dawkins' position needs to be defended necessarily because he succeeds in expressing his views so clearly. Unfortunately, despite Dawkins' clear language theists still cannot help themselves but take him out of context, allowing their own bigotry and dislike of Dawkins to rule over their more rational state of mind.

In The God Delusion, the very book these theists are arguing against, they often claim that Dawkins is comparing physical abuse to the mental abuse of telling children about hell, and since our culture takes children away from their parents for physical abuse, these people misinterpret Dawkins' message, and believe he wants to keep kids away from their parents if they're going to teach them religion! Nonsense!

The following are a few quotes from those who have spread this common misconception:

From The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity, by David Marshall - “Dawkins admits his own intention to “focus on,” or intrude in, other peoples' families.” And, “Dawkins is more broad-minded: he thinks children have a right to be indoctrinated into thinking they're all evil, no matter what their parents say.”

From The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, by Vox Day - “While there is no evidence that being raised Catholic is more psychologically damaging than being sexually abused as a child, there is a great deal of evidence proving the opposite.”

From Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God, byScott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker - "Dawkins makes the charge of child abuse with all seriousness, and this brings him to wade into what even he regards as dangerous waters. If it is abuse, then shouldn't children be protected from their parents? Agreeing heartily with psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, Dawkins argues against the notion that parents have a right to educate their own children in their own faith, precisely because children have a right to be protected from harmful nonsense."

What all these quotes have in common is the same wrong-headed reasoning. Each of them have badly taken Richard Dawkins out of context.

Dawkins’ argument was that the fear of hell that is so often instilled in children at a young age is often harmful to a child and that labelling children with the religion of their parents (thus forcing them into a religious belief box and limiting their free choice about what to believe) is “abusive.” On Scienceblogs.com Dawkins himself commented with the following:

According to decrepitoldfool, I assert that 'teaching religion to children is child abuse'. That is false. I have never asserted anything of the kind. I have said that LABELLING children with the religion of their parents is child abuse. That is very different from teaching religion to children. As I said in The God Delusion, and as I repeated in my post above, I am IN FAVOUR of teaching comparative religion, and teaching the Bible as literature. What I am against is labelling a child a Catholic child, Muslim child etc. I am, of course, equally opposed to labelling a child an 'atheist child'.

Throughout The God Delusion Dawkins makes this so very clear the only way a theist could misinterpret Dawkins' message is purely because of cold, hard bias. Several of the ideas Dawkins expresses in the ninth chapter of The God Delusion are so very clear, the above misinterpretations should be very easily seen.

On page 315 Dawkins has just finished telling his readers of the story about Edgardo Mortara, a six-year old boy who was taken from his loving Jewish parents after being splashed with some water and told some supposedly magic words by his babysitter, and poof, the boy is transformed into a Christian, no longer fit to be raised by Jewish parents. Dawkins writes,

...[I]sn't it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about? Yet the practice continues to this day, almost entirely unquestioned.

On page 327 Dawkins expresses his views about how a child should be free to make up their own minds once they're old enough to understand:

I thank my own parents for taking the view that children should be taught not so much what to think as how to think. If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure...truly moral guardianship shows itself in an honest attempt to second-guess what they would choose for themselves if they were old enough to do so" (emphasis in original).

Another example of Dawkins expressing this view is when he relates the story about a find by archaeologists of a young Inca girl who was a victim of a child sacrifice,

Humphrey's point - and mine - is that, regardless of whether she was a willing victim or not, there is strong reason to suppose that she would not have been willing if she had been in full possession of the facts. For example, suppose she had known that the sun is really a ball of hydrogen, hotter than a million degrees Kelvin, converting itself into helium by nuclear fusion, and that it originally formed from a disk of gas out of which the rest of the solar system, including Earth, also condensed...Presumably, then, she would not have worshiped it as a god, and this would have altered her perspective on being sacrificed to propitiate it.

Another example is the following. An Amish community had taken their children out of high school on religious grounds because they didn't want them to have any further education. Dawkins expresses his opinion on page 330:

Even if the children had been asked and had expressed a preference for the Amish religion, can we suppose that they would have done so if they had been educated and informed about the available alternatives?

On page 338 Dawkins speaks of his "consciousness-raising" attempts:

In an earlier chapter, I generalized the theme of 'consciousness-raising,' starting with the achievement of feminists in making us flinch when we hear a phrase like 'men of goodwill' instead of 'people of goodwill.' Here I want to raise consciousness in another way. I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labeled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, of life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase 'Christian child' or 'Muslim child' should grate like fingernails on a blackboard.

On page 339-340 he encourages his readers to raise others' consciousness when they hear others' speaking of a "Christian child," etc. and to "raise the roof whenever you hear it happening."

Afterwards he says, "This...would be an excellent piece of 'consciousness-raising' for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose - or reject - when she becomes old enough to do so."

On page 340 Dawkins expresses his beliefs that children should be taught comparative religion; hardly the evil atheist so many ignorant Christian apologists make Dawkins out to be in claiming he doesn't want children learning about religion because they're all "evil."

Dawkins says,

A good case can indeed be made for the educational benefits of teaching comparative religion...Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether any are 'valid', let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so.

Finally, near the end of the chapter, Dawkins expresses his thoughts about how the bible should be read for it's cultural significance:

The King James Bible of 1611 - the Authorized Version - includes passages of outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes (which I am told is pretty good in the original Hebrew too). But the main reason the English Bible needs to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for literary culture. The same applies to the legends of the Greek and Roman gods, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in them.

On page 344 Dawkins concludes:

Let me not labour the point. I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

These quotes from The God Delusion should help to put a stop to the common demonizing of Dawkins and his views. However, despite these many quotes some still don’t get it.

In my many attempts to fix this distorted image that so many narrow-minded theists have spread about Dawkins' views I've debated several theists on this issue. During my research I came across an interview Richard Dawkins had given for The Guardian newspaper titled Darwin's child, with Simon Hattenstone, from from February 10, 2003:

Hattenstone: I tell him I've been thinking about his point that children should not be defined by religion, and that I have a solution. Why not ban religion till you're 18? I expect him to be delighted by my initiative, but he looks horrified.

Dawkins: Oh no. I don't want to lay down a law that says when you get a driving licence, you can call yourself anything you like. It's a consciousness-raising issue.

Hattenstone: What would [Dawkins] do if he had the powers of a dictator?

Dawkins: I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.

Hattenstone: But you've still got parents infecting the kids with their dogma, I say, playing devil's chaplain.

Dawkins: Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that.

During some of the discussions I’ve had about this issue, and after quoting the above interview where Dawkins explicitly says he would not want to keep parents from teaching their children religion, Christians have claimed that Dawkins gave his true intentions away because he said in the interview that he would “abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.”

Curious what Dawkins may have meant by "sectarian" I went to the RichardDawkins.net website to the discussion forums there and I posted a question to Richard directly asking him about this interview. I received a few replies but one was especially helpful from a man who lives in England and he helped me to better understand the context in which Dawkins was speaking.

England does not have a separation of church and state and therefore there are many schools that are religious and teach the general curriculum along with the specific belief system of that particular school.

After looking at the links provided in the forum I found that these schools often cause a lot of intolerance between the children of different schools (in fact if memory serves these are the schools Dawkins refers to in his series The Root of All Evil?) and a majority of people in Britain dislike the schools. In one of the links provided at the RichardDawkins.net forum, it explained the situation there with the "faith schools" and how according to critics of the schools, they educate children separately which can lead to social and religious divisions.

Ultimately what Dawkins meant was not that he wanted to stop religious instruction, since he even said he would not want to stop parents from teaching their children religion, he just said he wanted to abolish the "faith schools" that are in England (assuming he had the hypothetical power of a dictator) which segregate children by religion and close them off to other points of view, and the religious indoctrination often causes tension between children of other faiths, creating unnecessary tension and intolerance (and in my opinion possible violence).

Another aspect of this issue is the political climate in Europe. According to the reports I was given it's been estimated that 80% of the population of Britain disapproves of faith schools because of the problems mentioned above. The National Secular Society had this to say on the subject:

School provides the best, and sometimes only, opportunity to teach tolerance, but only if children of all beliefs and cultures are educated together. The problems in Belfast, Bradford and elsewhere remind us how imperative this need is […]

It's clear that Dawkins is not some atheist who hates religion and wants to close religious schools. This is (or at least was at the time of the interview) a very heated topic where he lives where a majority agree that the schools tend to breed intolerance. So, given the power of a dictator (and taken in context) he is referring to Britain's "faith schools" and not banning religion outright or wanting to keep kids from learning religion, but expressing his frustrations (that the majority in Britain can sympathize with) about the divisiveness of those schools and how he would have them shut down.

Dawkins is clearly not speaking of the banning of religion, or the banning of the teaching of religion. He clearly expresses these views not only in his book but the above interview as well.

Before I end this post I’d also like to quote Dawkins from his book A Devil's Chaplain, where in chapter seven he has published a letter to his daughter about exactly this issue. His daughter was ten years old at the time and he tells her about "good" and "bad" reasons to believe things, and the difference between good and bad evidence and how to tell the difference.

Just as he expressed in The God Delusion, about how his parents taught him how to think, he is doing the same with his daughter. Here is the relavent passge from A Devil's Chaplain:

[...] It is not easy for you to do anything because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that? And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

After reading this passage did Dawkins tell his daughter that all religions were “evil?” That you shouldn’t believe? That religion was wrong? Of course not. He was introducing her to critical thinking skills so she could figure out the answer as to what she will believe on her own.

There isn't one shred of truth to those lies about Richard Dawkins telling parents not to teach their children religion. Now, it's just a question if these same people will once again gloss over the same quotes Dawkins used to express himself in the book they already claimed to have read or actually admit their bias.

In addition, this is another example of the undeserved respect religion gets from the majority of people. To most individuals it's commonly considered respectful to raise a child by allowing them to follow their heart and letting them choose their hobbies and not have the parents choose for them. It’s often considered good parenting to give children the freedom to experience all kinds of hobbies, and this should apply to ideas as well. If a parent forces his/her daughter to go to piano lesson seven though she doesn’t care for them, and if given a choice would choose something else, that's often considered bad parenting. But the same thing happens with religious beliefs and no one bats an eye.

As Dawkins has clearly expressed it's most respectful for a parent to allow their children to choose what they are to believe and this is no different then when parents chide other parents for making their children follow in their footsteps and no one sees that as threatening, but with religious beliefs they do, even though there really is no difference between these two ideas. It's just that religious beliefs are once again given a free pass from criticism and religious parents are allowed to force their beliefs on their children. If a parent forces their hobbies on their child, it's often considered wrong, so people must stop giving religion this very undeserved respect and we must "raise" parents' "consciousness" and allow all our children to choose their own path in life. This is truly all that Dawkins is asking for. Certainly not the banning of religion or the banning of the teaching religion to children, but respect for the childrens' minds.


Related Posts:

Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 2
Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 3

Against the Gods: Arguments Against God's Existence

Introduction:


It's been my hope to create a blog which attempts to answer a great majority of the claims and arguments put forth by theists about the existence of god, evolution, etc. I think I've amassed a great deal of information since I began my blog about a year and a half ago, but there seems to have been some arguments I've missed or just didn't bother to cover because, to put it simply, I thought they were too stupid to be taken seriously. For this reason I won't cover the Ontological arguments for god's existence, but I will cover all others. Because I have spent so much time on the arguments against "design" I will skip those sets of arguments as well (but I will place links that will point you to posts I've already written about it).

Because I began my blog in the first place to argue against the creationist/intelligent design nonsense a majority of my counter arguments and posts have been geared towards those kinds of arguments but because of reader feedback I've decided to address more arguments for god. I have referenced the book The Non-Existence of God, by Nicholas Everitt, for a list of arguments that I will be debunking.

The truth is, though, that I see nothing special about these arguments. Each of these arguments are fatally flawed when you think about them for just a few minutes (or when you look at the contradictory evidence). When someone comes to me and starts using a lot of philosophical arguments I often dismiss them by claiming they're using "philosophical bullshit" because, while I like philosophy, it can oftentimes be abused and just because something sounds logical doesn't mean it represents reality. Take, for example, the experiment in which a feather is dropped along with a bowling ball (taking wind resistance out of the equation). Logic would dictate that the ball would hit the ground first, but in reality they would both hit the ground at the same time. This is an example of something that seems like a logical conclusion: a heavier object will fall faster, but if you eliminate the affect air has on the objects, they will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time.

It is because of this that I strongly argue that logic by itself (and I'm referring to both our more common "every day logic" and philosophical logic), while extremely helpful and right much of the time, can sometimes get you into trouble. Again, this is why I will not bother with covering the Ontological arguments. They don't prove anything. Their premises may all be true, but that doesn't mean the conclusion is true in reality.

With that in mind, let's begin smashing the logical disaster that is theology.


The Euthyphro Dilemma:


The Euthyphro Dilemma is so named because it comes from Plato's Euthyphro, in which it's asked, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

This essentially means, "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?" This is also called the divine command theory.

Assuming god exists, it would be horrible to have morality dictated by such a being. The reasons are the following:

1. The first question that must be asked is what god are you interpreting? The god of the bible, or nature?

2. If it is the god of the bible then you have already lost the argument because god commands the murder of the inhabitants of multiple cities in Joshua 10:28-42, "...as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded." [NEB] This is one of many other slaughters found throughout the bible, including, Hosea 13:16:

"Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground, her woman with child shall be ripped up." [NEB]

Clearly, any sane human being will see that this is an immoral act, therefore, god cannot be considered a source for good morals since he commands the murder of many people.

Some christian apologists attempt to explain these acts away. Take the author of the apologist website godandscience.org for example. He says,

"The sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill."1 Atheists claim that God violated His own commandment in ordering the destruction of entire cities, just to allow the Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. The Bible confirms that God ordered the killing of thousands of people. Isn't this an open and shut case for the hypocrisy of the God of the Bible?

One thing you have to love about atheists is their extreme appreciation for the King James Version (KJV) translation. The KJV was translated in the early 17th century using an archaic form of modern English. In the last 400 years, English has changed significantly. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who read the KJV (both believers and unbelievers) are unqualified to know what the text means in many instances because of word meaning changes. In attempting to demonstrate the contradiction of God's commands to Israel and the sixth commandment, atheist cite the KJV translation, "Thou shalt not kill."

However, like English, Hebrew, the language in which most of the Old Testament was written, uses different words for intentional vs. unintentional killing. The verse translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the KJV translation, is translated "You shall not murder"2 in modern translations - because these translations represents the real meaning of the Hebrew text. The Bible in Basic English translates the phrase, "Do not put anyone to death without cause."2 The Hebrew word used here is ratsach,3 which nearly always refers to intentional killing without cause (unless indicated otherwise by context). Hebrew law recognized accidental killing as not punishable. In fact, specific cities were designated as "cities of refuge," so that an unintentional killer could flee to escape retribution.4 The Hebrew word for "kill" in this instance is not ratsach, but nakah, which can refer to either premeditated or unintentional killing, depending upon context.5 Other Hebrew words also can refer to killing.6-8 The punishment for murder was the death sentence.9 However, to be convicted, there needed to be at least two eyewitnesses.10 The Bible also prescribes that people have a right to defend themselves against attack and use deadly force if necessary.11

To answer the question whether God breaks His own commandments, we need to determine if God committed murder (i.e., killed people without cause). [emphasis mine] The Bible is quite clear that God has killed people directly (the most prominent example being the flood) and indirectly (ordered peoples to be killed). If God ordered or participated in the killing of innocent people, then He would be guilty of murder. Let's look at two of the most prominent examples.

According to the Bible, God killed every human except Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives in the flood. Were any of these people killed unjustly? The Bible says specifically that all people (except Noah and his family) had become corrupted.12 Not only had all people become corrupted, but they were continually plotting evil!13 Is it possible that an entire culture can become corrupted? You bet! Recent history proves the point rather well. When the Nazis took over Germany before WWII, opposition was crushed and removed. When they began their purging of the undesirables (e.g., the Jews), virtually the entire society went along with the plan. Further examples are given on another page. So, the Bible indicates that no innocent people were killed in the flood.

What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?14 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.15 How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.16 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others17), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed....

The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is really not as general as the King James version would indicate. The commandment actually refers to premeditated, unjustified killing - murder. Although God ordered the extermination of entire cities, He did so in righteous judgment on a people whose corruption had led to extreme wickedness, including child sacrifice. Did God destroy the righteous along with the wicked? In an exchange with Abraham, God indicated that He would spare the wicked to save the righteous. He demonstrated this principle by saving righteous people from Sodom and Jericho prior to their destruction. The charge that God indiscriminately murdered people does not hold to to critical evaluation of the biblical texts."

So, according to this guy, murder is killing another without cause, therefore god did not murder since he had reasons to do so. Alright, let's take this to it's logical conclusion. A wife cheats on her husband, which gives him a reason to murder her, and so he carries out his plan and kills her. Now, by this apologist's own argument, he would not have murdered his wife because he had a reason; it would have been justified.

Clearly this isn't the case (I've got to say too that this thinking is literally insane. The lengths apologists will go...). Even if we accept this author's claim that the people were "corrupted" and "evil" what exactly does this imply, and who is to judge what is 'corrupt' or 'evil?' The author's claim that the people were "evil" for their acts of child sacrifice sounds like a decent reason (to protect the children) but god is being a hypocrite if that was the case, because in the very next book of the bible god asks for a sacrifice:

Exodus 22:29-30: "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the first born of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers from seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day (NIV)."

If god cannot even be consistent in what he deems immoral and moral, how are we to judge what is moral or not by looking at the actions of god in the bible?

Again, we're back at the same question as before. "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

3. A theist could look around at nature and conclude this god is a wonderful god, but nature, as even Charles Darwin wrote, is often cruel and inhumane. Animals kill and eat others for food, sometimes while still alive. Natural cells in a body turn cancerous and a person dies, etc.

True, there are very many things in nature that we could call "beautiful" but there are many cruel things as well, and if god is given credit for the good, he must also be given credit for the bad.

If god's commands cannot be considered moral, then is it possible that god is responsible for some kind of "moral sense" within us, which helps guide us?

This has been proposed by theologians for centuries. Christian apologists even today use this claim of "Natural Law Theory." One example is David Marshall, author of the book The Truth Behind the New Atheism, who seemingly tries to dismiss the findings of evolutionary psychology which is studying the innate nature of our moral sense, by saying that, "The naivete displayed by [Marc] Hauser's questionnaire is even more remarkable. Can a Harvard professor writing about morality have never heard of Natural Law Theory? Christians (and others) have been talking about it for thousands of years" (page 103). Marshall seems to be trying to give credit to theologians for this concept and not science for discovering it's truthful biological basis.

First of all, I wouldn't trust a "moral sense" put inside me by a being who is clearly hypocritical in nature and oftentimes horribly cruel.

Second, if god supposedly placed this moral sense within all humans, then how can theists claim that atheists are immoral if god gave this moral sense to everyone? Atheists and christians would be getting their morals from the same source. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Many theists insist homosexuals are to be put to death, but this isn't shared by atheists and others. So, where are theists getting this information? The bible. If god is supposedly the author of the bible, or at least inspired it, and god is the one who created this moral sense, why wasn't he consistent with what he deems moral (according to divine command theory, whatever god commands is moral)? Our human conscience (for most of us anyway) sees the persecution of homosexuals as cruel and wrong, and yet it is a law given in the book supposedly written/inspired by this same god.

A third stumbling block is the fact that god has never been proven. If god cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt then the most logical answer for our morality would be our biology and our culture.

A related point are people who claim to do helpful and harmful things because god supposedly told them to. Because there are people who have supposedly been told to commit both good and bad acts, this doesn't do anything to fix the contradictory messages that god seems to send (assuming he is real). There are people who feel compelled by god to help the poor, but there are also people who commit horrible atrocities, such as Dena Schlosser who chopped off her eleven month old girl's arms because god told her to.

Now, an apologist will likely say that Schlosser was clearly insane and god would never command someone to do such a thing. But if they dismiss this woman's testimony so quickly, why do they accept a christian's so easily, as long as they're doing something good? The simple answer? Bias.

Morality has nothing to do with god and, therefore, it cannot be used as any kind of "evidence" of god.


The Cosmological Argument:


The Cosmological argument has a few variations but ultimately it is the famed "first cause" argument. Theologians postulate that the universe cannot possibly be eternal and therefore something had to have brought it into existence. They call this thing god.

It can be broken down as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

There are a few major flaws with this. First, theologians assume that the universe can't be eternal; that it's impossible for the universe to just be, to just exist. Second, because of their claims that the universe cannot be eternal they then make a wild claim full of hypocrisy and nonsense and state that their god is eternal and does not need a cause. Third, they also assume that events that took place in the past could not go on indefinitely. But again, they contradict themselves and claim their god is infinite and has always existed, though they can never articulate "where" their god was or" what" he was doing the eternity before he just happened to create this universe. A related point is the fact that if the currently most widely accepted model of the big bang is one in which time didn't exist before the big bang, how could god exist in a "time" before time even existed? It's a contradiction. Fourth, with the Kalam Cosmological Argument claiming god has no beginning, thus needs no cause, they have no proof of this, and it's unknown if the universe even had a cause to begin with. The big bang we know of may have been just one out of countless "bangs" that have occurred throughout time, following Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok's theory.

Because of these facts and the lack of knowledge human beings have regarding the universe (though more is being learned through science; religion sure hasn't done anything to help out on the matter) no one truly knows if the universe is eternal or not (though there are some plausible scientific theories that state the universe could be eternal such as those endorsed by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, authors of the book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang), but one thing is for sure, completely contradicting themselves in order to claim "god did it" is a completely bogus answer and leaves one to ask: "If nothing can be eternal, who made god?" Theologians have yet to come up with a reasonable answer that doesn't violate some scientific principal or use the bible for their proof, ahem, Ray Comfort.

The fact is, though, that there are things that happen at the subatomic level which appear to have no cause. "When an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor J. Stenger, page 124). So it seems it's known that things can happen without a cause, which would put to rest the entire cosmological argument at the beginning. Since it's known that some things happen without a cause then it's scientifically possible for the universe to have come about without some definite cause.

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.


Teleological Arguments:


Teleological arguments are arguments in which theists cite the apparent design and order in the universe as proof of a creator.

To quote Nichloas Everitt about this argument, "This argues from the fact that the universe is orderly, or displays regularities, to the conclusion that there must be a cosmic intelligence responsible for creating or imposing and maintaining the order."

As far as design, this implies intelligent design and creationism. Both of these arguments I've written about at some length so I will point you to other sources for that information.

Life shows evidence of evolution, not of being created:

Another "Gap" Is Found

Earth is not the only planet located in the "sweet spot" for life to thrive; it's also known for a fact that life can thrive even in immensely hot and cold temperatures:

Design in the Universe...There's No god Behind It!

More Evidence Against the "Design" Argument

Ignorance and More 'Design' Nonsense

A website that is excellent and handily debunks many claims of "design" and "order" is the TalkOrigins Archive (along with many other creationist and intelligent design lies and deceptions).

The fine-tuning argument suffers from the same lack of reasoning, lack of scientific knowledge, and "god of the gaps" thinking that dominate all arguments for the existence of god.

First of all, it seems that many numbers have been manipulated to make these constants seem extraordinary. Some examples are irrelevant. Victor J. Stenger says, "Many of the examples of fine-tuning found in theological literature suffer from simple misunderstandings of physics. For example, any references to the fine-tuning of constants like the speed of light,c, Planck's constant, h, or Newton's gravitational constant, G, are irrelevant since these are all arbitrary constants whose values simply define the system of units being used. Only 'dimensionless' numbers that do not depend on units, such as the ratio of the strengths of gravity and electromagnetism are meaningful.

Some of the 'remarkable precision' of physical parameters that people talk about is highly misleading because it depends on the choice of units. For example, theologian John Jefferson Davis asserts, 'If the mass of of neutrinos were 5 x 10 - 34 instead of 5 x 10- 35 kg [kilogram], because of their great abundance in the universe, the additional gravitational mass would result in a contracting rather than expanding universe.' This sounds like fine-tuning by one part in 10- 35. However, as philosopher Neil Manson points out, this is like saying that 'if he had been one part in 10- 16 of a light year shorter (that is, one meter shorter), Michael Jordan would not have been the word's greatest basketball player.....'

One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic principle coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed. They further compound this mistake by proceeding to calculate meaningless probabilities based on the grossly erroneous assumptions that all the parameters are independent....

Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which 'stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise.' Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. And, theoretical physicists at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, pages 145 - 149).

Other theories seem to put the Anthropic Principle to rest, including possible multiple universes, and string theory. If our universe is just one out of many the chances are very good for different values in the universe to happen to be within the right parameters to facilitate life.

According to Gordon L. Kane, and associates, "In string theories all of the parameters of the theory - in particular all quark and lepton masses, and all coupling strength - are calculable, so there are parameters left to allow anthropic arguments... "

Even Stephen Hawking's more recent studies seem to cast doubt upon the Anthropic Principle. "He proposed that our universe is much less 'special' than the proponents of the Anthropic Principle claim it is. According to Hawking, there is a 98 percent chance that a universe of a type as our own will come from the Big Bang [emphasis in original]. Further, using the basic wave function of the universe as a basis, Hawking's equations indicate that such a universe can come into existence without relation to anything prior to it, meaning that it could come out of nothing" (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., page 272).

Because physics and cosmology are not my strong suit I suggest reading Victor J. Stenger's book dealing in much detail with many of these arguments.

One of the best arguments I've heard against the anthropic principle isn't scientific arguments, but one that just relies on pure logic. If the universe wasn't suitable for life we wouldn't have evolved to witness it! Proof of our being here is no proof of any designer or creator.

After giving the previous examples of false reasoning and evidence that proves several of the fine-tuning and design arguments incorrect, I think it stands to reason that most others are just as faulty. That's something I've noticed about theists' arguments. After you debunk one they throw another argument out at you; you then successfully debunk it, and so it goes again and again. It would be nearly impossible to catalogue each and every single argument ever used, but again, if a majority are found wanting then most likely the others are as well. Especially since their beliefs oftentimes blind them from seeing the truth anyway, they won't give up until they find something you cannot effectively answer. Then they'll raise their arms in victory (after about a thousand wrong arguments in a row), but once again, the gaps in our knowledge is really the only avenue theists have for arguing their god. If that's the case they really have no arguments at all.


Appeals to Miracles:


I find the use of miracles to be one of the most absurd "proofs" of god's existence. It is once again a "god of the gaps" argument: because we don't understand precisely how someone may have been healed, it was a miracle. Most of these are far and few between. For example, in Richard Dawkins' two part series called The Root of All Evil? Part 1, it was said how within the last century and a half there were "sixty-six declared miracles" to have taken place out of the yearly 80,000 people who go a pool of water where the virgin marry is said to have appeared. Obviously not anywhere close to a significant percentage to declare any genuine miracles.

Other than this example, the failure rate of prayer is another devastating blow to the theologian. I've gone over this evidence in the past, along with other arguments against the supernatural, and those are located here.

Instead of trying to debate whether or not miracles exist I try to argue against the entire concept of the supernatural, or the existence of an immaterial world. If it cannot be reasonably shown that the supernatural exists, then no miracle could possibly occur. I have given several challenges for anyone to give me unbiased evidence (no personal accounts, secondhand stories) of the supernatural. No one has been able to present any evidence, nor debunk my two papers Evidence Against the Supernatural, parts 1 and 2.

The fact of the matter is that there have been many people have have experienced "something" in their lives they cannot explain but it seems that the mind is wired for personification and people apply human traits to objects and events. People tend to "see" something intervene in their lives if it goes the way they want; if their prayer was answered, if someone's injuries are healed all of a sudden, if a disease disappears. Again, just because these events occur doesn't even imply the existence of god! What if it was some other being that humans have never discovered? What if it was a different god? What if there were laws of nature that we haven't discovered yet and that's what was responsible for such and such event occurring? If these things happened due to this unknown law of nature, then it couldn't be considered a miracle nor supernatural.

There are countless examples of this throughout history. It's not a stretch of the imagination to any degree to think that these current claims of some supernatural agency are just as likely to be false as the ones that happened in the past. Because of the many natural events that took place in the past, lightning, wind, and other forces, human beings were sure to give these events human traits and think "something" caused them to happen. It's only with our more advanced knowledge do we know how wind and other natural disasters happen. No doubt the same will take place with certain instances of a medical "miracle" or other such events in the future.


Religious Experiences:


In this final section, I will attempt to argue why I think religious experiences aren't any form of evidence for god, let alone the supernatural, because of the large body of research which shows that these experiences are happening at the level of the brain only, and most religious experiences have been duplicated in subjects when certain areas of the brain are stimulated.

Mostly performed on epilepsy patients these tests confirm that when the temporal lobes, amygdala and hippocampus are stimulated many different experiences take place. Everything from out of body experiences, deja vu, a feeling of not being in this world, hearing voices, feeling a presence, etc.

In fact, one man who had been diagnosed with left temporal lobe epilepsy, his brain was stimulated at the point of the inferior temporal lobe and at this time he exclaimed, "I'm going to die." When he was asked if he saw anything, he replied, "No, God said I am going to die."

One case reported that while a man's brain was stimulated in the right superior surface of the temporal lobe he had an out of body experience. He exclaimed, "Oh God! I am leaving my body!"

In a case with a twenty-five year old woman who had TLE (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy), an MRI showed a right-sided, mesial temporal focus and hippocampal sclerosis. The auras, seizures, and religious thoughts she was experiencing were almost completely eliminated after the removal of the right amygdala and hippocampus.

In 1997 Vilayanur Ramachandran developed the idea of "The God Module" when studying epilepsy patients. During the experiments one subject with TLE felt a "oneness with the Creator" and others made statements like, "I finally understand what it is all about..."

Other experiences elicited feelings of a god and feeling as if they were "filled with the spirit" and felt the presence of god (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., pages 347, 349, 354, 355, 362).

This is only a tiny fraction of the experiments and examples of this kind of experiment. Direct stimulation of the temporal lobes seem to consistently bring out spiritual and religious thoughts, feelings, and visions.

This seems to be bedrock evidence that all of these religious experiences are caused completely at the level of the brain and humanities' experiences of god and spirituality are truly just in our heads.

Obviously religious believers would likely respond that this is proof of a god; that god placed these parts of our brains inside us so we might be aware of his presence. It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't see how that's possible. god supposedly will send his creations to hell dependant upon if they believe or not based on some clue he left in our brains that might or might not give us the sensations of his presence. That's like rolling the dice and whoever gets a certain number gets themselves engulfed in flames, and others get "saved" just by the luck of the throw. Not a very kind thing to do in my opinion (of course theists always have silly excuses for the cruel acts of their god).

Another problem with this is the fact that this "spiritual feeling" one might characterize as "god" just points us to a belief in "something out there" that's bigger than us; points to ghosts, fairies, and a multitude of gods. If this belief was truly put in place by the one true god (according to christians) then why do humans have such a variety of beliefs about spiritual agents and gods? Wouldn't god implant a belief that just included him if he is the one and only true god in existence, if it was him, and only him, he wanted his creations to worship?

Based on this evidence, it seems clear to me that this "spiritual feeling" does not point to any god; the god a person believes in depends upon the culture they grow up in, and is not "hardwired" into our minds; it is only this vague spiritual belief that is hardwired (possibly for survival purposes and to cope with the fear of death) and humans built upon these vague, innate beliefs by making up everything else about these various spiritual agencies.

Because there is no evidence of any gods the most likely explanation is that these experiences caused the belief in gods and not the other way around.


Conclusion:


I'm sure there are many apologists who may feel as if I've created strawmen arguments, or did not represent all theological views during this discussion. I would argue strongly that I created no strawmen; I consulted the books of philosophers and ex-theologians such as John Loftus in representing the arguments of theists (and arguing against).

I also think it would be a near impossible task to present every theological argument, or variation of those arguments. I tried to pick the most common ones and go from there. Besides, most arguments are variations upon a basic theme anyhow, so if I debunked a major argument I likely debunked its variations as well.

It's sad that the a large majority of the human race must feel it has to lie to itself for whatever reasons it has for believing in some higher power or god. What it ultimately amounts to is ignoring and/or distorting evidence, and having a preconceived bias that leads you to believe in your god (while disbelieving in everyone else's for the same reasons they don't believe in yours!). This is surely the case with many believers and one such example is the christian apologist William Lane Craig, as told from John Loftus' book Why I Became an Atheist (page 214):

"Mark Smith (of www.jcnot4me.com) set up the following scenario for Craig: 'Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection - Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb.'

Smith asked Craig, given this scenario, if he would then give up Christianity, having seen with his own two eyes that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Smith wrote: 'His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected. He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the 'holy spirit' within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me.'"

There is no evidence of god in our biology, in the cosmos, nor within our uses of logic. This is why I often make the claim that there is no evidence for god, as I did here, in the review of the first chapter, despite these arguments being held up as such. I've even been insulted because of this view (though no one has yet to offer one argument against my position).

Because of the facts and logic that I have presented I see no reason to believe in any god. There are miles wide, gaping holes in every single argument ever put forth for a god and these arguments will only get weaker as science discovers more and more about the universe and us.

It is precisely for this reason that I consider christian apologetics to be a huge pile of bullshit, and half ass attempts by unenlightened and superstitious individuals to convince themselves that they aren't going to die.


UPDATE 4-3-09

It has come to my attention that some of Victor J. Stenger's statements that I cited may be false, but as with just about everything I write I usually think two or three steps ahead of any possible detractors, which is why I stated the following in the above post:

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.

I said this because I am well aware of the fluid nature of science. As more data is collected old theories are put to rest and are replaced with new ones that fit the data better. Because of the non static nature of science you can't always count on everything being completely accurate at all times, especially in the fast moving world of cosmology where they're finding new things at a fairly fast pace. There is also a lot of disagreement among scientists so to proclaim Stenger as the ultimate authority would be foolish. Of course he could be wrong (and as someone has informed me, he very well could be) and I don't deny that, but because he is wrong does nothing to my case. It's still no proof of a god and where I cited Stenger was just a small part of my argument.

As I tried to show throughout the post, all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments: because theists are at a loss to explain something we don't yet understand or something miraculous, they wish to subscribe a god to plug the "gaps" in our knowledge. But, this is severely logically flawed way of thinking because theists are also at a loss to explain their god. They just assume their god exists and that it's necessary to have this "uncaused cause" to cause the universe. That's preposterous and contradictory to say the least. I might as well say that some leprechaun caused the universe because it's utilizing the exact same flawed reasoning.

The overall premises of my arguments stand untouched and thus far unrefuted. All arguments for god are nothing more than illogical attempts to plug "gaps" in our knowledge and that's that. That's no more "proof" of a god than me trying to explain how my sandwich disappeared by claiming the tooth fairy got hungry.

UPDATE 4-6-09

I've responded to a few criticisms (though they are mostly misunderstandings and pure ignorance) by one Joe Hinman, who tries, but fails miserably, to rebut any of my above arguments. I respond to his claims here.

UPDATE 4-21-09

I created a post pointing out errors in a christian apologists' arguments against my claim that all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments. Click here to read it.

UPDATE 5-28-10

I recently finished writing a rebuttal to several of famed Christian apologist William Lane Craig's arguments for god. Some are repeated from this paper, but there is some new stuff in the new one that you might find interesting as well. It can be found here.

Say NO to Red-Light Cameras

I'd like to discuss an issue that upsets me. That issue is the fact that dozens of red-light cameras are going up all over the country. Advocates claim that these cameras keep people from running red lights and are keeping people safer. But from my research, what they actually do is cause more accidents, don't stop people from running red lights, and are purely there to gain revenue for the state. Not that it shocks me though; its just like the government to instate a policy which makes them richer at the expense of human safety.

Without further adieu, let me just get to the meat and potatoes of my post and get down to the statistics.

The first issue I want to raise is the fact that red light cameras have not been proven to be effective in several studies done across the U.S.

A study done by USF Health, and released in March of 2008, shows that "cameras are significantly associated with increases in crashes, as well as crashes involving injuries. The study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council also found that cameras were linked to increased crash costs."

Another important finding of this USF Health study was "[s]ome studies that conclude cameras reduced crashes or injuries contained major 'research design flaws,' such as incomplete data or inadequate analyses, and were conducted by researchers with links to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS, funded by automobile insurance companies, is the leading advocate for red-light cameras. Insurers can profit from red-light cameras, since their revenues will increase when higher premiums are charged due to the crash and citation increase, the researchers say.

Langland-Orban said the findings have been known for some time. She cites a 2001 paper by the Office of the Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, reporting that red-light cameras are 'a hidden tax levied on motorists.' The report concluded cameras are associated with increased crashes, the timings at yellow lights are often set too short to increase tickets for red-light running, and most research concluding cameras are effective was conducted by one researcher from the IIHS. Since then, studies independent of the automobile insurance industry continue to find cameras are associated with large increases in crashes."

A study done by the government itself (!) showed that red light cameras cause just about as many accidents as they stop. This study, done by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA-HRT-05-048) in April of 2005, shows that in some jurisdictions the cameras only reduce right-angle crashes by as much as 40%, while the rear end collisions have gone up as much as 38%.

Another aspect of this study estimated how many collisions occurred before and after the installation of the red light cameras, and here are the findings:

Before the installation of the cameras they noted a total of 1,542 right angle crashes, with 351 "definite injuries." The total of rear end collisions were estimated at 2,521 with 131 "definite injuries."

After the cameras were put in place they found a reduction of 24.6% right angle crashes, with 1,163 crashes, and 296 "definite injuries." While the rear end collisions went up to 2,896 with 163 "definite injuries."

In total, after the cameras were put in place, there was only a 24.6% drop in right angle crashes, and a 15.7% decrease in injuries. On the other hand, there was a 14.9 increase of rear end collisions, with a 24.0% increase of "definite injuries."

These figures sure don't look very promising, with not even a reduction of half of the right-angle crashes. The red light camera proponents tout their safety benefits but it's obvious they cause about as many crashes as they stop.

Another study that was done in California between 2004 to 2005 showed similar results. The year before cameras were installed, they monitored three intersections in the city of Costa Mesa and found that there were 39 accidents, while after the cameras were installed, it was reduced to 28; a drop of only 28%. While in the city of Fullerton there was a total of 88 crashes before the cameras, and 83 after; only a 5.7% decrease.

In fact, they even did a study in Westminster, which had no cameras, and from 2003 to 2004, there was a 24.1 % drop in crashes, though they attribute that to "added raised medians."

On page 7 of the study, they ask "Are RLC's 'cash cows' for cities?" They answer with a bit of a round-about answer saying that 33% of the fines were not paid. Yet, just above they ask the question "RCLs aren't cheap. Why use them?" They give their reasons about safety, etc., but the very last sentence they say, "In addition, RLCs are seen as a potential source of municipal revenue." They right out admit it's mostly about money, because even their own study shows that they do not reduce accidents to a worthwhile amount.

In a 2005 Washington Post article, they reported "that the number of accidents has gone up at intersections [ in D.C.] with the cameras," and that the "increase is the same or worse than at traffic signals without the devices."

The story also reported that, "[t]hree outside traffic specialists independently reviewed the data and said they were surprised by the results. Their conclusion: The cameras do not appear to be making any difference in preventing injuries or collisions.

'The data are very clear,' said Dick Raub, a traffic consultant and a former senior researcher at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety. 'They are not performing any better than intersections without cameras.'"

A study of the issue showed that "the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame. Traffic specialists say broadside collisions are especially dangerous because the sides are the most vulnerable areas of cars."

The article continues, "the number of crashes and injury collisions at intersections with cameras rose steadily through 2001, then dipped through 2003 before spiking again last year.

The results were similar or worse than figures at intersections that have traffic signals but no cameras. The number of overall crashes at those 1,520 locations increased 64 percent; injury and fatal crashes rose 54 percent; and broadside collisions rose 17 percent.

Overall, total crashes in the city rose 61 percent, from 11,333 in 1998 to 18,250 last year.

Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said the data reinforce the motor club's view that the red-light effort is targeted more at generating revenue than at reducing crashes. 'They are making a heck of a lot of money, and they are picking the motorists' pockets on the pretense of safety,' he said."

To give the reader an idea of how much money the state rakes in, some of the articles I read said that the revenue generated by the cameras was in the millions in many cities. For example, in the Washington Post article I just cited said that in six years the cameras generated $32 million in fines.

The second issue I wanted to address was the privacy issue. Many advocates of red light cameras claim that all the cameras do is take a picture of the back of your vehicle to get your license plate number. Well, this sounded logical at first but after finding some actual pictures taken by red light cameras online I've found this to be a lie. These pictures prove that their field of vision is very broad, and it makes perfect sense that they would have to be that way, because if you're going to take a picture of a speeding car you can't just focus on a smaller area, around the license plate for example, because of the speed of the car. Depending on the speed you've got to give yourself a lot of room for error so you can be sure you get the person's plate number, or else the camera might miss the speeding vehicle.

Here are some examples of pictures from red light cameras I found on the internet, and one diagram showing how they work:








In the final picture, above, you can easily see the broad range of view that these cameras have, despite the lies of many proponents. Someone has to zoom into the picture in order to see the license plate, and/or face of the driver.

There are also more privacy concerns as well. According to a news website I found, "Lockheed Martin, which makes about 85 percent of [the red light cameras], often leases the cameras to cities because they are expensive, and enables Lockheed Martin to retain rights to all the data collection, he said.

'Cost averages between $60,000 and $90,000 per camera. You're looking at a quarter of a million dollars for one intersection,' Burns said. 'The camera company gets about $70 per citation.'

This means private companies are allowed to have sensitive information, he said, and they can use it for whatever they want."

According to the ACLU website, a privacy invasion has already occurred with cameras placed at a border.

From the website, they say, "There are also important privacy issues raised by the cameras. The ACLU is most concerned about what we call 'mission creep' -- that the data collected by these cameras will be used for purposes other than tracking reckless drivers. Government and private-industry surveillance techniques created for one purpose are rarely restricted to that purpose, and every expansion of a data bank and every new use for the data opens the door to more and more privacy abuses.

Similar systems have already been used to invade privacy. For example, cameras installed at the Texas-Oklahoma border have been used to capture the license plate numbers of thousands of law abiding persons, who were subjected to inquiries about why they were crossing the border."

Despite these valid concerns, the proponents of these cameras claim that it's not an invasion of privacy because you're out in a public area and have no say about any footage that might be taken of you. I've heard this claim in regards to voyeurs taking picture and video of women in a bathing suit outside of their homes, and there was nothing they could do to get it away from them because it was claimed they had no right to privacy while out in public.

I find this odd and hypocritical because if it's OK for someone to take video of you out in public, why was there such an uproar when Google took pictures of places for their map service and ended up capturing people walking, or even in their underware, and they were able to get Google to remove the images? There was even a couple who took Google to court in 2001 because it had a picture of their house on it's map service and the couple felt it was an invasion of privacy.

OK, so let's see here. In one instance the government wants to put up cameras and watch everyone, and no one really cares, and some even defend this clear invasion. In another case, a company pretty much does the same thing and people complain about it. Some might argue that Google's images were online and more accessible, but think about all the footage who knows who has of who knows what, and where it all might end up??? To me, that seems much scarier. Plus the fact that Google has allowed you to remove any images of yourself that you don't want online, so you have more control over your privacy than you do with the government (or who knows who else?).

In case it's not clear, the point I am trying to make is many peoples' hypocritical nature. On the one hand, they don't seem to care if their privacy is invaded upon by the government (or even Lockheed Martin!), while in the case with Google, people actually took them to court, and they even changed their ways by allowing someone to delete any private information, even if it was in public, when all along the proponents of the cameras claimed that because you were in public you had no right to privacy. Well, which is it people? Do you have a right of privacy in public or not? I say no one has any right to photograph, or video tape you without your permission - period - no matter where you are.

I think I've done a good job in proving my case that not only do these red light cameras not work in reducing accidents, but they also pose a significant privacy threat to everyone. Some people might see this as an overreaction on my part, but I feel these cameras are only the beginning of a police state, much like Orwell's 1984, in which everyone is watched at all times. I also see this situation as being similar to the fiasco with 9/11 and the "Patriot Act," which tramples over all manner of our civil liberties for the sake of "protection." Just as with the "Patriot Act" these cameras can be used to spy, all under the guise of them being used solely for "protecting" us, and people ignorantly allow such breaches of their privacy. Let me tell you something. It's nothing but a lie!

Priest Off! - A Funny Video

I was emailed this funny video today and I thought I would share it here. Enjoy!




I tried to upload the video to my blog, but the site was being a pain so I just used the embed code instead. I do have the original video saved in case the website hosting this video takes this video down in the future.

David Marshall Finally Replies

EDIT - 3-22-10 - I've decided to add some comments to this post in order to shed some light on this issue. The wonders of 20/20 hindsight. I wish I had saved all of our earliest exchanges which would make my job of proving him wrong that much easier. My comments will be in italics.

Marshall replied to my new review finally, and it seems that he is getting more and more desperate in his attempts to defeat me, and prove me wrong...he can't. In this post he lies about what he says in his book and I make him eat those words...though I'm curious how he will twist that around as well. While he took his usual condescending tone, he was actually able to make it through without one personal attack! I am indeed impressed. Maybe he's finally learning something about debating.



Here is Marshall's reply:

David Marshall says:

Ken has spent a lot of time and effort reviewing my book, here and elsewhere, which on one level I appreciate. (Even bad readers are still customers, and as a long-time resident of Japan, I can't help feeling that the "customer is king.") King Ken appears in this review to be trying to be more fair-minded than in past reviews, which is commendable. However, despite many corrections, he is simply not good at accurately representing what I say. I doubt he's being deliberately dishonest, but I ask readers not to take his assertions for the truth behind "The Truth Behind the New Atheism." To wit:

"He claims science is biased against supernatural events, and blames science on such things as 'abortion, social darwinism, LSD, and free love (I got a big laugh out of that one)', etc."

The notion is, indeed, laughable. I do say some scientists are biased against the possibility of miracles, as of course they are. It's hard to be sure where Ken got the idea I blame science for abortion, LSD and "free love," and as on previous occasions, he won't be able to furnish a direct quote. (LSD was invented by the chemist Albert Hofmann, but free love is as old as the hills!) My best guess would be he's referring to the section on pages 203-6, "Are We Having Fun Yet?" There I say nothing bad about "science," but do talk about the sometimes unfortunate influence of certain skeptical thinkers (Kinsey, Sanger, etc) on sexual relations.

Simple-minded skeptics project attacks on science onto this book, perhaps because that's what they expect to find. But no scientist or philosopher has found any yet.

"Because no one knows exactly how complex life arose Marshall wishes to ascribe a supernatural event as a kind of helping hand to evolution. He also quotes several historians and scientists without backing up his claims with direct evidence, which is a logical fallacy, as noted above."

Actually I make no argument in this book about the origin of life, aside from refuting Richard Dawkins' plain error in implying that the problem is solved. I conclude that section by saying, "I'm not offering an argument for God. I'm pointing out that no one knows how life arose, including Richard Dawkins."

To draw such a conclusion in three and a half pages, of course I need to quote scientists. It's a simple-minded error to assume that all arguments from authority are fallacious: citing eminent scientists to establish that a scientific question is still open is of course a legitimate thing to do. If citation were a logical fallacy, Dawkins' own books on evolution (not to mention the Origin of Species itself) would themselves be rendered pseudo-science.

Ken's quote on sex comes from the first edition, in which there is indeed a typo. (Caused, it seems, by an automatic computer spell-check.) Originally, I wrote that God "dams" human sexuality -- in the sense of directing and restraining, in order to channel it productively -- but does not "damn" it. I was a bit irritated when I found the pun got lost in the shuffle. The second printing (which readers ordering the book now receive) corrects this typo. I apologize for the error.

But "Orwellian newspeek?" Here is where skeptics like "Gifted Writer," and Richard Dawkins, really should read philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse. Among other things, he points out that when a careful reader bumps up against a passage that doesn't make sense on a literal level, he looks for other levels of meaning. (In this case, pun / typo.) As I show, Dawkins makes the same mistake more importantly in his interpretation of the Bible, for example with the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like Dawkins, "Gifted Writer" seems too much of a literalist to exegete a text with any subtlety.

I think my point is clear. The more powerful and useful a force is, the more it can be used to harm as well as to help. No one but a fool would look around modern American society, and deny that sex is often abused, or that a lack of restraint has ruined many lives. I make no apology for finding the practice of raising children without one or the other parent -- when it is possible to do otherwise -- troubling. With all respect to single parents who are forced by circumstances beyond their control to raise children single-handedly, I do believe children are best off with loving parents of both sexes, and can't imagine how anyone who has experienced a loving intact family would think otherwise. Divorce and casual parenting hurt children. I feel terribly sorry for children who never know for themselves what the word "Dad" or (in some cases) "Mom" means.

Ken misquotes the word "God," which I capitalize, as is appropriate in standard English. (I also capitalize Ken's name, and my own. In this case, leading New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens teach their followers bad grammar as well as pettiness.)

In the story of the boy with the "hate speech" t-shirt, Ken has simply omitted my point. The point is that while Richard Dawkins accuses a 12-year old boy of "hate speech" for calling Islam a "lie," on the very next page he accuses a group of Muslims of "lying." And of course the whole point of The God Delusion is that religion in general is a lie -- which Dawkins is never shy of pointing out.

Speaking of untruths, it is more than a little dishonest for Ken to imply that I approve of the t-shirt, when I say directly that I do not. "Such a t-shirt does, I think, violate the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who says Christians should 'speak the truth in love.'" Is that not clear enough?

When corrected, critics like Ken tend to simply delete the old error, then go and make half a dozen new ones. Apparently Ken found his earlier review of this book, in which some incredible sloppiness was pointed out by another reader, too embarrassing, and he finally deleted the thing -- only to post another set of misquotes here.

I make no apology for calling Dr. Dawkins "sloppy." In my first reading of The God Delusion, I found 160 errors, gross exagerations, and highly dubious claims. Citing The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and calling it the Gospel of Thomas (twice, actually) is just one.

My use of the term "New Atheism" is partly a matter of convenience; though see my explanation in the CADRE interview. Most professional atheists with whom I've interacted have had no objection to my use of the term. But in the interview Ken mentions, I say jokingly that I invented the term, and had it stolen out from under me by spies. The other participants laughed, recognizing it (note Wolterstorff again) as a joke.

Considering the fact that The Truth Behind the New Atheism is so poorly researched, it is remarkable that with all the time and effort "Gifted Writer" has put into rebutting it, he has only found one genuine error -- one we'd already corrected. Other readers have found three or four minor typos, which I appreciate having been brought to my attention, for whatever motives. Much of the credit to this book's excellent record of surviving hostile critiques must go to my editor, who seems less credulous, and far more exacting, than the editor of The God Delusion.


Here is my reply:



I am appalled at your accusations. Once again you are the one who is guilty of misrepresenting your own book, just for the sake of making certain reviewers look bad. You claim that I made up that quote of yours about science being responsible for LSD, free love, etc. and (what you would consider at least) to be some of the worst occurrences in human history on page 219. I did not misquote you at all. I find it funny that you're the one who wrote your book, and yet can't even remember what you wrote.

You said:

"It's hard to be sure where Ken got the idea I blame science for abortion, LSD (though of course was a scientific discovery!) and "free love," and as on previous occasions, he won't be able to furnish a direct quote."

That's funny. Here is the quote from page 219:

"Science has also played the role of the witch. Brights cheerfully midwifed the birth of every modern form of barbarism. Hardly any travesty of justice, any 'bootstamping on a human face forever', has not been instituted in the name of science: Social Darwinism, eugenics, abortion, the new infanticide, free love, LSD, gas chambers, the Gulag."

Looks like you stuck your foot in your mouth once again.

This might be one small mistake I made. It seems Marshall was blaming more or less the people who used science and not science itself. However, I had come across many theists who accuse science of being bad (and often name off many of the things Marshall mentions specifically) and I unfortunately may have allowed those past experiences to taint my view of his passage. Of course, due to the ambiguity of the passage I believe it could also be read either way, and since Marshall has not been honest in the past about nearly all of my interpretations I would still take his claim with a grain of salt.

Thus far, I'd like to point out that despite all the claims by Marshall and his pals about my alleged mass confusion about Marshall's book with my earliest critiques I've shown here how only a few were off and mostly I was correct in both my interpretation and rebuttals. As I've said over and over they all wildly overstate my mistakes just to underhandedly discredit me. As can be seen, they've been at this since our earliest discussions. Again...it's no wonder I got so pissed at them! I've been having to deal with their crap and dishonesty (and insults) for a long time.

You said:

"Actually I make no argument in this book about the origin of life, aside from refuting Richard Dawkins' plain error in implying that the problem is solved. I conclude that section by saying, "I'm not offering an argument for God. I'm pointing out that no one knows how life arose, including Richard Dawkins."

"To draw such a conclusion in three and a half pages, of course I need to quote scientists. It's a simple-minded error to assume that all arguments from authority are fallacious: citing eminent scientists to establish that a scientific question is still open is of course a legitimate thing to do. If citation were a logical fallacy, Dawkins' own books on evolution (not to mention the Origin of Species itself) would themselves be rendered pseudo-science."

I know you did not state that you claim to know about the origin of life; I never said such a thing to begin with. Maybe you should re read my review a bit slower next time? I simply said that because of your bias towards a religious explanation , you wish to cast doubt in the readers' mind about the lack of information regarding the origin of life and use the god of the gaps explanation instead of any valid scientific answer. And for the record, Richard Dawkins doesn't say anywhere that the problem about the origin of life is solved. Once again, you put words into Dawkins' mouth, as you did several times in your book.

I don't have anything else to add. I showed in my addendum to Marshall's fourth chapter why I felt my critique was accurate and he intentionally or unintentionally is guilty of what I accuse him of, even if he won't outright admit it. Of course, as I noted in the addendum, he seems to be wishing to propose god as some kind of 'scientific' explanation to gaps in our knowledge, just as the highly deceitful Discovery Institute has tried to do over and over again.

For example, you claim that Dawkins says Dobson wishes to kidnap children, but I couldn't find anything in his book implying anything of the sort. You also take something that Dawkins says out of context. You quote Richard Dawkins from his book, The god Delusion, as claiming that even if an irreducible structure was found it would be "unscientific" to say that it had to have been designed. Yet, this is misleading because the title of the section where Dawkins is quoted is called, "The Worship of Gaps", and Dawkins says that if something that was "irreducibly complex" were found, it doesn't automatically mean a god designed it, and that science must investigate further, if this could have been done naturally, before evoking god in a "god of the gaps" argument.

You don't explain the context and imply that Dawkins is steadfast in his evolutionary theory, and doesn't like when people challenge it.

Those are two instances of your dishonesty...whether or not it was intentional I'm not sure, but either way, you misrepresented what Dawkins said. Of course, with that one of Dawkins accusing Dobson of wanting to kidnap kids, you apparently pulled that out of thin air.

It is a logical fallacy to do nothing but quote an authority for your "proof" and have no scientific evidence to back up your claims. That is exactly what you did in your book. A scientist's opinion on whether or not it's improbable that DNA was able to form on its own is not a valid argument, because you present no scientific evidence to support that claim.

Once again you make an issue out of the fact that I don't capitalize the word "god". Who cares? I've gone over my reasons for this before; I won't repeat them again.

I agree with everything I've said here, however, the comment about Marshall accusing Dawkins of saying how Dobson wants to kidnap kids I'm again unsure of since I do not trust Marshall's interpretation of his book. He has, as I've shown, been deceitful about several things but I go to great lengths to qualify my accusation in my PDF version of the review.

You said:

"In the story of the boy with the "hate speech" t-shirt, Ken has simply omitted my point. The point is that while Richard Dawkins accuses a 12-year old boy of "hate speech" for calling Islam a "lie," on the very next page he accuses a group of Muslims of "lying." And of course the whole point of The God Delusion is that religion in general is a lie -- which Dawkins is never shy of pointing out."

"Speaking of untruths, it is more than a little dishonest for Ken to imply that I approve of the t-shirt, when I say directly that I do not. "Such a t-shirt does, I think, violate the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who says Christians should 'speak the truth in love.'" Is that not clear enough?"

In fact you said on page 184, and I quote, "But is this really 'hate speech'? The shirt calls certain behaviors (abortion and homosexuality) wrong, and a certain belief (Islam) false. Why define the expression of such views as 'hatred'?"

You don't seem to consider such a message as hateful, and shows your bigotry, brought about because of your religious beliefs. It's odd that you would quote Paul, because the bible many times condemns homosexuality and any other religious belief as wrong. Don't tell me that you're going to go against your god's commands...you might get thrown in hell ya know...

Another instance of Marshall's deceit about what his book actually says. Again, see why I called him a liar? How else am I to interpret that passage? Marshall may have argued that Paul would condemn the shirt (highly unlikely as I cite him in the bible as saying the opposite), but Marshall seemed to approve of the t-shirt via the quote I gave above.



You say:

"When corrected, critics like Ken tend to simply delete the old error, then go and make half a dozen new ones to make up for it. Apparently Ken found his earlier review of this book, in which some incredible sloppiness was pointed out by another reader, too embarrassing, and he finally deleted the thing -- only to post another set of misquotes here."

Oh here we go once again....

I never denied my few errors. I was honest and I corrected them, which is more then I can say for you. Once again, you make unsubstantiated claims about me being 'embarrassed', when that's not the case at all. I still have the original review up at my blog, and apparently you didn't even read my reasons for doing so. Just like your misquoting of Dawkins in your book, you state another outright lie when you claim I misquoted you in my last reply. I did no such thing.

In fact, if one wants to they can go to my blog where I happily admitted my four errors (hardly the gross misrepresentation that you continue to claim). I don't mind being shown I'm wrong because that's how one learns. I find it very childish that even after I admit and correct my mistakes you continue to bring it up. Your pathetic attempt at discrediting me won't work. It's also hypocritical of you because you have yet to admit your misquotes, let alone doing anything to fix them.

I have nothing else to add, though I'd like to point out that even this early in our discussions Marshall was favoring the good old discrediting campaign. So sleezy...


You said:

"I make no apology for calling Dr. Dawkins "sloppy." In my first reading of The God Delusion, I found 160 errors, gross exaggerations, and highly dubious claims. Citing The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and calling it the Gospel of Thomas (twice, actually) is just one. At the least, no serious reader so far has denied that I show Dawkins is in over his head."


It's funny how you claim you found so many "errors"; you don't refute anything that Dawkins has said, other then your point about Dawkins accidentally quoting from the wrong book.

You say:

"Considering the fact that The Truth Behind the New Atheism is so poorly researched, it is remarkable that with all the time and effort "Gifted Writer" has put into rebutting it, he has only found one genuine error -- one we'd corrected already. Other readers have found three or four minor typos, which I appreciate having been brought to my attention, for whatever motives. Much of the credit to this book's excellent record of surviving hostile critiques must go to my editor, who seems less credulous and far more exacting than the editor of The God Delusion."

I have found many more then "one error". It's apparent that you haven't carefully gone through my review. You misquote Dawkins several times, you make use of the argument from authority too often, and you offer intelligent design as an explanation, when it's been handily refuted many times in the past. This is evidence of your sloppy research on that topic.

Your pitiful attempts to rescue your book's reputation is futile. By the way, if my objections are really as bad as you (wrongly) claim, then why do you continuously feel the need to reply to everything I say? If I was really wrong, one would think you'd just let the people read your book and see for themselves how wrong I am. But no, you feel that you must 'apologize' for your errors in an attempt to explain them away.