Keeping with our Friday Frolic them, this classic post ran originally on 24 November 2015, and it was brought to mind because I have a book review coming out soon in the National Association of Scholars Academic Questions.
Matt Ridley has a curious piece in The Times (no, the other one), “Why Muslims are turning away from Islam“.
(Incidentally, Ridley and I both have chapters in the new National Association of Scholars report “Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement To Turn A Generation Against Fossil Fuels“.)
Ridley starts: “As scepticism and materialism replace blind faith, more people than ever worldwide are opting for atheism.” Blind faith, eh. As far as I have been able to discover, there is no such thing. No one believes a thing for no reason; no one, except for a fool or a drunk, believes just for the sake of believing. Even science, like mathematics, requires faith, i.e. the believing in things for which no observational evidence will ever be forthcoming. Skip it. Everybody knows “blind faith” is a euphemism for one of the monotheistic beliefs (for which, in the case of Christianity, there is ample observational evidence).
And materialism, what’s that? A coherent philosophy that nobody holds. Every nihilist is a liar—at some point. Materialism is the philosophy that only material substances exist. Accepting that leads to the rigorous conclusion that nothing matters. Not the good of the human race, not the bloody hijinks of terrorists. Nothing—as in nothing. No materialist or nihilist is ever consistent, though. In every instance, there is a call to a universal standard of good and evil, standards which cannot exist if materialism is true. Let’s see if that’s so with Ridley.
Quietly, non-belief is on the march. Those who use an extreme form of religion to poison the minds of disaffected young men are furious about the spread of materialist and secularist ideas, which they feel powerless to prevent. In 50 years’ time, we may look back on this period and wonder how we failed to notice that Islam was about to lose market share, not to other religions, but to humanism.
To disparage poisoning a mind is to lay claim to a universal evil, which is nonsensical if materialism holds. Of course, one can be furious under materialism, but it means nothing. Anger is merely another word for a certain configuration of chemicals in somebody’s nervous system. But anger or fury, and what comes of it in the form of action, it’s neither good nor bad if materialism is true. Kill or let live: it’s all the same under materialism.
Ridley is right that non-belief among monotheists, even among Muslims, is waxing. He notes this in an approving tone. (Be careful what you wish for, etc.) He says the rise of atheism is “all the more remarkable when you think that, with a few notable exceptions, atheists or humanists don’t preach, let alone pour money into evangelism.”
Atheists or humanists don’t preach?
Oh yes, they do. Constantly. You can’t shut them up! Their evangelization is vigorous, well-supported, and ubiquitous. Every secular cathedral—the bulk of our schools (at every level), media, and entertainment complex—preaches daily from pre-dawn into the wee small hours. There is a cataract of preachy propaganda gushing through the air.
Did we not just see muscular street-corner style soap-boxing at Mizzou? Flick on the dream machine and turn to any ad- or government-supported channel. Nonstop lecturing and hectoring on the essentials of non-belief. They even control the sports networks! The soldiers of secularism are indefatigable. Or maybe that should be spelled sexularism.
Ridley admits as much.
In the Arab world, according to Brian Whitaker, author of Arabs Without God, what tempts people to leave the faith is not disgust at the antics of Islamist terrorists, but the same things that have drained church attendance here: materialism, rationalism and scepticism.
Materialism we know; and skepticism merely means sexularism (or secularism, if you must). But rationalism doesn’t belong in the list. It is rational to believe in God—which ought to tell you what irrationalism is. Ridley quotes a guy who says, what I think is true, “Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity.” Yes: progressive democracies are nothing but trouble.
Hey: ever notice these guys love coming up with self-congratulatory names for themselves? “Rationalists”, “brights”, “humanists”. Sheesh. That reminds me a of a brilliant one-act mini play.
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I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist… that statement drives atheist mad because they insist that theirs is a life that requires no faith. Claiming that simply means that the atheist has not taken his atheism seriously enough to examine what being an atheist really requires.
All,
My enemies changed my waxing to waning. They are everywhere.
It is fitting to call this thing sexularism, because, in reality, the “triumph” of atheism came as Saint Tomas, Saint Paul or Plato, before Wilhelm Reich, predicted: by corruption of the passions, sex, drugs and rock and roll. NOT MATERIALISM, not LaMettrie or D’Alembert or Diderot or, even, Marx. That, and the infiltration of the Church. We Christians are more than prepared for the intellectual challenges, even if the elitist powerful are hellbent on corrupting us and our children.
As Aldous Huxley says, no o e believes, metaphysically, in materialism. There are many who fancy themselves as materialists, though; but that’s just because they don’t understand what they’re saying: they don’t realize that being a materialist is believing everything is indifferentiated matter, portions apart only quantitatively and spacially. But with nothing qualitative or essential. So, they speak of morals, identity, origin, politics, dufferent species, life, science, intelligibility, etc.
Finally, the “triumph” this guy is so proud of is only in Europe and the EEUU and, in a lesser extent, Hispanoamerica. This is the true colonialism. Because, it’s true that neuther Uslam nor any other religion, ither than Catholicism, has the tools to fight against these demons.
It is ironic that God oriented holidays are framework retail activity, i.e., raking in the money, the god of materialism.
MIchael Dowd: “It is ironic that God oriented holidays are framework retail activity, i.e., raking in the money, the god of materialism.”
People claim that early Christians co-opted pagan holidays by setting Christian holidays at the same time and adopting many of the pagan symbols — trees, bunnies, etc.
Now the materialists co-opt Christian holidays by setting their materialist orgies of consumption at the same times and adopting the trappings of the Christian holidays.
Atheism is absence of belief in a god or gods. That’s all there is to it. It’s not complicated.
A person without a belief of a subject, will have no opinion of the same.
The old canard is just an irrational cope of a weak mind.
Atheism, materialism, agnosticism, etc., is bankrupt intellectually.
Over the last 2 1/2 years, I have been studying belief in a creator and have reached the following conclusions.
1. That there is a creator of the universe is overwhelmingly true. If one asks the question, “Why does anything exist?” The answer is that there must have been a creator. The atheist has no answer to this question and can only appeal to things that must have existed for eternity (called infinite regress) or that popped into existence from nothing.
Both are absurd.
So atheism or its variants are nonsense, and this is where the honest debate should begin: not accepting something that rationally cannot be.
2. This conclusion does not immediately point to a God but only to a being that caused the creation of the universe. When one examines the characteristics of this creator, one finally gets to a God, a being of infinite capabilities and knowledge that must be immaterial and simple.
3. That this God is the Judeo-Christian God is down the chain of reasoning. But it is possible to get there, but not from the original question of whether there is a creator.
That atheism is increasing or waxing, as Briggs puts it, means that the believers in God are doing a lousy job of establishing their position. This is what I have found, as most are mired in obscure philosophy and abhor simple but effective reasoning.
Why are these people such narcissistic dipshits with no shred of self-awareness. It’s hilarious.
In retrospect I am reminded of the question, “What is a woman?” when it was posed to self-styled Progressives.
Some years ago I was having a conversation with a fervent atheist. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question. “Many people, when they think of “God”, imagine some variation of the old Greek Zeus. You know, a giant, male figure, basically a guy on a throne like some sort of all-powerful father figure with more powers than Superman. Is that what you are referring to when you say that you do not believe in God? Describe just what you DON”T believe in.” He point blank refused, telling me, “I can never describe something that does not exist!” My response: “Neither one of us believes in unicorns, but I can describe one! It’s kind of like a horse, only it has a single horn growing out of its forehead. Tell me what that word God means to you such that you deny it exists.” Still no go — he just kept repeating that since it was a nonexistent thing, he could never say anything about it.
Unless all sides of anything termed ‘religious’ are also termed ‘religious’ we have an illogicality. Worse than that we have a rejection of the most basic principle of the founding: That ALL actions and statements must be adjudicated on their merits and not dismissed because someone terms them ‘religious’…It has always stunned me how many atheists because Cathoics because they knew abortion and homosexuality and the like were wrong BEFORE converting.
This famous atheist’s take is quite typical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyZp0teohlA
Unless all sides of anything termed ‘religious’ are also termed ‘religious’ we have an illogicality. Worse than that we have a rejection of the most basic principle of the founding: That ALL actions and statements must be adjudicated on their merits and not dismissed because someone terms them ‘religious’…It has always stunned me how many atheists because Cathoics because they knew abortion and homosexuality and the like were wrong BEFORE converting.
This famous atheist’s take is quite typical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyZp0teohlA
AND
https://youtu.be/3czEocSLT7w
Atheists are lazy bums who at the end of the day would rather study a rock and entertain fairy tales that it grew legs a bajillion years ago than put in the effort of sorting out which one religion is actually true amongst all the collection of chaff out there.
Many atheists are butthurt Jews who don’t want to face the facts that Christ is their Messiah and King, hence they always rebel and are paranoid of every one around them and are the Hollywood stars of victimhood. So anything that undermines Christianity and Christian morality is kosher, as it helps psychologically reinforce the comfortable narcotic that God doesn’t seem to be showing up to punush them or rescue or sustain His Christian followers to keep them in power, therefore He couldn’t exist, and this is why men are now wearing dresses and pissing in the women’s loo.
And many other atheists, are non-Jews, not unreasonably upset by the stranglehold Jews have on their precious godless secular democracies that were supposed to be the be-all end-all oh-so special system of government better than the religious dictatorships they imagine the past to be rather than study it (because they are lazy, and also Protestantly stupid) and so they hate Judaism, and all things connected to it. Except, ironically, the same exact atheism they inherited from the fallen Jews whose non-religion they now practice.
So little wonder then, that secularism is inevitable Jewish power; after all, they are the high priests of the atheist fundies.