1. Dopey, OXFAM, WHICH I SUPPORTED YESTERDAY IS A SECULAR GROUP, NOT A RELIGIOUS GROUP. If you guys were any stupider you would forget how to swallow.
2. It's hilarious that people who think that prostitution is just another job, that it's "sex work" and that those who figure it shouldn't only not be criminalized but should be accepted as just a job would be so upset about what happened. THAT IS THE KIND OF DOUBLE STANDARD THAT I'VE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO FINDING IS A FIXED HABIT AMONG ATHEISTS.
For clarity, I'm in favor of it being a felony to pay someone for sex because generally prostitutes are victims of prostitution and the few cases of a high price prostitute who benefits from it the sex industry will parade on TV aren't in any way representative of the reality of it. That would ensure protection for the people who are trafficked while punishing those who support their exploitation and destruction. I think pimping and procuring and trafficking should be felonies that carry serious prison terms.
3. So where are those atheist-materialist prohibitions on adultery? If you can't find those in atheism, agreed to by at least a convincingly large number of atheists, your atheism leaves you with no legs to stand on when you want to bring up some snake-oil hallelujah peddler getting caught with his pants down to slam Christianity. Said hypocrite was not violating your faith, he was violating the faith that people who follow that faith really believe in. If anyone has standing to criticize him it's the Christians who subscribe to that prohibition on adultery and who make the effort to not violate it, not atheists who don't subscribe to it to start with.
My entire life atheists have been propagandizing and promoting atheism and materialism be adopted and predicting that their triumph is inevitable as, they hope, religious belief dies. So we all have a very real interest in knowing what kind of world that will be. Me, I think Nietzsche did understand what the consequences of that would be for society and government, institutions and individuals. It will be a world of total moral nihilism in which power or lack of power are the only limits of personal indulgence and violent assertion of will. Natural selection in the human population, with entire groups suppressed, women, racial minorities, ethnic minorities, those who by chance live in places with fewer resources, what few they have stolen as they are destroyed by those with more, etc.
That's the world on materialism in the absence of durable moral obligations, not some pubescent pop-music, movie fantasy of total freedom. It will produce hell on Earth, if not the extinction of quasi-intelligent life that got suckered into that by slick PR exploiting our greatest weakness.
Atheism is not inherently liberal, it is inherently destructive of the traditional American definition of liberalism which is incompatible with natural selection and the destruction of morality by materialism and scientism. I've come to distrust atheists who pretend to be liberals through more than a half century of reading them and observing them.
So we do away with religion and we have, what? The rule of law? Would that be the sterilization laws of America which taught the Nazis how to do it? (That's what they Nazis said, that isn't speculation.) Would that be the miscegenation laws? On what basis do we decide civil rights are a good idea, since that movement in America was spearheaded by Christians? Anti-slavery? Again, the abolitionist movement was spearheaded by religious figures, mostly Christians. What is the atheist example set by Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, noted Anglo-snob Richard Dawkins? Donald Trump recognizes no religious authority except when it suits his political campaign ("Two Corinthians"?). Shall be be our moral avatar?
ReplyDeleteShall we fall back on Sartre's existential ethic, where our choice of how to treat others is a choice for all humankind, even if we only decide how to treat our neighbor? Isn't that just the "Golden Rule" of Judaism and Christianity? I thought all religion was tainted and to be discarded.
People have considered these issues for millennia. What's truly appalling is how stupid on-line atheists are, and how clever they imagine themselves to be. At least children in the sandbox can be forgiven for being children. What is the excuse of these fools?
Interestingly on cue:
ReplyDelete"The affinity between New Atheist and Manosphere values is clearest in the popularity of the phrase “The Church of Feminism.” Women are coming forward about the prevalence of sexual assault? The Manosphere replies that the “Church of Feminism” is whipping up moral panic to “feel superior to others, while remaining a persecuted victim despite being an overwhelming majority.” Feminists decry the prevalence of patriarchy? Richard Dawkins retweets a video comparing feminists to Islamists.
"The flipside of New Atheism and the Manosphere’s valorization of rationality is that they necessarily identify their detractors as “irrational.” For the Manosphere, the enemy is the hopelessly irrational woman. For New Atheism, the enemy is irrationality itself. But as the two groups’ memberships and rhetoric coalesce, New Atheism increasingly ends up firing at the same targets as blatant misogynists. As #MeToo continues to promote conversations about gender dynamics and rights, New Atheists might find that it’s time to be clear about their ideological commitments—or else have those commitments decided for them by their base."
And this, of course, has spawned over 100 comments, mostly of the "No True Scotsman" variety, denouncing any attempt to paint atheists with such a broad brush.
Clearly thinking among atheists is not required; nor is any self-examination. Christians (at least) should be held to a standard that requires self-examination and humility. Atheists, it seems, should simply form circular firing squads.
That article is found here:
http://religiondispatches.org/how-mens-rights-activists-are-finding-unlikely-allies-in-new-atheism-metoo-the-manosphere-and-the-church-of-feminism/
Sorry, I'm filling up your comments this morning. I suppose I should just write a blog post. But the funny thing about that RD article on atheists and the MRA is the article from a Southern Baptist minister (here:http://religiondispatches.org/dear-metoo-christians-time-to-take-a-long-look-in-the-mirror/) at RD which severely examines and critiques the SBC's position on women by an ordained SBC woman pastor, in ways we were taught to do in seminary, but in ways I never see an atheist do about atheism and it's practitioners. The comments on the atheist RD article are all about how "New Atheists" are not a thing, or not real atheists, or the category itself is a falsehood (I was expecting someone to shout "Fake News!" or "False Flag!", it would have meant the same thing). Self-examination? Anything like this:
ReplyDelete"My Southern Baptist ordination aligns me with the Baptist Faith and Message, a pestilent document of outright discrimination and hyper-masculine self-righteousness, both of which correlate to sexual harassment, sexual assault, domestic violence, mental, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse.
"But Southern Baptist women are too entrenched to even notice the cognitive dissonance. This weighty theological and doctrinal baggage held by us—and similar ones held by evangelicals all over the world—place women in a losing power dynamic with men who can justify inappropriate behavior with inerrant scripture and ecclesial polity. Don’t believe me? Read their stories.
Shame on us."
"Shame on us"? When was the last time you read an atheist critique of sexism aligned with atheists and someone said: "Yup. Shame on us." If there is one comment with that tenor, if not those words, in the 100+ at that RD article, it was swamped by the 100 others that cried "foul" and "No True Scotsman!"
Pitiful, really; but an interesting object lesson. Children-in-a-sandbox interesting, but nonetheless.
I'm glad you have. If I weren't so busy on Tuesdays I'd answer each of them.
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