MUCH AS I'D LOVE to research another one of the many areas in which atheist popular and even allegedly more high-brow lore is full of lies, once told, forever cited on the authority of the liar, I've got to take advantage of the weather and get into my garden. I don't need to provide another, fresh example just now. I could mention things like the frequently read or heard citation of the Code of Hammurabi or the Analects of Confucius as non or even pre-religious codes of "ethics," which a simple reading of the texts would show was a lie because both of them claim their authority is given to them from the gods or from heaven. In the course of fact checking new-atheists in the 00s and after, one of the things I've concluded is they don't much read and almost never fact check when they like something which is said and then repeated. I have also come to believe not so much that atheists lie more than other people do but that a propensity to lie may indicate the liar doesn't believe there is a durable moral obligation to tell the truth that has consequences for the. I think many an alleged Christian who is addicted to lying is actually a functional atheist in that they don't really believe there is a moral breach with consequences if they lie. I'd include most of the Republican-fascist caucuses in the Congress and on the Supreme Court in that regard.
For more examples as found in atheist popular literature, there is the clipping for distortion of James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, various lies told about what Thomas Jefferson said about religion, especially the totally fictitious letters to Thomas Paine Conway Moncure invented or got duped over which contradict every letter he wrote on the subject which are extant and verified that I've consulted on the topic. The claims that Mozart was an atheist rebel who left the church and who was denied the Sacraments at his death and thrown into a pauper's grave without a funeral mass. Virtually every time I've looked into the claims of that sort made by atheists, I've found that they were either outright lies or based on some of the sloppiest and most careless of citation and research I've ever witnessed but which is held to be gospel truth by so many with college credentials. And there's a lot more that has been posted here that could be linked to.
As I said, I don't think atheism is necessarily accompanied by a propensity to lie, I've certainly cited a large number of atheist scholars and writers who I believe are very honest, careful and reliable and I've pointed out that many professed religious believers, especially those who are called Christians, who lie with an abandon that would match the worst atheists I've ever seen. In that case they have to violate some of the most basic and important moral positions held by the Jewish, Christian, Islamic tradition and virtually every other religious tradition I have any familiarity with. A liar's profession of faith is likely a lie told for an ulterior motive, perhaps that fact would add to the depravity of the liar and the immorality of the lie they told. I seem to recall something like that being identified as being included in the somewhat mysterious statement of Jesus that sinning against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. But I'd want to research the issue and give full citations if I were to pursue that.
Everybody's talking about heaven ain't going to heaven, is a far easier to understand expression of it. I think that's worth thinking about.
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