Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Daydreamer · 04-02-2002, 09:28 PM

So I a browsing the Infidels.org news wire, and came upon this pile of intellectual refuse. For lack of anything better to do, I thought I would string out the guts of dessicated corpse of his diatribe for all to revile.

>Happy April Fool's Day. It's the atheist
>national holiday. "The fool has said in his
>heart there is no God," you know. I hope you've
>sent your atheist friends a card.

-Tsk tsk, no Biblical quote (most likely Romans 1), -5 points right there.
-Ad Hominem Attack x 2, twice he calls/relates atheists to fools

>Several things about atheism. First, it is the
>smallest minority group in the world. Why?
>Because there are no dead ones.

- Non Sequiter, by definition a minority group is a group of living people, so the dead are not counted for either side.
-Almost certainly a refrence to the No-Atheists-In-Foxholes-All-Atheists-Repent-Before-They-Die myth, which is just that, a myth.

>Second, an
>atheist is guilty of the worst form of pride.
>He, or she, says that everyone else who believed
>in God and his Son for thousands of years was an
>idiot and only they are smart enough to have
>figured out there is no God.

-The ironically easy way in which this can be turned back on author is hilarious. He says, and I quote, "God and his Son", which is as blunt as shouing "I'M CHRISTIAN!" from the top of his roof. By his own logic, however, he has commited "the worst form of pride" by thinking he is smarter than "everyone else who believed ... for thousands of years" in Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Deism etc.
-This of course brings up the central problem with his argument, which is that a person does NOT have to think that everyone who disagrees with himself an idiot.

>Is that credible? Are atheists smarter than
>Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn; scientists and
>illiterates and the apostles, all of who died a
>martyr's death (except John, who was exiled)?
>Any one of them could have saved his life by
>renouncing what he claimed to believe. Who would
>die for this sort of monstrous lie�unless it was
>and is the truth?

-Lincoln was most certainly not Christian, which doesn't help his case, and I do not know who Solzhenitsyn was (help would be appreciated).
-Funny how he calls upon scientists, who are at least 60% Atheist/Agnostic, and the illiterate, who have almost certainly not been taught to ask questions about such things, in the same breath.
-Then he calls upon all the religious martyrs in history, forgetting all of the freethinkers, both Atheist and Agnostic, persecuted and/or put to death during the Spanish Inquisition and the Enlightenment.

>Think about it. Billions believe and have
>believed. Only a tiny minority don't. But they
>will someday, because every knee will bow and
>every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
>to the glory of God the Father.

-Only a tiny minority, huh? 10%, and nearly 30 million in America alone are just a tiny minority? He apparently failed to check his sorces.
-Another comment that accidentally insults every non-Christian, ho-hum. Not only that but he gives no reason WHY "everyone will bow and confess". My guess would be the supposed 2nd coming of Christ, which last time I checked, has been 'just around the corner' for nearly two millenia.

>I�m Cal Thomas in Washington.

Feel free to point out errors he made that I missed, or that I made myself.

I'm a bored and mildly insulted Daydreamer in the US.

lpetrich · 04-02-2002, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Daydreamer quoting Cal Thomas:

>Happy April Fool's Day. It's the atheist
>national holiday. "The fool has said in his
>heart there is no God," you know. I hope you've
>sent your atheist friends a card.

-Tsk tsk, no Biblical quote (most likely Romans 1), -5 points right there.
-Ad Hominem Attack x 2, twice he calls/relates atheists to fools

To which I point out Matthew 5:22 : "... whoever says 'You Fool" shall be in danger of hell fire."

Quote:

Daydreamer quoting Cal Thomas:

>Several things about atheism. First, it is the
>smallest minority group in the world. Why?
>Because there are no dead ones.

Actually, the idea here is that they discover when they die that there is a God.

Quote:

Daydreamer quoting Cal Thomas:

>Is that credible? Are atheists smarter than
>Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn; scientists and
>illiterates and the apostles, all of who died a
>martyr's death (except John, who was exiled)?
>Any one of them could have saved his life by
>renouncing what he claimed to believe. Who would
>die for this sort of monstrous lie�unless it was
>and is the truth?

-Lincoln was most certainly not Christian, which doesn't help his case, and I do not know who Solzhenitsyn was (help would be appreciated).
-Funny how he calls upon scientists, who are at least 60% Atheist/Agnostic, and the illiterate, who have almost certainly not been taught to ask questions about such things, in the same breath.
-Then he calls upon all the religious martyrs in history, forgetting all of the freethinkers, both Atheist and Agnostic, persecuted and/or put to death during the Spanish Inquisition and the Enlightenment.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a writer who had exposed Stalin's gulags and other such wicked things; he got exiled from the USSR as a result. As a result of getting disenchanted with Communism, he converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, and he seems to me to have a distinct hankering for Tsarism, or at least authoritarian rule.

And to a Protestant Fundamentalist, which CT likely is, Eastern Orthodoxy may seem like some odd version of Catholicism, idolatry and all.

As to the apostles, their supposed martyrdoms are mostly legend. Furthermore, I wonder if Cal Thomas admires the superior faith of the kamikaze hijackers of Sept. 11, who believed that the ghastly crimes that they intended to commit would earn them a place in the Islamic Paradise, complete with having lots of pretty girls as their new wives. It must be so, since nobody would die for a lie, right?

Ron Singh · 04-02-2002, 10:40 PM

Atheists are fools.

dictionary.com
One who acts contrary to moral and religious wisdom; a wicked person.

I don't think that atheists are wicked, just wrong.

Silent Dave · 04-03-2002, 12:20 AM

Here's what I posted to alt.atheism about the article:

(first post)

<kevin spacey>
Look at Cal Thomas. Making a little joke that most people stopped
laughing at around the second grade. This is the highlight of his
column. It only goes downhill from there.
</kevin spacey>

Cal Thomoas either doesn't realize, or deliberately chooses to
obfuscate, the fact that truth is not determined by how many people
believe, but by WHY they believe what they do. Billions of people CAN
be wrong. Billions of people have been wrong in the past, and probably
will be wrong in the future. And if you are rationally consistent then
you must acknowledge that it is at least possible that billions of
people probably are wrong about the existence of God.

Having said that, are there any reasons to believe that atheists are,
in fact, correct?

The answer is, oh, at least two dozen or so.
<a href="http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html" target="_blank">http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html</a>

Most of the other things in Thomas's column are cheap
I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I-worthy shots. For instance, it is
actually theists who are the world's smallest minority -- there are no
dead ones. That sort of thing.

But the most ironic thing about Cal Thomas's unabashed atheist-bashing
is this: Cal Thomas, a professed Christian, is himself an atheist with
respect to all the tens of thousands of gods worshipped by humanity
save one! Only one little god seperates Thomas from that which he
pounces on! The real difference between Thomas and I, then, is that I
am consistent in my beliefs.

(second post)

Oh yeah . . .

>Is that credible? Are atheists smarter than Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn;
>scientists and illiterates and the apostles, all of who died a
>martyr's death (except John, who was exiled)? Any one of them could
>have saved his life by renouncing what he claimed to believe. Who
>would die for this sort of monstrous lie…unless it was and is the
>truth?

With one exception, NONE of the original apostles, that is those who
actually knew Jesus and was there at his death, are recorded to have
martyred themselves. The one exception is Peter, and gospel writers
took the tale of his martyrdom from "The Gnostic Acts of Peter," a
work which includes, among other things, a wizard, a talking dog, and
a flying tunafish. Perfect Cal Thomas source material, in other words.

Dave

babelfish · 04-03-2002, 05:56 AM

Silent Dave:

Thanks for the great link!

Theli · 04-03-2002, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sikh:
Atheists are fools.

dictionary.com
One who acts contrary to moral and religious wisdom; a wicked person.

I don't think that atheists are wicked, just wrong.

Nice try...

Quote:

Atheist

\A"the*ist\, n. [Gr. ? without god; 'a priv. + ? god: cf. F. ath['e]iste.] 1. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.

2. A godless person. [Obs.]

If they had used that old description, I would have mailed them and complained.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]

Hans · 04-03-2002, 09:21 AM

Silent Dave

Quote:

But the most ironic thing about Cal Thomas's unabashed atheist-bashing is this: Cal Thomas, a professed Christian, is himself an atheist with respect to all the tens of thousands of gods worshipped by humanity save one! Only one little god seperates Thomas from that which he pounces on! The real difference between Thomas and I, then, is that I am consistent in my beliefs.

I like that. Everybody is an atheist in some respect. Sort of removes the stigmatism.

David Bowden · 04-03-2002, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Silent Dave:
<kevin spacey>
Look at Cal Thomas. Making a little joke that most people stopped
laughing at around the second grade. This is the highlight of his
column. It only goes downhill from there.
</kevin spacey>

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

What I want to know is, did Cal Thomas write this drivel in his car while waiting for the light to change? Does he really thing this is a thoughtful contribution to his readers' day? It's just... stupid. Does he normally write this way?

Or, going back to SD's reference above, maybe he was just showing off his rhetorical skills to impress some trampy high-school cheerleader?

-Wanderer

Grumpy · 04-03-2002, 04:19 PM

Bear in mind Thomas wrote this piece (of...) for Crosswalk.com, so he's preaching to the choir.

As for relevant Bible quotes, he's obviously referring to Psalm 14:1. Or maybe Psalm 53:1 (they're identical). "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no god.'"

Oddly enough, this verse was used as a joke in the April 1 B.C. comic strip. Fatso is reading the Bible and observes, "It says here 'There is no God!'" Her thin friend is shocked. She demands proof. She reads herself, and the panel quotes Psalm 14:1. Then Fatso shouts "April Fools!"

Actually, it got me to thinkin'. Maybe skeptics (if not necessarily atheists) should claim April Fools Day as their central holiday (inasmuch as they haven't already). It's a great day for demonstrating how gullible people can be.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Grumpy ]

Tercel · 04-03-2002, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Silent Dave:
Having said that, are there any reasons to believe that atheists are,
in fact, correct?

The answer is, oh, at least two dozen or so.
<a href="http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html" target="_blank">http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html</a>

Hey! Wait a minute, I've personally used the ideas in first three arguments to argue for the existence of God!
Hmm... the writer seems to have split Evolution and the Argument from Suffering into 5 separate arguments (E to I)... can anybody say "making up the numbers"?
Oh dear... K appears to be Quentin Smith's "Cosmological Argument for the Non-Existence of God"... He just doesn't get it, does he?
X appears similiar to HRG and Malaclypses latest insanity... argh!

Anyway, in the interests of fairness and all, it's only right that the other side is presented. The writer mentions that the arguments he presents are "in the tradition of the Grand Old Man of philosophy of religion, Alvin Plantinga", so with that in mind here are Alvin Plantinga's: <a href="http://www.homestead.com/philofreligion/files/Theisticarguments.html" target="_blank">Two dozen (or so) arguments for theism</a>

Unfortunately Plantinga doesn't explain them all in detail. So just to make up the numbers here's Metacrock's
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/meta_crock/listGodarguments.htm" target="_blank">35 Arguments for the existence of God</a>

04-02-2002, 09:28 PM	#1
Daydreamer Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: San Diego Posts: 221	The Cal Thomas Rebuttal Thread So I a browsing the Infidels.org news wire, and came upon this pile of intellectual refuse. For lack of anything better to do, I thought I would string out the guts of dessicated corpse of his diatribe for all to revile. >Happy April Fool's Day. It's the atheist >national holiday. "The fool has said in his >heart there is no God," you know. I hope you've >sent your atheist friends a card. -Tsk tsk, no Biblical quote (most likely Romans 1), -5 points right there. -Ad Hominem Attack x 2, twice he calls/relates atheists to fools >Several things about atheism. First, it is the >smallest minority group in the world. Why? >Because there are no dead ones. - Non Sequiter, by definition a minority group is a group of living people, so the dead are not counted for either side. -Almost certainly a refrence to the No-Atheists-In-Foxholes-All-Atheists-Repent-Before-They-Die myth, which is just that, a myth. >Second, an >atheist is guilty of the worst form of pride. >He, or she, says that everyone else who believed >in God and his Son for thousands of years was an >idiot and only they are smart enough to have >figured out there is no God. -The ironically easy way in which this can be turned back on author is hilarious. He says, and I quote, "God and his Son", which is as blunt as shouing "I'M CHRISTIAN!" from the top of his roof. By his own logic, however, he has commited "the worst form of pride" by thinking he is smarter than "everyone else who believed ... for thousands of years" in Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Deism etc. -This of course brings up the central problem with his argument, which is that a person does NOT have to think that everyone who disagrees with himself an idiot. >Is that credible? Are atheists smarter than >Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn; scientists and >illiterates and the apostles, all of who died a >martyr's death (except John, who was exiled)? >Any one of them could have saved his life by >renouncing what he claimed to believe. Who would >die for this sort of monstrous lie�unless it was >and is the truth? -Lincoln was most certainly not Christian, which doesn't help his case, and I do not know who Solzhenitsyn was (help would be appreciated). -Funny how he calls upon scientists, who are at least 60% Atheist/Agnostic, and the illiterate, who have almost certainly not been taught to ask questions about such things, in the same breath. -Then he calls upon all the religious martyrs in history, forgetting all of the freethinkers, both Atheist and Agnostic, persecuted and/or put to death during the Spanish Inquisition and the Enlightenment. >Think about it. Billions believe and have >believed. Only a tiny minority don't. But they >will someday, because every knee will bow and >every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, >to the glory of God the Father. -Only a tiny minority, huh? 10%, and nearly 30 million in America alone are just a tiny minority? He apparently failed to check his sorces. -Another comment that accidentally insults every non-Christian, ho-hum. Not only that but he gives no reason WHY "everyone will bow and confess". My guess would be the supposed 2nd coming of Christ, which last time I checked, has been 'just around the corner' for nearly two millenia. >I�m Cal Thomas in Washington. Feel free to point out errors he made that I missed, or that I made myself. I'm a bored and mildly insulted Daydreamer in the US.

04-03-2002, 04:19 PM	#9
Grumpy Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Alaska, USA Posts: 1,535	Bear in mind Thomas wrote this piece (of...) for Crosswalk.com, so he's preaching to the choir. As for relevant Bible quotes, he's obviously referring to Psalm 14:1. Or maybe Psalm 53:1 (they're identical). "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no god.'" Oddly enough, this verse was used as a joke in the April 1 B.C. comic strip. Fatso is reading the Bible and observes, "It says here 'There is no God!'" Her thin friend is shocked. She demands proof. She reads herself, and the panel quotes Psalm 14:1. Then Fatso shouts "April Fools!" Actually, it got me to thinkin'. Maybe skeptics (if not necessarily atheists) should claim April Fools Day as their central holiday (inasmuch as they haven't already). It's a great day for demonstrating how gullible people can be. [ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Grumpy ]</p>

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04-02-2002, 10:40 PM	#3
Ron Singh Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Fremont, CA Posts: 163	Atheists are fools. dictionary.com One who acts contrary to moral and religious wisdom; a wicked person. I don't think that atheists are wicked, just wrong.

04-03-2002, 12:20 AM	#4
Silent Dave Banned Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Bloomington, MN Posts: 2,209	Here's what I posted to alt.atheism about the article: (first post) <kevin spacey> Look at Cal Thomas. Making a little joke that most people stopped laughing at around the second grade. This is the highlight of his column. It only goes downhill from there. </kevin spacey> Cal Thomoas either doesn't realize, or deliberately chooses to obfuscate, the fact that truth is not determined by how many people believe, but by WHY they believe what they do. Billions of people CAN be wrong. Billions of people have been wrong in the past, and probably will be wrong in the future. And if you are rationally consistent then you must acknowledge that it is at least possible that billions of people probably are wrong about the existence of God. Having said that, are there any reasons to believe that atheists are, in fact, correct? The answer is, oh, at least two dozen or so. <a href="http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html" target="_blank">http://atheist.8k.com/twodozen.html</a> Most of the other things in Thomas's column are cheap I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I-worthy shots. For instance, it is actually theists who are the world's smallest minority -- there are no dead ones. That sort of thing. But the most ironic thing about Cal Thomas's unabashed atheist-bashing is this: Cal Thomas, a professed Christian, is himself an atheist with respect to all the tens of thousands of gods worshipped by humanity save one! Only one little god seperates Thomas from that which he pounces on! The real difference between Thomas and I, then, is that I am consistent in my beliefs. (second post) Oh yeah . . . >Is that credible? Are atheists smarter than Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn; >scientists and illiterates and the apostles, all of who died a >martyr's death (except John, who was exiled)? Any one of them could >have saved his life by renouncing what he claimed to believe. Who >would die for this sort of monstrous lie…unless it was and is the >truth? With one exception, NONE of the original apostles, that is those who actually knew Jesus and was there at his death, are recorded to have martyred themselves. The one exception is Peter, and gospel writers took the tale of his martyrdom from "The Gnostic Acts of Peter," a work which includes, among other things, a wizard, a talking dog, and a flying tunafish. Perfect Cal Thomas source material, in other words. Dave

04-03-2002, 05:56 AM	#5
babelfish Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Augusta, Maine, USA Posts: 2,046	Silent Dave: Thanks for the great link!

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