Two Confused People Discuss Atheism

kellym78's picture

First of all, to those of you who have been reading this blog regularly, I apologize for repeatedly writing about Dinesh D’Souza. This is occurring for multiple reasons: he’s the only person who’s promoting his biased agenda with actual fervency (which includes frequent articles or blog posts), and I was specifically asked by Ken Bronstein from NYC Atheists to continue deconstructing his propaganda. It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard-head…oh, I meant hard place

I must confess that I haven’t yet watched this televised discussion, although I plan to, because I would like to get this written, at least preliminarily, before suffering the inevitable loss of neurons that will occur when I watch their mutually masturbatory misinformation session. Thankfully, it was only broadcast on The 700 Club, so they were preaching to an audience that has already been tainted by this type of nonsense.

D’Souza starts out on the right foot with a little self-aggrandizement; “Atheists are expressing frustration at getting regularly skewered on this blog.” That explains why he hasn’t responded to my critiques of his pieces, both of which were sent directly to him and posted in the comments on his blog. His characterization of atheists who respond to his bigotry as “masochists” is clearly mistaken, then, since that would necessarily involve the repeated desire to be hurt, abused, or ashamed, and I haven’t seen him doing very much of that, and definitely not to anybody with a valid argument in a setting where he can’t resort to the usual bait-and-switch routine of which he is so fond.

His vacuous statement resorts to the standard malicious attack on atheists as people with the subconscious knowledge of “problems” that can only be solved by his imaginary friend. It seems that no matter how often we tell these people that, while we have problems just like everybody else, most atheists do not feel that they are lacking any of the qualities that are continually associated with religion. Allow me to make an exception for their dogmatic adherence to irrational Bronze Age statutes that promote xenophobia and the denial of logic and science which is then passed down to their progeny through this type of brainwashing and vilification of atheism.

D’Souza goes on to assume that no “dogmatic” atheist (there’s that one again—can anybody say “oxymoron”?) would read his new book, What’s so Great About Christianity, because we’re all too afraid to have our “hidden metaphysical assumptions” challenged by real science and evidence. Considering the thousands of atheists with whom I have communicated, not to mention my own experiences with religion, I am compelled to point out his blatant ignorance here. We’re right back at the dichotomy I presented in my first piece: is D’Souza dishonest or deluded? His continuous projection of the inadequacies of his own belief system should be noted, and every sentence he utters should be looked at through this lens. He has dishonestly propagated the lies that atheism is a religion, atheists are dogmatic, and atheism is based on faith, all while any reasonable person can see that these are qualities that he not only embraces personally, but encourages others to do so as well. His consistent attacks on those premises reflect his internal understanding that he is the dogmatic faithful fundamentalist who has no logical ground on which to stand.

Reasoning with the adherents of a religion based on faith—not reason, Dinesh—is just one iota short of impossible. The fact that his rhetoric is being promoted as the crème de la crème of apologetics is further proof that the point of defending religion is solely to reinforce the compartmentalization necessary to maintain a legion of lemmings for Christ. I find it offensive and irresponsible for those who control the media to have given him such a large platform from which to spew his nonsense, and it is far too infrequently afforded to atheists the opportunity to publicly deconstruct this type of ignorance.

D’Souza’s only strength lies in maligning the reputations of others, which he does adeptly when he explicitly implies that Richard Dawkins is a coward for refusing to debate him. Let’s review here, Dinesh—Dawkins generally doesn’t do formal debates with anybody, so don’t think that you’re really special because he turned you down. It is my opinion that Dawkins’ strength lies in writing, and having experienced the nerve-wracking public debate scenario myself, I don’t blame him. The crux of the matter, however, lies in the fact that D’Souza is not bringing anything new to the table. Richard Dawkins has much more important things to do than rehash millennia-old arguments from professional frauds. It is unfortunate that anybody, myself included, needs to spend time trying to prevent the upcoming “endarkenment” by pointing out the inane and illogical argumentation used by people like this. We should be well past that by now, but people still have trouble seeing through the smokescreen of hypocrisy and lies used by religious figures whose true allegiance lies not with their god, but with the power structures that have been erected in his name.

Mr. D’Souza, if you are chomping at the bit to release all of this evidence you claim to have for the existence of god to the public, then why not respond to those who have already taken up the task of exposing you as an agent of misinformation and a promoter of ignorance? If you choose not to respond once again, I’ll assume that it is perfectly fair for me to publicly call you a coward and a fraud as you have done to Richard Dawkins.

Original article

 

page scrolling sideways

Hi kelly, I think that unbroken line of ---- is causing horizontal scrolling on the page. It certainly makes it difficult to read your post.

Yes, I would love to know

Yes, I would love to know why so many different threads here have so many different widths. Some don't even have scroll bars; others have scroll bars that merely wiggle, others have bars that move in a space twice as big, etc...?!?!

Zombie's picture

ANother great post, a bit

ANother great post, a bit difficult to read but still a great read. Smiling

kellym78's picture

Sorry about that guys--I

Sorry about that guys--I have a 24" widescreen monitor. Sticking out tongue

ctressle wrote: Yes, I

ctressle wrote:
Yes, I would love to know why so many different threads here have so many different widths. Some don't even have scroll bars; others have scroll bars that merely wiggle, others have bars that move in a space twice as big, etc...?!?!

 

If you like this site...  GET FIREFOX NOW

After you install it with google toolbar add one more toolbar, the Alexa add on.

 Unfortunatly this site will continue to look like crap in IE. 

Little Roller Up First's picture

Sapient

Sapient wrote:
  

 Unfortunatly this site will continue to look like crap in IE. 

I'm at work right now, so I don't have a choice in the matter - it's IE or nothing. When I'm home I use Firefox (on a Mac, no less) but at work, I don't have that luxury.

Good night, funny man, and thanks for the laughter.

Sapient wrote:  If you

Sapient wrote:

 If you like this site... GET FIREFOX NOW!

After you install it with google toolbar add one more toolbar, the Alexa add on.

Unfortunatly this site will continue to look like crap in IE.

I love this site! And, I've used firefox for a good few years now. Love it too. And, I've had alexa for weeks now, spiffy! I also have had the google toolbar for months, but I usually have it hidden so that visited web pages have a taller visual range to them.

So, what you're saying, is that the google toolbar has options to fix the scrollbar/width problem? Because, as I said, I've had firefox for years and the toolbar for months, so I otherwise can't see how any of the instructions are to help my problem (that's the impression I'm getting from the response...?).

But yea, thanks for the three software updates - I've just had them for a while anyways. 

kellym78's picture

Ctressle,   Try going

Ctressle,

 

Try going here: http://www.rationalresponders.com/user  

Click the edit tab at the top and choose a different theme for the site.  It's not color coordinated, but it might help.  How big is your monitor?  What is your screen resolution? 

Yea, thanks Kelly. I see

Yea, thanks Kelly. I see what you mean by the color coordination: the first one has the black background and white words; the other two is reversed. But the second one did the fix: it 'squeezed' all the paragraphs horizontally (thus stretching them vertically) so that the scroll bar was much shorter.

Well, since I'm used to the white-words-on-black theme, I'll have to give it a thought of which one is the 'lesser of two evils'; again, thanks to all who helped!

shelley's picture

ctressle wrote: Well,

ctressle wrote:

Well, since I'm used to the white-words-on-black theme, I'll have to give it a thought of which one is the 'lesser of two evils'; again, thanks to all who helped!

If you really like to see white words on black text (which is so much easier on the eyes!) just change your display to "reverse video" or "black and white invert."  I have a vision impairment however i've heard many other people without impairments also get eye strain with the white screen which is pretty much equivalent to staring into a lightbulb.

Thanks shelley! If I have

Thanks shelley! If I have any more Q's though, I'll go to another thread...

set your own colors

You can also set page colors through the browser (at least in firefox, but it should be the similar in ie) - For firefox go to Tools>Options>Content>Colors then uncheck "Allow pages to choose their own colors" and edit the set colors to white on black or white on dark grey or whatever you want. Refresh the page and you should be good.

 

Also, for IE viewing, I would recommend the bluemarine theme.

 

 Cheers! 

Evolved Morality's picture

Love all the D'Souza article's

I would like to see a world where people like  Dsouza  are long but gone along with people like haggard and huckabee and they taken for what they are a huge JOKE 

Evolved Morality

nen's picture

I believe it was in the God

I believe it was in the God Delusion that Dawkins said something to the effect that he won't formally debate with people like D'Souza because it would give their viewpoints ill-deserved legitimacy.

If he ever changes his stance on this, however, I get the feeling he would still grind D'Souza into the dust.^^