Some very basic philosophical questions: "What really matters to you? How should you then live?" You can find out the answer by measuring the time you spend on certain activities. This is relevant to atheists, theists, agnostics and non-theists. If any person associated with those groups spends the majority of their time telling other people how they should live their lives then they probably don't have much of an "authentic" life ( to quote atheist Jean-Paul Sartre). They are, instead, totally consumed with ensuring everyone else has the exact same world-view as themselves and are thus "inauthentic".
I'd rather live my own life and enjoy it than spend my life consumed with telling others what to do and how they are wrong because they don't share my worldview.
An "inauthentic" life becomes worse when, if you follow some of the new atheists, you are supposed to spend at least part of it mocking the views of others. Mocking is not a logic argument. Therefore my question is: "Is it far more important to spend the vast majority of your limited time telling others that they are wrong rather than living your own finite life? What is the benefit of such a life both to oneself and to others?" Whatever your answer, it is equally relevant to atheists, theists, agnostics and non-theists.
Of course, the other huge philosophical question is: "What if I am wrong and I have spent the majority of my finite life telling people to follow my error?"
The most annoying person at any concert - "The Whistling Arsehole". This person apparently is not interested in listening to the music played by the band on stage. Instead, "The Whistling Arsehole" has paid for a ticket so that they can give continuous ear-piercing whistles (usually out of key and out of time) directly behind your head. As a result you can't hear anything except the deafening noise as they blow air out their orifice.
Everything stated in the video could also be stated about atheism and atheists themselves.
The video argument summarised in reverse:
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"In a serious mood because it's time to knock something on the head. When atheists run out of comebacks in these debates, rather than coming up with verifiable evidence to support their claims they tend to try other tactics to stay in the game for reasons that are, ironically, self evident. It's nothing new but I've been seeing a lot of this lately. The old unverified idea that we believers are all delusional and that all religion is a virus that should be destroyed. Seeing as it is going to fall on deaf ears I really don't know why I'm bothering because even when their ideas are held up to them and they see for themselves the transparent rubbish that these arguments are, they tend to hold onto them and keep repeating them anyway. So not knowing why I am bothering, here I go.
Atheists do things that believers usually don't bother emulating:
- Some actively campaign daily against something they don't believe exists
- Some seem to think that insult is a form of valid argument (It isn't)
- Some seem to think that they are more intelligent because they are atheist (They aren't)
- Some want the laws of the land they live in changed to discriminate against believers
- Some have a blind acceptance of scientism with knowledge of the flaws as demonstrated by the philosophy of science (The problems of induction and verification)
- Some have a blind acceptance of empiricism without understanding it's problems as demonstrated in philosophy
- Some want all religious knowledge banned in schools and universities
- Some discriminate against all religions and want all religion destroyed
- Some want to describe themselves as persecuted minority and state that this is why they should be so aggressive, insulting and abusive (Compare to the pacifist tactics of the minority group led by Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr)
- Some want to imitate the religion that they hate and form atheist churches and atheist TV programs and channels
- Some openly state that they are reactionary protest group against believers and without a God / gods or believers there would be absolutely no need for atheism.
- Some taunt believers with straw man fallacies such as "You believe in a sky daddy". (It would really help if atheists knew about that which they are against.)
-Some believe that belief in a God has a detrimental affect on society and believers themselves (Atheists really should study more history and read outside their quaint little books written by people with no qualifications in the subject area)
- Some pontificate about matters outside their area of expertise (A biologist ranting about religion is an example.)
- Some want to force all people to become atheists with no freewill choice of belief in a God / gods.
- Some believe they are entitled to wave their lack of belief around and demand special respect for it
- Some wish to deny believers the same equal rights as atheists
- Some think that they do not have to provide any verification or positive logical rational argument for their lack of belief. (Atheism has no positive argument for its existence - it proceeds from a negative argument against theism.)
- Some repeatedly shift the burden of proof for atheist claims away from atheists even when confronted with verifiable atheist claims that "God probably doesn't exist" in the atheist British bus campaign.
- Some repeatedly lie that "atheists never make any claims about God" (despite a verifiable plethora of atheist books and websites that do make claims about God)
- Some think they have rational justification to destroy another's belief. (They don't.)
- Some hold on to cruelty, prejudice, bigotry, hate, terrorism and war.
- Some are guilty of the very same hypocrisy that they claim to see in others
A-theism is as irrelevant to daily life as a-invisiblepinkunicornism or a-fairyism or a-flyingspaghettimonsterism or a-santaclausism or a-toothfairyism or a-leprechaunism.
The new atheists have adopted empiricism, verificationism, scientism and humanism on top of their lack of belief in a God. Empiricism, scientism and humanism do not directly and logically flow from a lack of belief in a God.
Atheists, do you see how pathetic these arguments and tactics are? These arguments that you use against us believers are irrational and illogical and sometimes plain spiteful. We believers will stand up against your atheism when you want to militantly attempt to destroy our religion and God / gods. If you want atheism then keep it to yourself. If you choose to take it into the public arena, which is your right also, then expect that believers will demand that you provide a verifiable positive rational logical argument for your lack of belief in a God / gods. You have not yet done so as a negative argument against theism is not a positive argument for atheism. Both could be wrong. Also expect that your hypocrisy and lack of knowledge about religion, theology and philosophy of religion and philosophy of science will be exposed. Just don't make ridiculous unverified claims and straw man fallacies about believers and their God / gods.
I find it interesting that an atheist requires a cult. Dusty Smith's "Cult Of Dusty" also has many features of a cult such as:
- cult leader speaking outside his area of expertise
- asking for money
- brainwashing
- calling for the destruction of those he disagrees with
- cult leader advocating practices that he doesn't himself use. Example his catchphrase "Logic!"
Is this the pinnacle of atheism? Is this how atheists want everyone to be?
Dusty Smith is an American comedian, author, actor, Internet entrepreneur, and musician. ...
At 20, Dusty discovered a loophole in popular search engines that allowed him to dominate the search results for many of the most searched keywords and by 24 had MADE HIS FIRST MILLION IN ONLINE REVENUE. ...
At 30, Dusty began to research heavily into Christianity in order to prove to an atheist friend that it was true. However, this research led him to become one of the world’s most outspoken atheists. ...
The Cult of Dusty is currently one of the most popular Atheist channels on Youtube with tens of thousands of subscribers and millions of video views worldwide.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where did the million dollars go? Dusty Smith asking for money after his wife's car accident and his failure to buy insurance. (His wife has recently left him and he moved house.)
So people ask me all the time, "How can we destroy Christianity?" Well its actually pretty simple. Christianity is one large Meme made up of many smaller memes. To destroy Christianity you simply have to learn the counter-memes. It's like a video game. When a Christian tries to infect you with a Christian meme, you simply turn the tables and infect them instead with the "counter-meme". Memes are just mental viruses and once you infect a Christian's mind with enough counter-memes, eventually Christianity dies the death of a hundred viruses. I have deprogrammed thousands of cult members and its always the same.
Dusty Smith
17 hours ago · Edited
Just got a good question. "Why bother to try to change a 40 year old's mind about God?" Because it actually benefits you to destroy religion as soon as possible. They are holding back the evolution of our society. An evolution that could help you live much longer with a much higher quality of life. The sooner it's destroyed, the more benefit you get out of it. You'd really have to be an idiot not to get involved and try to make our society evolve as quickly as it can. If for nothing more than selfish reasons alone.
This group was started because of my experience with atheists.
The vast majority of atheists that I encountered in atheist forums eventually resorted to insult and / or ad hominem fallacy when I did not agree with them 100%. ( There were also many polite, educated atheists with whom it was a joy to discuss.) The Moderators approved of atheists insulting non-atheists but those who insulted atheists were warned or banned. This type of hypocrisy was rampant in the vast majority of atheist forums I was a member of or visited.
Along with being “angry [mean], argumentative, dogmatic [closeminded]" the obnoxious type of atheists wrongly assumed that they had a higher IQ and were more logical and rational than any non- atheist though the vast majority had never studied the domain of logic and rationality - philosophy. Many atheists had never read the religious texts that they criticised or, if they did, could only read them in a naive amateur literalist manner. They knew very little about the nuances of hermeneutics. They regularly criticised religions though they had never met in person anyone from the religion they were criticising. They, again, knew very little about the religion's various dogmas and the different denominations within the religion.
One quite famous atheist who has a "cult" regularly uses his catch phrase of "Logic!" while at the same time sprouting some of the most illogical and irrational nonsense in an “angry [mean], argumentative, dogmatic [closeminded]" manner peppered with as many swear words that he can think of. “angry [mean], argumentative, dogmatic [closeminded]" isn't any way to persuade people to adopt your worldview.
Each month new atheists are added to this group. I have blocked more atheists for not following the group rules than any other group of people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. No personal insult of members or individuals. 2. No insult of deities / prophets / spokespeople 3. No posting threads irrelevant to the aim of the group. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One would think that these minimal rules would be easy to follow but apparently they are quite difficult for some atheists who are regularly encouraged to to do the exact opposite on many forums.
Dialogue is the creative thinking together that can emerge when genuine empathetic listening, respect for all participants, safety, peer relationships, suspending judgment, sincere inquiry, courageous speech, and discovering and disclosing assumptions work together to guide our conversations. It is an activity of curiosity, cooperation, creativity, discovery, and learning rather than persuasion, competition, fear, and conflict. Dialogue is the only symmetrical form of communication. Dialogue emerges from trusting relationships. ...
- Balance Inquiry and Advocacy ...
- Listening to understand ...
- Suspending judgment ...
- Respecting all: Attribute positive motives and constructive intent to each participant. Appreciate all that is good about them, all that you share in common with them, and all they can contribute. Acknowledge the dignity, legitimacy, worth, and humanity of the person speaking. Allow for differing viewpoints and learn all you can from them. Examine the origins within your self of any tendency you have to disrespect participants. Resist your temptation to blame. Remain humble and accept that they can teach us and we can learn from them. Attain and appreciate their viewpoint; do not attack, intrude, deny, dismiss, dispute, or discount their comments. Banish violence.
- Speaking your voice ...
Quotations:
“People don't listen, they reload.” ...
“The unity of contraries is the mystery at the innermost core of dialogue.” ~ Martin Buber ...
“Inquiry and violence cannot coexist.” ~ Peter Garrett
“The magic of dialogue is that it really does enhance respect and acceptance of others.” ~ Daniel Yankelovich ...
“There is something valid in every position.” ~ Johan Galtung ...
