Category: Nonsense

More Nonsense of The New Atheists

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense

More Nonsense of The New Atheists

I hope the reader will bear with me as I share with you some nonsense about something that I’ve inherited from the new atheist. It is nonsense, which means that my response is also probably nonsense as well. At least what I have to say will give you something to think about, but I’m not completely certain because it is a non-belief and I’m unsure as to whether you can actually think about it.

The new atheist claims that they have no burden of proof because atheism is not a belief but rather a non-belief[i].  Right.  Atheists, along with everyone else, can or cannot prove or disprove a non-belief.  Nor can they argue for, or against, a non-belief. In fact, you could argue that you cannot even speak from a non-belief other than simply to say, “I do not believe it,”  i.e. I’ve never made an argument for or against the existence of a spaghetti monster.  If you’re talking about spaghetti monsters, the first thing you must do is define it, which no one has ever done for me, so I would have to say that when it comes to spaghetti monsters, I’m agnostic. However, I know of only a handful of atheists who refuse to speak about the subject of God and offer arguments against his existence. They must believe something about the God they are arguing against. Of course, the truth is they build a straw man God in their imaginations and then argue against it.

If you are arguing for or against something, you are not arguing from a non-belief because that is impossible. Moreover, when arguing against something, the argument “I don’t believe” is insufficient because that is an opinion, not an argument. If you argue, you must argue from some other position or ideology not a non-belief. You cannot as atheists do, argue against God and then claim atheism as a non-belief that you have no burden of proof to justify. Atheists must argue against God from either materialism or naturalist ideology, which are beliefs. In other words, the minute they open their mouths the burden of proof lies on the one trying to prove their unbelief by means of other beliefs. In essence, they have to borrow a belief structure from other ideologies in order to speak against a belief in God.  If they don’t want any burden of proof, they should simply not speak and quit arguing from materialism, scientism and naturalism.  Once they argue from these other “isms” or ideologies, they then have the burden of proof to demonstrate its truthfulness. [1]

[i] what is a non-belief? If I hold a belief in my mind that is not true is that a non-belief or is it a false belief? Actually, the only non-belief that a human being can entertain is that God is nothingness. Nothingness is the only non-belief that a human can entertain.

Diversity Destroys Social Cohesion in the West

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Modern Myths, Nonsense, Science

In my study of ancient history I found that ancient empires after conquering a nation would import foreign immigrants for the purpose of weaken that nations culture in order prevent it from rebelling against the Empire. After reading this it struck me that this is exactly what Western governments are doing to themselves and their people. Did these ancient rulers know something that are governmental leaders don’t? Watch the video and decide for yourself.

Dogma?

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense, Religion

“Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.  As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human.  When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined skepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality,  when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass.  Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded” C.K. Chesterton.

The world is filled with ideas, and many of those ideas could be classified as dogmas.  Now, a dogma is an idea that has hardened to a point that is no longer thought about but just accepted on authority.  The word dogma is not used as much today, this may be because it sounds too religious for a secular age, which itself has accepted the dogma of secularism.  However, we do have a word or idea that is very close to it.  It is the word presumption.  A presumption is an idea that we take for granted without much thought or for the most part, without any or little thought.

In view of the above it is a self-event truth that all men have and live by dogma to some degree. One thing that can be said about the religious man is that he has accepted parts of his faith as dogma while the secular man is still in a state of denial, believing he is living by reason alone or in some neutral zone free of presumption or dogma.  He has reached the unconsciousness of grass and he glories in it calling it tolerance or enlightenment.

Of course, there are some men who have very little dogma.  Some of these folks fancied themselves as skeptics.  Skeptics claim not to live by or believe dogma according to their dogma. The only dogma that they can believe is the dogma of skepticism.  According to them, you must doubt everything except skepticism.  Then you have the agnostics who believe nothing because they believe that it is impossible to be certain about the truth.  Of course, they are certain agnosticism is true.  We should not leave out the relativist which believes everything and nothing, and that everyone is right except the person that believes others are wrong.  Of course, they believe that the skeptics, and the agnostics are right.  The only person that they do not agree with is the dogmatist.  They do not seem to like people who think they know something which is true.

Out of all of the above, the relativist is the one most likely to be tossed about by every wind of teaching that comes along, for they lack a foundation of truth by which to judge any new ideas.  As it has been said, “a man who believes nothing will believe anything.”  In fact, the relativist really does not believe in objective truth. What they believe in, is personal truth, i.e. truth is what you believe.  What makes it true is that you believe it.  Most of these folks belong to the same cult, the cult of personal opinion.

The relativist are also the most likely to become fanatical and completely out of balance. Many  progressive folks fall within this group always moving forward without knowing which direction is forward; always seeing a cause to give their meaningless life purpose.  To me, the really progressive person is the one that when traveling in a direction that is not working turns around and goes in a different direction, like back.  Of course, if you are a relativist you don’t know which way is back.

It may be time for all of us to ask some serious questions about some of our new dogmas.  Question like, are they really taking us forward or are they simply getting us deeper into the woods.  So, deep that we will never find our way out.  Why not try putting some of your dogmas, or the lack of it to the test?  Start with your religious assumptions using the Bible as an objective standard to judge your ideas.  You do not have to believe it, but simply use it as a source of information to compare your personal dogma with.  You also might try the same exercise politically with the Constitution and other founding documents.  In doing this you might find these source documents truly refreshing and challenging.

 

Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Nonsense

Hate the Sin and Love the Sinner

 I have heard a number of the new atheists mock and ridicule the expression, “hate the sin and love the sinner.” Of course, it does not take a great deal of thought to realize that every morally thoughtful person applies this ideal to others and especially to themselves. We all fail to live up to our own standards and we often hate our short comings. However, we still continue to love ourselves and forgive ourselves.

If a person or a group does not learn to distinguish people’s failings from the people, we are all in trouble. In the end, the person that cannot separate the sin from the person (sinner) will become a very lonely person and perhaps a moral monster.

Out of the Box Thinking

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Christ and Culture, Nonsense

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Out of the Box Thinking

 Before you do what some call “out of box the thinking”, You might want to know something about box thinking and boxes. First, you must know what the box is that you are in and you must admit you are in it, and then you must be able to find or create a different or new box. For all thinking is done in one box or another. There are linguistic boxes, cultural boxes, ideology boxes and paradigm boxes. However, no thinking is done outside of all boxes. In other words, there is no such thing as a free thinker or out of the box thinker.  To think otherwise is to think in the worst box of all ” the stupid box.”

Now there are some huge problems to overcome for those who fancy themselves out of the box thinkers. One is that there are few, if any human beings, who are able to create a completely new box. The limitations of box building seemed to be understood just a few decades ago, when people seemed to sense that only intellectuals of the highest degree could think about box building. However, because of are fantastic education system and our love for pure knowledge, we can now all build boxes. Maybe, each of us can have our own box? The truth is, that very few are able to know the box that they are in much less create a new one. Box makers are few and far between; they are men like Moses, Plato and Jesus. In fact, most boxes are not made by individual, but by complete cultures over a long period of time with a lot of hard work.

What most people mean by “out of the box thinking” is thinking without a foundation of any authority, which in the end simply means giving your own option on a subject with no appeal to an authority outside and other than yourself. One thing that could be said for out of the box thinkers is that in appealing to themselves as the only authority needed, they have saved themselves a lot of laborious study, which is usually required for box building.

I should be careful, for if I say too much, some in the educated class might get the idea to hire these out of the box thinkers to teach everyone to build these easy self created boxes. We could even standardize the boxes, We Westerners are good at that, and then our university could mass-produce out of the box thinkers. We could have the loony bin box, the chaos box and the confused box and in this, we could all be different and the same, at the same time. The America dream comes true, everyone in their own box.