We’ve received a nice donation from Russ Baker, who is a Christian who claims not to be offended by our podcasts.
I asked him if he wanted to “target” a Personal Philosophy at someone, and he replied that while he was not interested in targeting anyone, he does want us to hurry up and do an episode on the “new atheists” as we’ve long been threatening to do. [The eventual episode is here.]
In response to this request, I’ve composed this philosophy for use by anyone looking to become rich and famous by jumping on this bandwagon.
I’m not saying that there’s not a defensible social reason to vociferously argue atheism (Wes and I have had plenty of posts and discussion on this), or that there’s nothing to the arguments themselves (even if they’re not “new”). However, given the crowded field of minor celebrities already in on the game (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, Grayling… I see “Victor Stenger” listed here, and I know Peter Singer argues on this topic too), to milk further fame and cash out of this particular cow requires some ingenuity and a definite raising of the bar in terms of offensiveness to believers. I therefore provide this public service via:
The Personal Philosophy of [Insert Budding New-New Atheist’s Name Here]*
The time to rise is now, unbelievers! I’m sure you’ll all agree that there is no place for so-called “theism” in our time, a time when science is revealing all truth to us, like the truth of iPads!
First of all, theists admit that they believe things on faith, i.e. with no good reason for believing them, and you can’t trust someone like that. “Oh, hey, I killed that guy!” “What, why did you do that?” “No good reason!” It’s positively pathological!
Second, the concept of God is self-contradictory: He’s supposed to be everything, right? “All-encompassing,” meaning he encompasses his own non-existence! And from a contradiction, logic says, anything follows, so from a belief in God you can derive any horrific other belief you can imagine, and then some!
Third, belief in God makes you a bad bad evil person! Kant says (expressing a truth of reason available to all rational beings) that an action is only virtuous if it’s done for the right reason, and doing something because God will send you to hell is not the right reason, so all of your supposed good deeds are in fact bad!
Fourth, a belief in the supernatural makes believers neglect the natural. The specter of a mighty judger watching your every move prohibits normal psychological and emotional development, so in fact, believers are unable to love! Pity!
Lastly (for the purpose of this scriptural message), according to their own concept of God, believers should be despised by that God! God loves virtue, and according to my preceding arguments, believers are too emotionally stunted to be virtuous. In fact, since, again, anything can be deduced from a contradiction, and their definition of God is contradictory, by deductive logic they actually believe God to be a booger-breath, and God will surely smite them for that!
These and 5000 other awesome arguments are to be found in my new book Definitive Proof that There Is No God, and If There Was, He Would Totally Hate YOU in Particular, on sale now for only $39.95 (with coupon, distributed at any of my lectures, which generally cost only $59.95 with coupon; coupons to my lectures can be ordered through a special code hidden within my book).
*This personal philosophy should not in any way be taken to reflect the actual, current views or predilections of this person, though, given that it was crafted JUST for him or her, he or she should really feel obliged to adopt this philosophy out of politeness if not actual gratitude.
Read more Personal Philosophies.
-Mark Linsenmayer
At only $39.95 (with coupon), that’s less than a penny per argument. What self-respecting atheist could pass on a deal like that?
Nice work Mark. My view on this issue is not easy to sum up as either theist or atheist, but in any case I can’t help relishing how much fun it is to drive ‘new atheists’ nuts by poking holes in their usually simplistic arguments. What tends to be lacking above all is any concept of normativity, any genuine appreciation for the question of how the hell (pun intended) normative thought — their own advocacy! — could arise in a sheerly natural world populated only by natural objects. In light of this the abusive attitude toward philosophy as inferior to natural science is utterly repulsive.
BTW I also love that ape-guy you found. I bet he gets hit by a bolt of lightning in the next frame.
Funny stuff
For $6.23 you can purchase Beyond Good and Evil (no coupon), or $3.99 on Kindle.
I just finished the audiobook (of BG&E) and nearly died laughing about Nietzsche’s pointed sarcasm of Christianity. Kurt Vonnegut must have gotten his inspiration here. What is interesting is that he was trying to destroy cultural icons which have destroyed the essence of value. He was not afraid of hurting feelings, and said those who are afraid have been infected with devaluation (“bad air!”). He stood for what he believed to be true while offering a genealogy of the perversion of truth: “Good” and “Evil, ” rather than just rant (though he did plenty of that), while providing the foundations of several aspects of current and perhaps timeless philosophy, (given the eternal return and all).
The personal philosophy above is hilarious, because behind the humor is way too much truth.
Oops, guess I got side tracked on Beyond Good and Evil on Amazon, and instead meant the above comments to be about “On the Geneology of Morals (only $3.15).
Also, Nietzsche actually presents how not believing in God helps avoid Good/Evil and return to healthy Good/Bad–God is not so much the problem (it is the God we believe in and how we do that that corrupts) as our believing. I think this problem is endemic to being human, believing, thinking, feeling in general, because in the end we operate out of beliefs–the operational processes we pick up to organize our world–all susceptible to contamination by the Uberwimp of slave morality. He also brought in the possible antidote as the priestly philosopher, which seems to be the function of todays psychologist/psychiatrist. Fascinating.