UberKuh

Here is a summary of James Lazarus's Reconsidering Some Atheistic Arguments (C is for Claim):

• C1: Religious language is meaningless.
  1. Unverifiable statements can be meaningful.
  2. Religious statements might be proven true later.
  3. Negative talk about God requires a positive coherent impression.
• C2: The notion of God is incoherent.
  1. It is uncharitable not to limit omniscience to what is possible.
• C3: Theism is an intrinsically worthless hypothesis.
  1. Einstein's God might not be so silly after all. Who knows?
• C4: You cannot be reasonable and be a believer.
  1. The author knows "rational, reasonable, and intelligent" religionists.
• C5: Theistic hypotheses are the opposite of scientific hypotheses.
  1. The God hypothesis is no stranger than some theoretical physics.
• C6: The existence of God cannot provide us with any ethical obligations.
  1. Ethical obligation is source-independent.
• C7: The Argument from Physical Minds is a good atheistic argument.
  1. There is no necessary metaphysical relationship between minds and brains.

And here are my thoughts:

• C1.1: Good. Any statement thought to be meaningful by the person making it is meaningful to at least that person.
• C1.2: Bad. Not everything is possible. Take God of the Bible for example. This concept is irreconcilable with reality because it contradicts itself in its very definition. So we either need a new definition (and, hence, a new Bible) or we need to stop lying to ourselves that a remote possibility for God's existence exists.
• C1.3: Good. Negative talk about anything requires the "anything," so I agree with this insight and, in fact, made it recently here.
• C2.1: Bad. Omniscience cannot be limited to what is possible because the very concept itself is impossible. No amount of limiting of power can retain the notion of having "all power" and remain internally coherent.
• C3.1: Okay. Einstein's God was, according to Richard Dawkins, merely a poetic expression of nature's beauty and complexity. If a universal creative force(s) exists, we have no indication of it, but it is a possibility.
• C4.1: Bad. Being reasonable in one area of life does not preclude being unreasonable in another. Then again, I have rarely if ever seen an atheistic argument claiming that all theists are always unreasonable, as if by a genetic predisposition. Moreover, arguments from personal experience do not generally make good objective arguments.
• C5.1: Bad. That the God hypothesis is no stranger than some theoretical physics is not an argument intrinsically favoring God's possible existence.
• C6.1: Okay. It is true that ethical obligation is source-independent.
• C7.1: Bad. Parsimony. Minds derive from brains as far as we know and we can deeply affect consciousness by operating on the brain.

Good or bad, I am glad to see an atheist questioning classic atheistic arguments.

In an article today on The Huffington Post's blog, Richard Dawkins repeats an argument that he presents briefly in his new book, The God Delusion, an argument which he uses to justify his position on the existence of God. He writes, "We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable."

I am reading his new book and, as of the middle of chapter 2, I can affirm that he is doing a fine job arguing against religion and for atheism to a lay audience. I rushed to get this book and I am glad I did, not only because I got the last copy within miles of downtown San Francisco, but, mostly, because of this book's importance and timely arrival.

As the quote above shows, Dawkins' atheism is a soft sort of atheism. On a seven-step scale or "spectrum of probabilities" that starts at category 1 with hard theism and ends at category 7 with hard atheism, he places himself "in category 6, but leaning towards 7." (p. 51)

Why is Dawkins not a 7? Dawkins refuses to be a 7 for the reason he indicates in the initial quote above, namely, that he believes God's existence cannot be conclusively determined as true or false. He believes that the question is a scientific one, within the realm of natural discovery, but that not all of the evidence is in.

I openly admit without any hesitation that I neither am, nor have been, a professor at Oxford University. I also admit that I am not the originator of the wildly popular term "meme" that we see so much today in psychology and sociology. I might as well admit as well that I do not write nearly as compellingly as Dawkins.

I am also not British. Does my lack of any of these qualifications preclude my ability to spot a glaring flaw in Dawkins' argument? Well, unless you need to suck up to Dawkins for some reason or have a masochistic bent towards committing the fallacy of appeal to authority, the answer is no.

I spot one or two flaws in Dawkins' argument above. First, he does not define God. How does one argue for or against the existence of an undefined anything? Jesus asked Peter in Matthew 16:15, "Who do you say that I am?" In the same vein, who does Dawkins say is God?

If Dawkins relies solely on the Bible for his definition, then I see a second flaw in his argument. For, his argument relies on the assumption that any concept is amenable to probabilistic reasoning. Yet, as is commonly argued in the hard atheist community, no internally contradictory concept has the remotest possibility of attaining ontological status. In other words, an internal contradiction is an ontological nullifier.

God as defined in the Bible is a patchwork of irreconcilable qualities. Some are internally irreconcilable and some are jointly so. Internally irreconcilable qualities include omnipotence and omnipresence. For instance, omnipotence is the state of having all power. Power is an abstract concept meaning the ability to act. In other words, power is freedom to achieve the realization of a desire. Yet, one who has all power has no desire. Desire implies weakness.

My favorite set of jointly irreconcilable qualities in God are mercy and justice. If God is merciful, then he gives us a break for doing bad things, while if he is just, then he does not. Either he gives us what we deserve or less than we deserve. There can be no in-between.

If, in the service of truth, we want to put all cards on the table, then for Dawkins to be right that the God of the Bible might exist, it must be the case that God is not defined such that the very consideration of probability remains off the table. Yet, clearly, this is not the case, suggesting that God plays neither dice, nor cards.

Therefore, if Dawkins is arguing against belief in the aforementioned deity, and I assume he must be given his justifiably impassioned tirade against organized religion together with the absence of a single organized religion based on the deistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic deities held to exist by heroes like Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson, then his argument is flawed and his only logical choice is to either revert to a theistic faith or reject a priori the possibility of God's existence. I suspect he would do the latter if he gave it more thought.

The short version: The problem of evil seems to me to be unanswerable. God scarcely ever appears to do anything, despite ample reasons for him to do so. The Bible is full of serious problems. Christians, despite supposedly being indwelt by the Spirit of God, don't appear to behave any better or show any more wisdom than everyone else. No evidence or arguments in favour of Christianity appear to be anything like as strong as these arguments against. Therefore, I quit.

Read the long version.

Thanks to John W. Loftus at Debunking Christianity for this link.

And congratulations to Gareth McCaughan for deciding to distance himself from Christianity by choosing not to identify with the lot of its adherents. Gareth admits that he does not want to lose his Christian friends and that he is not trying to deconvert them. However, despite this admission, he might lose one or more of them over time over prior allegiance to religious beliefs that conflict with reason. And if loss is not in store for Gareth, then pity is also likely and it does not make the best basis for camaraderie.

In short, it is unfortunately likely that Gareth will lose respect from one or more of his Christian friends. Under what circumstance should anyone respect another who does not question his or her beliefs? It seems to me that blind adherence is not a virtue, but a cry for help.

• Listen (mp3)

I have come to a disturbing, albeit, more realistic, realization recently. I have been comfortable for a while believing that atheists have absolutely no burden of proof when debating with theists the merits of their beliefs and, especially, their lack of beliefs. However, I am beginning to see things differently. I have taken one more step back, you might say.

And what do I see, you might ask? I see that the atheist who not only rejects false religious claims but also strives to understand the truth of reality, cannot achieve this understanding without taking the step I have taken and looking at reality from that vantage. Atheists are not off the hook by rejecting religion. Like theists, atheists also have a burden of proof when debating worldviews.

Before I reveal this realization, let me explain what it has done for me. It has helped me to better understand deism. To the extent that deism is a philosophy that accepts a personal deity, a single deity, or a deity at all in the sense of a single force acting outside the laws of nature or being outside nature itself, deism is certainly irrational, because there is simply no way to know or reason to suspect the truthfulness of these specific claims. However, to the extent that deism accepts the possibility of a source(s) of creation and stops at this level of detail, although this is scarcely enough detail to constitute an -ism, deism scribbles a rational frame of discourse.

It is not that I have been loath to admit this. I never realized it until recently. So what is IT exactly?

The universe is spatiotemporally either infinite or finite. Either way, it contains what we recognize as information. Information is essentially a recognition of ordered difference. Yet, order is necessarily the result of recognizing difference. Therefore, difference is a basic recognition of current spatiotemporal existence.

Moreover and to be precise, given that space and time are interdependent, neither space nor time would exist in any form without some level of difference both within and between them. Something cannot come from nothing. That is, difference cannot arise from sameness. Difference must come from something different.

Is that difference what I call God? No. We need better  terminology. We need a name that does not carry thousands of years of supernatural baggage. The name of God, we should all be able to agree, is anything but that name.

You might wonder if this admission makes me the newest advocate of Intelligent Design. Again, no. Like God, ID is a nominal reference that has been weighted down with reference to supernatural conceptions. And by definition, nothing in nature is supernatural, because nothing in nature is not wholly part of nature, which includes bounds of physical law.

Where does this leave us? It leaves us with a realization that a logical defense of a logical worldview compels us to consider the possibility of a natural, creative force(s) that does or did exist in the universe. It or they need not be eternal or existent. These peripheral considerations are details  that occur beyond the level of our awareness.

Remember what we, as atheists, constantly ask theists. We ask, Have you considered the possibility that maybe God does not exist? Likewise, ask yourselves, my atheistic friends, Have you considered the possibility that something else does? The Big Bang did not create itself, you know.

Today, I took another trip to Barnes & Noble. While standing attentively in the philosophy section, with eyes fixed ahead of me like a hawk ready to swoop down along the path of the exact golden ratio to pounce its prey, it hit me that I had to pee. I had been studying this section of the store intently for a good 10 minutes, looking for an interesting read, anything I might have missed during my last visit. But pickin's was mighty slim. If I'm lucky, the store is clearing out for new arrivals.

The reason I initially walked over to the section was because the man working the Help Desk told me that Richard Dawkins' newest, The God Delusion, was in stock. Their database has it listed in the philosophy section for some mysterious, perhaps divinely inspired, reason. Fortunately, it was in stock. Unfortunately, it isn't being allowed onto the shelves until tomorrow morning. Fortunately, when it gets put on the shelves, it will be on sale right in the front of the store at a holy-crapping discount of 25% off. Unfortunately, it's still getting its feet wet in hardcover and I want paperback. Fortunately, though, I might buy it anyway, since I have seats to see Dawkins lecture about this book at the end of October.

At the very moment that I realized my bladder had started its final countdown to implosion, my eye caught this little white book squeezed between two bigger, darker books, like they were either protecting or trying to squeeze to death this tiny, poor helpless thing. Well, being the compassionate creature I am, I grabbed that book off the shelf without even glancing at the title. No, I'm lying; I did look, but the title basically forced my hand on the issue and I had to do something about it. Guess what it was. It was a copy of Sam Harris's newest book, Letter to a Christian Nation. What luck I have.

I read that super sacriligious sucker in less than a half-hour. It's short and sweet and goes perfect with around 372 mg of the street drug, caffeine, which is an amount that happens to be equivalent to that in a "grande" 16-ounce cup of coffee at Starbucks. Anyhow, after I finished Harris's book and had long since gulped down my coffee, I carefully sat it on the table where I was sitting, stood up, and walked away, leaving it prominently face up so that someone else who really needs its message might see and open it out of curiosity for once.

Sam wrote this book for—and to, using "you" throughout—Christians expressly. However, the book is a page-turner for anyone, Christian, atheist, or other. And it has one of the sweetest quotes on atheism that I believe I have ever read:

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to present evidence of his existence—and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. An atheist is a person who believes that the murder of a single little girl—even once in a million years—casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God.

"An atheist is a person who believes that the murder of a single little girl—even once in a million years—casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God." Can't you taste the sugary satisfaction of gourmet generalizations like this one? Sam, I could not have written it better had I had two more cups of lukewarm coffee. I wish this book had been around when I was in high school, or younger.

Listen, whether you are a devout Christian or a militant atheist, do yourself a huge favor and read this book. There is no conceivable way that you will regret it. Besides, all you have to lose is your ignorance.

What follows is a glimpse of American beliefs and values as distilled from a new national survey.

• 91.8% claim theism
• 5.2% claim atheism
• 31.4% (43.3% in South) claim authoritarian deity
• 23% (28.7% in Midwest) claim benevolent deity
• 16% (21.3% in East) claim critical deity
• 24.4% (30.3% in West) claim distant deity
• 12.2% against all abortion
• 31.2% claim deity favors USA

Source: Baylor Religion Survey, margin of error +/- 4 percentage points

This chart contains a few notable points. First, the Evangelical Protestant group is, by far, the largest and has, by far, the largest percentage of members (45.4%) with a high school education or less. It also has one of the largest percentages of members (23.5%) with at least some college education. However, the difference between these two percentages (21.9%) is striking and is, in fact, the largest of any group.

Second, the Unaffiliated group, which is more likely to include atheists than the Other group, assuming that Other refers to other religious preference, is nearly twice as large as the Other group, 3.5 times as large as the Jewish group, and 4.3 times as large as the Black Protestant group.

The development of a race of superior men will be achieved by the development of men who act in all respects according to reason.

They will determine the best way to do the best things necessary, from a study of all the facts, records and experience of their own and others.

They will depend on facts rather than guesses, -- they will employ science rather than prejudice, -- they will use the best methods instead of traditional methods.

They will discard the fairy tales, mythologies, religions, and superstitions developed by primitive, unscientific and ignorant peoples. Freeing the mind from the accumulations of thousands of years of these mental cobwebs will allow greater attention to progressive, constructive, beneficial thoughts.

One of the most important steps in developing this race of superior men is to free men from the superstitions, religious beliefs, and traditions which develop prejudices, which, in turn prevent the use of reason and build a stone wall against progress, intelligence, and science.

It is the purpose of this book to point the way to freedom from religious, superstitious beliefs as the first step toward reasoning.

The elimination of the mental debris of religion will leave room for the development of reason. (source)

Why am I seeing Pascal's Wager everywhere I look when I look at atheistic websites and blogs? The way people represent this argument, you'd think Pascal could barely count to 10. No offense, but most of you are no Voltaire (who, incidentally, sucked at math) and chances are that had you lived during Pascal's time and gotten a chance to debate with him, he would have easily eaten most of you for a lite midnight snack.

Blaise Pascal was a prodigy, incredible mathematician, philosopher, physicist, pre-computer scientist, inventor, and writer. He was led to religious conversion after having a mystical experience while recovering from a major accident. Together with a shittty childhood and chronic physical pain, a wonderful gift to someone at the onset of adulthood, he apparently needed emotional support and comfort that this Hell on Earth of a life wouldn't be his last. Besides, my bet is that the accident caused some mild, self-repairable brain damage, which would help explain his newfound crankiness.

Now to the Wager. Having read part of Pensées, including the pertinent part, I tend to side with those theists who contend that Pascal's Wager was not intended to be a serious argument either proving the existence of God or persuading hardcore atheists to do a 180° and go nail themselves to an inverted cross like St. Peter. Pascal just wanted to nudge fence-sitters over to his side of the fence. If true, then any and all attempts by hardcore atheists to refute this argument are missing the point and taking potshots (although, he sorta did have it coming) at a dead man.

Here's an idea. Debate me! Why not? It's not like you'll fail to deconvert me, so what do you have to lose, other than the debate? I will pretend to be Alvin Plantinga or maybe Paul Tillich if you prefer, you can pretend to be someone like Joseph McCabe or Baron d'Holbach, and we can debate any topic under the Son. Just tell me when and where and I'm there. I'll even type with one hand if that makes you feel better. Not much of a change there, anyways.

Drawing on a wide range of studies to cross-match faith – measured by belief in God and acceptance of evolution – with homicide and sexual behavior, Paul found that secular societies have lower rates of violence and teenage pregnancy than societies where many people profess belief in God.

Top of the class, in both atheism and good behavior, come the Japanese. Over eighty percent accept evolution and fewer than ten percent are certain that God exists. Despite its size – over a hundred million people – Japan is one of the least crime-prone countries in the world. It also has the lowest rates of teenage pregnancy of any developed nation. (source)

It was updated yesterday. It's a page about why all atheists have Narcissistic Personality Disorder and, among the menfolk, two-inch-when-erect penises. It's called Encyclopedia Dramatica.

The stated purpose of Encyclopedia Dramatica is "to provide a central catalog for the e-public to view parody and satirie of drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets." Try to find a topic of pop culture that this website hasn't covered. Isn't easy.

I'm a fan. Some pokes are more harpoon than lampoon, you might say, poking a little too deeply and drawing blood for the sole reason that the author prides himself in being able to do so, as if no one else online either has the courage or the approved server space to voice a dissenting opinion on typically sensitive cultural issues. But, it's much better that these opinions are put out there on the "internets" and, most of the time, I laugh.

The page I mentioned earlier about atheists can be found here. You might laugh and enjoy it or you might write it off as stupid and say you don't care. My first reaction was annoyance with the author's ignorance, but he clearly expected that, and I suppose he uses it as a clever provision to make himself feel more knowledgeable than he is. But he's clearly not very informed.

Not that I'm going to critique it. There's no point. While the author's opinion is almost certainly an accurate reflection of his honest opinions on the matter and his inability to understand basic logical distinctions is unnerving, were I to critique his article, I would be missing the point that the only point of this website is to unnerve as much of its audience as humanly and technologically possible. And I think the image of Jesus as an atheist makes up for all of this particular author's faults. Plus, they have their very own church!

Today's UNIX fortune:

If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries...
- Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), literary essayist, author

One might presume that atheists unanimously agree about reasons for disbelief in the existence of gods or a particular god, but I find a number of disagreements actively circulating atheistic circles online. Arguments for the inability to prove the nonexistence of god or gods are often given and used to defend a general position on the matter. Below is the first of these arguments that I will discuss on this website.

1. The Inability Argument from Incomprehensibility

   This argument, which might also be called The Inability Argument from Unintelligibility, argues that because God is by definition beyond definition or incomprehensible, it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he does not exist. To understand this argument's logical foundation, first consider who is presumed beyond definition. From my experience, that being is generally presumed to be a specific god, such as God of the Bible.

   If so, then we immediately detect a flaw in this argument. For, by making this argument, the arguer admits to a presumption that he or she knows enough about this being to know that it is, in fact, conclusively incomprehensible. Yet, were that the case, then there would be no logical foundation from which to draw such a conclusion, since, if such a foundation or reasonable point of departure does exist, then there must be enough intelligible information available to conclude that there is no possibility of comprehending said information in its totality.

   For example, it might be argued that because God is defined as omniscient and human knowledge is limited by finite brain capacity, humans cannot hope to prove that God cannot logically exist given the possibility of a set of reasoning that defies human comprehension. However, the problem with this example and the general argument previously mentioned that underlies it is that, while its conclusion may be true, it is impossible to determine to ascertain that truth condition for the same reason that the arguer propounds, namely, that to know God is beyond comprehension requires a mind capable of knowing enough about God to know that it is impossible to know that much or less about him.

The 17^th edition of Vox Populi is now available for your listening and critical thinking indulgence, here. This is the first in the CONTROVERSY EDITION!!! That's right. Atheists disagreeing with themselves. Schizophrenic or rational? You deicide. I think I must have disagreed with everyone on every question. So, in other words, I couldn't possibly be any happier if Jesus, himself, came down from the clouds and cured religiosity.

This Computer May Be Too Smart

Developed in conjunction with researchers at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, the computer uses a camera tocapture people's facial expressions and then applies sophisticatedpattern-matching technology to recognize emotions ranging fromconfusion to concentration.



The potential applications go wellbeyond an interesting experiment. Automakers, online retailers, andteachers are interested in the potential commercial and educationalbenefits of the mind-reading computer, which could enable the use ofmore personalized and adaptive products, services, and learningexperiences. It could even be a boon to people with autism or Aspergersyndrome, by helping them interpret the emotions of others.

And, now, a word from the great and mighty Baron D'Holbach:

In a word, whoever uses common sense upon religious opinions, and will bestow on this inquiry the attention that is commonly given to most subjects, will easily perceive that Religion is a mere castle in the air. Theology is ignorance of natural causes; a tissue of fallacies and contradictions. In every country, it presents romances void of probability, the hero of which is composed of impossible qualities. His name, exciting fear in all minds, is only a vague word, to which, men affix ideas or qualities, which are either contradicted by facts, or inconsistent.

Read more of Good Sense.

Jordan Greenaway, the author of a new, polite (but self-permissibly sarcastic) atheist blog called Logical Cloud , has posted five reasons why he's an atheist and "religion is fake." I prefer the third, since, lately, I've been thinking about how unbelievable it is that monotheists fail to realize that only one of their religions can be true. This ain't Calculus.

Of course, only one religion can be true if you believe that, and if you believe that, you believe that yours is that one. So, I guess I can't expect Christians or Muslims or whoever to see the fly in their ointment.

It would be cool if someone invented a polytheistic version of Christianity where all the other gods worship Yahweh. Let's call it PolyChristianity. Then, PolyChristians could be like, "Mine's bigger than yours." That's all Christians want, anyway.

Of all the big ideas in the history of the world, I have just confirmed with common sense that Christianity is unequivocally the dumbest.

You probably want me to back that up, put my money where my mouth is, etc. No problem, because the following news story is priceless.

The Smalkowski family lives in Hardesty, Oklahoma. Their daughter, Nicole, attends (attended?) Hardesty High School and played on its basketball team. One day, Nicole, an atheist like her father, Chuck, was asked to stand in a circle with her teammates and recite the Lord's Prayer. Nicole bravely refused and, as a result of absolutely impeccable reasoning by school officials, was kicked off the team.

These officials did not know that Nicole is an atheist. When they found out, they began spreading lies about her to justify the dismissal.

When Chuck found out about this, he, his wife, and Nicole went to talk to Hardesty's principal, Lloyd Buckley, at his home. Unfortunately, the Smalkowski family apparently interrupted Lloyd from a regular hypnotherapy session and he was unable to reverse his regression to the mind of a three-year-old. Lloyd answered the door in no mood to talk. Instead, with his infantile state of mind, he tried to pick a fight with Chuck by hitting him. Fortunately, Chuck blocked the blow.

Lloyd didn't like that, so he filed assault charges. Then, he did something really interesting. He offered Chuck and his family a chance to have the charges dropped. The catch? Chuck and his family would have to pack up and leave the state of Oklahoma. Not Hardesty. Oklafuckinhoma.

Well, naturally, Chuck couldn't accept that "bargain." That made Lloyd mad again, so he did what any sane person would do and added a felony to his threat. Yeah, that'll convince them to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.

Chuck realized that he needed outside help, so he talked to someone at American Atheists, the largest atheist organization in the US. They did help and the jury in Chuck's trial took less than two hours to unanimously find him innocent of every dumbass charge.

In an article posted to their website on June 26, American Atheists described the significance of the Hardesty trial as follows:

The true significance of this trial is that this is the first case we know of in American jurisprudence where Atheism has been directly used in as a defense in a criminal trial.

Edwin introduced himself to the jury as National Legal Director for American Atheists and asked the prospective jury in the Oklahoma panhandle if they could accept the testimony of an Atheist over that of a professed Christian. When the jury looked at him blankly, the judge asked the prospects if they understood the question. One woman spoke for many in the group by asking "What is an Atheist?" Edwin explained that an Atheist was a person who did not believe in a god or gods or in a supernatural world, and that the defendant and his entire family were such persons. Many of the prospects said they could not believe such a person over a Christian and were struck for cause. To their credit, many members of the jury panel, including two ministers' wives, told the judge they could not be fair to an Atheist in such a situation and were excused.

Edwin also told the prospective jurors that his co-counsel Tim Gungoll believed Jesus Christ to be his personal savior and that Tim was a practicing Roman Catholic who asked if the jury might feel him a hypocrite to his faith for defending Chuck. Ultimately a jury of twelve was seated who had sworn that they could believe the testimony of an Atheist over that of a Christian.

In closing argument, Edwin told the jury that it really should not be necessary for an Atheist to tell them it is wrong to lie under oath, as he reminded them the Christian school officials and the police had done in their sworn trial testimony. "Thou shall not bare false witness against thy neighbor. Ninth Commandment. Eight if you are Roman Catholic," Kagin said.

The jury believed the Atheists. Unanimously.

The night of the verdict, tornados of unusual violence descended on the panhandle of Oklahoma. The home of the Principal who had brought the false charges against Chuck Smalkowski was severely damaged.

This fact has no relationship whatsoever to the verdict.

A civil lawsuit in Federal Court, with the Smalkowski Family and American Atheists as Plaintiffs, is contemplated. (source)

That is significant. What I find even more significant from my point of view as someone who doesn't have to see a church around every street corner anymore, is that the principal of a high school, who we assume didn't get there without a few brain cells and somewhat of a commitment to education, turned into a three-year-old with a commitment to fighting and whining.

What in God's name could do such a thing to a person? Do you know of anything that would make someone act that insane? I can think of several. Islam is one and sports is another, but I'm thinking of something else, something that has slowly and surreptitiously taken partial or total control of the minds of 2.1 billion people around the world. This army of 2.1 billion salvation-hungry, selective-parts-of-the-Bible followers is trying its best to win the war of ideas and turn the other 4.5 billion people equally insane. That's scary.

What's even scarier is how truly dumb this idea is. Christianity is a religion that tells people they were created with a flaw by a perfect being and are responsible for fixing it or they will suffer eternally. In other words, it's your fault that you were given a fault by a faultless creator. How fucking dumb is that?

Now, do you see why I think theists—or at least Christians—must be on average less intelligent than atheists? They have the mind of a child, and they like it!