ATHEIST (long) CREED - We must unite!

Atheists, we must stand united! It’s RALLY time, in the name of the Dawkins, Hitchens and Holy Me – it is imperative to hold our ground, “God does NOT exist!”

We are NOT God’s creatures. We believe nothing created everything – all time, space, matter and energy – and will NEVER capitalize the ‘N’. Universe happens! We hold that the universe is all-material, period. We know empirically that random, chaotic, non-supernaturally created matter, combined with billions of year’s worth of chemical reactions, explains the complexity of the inner bio-chemistry of the cell’s DNA. It was NOT designed by a Designer. If you need further evidence, visit a few atheist blogs, they'll back up my truth claim.

Our godless worldview rests on the supreme truth that given enough time, “Rock, Paper and Scissors will begin playing by themselves."

Moreover, in addition to the philosophy of ‘Universe Happens!’, we believe that ape evolved to man, and that rocks evolved to mind. Sure it takes great faith to be an atheist -- that's why we're an elite group and only 5% of the world population actually believes seemingly baseless claims. "Let go and let Darwin."

Another founding godless truth that we must hold is that ‘Life Happened!’ – it just...did. Grab a high school text book to learn more; there are pictures. The Cliffs Notes version is that it was a result of a densely hot primordial gob of gook being struck by lighting, ABSENT the supernatural.

If you need to escape the accountability of origins, is easy – simply coyly and confidently throw around the word ‘SINGULARITY’. For those really annoying Christians who persist in the arena of accountability, boldly claim science will “one day” answer the ‘How?’ and simply ignore the ‘Why?’. Then, aggressively turn the tables on them and vehemently ask, “How can your all-good, all-knowing, all-loving sky-daddy-spaghetti-monster-god sit on the sidelines during earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and all those other natural disasters and watch millions of children DIE over the years? Huh?! Huh?!!”

(Note: It’s best to ignore the natural fact that without plate tectonics and our weather patterns, Earth would look like Mars and life could never have existed in the first place. Miss that point on purpose.)

MISSION CRITICAL: Our atheist worldview MUST hold that the heart of the matter is matter, so NEVER, EVER concede this point. The Christian worldview ignorantly posits that the heart of the matter is the non-matter of the heart. Whacko’s.

So to review, not believing in God, we do not think ourselves to be God's creatures. And not believing in God, we do not think the universe has been created by God. That is to say, we think of ourselves and the world as just being there. Now, if we actually were God's creatures, then it’s true, our present attitude is very unfair to Him. In that case, it is even an insult to Him. And having insulted God, His displeasure rests upon us. God and our camp are not on "speaking terms." And we thus have very good reasons for trying to prove that He does not exist. If He does exist, He will punish us for our disregard of Him. So we are therefore wearing colored glasses, big deal. And this determines everything we say about the facts and reasons for not believing in Him. We have had our picnics and hunting parties on His estate without asking His permission. We have taken the grapes of God's vineyard without paying Him any rent and we have insulted His representatives who asked us for it. Do you blame us? Our subjective desire that God does NOT exist fogs our ability to be intellectually honest. But don’t let that nag at your atheism. UNITE!

In taking our united stand, we MUST require an apology from the Christian zealots. They who believe in God have not always made their positions plain. All too often they have talked with us about facts and sound reasons as though they agreed with us on what these really are. In their arguments for the existence of God, they have frequently assumed that we and they together have an area of knowledge on which we agree. But they really do not grant that we see any fact in any dimension of life truly. They really think we have colored glasses on our noses when they talk about chickens and cows, as well as when they talk about the life hereafter. They should have told us this more plainly than they did. But they were really a little ashamed of what would appear to us as a very odd or extreme position. They were so anxious not to offend us that they offended their own God. But I read in an atheist blog and confirmed it on that same atheist’s mySpace page after receiving his Twitter that the Christians dare no longer present their God to us as smaller or less exacting than He really is! Their God wants to be presented as the All-Conditioner, as the emplacement on which even those who deny Him must stand. Ridiculous. UNITE!

Now in presenting all our facts and reasons to them, we have assumed that such a God does not exist. That’s the right strategy! It’s important to take for granted that we need no emplacement of any sort outside of ourselves. WE MUST ASSUME THE AUTONOMY OF OUR OWN EXPERIENCE! Consequently, we are unable -- that is, unwilling -- to accept as a fact any fact that would challenge our self-sufficiency. And we are bound to call that contradictory which does not fit into the reach of our intellectual powers. Got that?!

Good news – the fact that so many atheists are placed before a full exposition of the evidence for God's existence and yet do not believe in Him has greatly discouraged the Christians. They have therefore adopted measures of despair. Anxious to win our good will, they have again compromised their God. Noting the fact that atheists do not see, they have conceded that what we “ought” to see is hard to see. In their great concern to win friends and influence atheists, many have allowed that the evidence for God's existence is only probably compelling. And from that fatal confession, some have even gone one step further down to the point where they have admitted (or virtually admitted) that it is not really compelling at all. And so they fall back upon testimony instead of argument. After all, they say, God is not found at the end of an argument; He is found in our hearts. So they simply testify to atheists that once they were dead, and now they are alive, that once they were blind and that now they see, and give up all intellectual argument. That’s good for our side, especially since the whole concept of truth presupposes the Christian outlook on life – it’s so darned difficult to defer to a “small ‘n’” (as in ‘nothing created everything’) reference point when required to make facts and the laws of logic, science and morals intelligible. Shhhh, keep this Achilles heel amongst our god-denying group.

Speaking of unity, on one hand there’s the unity of the atheist worldview that is the result of our own autonomous determination of what is possible. On the other, there’s a Christian unity that is higher than theirs and prior to theirs. On the basis of God's counsel, they can look for facts and find them without destroying them in advance. On the basis of God's counsel they can be a good physicist, a good biologist, a good psychologist, or a good philosopher. In all these fields they use their powers of logical arrangement in order to see as much order in God's universe as it may be given a creature to see. The unities, or systems that they make are true because [they are] genuine pointers toward the basic or original unity that is found in the counsel of God.

Ticks me off, but I digress (again).

Christians see both order and disorder in every dimension of life. But they look at both of them in the light of the Great Orderer Who is back of them. The Christians need not deny either of them in the interest of optimism or in the interest of pessimism. They see the strong men of biology (our camp) searching diligently through hill and dale to prove that the creation doctrine is not true with respect to the human body, only to return and admit that the missing link is missing still. They see the strong men of psychology (our camp) search deep and far into the sub-consciousness, child and animal consciousness, in order to prove that the creation and providence doctrines are not true with respect to the human soul, only to return and admit that the gulf between human and animal intelligence is as great as ever. They see the strong men of logic and scientific methodology (our camps) search deep into the transcendental for a validity that will not be swept away by the ever-changing tide of the wholly new, only to return and say that they can find no bridge from logic to reality, or from reality to logic. And yet they (our camp) find all these, though standing on their heads, reporting much that is true. They need only to turn their reports right side up, making God instead of man the center of it all, and they have a marvelous display of the facts as God has intended them to see them. Frustrating for our team, yes, but we must unite and deny, okay team?!

Oh be forewarned, they’ll say that if their unity is comprehensive enough to include the efforts of those who reject it, it is large enough even to include that which those who have been set upright by regeneration cannot see. Their unity is that of a child who walks with its father through the woods. The child is not afraid because its father knows it all and is capable of handling every situation. So they readily grant that there are some "difficulties" with respect to belief in God and His revelation in nature and Scripture that they cannot solve. They’ll admit that in fact there is mystery in every relationship with respect to every fact that faces them, for the reason that all facts have their final explanation in God Whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and Whose ways are higher than our ways. And it is exactly that sort of God that they need. Without such a God, without the God of the Bible, the God of authority, the God who is self-contained and therefore incomprehensible to men, there would be no reason in anything. No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is an explanation at all. Maddening, isn’t it? But miss the point anyway. Focus instead on slavery in the Bible, adultery, child-drowning, incest and make sure you know all the websites you can link to that touts all the contradictions in the Bible (do NOT pay attention to the Christian websites that refute our refutations, though...bad form).

ATHEIST DEBATE TACTICS: First and foremost, remember that YOU are not on trial, God is! Our character is not questionable, the OGRE God of the OT’s is. Abandon all consideration that proof for the Christian God is that without Him our side can prove nothing – it’s just not good for your disbelief. Ignore the Christian argument that unless we have God as the All-Conditioner, life is chaos in our material world. Forget that all chemical origin of life theories have been broken down and abandoned; that the “let there be life” thing is scientifically inexplicable. Ignore the fact we cannot objectively account for “oughts” when complaining about “what ought to be.” Place your fingers in your ears and sing, “Nah-nah-bum-bud-dee-doo” when they argue from the impossibility of the contrary. DEFLECT to a different line of argument when they press you on who your ultimate authority is in making the facts and abstract laws of logic, math, science, morals and ethics comport with intelligent experience. Learn how to create a straw man argument whenever you read, “What is YOUR atheistic standard to what is true?” or “What is evil in your worldview? – account for it.” Master the ad hominem.

Don’t over-think ANY of these arguments. Just shout, “Bible contradiction, Bible contradiction!” “Crusades!” “Slavery!” “Evolution!” “Borrowed myth!” “Problem of Evil!” “Bad God, mean God, baby-drowning God!” And when the going really gets tough, condescendingly claim, “Go ahead, if you want to read your fairytale for grown-ups written by a bunch of illiterate goat-herders back in the Bronze-age, go ahead – we free thinkers prefer non-fiction.”

FOR ARCH-ATHEIST BLOGGERS: If you’re an esteemed atheist blogger, when a Christian posts, “In an atheist world of random chance and chaotic matter in motion, what right do you have to expect the uniformity of nature?”...DELETE THEIR POST. It’s your autonomous movie, Blogmaster! Ban the Christ-lovers who claim, “Anti-theism presupposes theism!” NG! Oh, and bring up Hitler being Christian.

YES, ATHEISTS, UNITE! Christians shall not convert us at the end of their arguments! They think their arguments are sound. They hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; they hold rather that unless we believe in God we can logically believe in nothing else. But since they believe in such a God, a God who has conditioned us as well as them, they know that we can to our own satisfaction, by the help of the biologists, the psychologists, the logicians, and the Bible critics reduce everything they have said to the circular meanderings of a hopeless authoritarian sky-Daddy-god. Well, their meanderings have, to be sure, been circular; they have made everything turn on God. I guess now they’ll leave us with Him, His mercy and our expiration date on our disbelief.

Last but certainly not least, they may share with you that there's a God-shaped hole in your heart that Christianity can fill. I have no idea what they're talking about. It's all craziness to me.

(photo by James Steidl)