Battling the Consensus

In my ongoing discussions with Tim O'Neill, I have observed that he adheres to historical consensus as if it were religious dogma, not to be questioned - ever.  Historical consensus is the bastion of Christians who insist that Jesus was a real person, and who want to tamp down any discussion that might suggest the possibility that they could be wrong.  Take, for example, this article by apologist Steven Bancarz: Did Jesus Exist? All Scholars Agree He “Certainly” Existed, which makes claims that are patently false.  In particular, the title of the article says that "all scholars agree", which is a lie.  (The article then goes on to denigrate and dismiss those scholars who don't agree.)  O'Neill isn't so brazen as to make this same claim, but he uses the same tactic in arguments supporting the consensus.  If you don't have a solid argument, you can always rely on ad  hominem as a tactic to win the battle, and this appears to be one of O'Neill's favorite tactics.

Secular Privilege - Say What?

Shadow To Light is at it again - bending reality to conform with his distorted views.  So obsessed is he with his hatred of atheists, that he sees God-haters and Gnus lurking in every dark corner, creating all the world's problems, and persecuting the poor, innocent children of God like himself, who are pure as the driven snow, and who would never do anything to deserve even the mildest of criticism.  I have already noted that Mikey has a tendency to associate everything he doesn't like with atheism, regardless of whether actual atheists are involved.  And that includes Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), most of whom are not atheists.  But it doesn't matter.  To Mikey, it's all the same.  If he doesn't like something he'll blame it on atheists.

Now, Mikey was recently incensed by an article by Suzannah Weiss about "white privilege", giving nine examples of how white people enjoy advantages in current American society.  As you may know, I am generally in favor of social justice, but I don't feel any great affinity for the SJWs, who often go overboard in their defense of the oppressed, to the point of being oppressive toward the rest of us.  Nevertheless, this article is basically factual and level-headed   So naturally, Mikey had to respond with a diatribe on "secular privilege".  Actually, I think he is quite confused about the difference between 'secular' and 'atheist', but as I noted, it's all the same to him.  See my note about his conflating 'secular' and 'atheist' *.

Three Points About the Dark Ages

Christians, and especially the Catholic Church, love to whitewash their own failings by creating a revisionist history in which they are the heroes - the shining exemplars of virtue and wisdom, the light by which mankind emerges from the darkness, and the source of all good things that we have today.  Even in the 20th century, the church has (fairly successfully) created a revisionist version of their relationships with the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, covering up the fact that many church officials actively cooperated with and supported the fascists, and that the pope stood by in silence while the atrocities raged in Europe.  While there is plenty of documented evidence to dispute their modern revisionism, things become less clear-cut in the more distant past, when (at least in Europe) the church had more complete control over what could be published, and what should be suppressed.  The most obvious example of this historical revisionism is the New Testament, which is still believed by millions of Christians, despite modern historical and scientific advances that make it increasingly untenable.  And in between the modern era and the ancient, things were no different.  Christians also want to paint a revisionist picture of the time when the church dominated virtually every aspect of life and culture in Europe - the period that has come to be known as the Dark Ages.

On Human Rights

I have been thinking about the topic of human rights lately.  Victor Reppert has raised the issue recently, first by pointing out an article in The Guardian from 2010 titled Do human rights exist? that denies the existence of human rights, as if to note the absurdity of the idea, and then writing a short post of his own that continues the same line of reasoning.  Victor says:

We might ask what evidence there is that rights exist. You have a feeling that everyone ought to be treated equally. Isn't that just your social conditioning? If you grew up in India, and were raised to believe that people occupy different positions in the caste system based on the Law of Karma, wouldn't you think that the idea that everyone was created (or evolved?) equal was slightly ridiculous? - Reppert

It is clear, at least in Victor's case, that this is intended as a kind of satire.  Victor is slaying two dragons with one arrow.  First, he seems to be ridiculing the notion that human rights might not exist, since they are self-evident by his way of thinking, even if some cultures may not agree.  Second, if you can accept that argument, then you can agree with him that John Loftus' Outsider Test for Faith is faulty as well.  I won't address the merits of Loftus' OTF in this article, but I would like to consider the question of human rights.

Religionist Frothing at the Mouth

Over at Shadow To Light, Mikey wages a never-ending campaign of hatred against "New Atheists", or Gnus, as he often calls them.  Now he's picking on a kid for simply advocating secularism in the home.  That's all.  This 17-year-old, known as Cosmic Skeptic, seems pretty level-headed to me.  Did he say anything hateful or unkind toward religion or religious people?  No.  Did he make some snarky remark, or use ridicule?  No.  He simply expressed his opinion that parents should allow their children to make their own decisions about religious beliefs without being coerced into any particular religion by the parents.  And for that, Mikey has branded him with the pejorative label of "Gnu".