Sometimes I just love the complete asininity of the new mistheists. I use the term mistheist, because we are not really talking about simple atheists; atheists simply do not acknowledge the existence of God, or gods, or supernatural powers, whereas mistheists actively hate God and work to discredit and annoy believers.
I was a mistheist. I used to make asinine comments about God and His believers. I lived to annoy people of faith. Well... I take that back... like most mistheists, I really only lived to annoy Christians. I thought I was so much more clever than these silly and credulous believers, and so I would mock them and try to make them question their faith with all my 'clever' and 'original' arguments (arguments that I had learned from watching television and having no experience with faith or God).
The inherently anti-rational position of the mistheist is a morass of contradictions and self-delusion. The hatred of God emerges not so much from a love of evil, as it does from shame. The mistheist is so ashamed of the things that he has done, things that he knows are inherently wicked and sinful (even if they have been permitted and normalized by the society at large), and that he must lash out at the one thing that he knows he cannot lie to or hide from. The mistheist denies God, because he knows that God exists; the mistheist knows that he will be judged and he fears this judgment. This fear is so overwhelming that it drives the mistheist away from his only opportunity for resolution… for salvation.
Ultimately, the only possible justification for the hatred of God that is expressed by people like Dawkins and Hitchens, is the egoism that can only be born of true nihilism.
The nihilist denies that there is any God, any purpose, and ultimately (even he does not realize it), any reason in the universe. The mistheist has chosen to do this because his ego will not permit him to recognize an authority above himself; the mistheist has chosen to do this, because he fears a final judgment and cannot bring himself to admit his weakness. Ironically, it is precisely this weakness that the mistheist construes as strength… and it is this weakness that keeps him from realizing the Truth.
Sadly, although you start out on the right track, you show a very great ignorance of where the mistheists come from. Though I - as a athiest* - like the term "mistheist", your initial definition of it, and share your loathing for the character definciencies of Hitchens, Dawkins, and the like, the final three paragraphs of this entry are a useless straw man argument. I used to be a mistheist also, and I can state with certainty, that the statements from the second half of the third paragraph through the end are all falsehoods, at least as far as I, even then, was concerned.
ReplyDeleteThe arrogance of the mistheist is no different from the tremendous arrogance you are displaying here, particularly in the final sentence, and stems from the inability to recognize that faith and reason are orthogonal. Any attempt to understand one in terms of the other is meaningless and will fail; therefore, to someone fully committed to one, the beliefs of the other seem inexplicable except by some sort of clear deficiency of mind or character. You have made no more valid argument here against them than they have about you, and no less completely incorrect.
(*I reject the term athiest, actually. You do not believe that leprechauns exist, but do you call yourself an aleprechaunist? If pressed, I refer to myself as an empiricist, I think that covers all that needs be said.)
Reason and faith are not, however, orthogonal.
ReplyDeleteAll human reasoning sits on a foundation of faith. Even empiricism requires basic statements of faith before you can begin to reason.
In mathematics, these basic statements of faith are referred to as "axioms." In other systems, as "dogmas", or "unquestioned hypotheses that are not falsifiable."
Even "science" has its dogmas.