Friday, May 04, 2007

I Double-Team a Troll... Sort Of

Spent a little time with a typical fundie going by the name of John, trolling at Scientia Natura. He made a number of typical appeals. They wouldn't even be convincing when I was a theist, and my quantum-temporally displaced self emerging from the Star-Trekky anomaly forming in my office is here to show why.

First, some of the stuff that's not really about evidence, but I think it speaks strongly about John and his deity's character. Mind the bits of poison in the well, but I felt I had to bring it up anyway.

John: If you don't believe in my god, you're going to Hell!
Current Atheist Self: 1. Threats of violence aren't convincing. 2. Threats of violence, especially of the eternal type, are inherently immoral. 3. Why exactly would I want to worship a deity who does such ghastly things? 4. If, through some other means, you convinced me of your god's existence, you're making the ultimate endorsement for Satanism.
Past Theist Self: What he said, plus anything so immoral cannot be an omnibenevolent god, and wouldn't even quality as a decent human. Are you sure you're not a Satanist feigning Christianity?

John: My god won't reveal himself to you on a whim, because he's got a super-secret divine plan (which is somehow mysteriously good) that involves not revealing himself so that some people go to Hell to serve as an example!
Current Atheist Self: Discriminating against people based on their beliefs is wrong, especially when such discrimination leads to eternal torment. What makes it worse is that you're saying he deliberately hides evidence in order to send people to Hell.
Past Theist Self: Exactly what he said. Are you sure you're not a Satanist?

Now onto circular arguments and non-answers.

John: Believe in my god, and you'll see all the evidence for him!
Current Atheist Self: This is a typical plea for me to enter into confirmation bias, rather than look at objective evidence.
Past Theist Self: My god says you're lying.

John: Macroevolution is impossible!
Me (both): Why? It's just a lot of microevolution adding up. That's like saying that single steps can't add up to a journey of a thousand miles.
John: Macroevolution is like walking through space to get to the moon!
Me: But what's analogous to the vacuum of space in evolution?
John: The vacuum is the stuff that nature can't do!

Current Atheist Self: How do we tell the difference between the literal and the metaphorical parts of the Bible?
John: Logic!
Current Atheist Self: But what's the logical test?
John: The perfect ones God put in the brain!
Past Theist Self: Burn the ones that contradict God's omnibenevolence. Like all mentions of a pointlessly eternal Hell, for instance. The ones that contradict scientific and historical research are either metaphorical or just plain wrong, since nature, and thus science, is the actual source document. The Bible is just the heavily edited Reader's Digest version.

I'm a little embarrassed about my past theist self, but only to about the level of being embarrassed by old Halloween photos of my youth. As for what got me started on atheism, well it was the seemingly inevitable conclusion from thinking scientifically, and holding God's omnibenevolence as the highest priority. Since the world wasn't perfect, he obviously wasn't omnipotent, and free will would contradict his omniscience. He kind of shrank into pointlessness and disappeared, but it was an honorable death. Much better than resurrecting him as a malicious malfunctioning six million dollar deity without a shred of compassion.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

According to his last comments, in two posts, he said he was a poser. Ironically, even if he was, I couldn't tell the difference, until he said so.

-Berlzebub

Anonymous said...

It's the Six Million Dollar Deity!

do do do do do...erm, what's the correct spelling for that sound effect?

Anonymous said...

@stogoe

na na na na na...

At least, that's how I remember it. Hard to do a synthesizer with letters.

Anonymous said...

No, "na na na na na" was Chevy Chase in Caddyshack. The Six Million Dollar Man was more of a zhә-zhә-zhә-zhә-zhә-zhә. And you have to make the proper running-in-slow-motion movements, or it just doesn't work.

Anonymous said...

Your Six Million Dollar Deity may have a cool sound effect, but my God is a One Billion, Gagillion, Fafillion, Shabolubalu Million Illion Yillion Yen Deity.

(Apologies for the link to a commercial website, but I couldn't find a non-commercial sound link. Best to open it in a new window.)

Bronze Dog said...

That's okay. Commercial websites are alright if they're somehow related.

One thing I'm usually glad to see is a link to a t-shirt that sums up a point made in the post.

Mostly what I'm against is transparent spamming.

Anonymous said...

Much better than resurrecting him as a malicious malfunctioning six million dollar deity without a shred of compassion.

I would, as a personal point, quibble over the choice of terms here. "Resurrecting" implies He didn't start out that way...

Shalini said...

He was a poser, actually.

Ah, well. There is no way to differentiate the head-banging stupidity of real fundies from the trolls.

Bing said...

tche-tche-tche-tche-tche

Excellent posting.

HJ