The Circle of Life

Watch as proud Mensa member Vox Day proves he's correct by assuming first, that he's correct:

    But the point around which every atheist vs. theist debate seems to revolve endlessly is that of morality. Theists, of course, have a perfectly logical argument for the application of their god-based moralities which even the most die-hard rational atheist will not reject given the postulate that God actually exists and created the universe. In short, God's game, God's rules.

Yes, it's true: if you assume the premise of an all-powerful, origin-of-everything, God, there's no reason you shouldn't accept that he's the all-powerful origin of whatever it is you want to claim. Amazing, that God. And if you opt for the extra degree of difficulty, you can assume that logic itself is the creation of God! Then you can claim that it's not illogical to start with an illogical premise, because you can't use logic at all if you don't! No, it's not circular reasoning; in fact it's not reasoning at all.

    Atheists, ironically enough, enjoy no similar logical advantage...

Again, the truth is inescapable: by not assuming extra-logical premises, atheists put themselves at a huge disadvantage to those who do. It's like going into battle against an army of all-powerful invisible genies from the fifth dimension, armed with nothing but a 10th grade math book and the definition of Begging The Question. Stupid atheists.

    ..., and are usually reduced to arguing that they are personally behaving in a moral manner based on a morality that someone could invent if he just sat down and thought about it enough, although strangely, none of them ever claim to have actually done so himself.

I don't know about "usually", though I have seen it happen. It usually (no, it's OK if I use the word) goes something like: what religions claim as divinely dictated morality is really common sense and variations of the Golden Rule. And it usually turns into an evolutionary explanation: what religions claim for their own is simply basic animal instinct. For example, few animals do go out of their way to kill each other, unless they feel threatened somehow. Without "Thou Shalt Not Kill, unless [long list of exceptions]" as a fundamental instinctive behavior, it would be tough for any species to survive at all. Survival of a species is hard enough, without individuals killing off potential mates (or the parents of potential mates). And that goes double for a social species like our's since we need each other around to survive; losing someone in your 'tribe' hurts the whole tribe - so killing someone in your tribe for no reason hurts everyone. And that's without even getting into things like empathy, the potential for having to deal with revenge from your victim's loved-ones, etc.. What part of "Fuck with my friends or relatives and I will kill you" requires a god to understand?

But right or wrong, those are attempts to answer a question that we don't have to bother answering! If we just accept that everything is the result of an omnipotent, omniscient, origin-of-all god, we can just stop asking questions and just put our faith in tinkering and happy accidents. It's the only logical thing to do.

9 thoughts on “The Circle of Life

  1. marbel

    Aren’t we supposed to wait a few hundred years and have *others* write it down for us ? ;)
    (sorry ’bout the messed up link in first comment)

  2. cleek

    shouldn’t any nerd worth the name have a favicon

    i tried, but i just couldn’t draw anything that looked good in a 16×16 box.

    Aren’t we supposed to wait a few hundred years and have *others* write it down for us ?

    :)

  3. marbel

    draw….. how about a nice photo? I looked at cleeks, but they are rather boring as picture subjects ;) but you have plenty of nice ones…

    There are a lot of online faviconbuilders (though a lot require IE :( )

    It’s not just for fun, it’s about recognizability. I’ve used tabbed browsers for years, but other browsers start to add it too – and with lot’s of tabs a favicon makes it much easier to recognize which tab holds which page…

    [/me steps off one of the hobbyhorses in her hugh stables]

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