Mr. Mehta, and a Briefer Defense of a Brief Piece

Last updated on: May 15, 2012 at 3:15 pm by Marc

Mr. Mehta, and a Briefer Defense of a Brief Piece 2012-05-15T15:15:48-04:00 Marc

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Now what Chesterton said is true, that “the atheist is not interested in anything except attacks on atheism.” Thus my last post, 3 Arguments Atheists Aren’t Allowed To Use Anymore, attracted the beautiful and educated eyes of a certain Mr. Mehta, who contributes to The Friendly Atheist. Whether he really is friendly is a thing I’m unsure about, for the word “friend” is derived from the Old English freond, “to love,” and to love is to desire the ultimate good of the beloved, and the ultimate of good of my posts is to be a) paid no mind or b) to lead further to the harsh, fluorescent glare of truth.

My post was simultaneously paid attention to and left entirely undiscussed. The whole point of the 3 Arguments post was not “Here, 3 brilliant things internet atheists say, watch me rebut them!” — though in fairness, I have been caught doing that in public a number of times. No, the point of the post was that these were 3 Arguments that were hardly arguments at all, perpetuated by a great number of well-meaning but very foolish redittors, 9gaggers, dawkins-fan-boys and other Very Cool Kids.

Thus when Mr. Mehta says, of my claim that Babies Aren’t Atheists:

“Just because they might have thoughts about the supernatural at a young age doesn’t mean any of it is accurate. Just because children believe in Santa doesn’t make him real. And no one really believes babies are thinking about Jesus or Allah or Vishnu or miracles or all the other nonsense that comes along with belief in god…”

I couldn’t agree with him more wholeheartedly. But I in no way, shape, or awkward contortion made such an silly argument — I merely pointed out that the popular meme that gets shared around:

…is false. It would be equally false to say that babies are born theists. All we know for sure is that babies are born thinking supernaturally. Whether that’s something that needs to be logiked out of ’em is the rest of the discussion, and the reason Mr. Mehta and I inflict our thoughts upon the blog-reading public.

This is the same of the priests as child-molesters. I made no argument that there haven’t been priests who’ve raped children, nor that the administrative actions of the bishops with authority over those priests were always good. I merely argued the the stereotype is whack.

As for the last argument, I can only assume Mr. Mehta was momentarily caught up the intoxicating presence of Divine Love here, because this…

**“**Barnes is responding to the idea that, in Genesis, God created light on Day 1… but the Sun/Moon/Stars on Day 4. (His response: God just created photons on Day 1, you guys…)

Well, I guess if you think a fertilized egg is basically the same thing as a grown fetus, that’s not a huge stretch…

I don’t even need to get into the science, though. This is only one of *many* things Genesis gets wrong if taken at face value. And it goes against the 60% of Americans who believe in the literal six-day-Creation-myth in Genesis (according to The Barna Group).”

…ain’t no argument. Not only did I specifically say “the first recognizable particle to form after the Big Bang were photons…particles representing a quantum of light or other electromagnetic radiation”, and nothing about God creating photons, but also — what?

Mr. Mehta accuses me of attacking strawmen. It’s certainly possible. But surely the complaint of strawmannery is awkward when Mr. Mehta claims that I made arguments that — with just a click — any man may verify I did not?

Despite this, and in the words of Bernard Shaw, it’s all good in the hood. Thanks to Mr. Mehta’s kind response, I plan on writing “Why Religion is an Integral Part of Human Nature”, a comprehensive answer to the question, “Did the Catholic Bishops Intentionally Shelter Child Molesters?” and — to finish all the goodness — “How Catholics Read Genesis #everywordisrealerthanscience.”

I’d also like to invite Mr. Mehta to engage in a debate, back and forth, on the question of god/God, if he is so inclined.

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