Marc Barnes…

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 3:35 pm by Mark Shea

Marc Barnes… 2014-12-30T15:35:46-07:00 Mark Shea

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…deals with yet another New Atheist whose worship of his own intellect is in vast disproportion to his almost non-existent use of that intellect. Funny, patient stuff.

Seriously, what strikes me again and again about Internet Atheist culture is how, well, dumb these guys are who constantly trumpet their immense intellectual superiority. They can’t even get elementary facts right, much less construe the meaning of those facts. Moreover, they are stupefyingly incurious when you point that out. And this is in addition to the legendary lack of social and affective skills that allow normal people to navigate ordinary human interactions without looking like clueless gits.

As this pattern continues, Internet Atheism look more and more like a sort of mental virus (why, one might almost call it a “meme”) whose sole purpose is simply to mindlessly propagate the thought “I am smarter!” like the ancient mob shouting “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” again and again. The Internet Atheist huddles with his peer group, repeating the same cherished legends over and over, safe in a bubble of epistemic closure in which shibboleths like “Flying Spaghetti Monster!” and “Galileo!” and “Stem Cells” are repeated like old nuns telling their beads. Nothing is allowed to intrude on the smooth worn repetition of this little mental treadmill. No actual questions are asked, only fake questions masking dogmatic negations. No new knowledge is sought because it is imagined that their knowledge is complete and unassailable. And this dogmatic incuriosity these people call “Science, Reason, and Intellect”. It’s the most barren expression of the most barren form of intellectual work in the world. How do these people not perish from boredom? Surely sooner or later worshipping one’s intellect while keeping it safe from all use must get suffocatingly dull.

Suggestion to Internet Atheists: If not for God’s sake, then at least for your own education and for the relief of knowledgeable Catholics from the pea shooter assaults of “The Church: Enemy of SCIENCE” brigades, go here and learn *something* beyond your peer group’s parrot talk about the actual relationship of Catholic teaching to the sciences and reason. Then ask yourself, “If I’m so incredibly smart, why can’t I think of any name but Galileo’s to illustrate the supposed War On Science conducted by the Church?” Learn to use and not just worship your intellect.

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Intellect worship vs. intellect use

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