I've started using The Guardian app. on Facebook. As an English student, I should probably have been buying this newspaper anyway but as a teenager, it obviously took Facebook to get me reading and not the lure of actually spending money on something physical. What can I say, I'm on a limited budget. However, my appalling lack of reading is besides the point because this evening, after returning from Manchester with a belly full of cherry beer and nachos, I was pretty happy and then after spending two minutes reading an article on this website, my blood was boiling, and not in the pleasant way that it is when I'm about to get some.
You probably don't care why this was but because I'm pretty narcissistic, I refuse to believe that nobody really gives a shit about me and what I think and so I'll tell you. It was this article:
(Note: you do actually need to read that to understand any of what I'm about to say.)
Now, I do not have a huge problem with atheists. I understand the arguments, and I agree that they're pretty impressive. Because they are. They rely on science and things that can be proven, concrete evidence. They're fascinating. However, something that most people don't realise when they decide to be an atheist is that you do actually need to do some research on both sides of the argument. Reading a Richard Dawkins book does not give you valid enough reason to be a hardcore atheist. It would make sense for you to also read some arguments by intelligent, rational Christians. The head of The Human Genome project, for example, is Francis Collins. He is an esteemed scientist, an extremely intelligent man and a Christian. He presents logical arguments for the existence of God.
This patronising imbecile though, has clearly not done any such thing. This article is supposed to be a response to a Pentecostal Christian's questions challenging atheism but, and here is the problem we face here, it is not any such thing. It is a condescending piss-take that doesn't so much poke fun at Christianity but explicitly states that any religious person is an idiot, without actually answering any of the guy's questions.
For example:
"the creationist, a presumably Penetecostal deacon from Lancashire, who lives in an alternate universe in which there is scientific disproof of evolution, suppressed by the wicked establishment."
This is the response to the questions which you have just read, the first being "How come something came from nothing?", which, I think most people will agree, is a perfectly valid question worth a good deal of consideration. Philosophers have spent their lives trying to answer this question but this bigoted journalist feels that he is above any such thing and so completely ignores it. The majority of the article consists of him not answering the questions, preferring to tell the guy to shut up and accusing him of living in an "alternate universe". The person asking the questions does not actually claim that evolution is a false theory: this is just the journalist doing his best to make the person seem as if they have been living under a rock for their entire lives and are therefore in no position to question anything.
Atheists claim that for something to be true, it needs evidence. "I'll see and then I'll believe", is probably one of the biggest sayings amongst the atheist community. However, this man makes claims that he cannot possibly back up because they are literally just his opinions (for example, "Evolution is not God's enemy but his greatest alibi") without seeing the total hypocrisy in doing that. If you want evidence for God and for miracles and the like then give me some evidence for that. "ragadowblay" commented on the article saying "Man created god because man had to find a way of dealing with death", again, proof? If your main problem with religious people is that you find their arguments empty and don't see sufficient evidence in them then provide some evidence for the opposing argument!
As far as atheism goes, I don't see it as being any threat whatsoever to arguments of theistic faith. Well done, you can impress me with your science. Too bad that science actually brings millions of people closer to God as they are awestruck by the amazing precision of the world around us. Congratulations, you can scream statistics about how many people are killed as a result of religious fundamentalists or how many children are molested by Catholic priests. Well it's too fucking bad that you're too stupid to realise that PEOPLE doing evil things does not disprove God, it just shows that humanity is prone to fucking up on a pretty regular basis. And really, kudos to you for showing just how mature you are by resorting to mockery to get your point across. Yes, you may well be witty but if you have to rely on playground bullying to get somewhere then you're really not doing very well are you?
Fuck you Andrew Brown. I'm too annoyed to get my point across so I'm leaving it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment