“Dear Atheists, Come Back to God” – The Stupid is strong in this one.

Opposing Views is a US website where “experts” debate topics. In this case there is a reason for the scare quotes, the “expert” in question turns out to be “Answers in Genesis”, a bunch of creationist kooks who hold views that are so weird, that other creationists denounce them as “misguided” and assert that this group “deliberately misleads”.

To illustrate that last point here are a few examples:

• They claim that unicorns are real – yes really.
• They also claim that dragons are real – Yes really.

In other words, they have long ago departed from reality and are so far over the horizon that other nuts consider them to be nuts.

Anyway, they have an article in Opposing Views, and also replicated on their web site that attempts (quite successfully) to cram an astonishing degree of byzantine bullshit into as few words as possible, so perhaps deserves some attention … basically, their lunacy is reaching new heights, so we have something new to mock and laugh at.

I’ve mined out a few gems, and don’t have to look very hard … the first line reads …

Are you tired of all the evil associated with the philosophy of atheism—Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and so on?

Sigh! … Can I invoke Godwins law now? Hitler was in fact a believer of some sort, he believed in divine guidance and denounced non-belief. As for Stalin and Pol Pot, both political fanatics, and did what they did, not because they did not believe, but because they were both psychopaths. Oh, and that link of theirs takes you to a truly weird anti-evolution rant.

…they are not really living like a true Christ follower (who strives to follow God’s Word)

Not following God’s word, oh wait, would that be the book in which we find ethnic cleansing and slaughter dished out by direct command of a God on a… (if you will forgive the term) … biblical scale, is that the one you mean? It strikes me that the prime modern examples of such a policy are Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.

Do you feel conflicted about the fact that atheism has no basis in morality?

Nope, but perhaps that is because it says nothing at all about morality, it is simply the logical conclusion to silly God claims. Morality comes from an empathy with my fellow humans, and not from a dusty old book that directs believers to slaughter innocent people.

…knowing that you are essentially no different from a cockroach

I think this author might have missed biology 101 in school.

Are you tired of the fact that atheism … has no basis for logic and reasoning?

So, non-belief as a logical and reasoned conclusion due to a complete lack of evidence is supposed to be something that has no basis for logic and reasoning … and belief, the stuff that requires you to embrace things as true without any evidence at all, is based upon logic and reasoning … and … (oh bugger, I just broke my irony meter).

Is it tough trying to get up every day thinking that truth, which is immaterial, really doesn’t exist?

I’m quite frankly astonished that the author can put big words together and can actually spell “immaterial”. Something is true if we have verifiable evidence to confirm it, and something is not true if there is no evidence for it at all. He might indeed claim that his god concept is immaterial, but he also claims his god intervenes in our world in a tangible way. Sadly for him, that is a hypothesis that fails all tests. The fact that many truly think it all to be real says a great deal about human psychology, but nothing at all about the truth of the claim.

Do you feel like you need a weekend to recoup, even though a weekend is really meaningless in an atheistic worldview

Ah, so the bible talks about a seven-day week, so clearly the judeo-christian god invented that? Nope, that’s wrong, it is of course a cultural artefact that has its origins in the Babylonian civilization, hence is clearly evidence that the Babylonian gods are the true gods … er, perhaps not. He rambles on about “animals, like bees, don’t take a day of rest” … what a twat, if we use that exact same logic we can also cook up equally absurd assertions, for example, “animals, like bees, don’t go to church / pray / believe” so they are clearly all atheists.

For professing atheists, these questions can be overwhelming

That may in fact be correct, I am indeed completely overwhelmed … with laughter.

…atheists are claiming to be God. Instead of saying there may not be a God, they say there is no God. To make such a statement, they must claim to be omniscient

Yes another WTF moment, but to be honest, if you read the article, almost every fracking line is a WTF moment. His god claim is dismissed due to a lack of evidence … period, that is the entire scope.

…the faith of atheism

Oh, so non-belief is now a belief … which means that “Off” is a channel on his TV.

At this point the degree of stupidity gets as thick as treacle …

… since if atheism were true then who cares about proselytizing? [we challenge bad ideas that do real harm because we care] Let’s face it, life seems tough enough as an atheist without having to deal with other major concerns like not having a basis to wear clothes [It gets cold], or no basis for marriage [The concept is not biblical but cultural] , no consistent reason to be clean (snails don’t wake up in the morning and clean themselves or follow other cleanliness guidelines based on Levitical laws), [smell, germs, social acceptance, etc… ] and no objective reason to believe in love.[No “belief” required, for good evolutionary reasons that attribute has been selected in humans]

Are you weary of looking for evidence that contradicts the Bible’s account of creation and finding none?

I’m actually rather weary of nutters who discard common sense. Genesis, the book that advises that the Earth pre-dates the sun, in fact that grass and trees (third day) pre-date the sun and the moon (fourth day) is quite frankly insane.

Do the assumptions and inconsistencies of dating methods weigh on your conscience when they are misrepresented as fact?

Nope, because there aren’t any, but if he wishes to discuss misrepresentations, then this claim is one. Least you wonder, these folks assert that the earth is only 6,000 years old, so all that sciency stuff and evidence is dismissed as wrong.

Where do you suppose those missing links have gone into hiding?

And of course evolution is also deemed to be a lie. Least you wonder, the exact number of scientific articles from credible peer-reviewed science journals that either support creationism or refute evolution is (insert drum roll here) exactly zero. I do hope that is not a surprise for you.

Surely the atheist sees the folly and hopelessness of believing that everything came from nothing.

Ah, of course, God did it, oh but wait where did this god come from, who created that? This assertion answers nothing at all, instead it just adds another layer of pointless complexity for no good reason and on the basis of no evidence at all. Making up stuff to answer questions takes you well and truly down the rabbit hole, “God did it” might indeed be an answer, but so far, in all of human history whenever humans have been faced with the unknown (stars, weather, lightening, etc…) and deployed “god did it” as the answer, that answer has been subsequently proven to be wrong. Such palaeolithic thinking might indeed render an answer, but sadly it will be the wrong one.

As for the rest of the article, I’ll not bother, it is simply a religious appeal and cites a bronze age text as an authority. Funny thing about this Bronze age text … it dates to about 2,500 years ago at best, and has parts that simply rip off older Babylonian myths, yet if true (and it is not), then it would imply that his God concept did not give a toss about humans for the preceding 97,500 years that humans were on this planet. Additionally, if Creation did indeed take place 6,000 years ago, it must indeed have come as a complete surprise to all the civilizations that were flourishing at that time.

So what are we to make of this article? It is truly wacky stuff and contains an astonishing degree of pure stupidity. There is no excuse for such ignorance, a minute or two on goggle and each and every daft assertion can be demonstrated to be factually incorrect. It is perhaps an example of what happens to individuals who isolate themselves from reality and opt to only drink the cool-aid sourced from inside their own micro-community.

Finally, if anybody from AiG is actually reading this and wishes to rebut any of the criticisms I have raised, do feel free to respond. I do not censor comments, even if I do not agree with them, so anything you post will remain, but I’ll not be holding my breath waiting though.