Atheism is ‘lack of belief’? Sequel

In debates with atheists on the subject I am always being assured that newborns are essentially atheists because they are born without any beliefs.  I’m told that atheism, being lack of belief, means that newly born babes qualify as atheists.  Of course that is anserine.

A while back, I came across this article on the web entitled Children as young as four to be educated in atheism.

My, but my atheist antagonists ought to be embarrassed at this!

Surely even the most ignorant and incompetent atheist can see that there can be no need to educate young children into atheism if atheism is truly their inborn lack of belief! They are born atheists, according to them!
Isn’t it amazing how atheists contradict themselves at every turn? If newborns are already atheists why in the world would they need indoctrination in atheism? Surely just being left alone would suffice to leave them atheists. Ah, but the atheist will claim they will be inundated with theistic or deistic ideas during their lives so we must protect that innate atheism! Really? Why?

Atheism is an idea that doesn’t matter. It leads to no good, it helps no one and it tends to either universal anarchy and chaos or totalitarian despotism (remember the more than 120 million killings under atheist regimes in the 20th century alone).

If, by atheist reasoning, the universe really created  itself out of nothing (the atheists only origins option), and if the universe consequently really has no meaning, no purpose, no good and no evil, why should anyone care what anyone else believes anyway? Why are atheists so adamantly evangelistic on making sure all remain, as they allege, “atheists from birth”.

Obviously they feel they need more.  Should theists now start using PANIC HEADLINES of the atheist genre?

“Atheists, now they’re coming for  your children!“

- to mimic the Times article on Dawkins’ latest drivel on which I commented here.
Of course, this kind of headline would be entirely justified in this case, if only because they want to preach their inane religion in public schools (as though they don’t already under the guise of science). These people are fanatically against teaching any kind of religion in schools and even having any kind of religious symbol displayed in any public place, yet here they come! They now want indoctrinate kids in schools into their religion, all while claiming kids are naturally atheistic!!

Now here I will quote Dr Michael V. Antony, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. Dr. Antony addressed this “lack of belief” argument thus (my bold):

It is often said by atheists that atheism is not a positive position at all – a belief or worldview – but merely a disbelief in theism, a refusal to accept what the theist believes, and as such, there is no belief or position for there to be evidence for. Evidence is not needed for ‘non-positions’.
While the word ‘atheism’ has been used in something like this sense (see for example Antony Flew’s article ‘The Presumption of Atheism’), it is a highly non-standard use.  So understood, atheism would include agnosticism, since agnostics are also not theists. However, on the common understanding of atheism – no divine reality of any kind exists – atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive. Some insist that this non-standard sense of ‘atheism’ is the only possible sense, because a-theism means without theism. But if that were a good argument, the Space Shuttle would be an automobile, since it moves on its own (mobile=move, auto=by itself). Ditto for dogs and cats.

Yet none of that really matters, for even the non-standard sense of ‘atheism’ does nothing to neutralize evidentialism’s demand for evidence. As we saw, evidentialism applies to all ‘doxastic’ attitudes toward a proposition P: believing P, believing not-P, suspending judgment about P, etc. Therefore evidentialism says, with respect to the proposition God exists, that any attitude toward it will be rational or justified if and only if it fits one’s evidence. Now it is true that if one had no position whatever regarding the proposition God exists (perhaps because one has never entertained the thought), no evidence would be required for that non-position. But the New Atheists all believe that (probably) no God or other divine reality exists. And that belief must be evidence-based if it is to be rationally held, according to evidentialism. So insisting that atheism isn’t a belief doesn’t help.

Mere absence of belief is not a position.  Atheism is, it is a chosen position.  Atheism, as denial of reality, is a form of insanity, therefore it is doubtful we will ever cease having to deal with atheist nonsense.  Will we ever see the end of this blatant insanity?

Darwinian Consensus Science

Hey guys, I was having a little visit over at Cornelius Hunter’s blog Darwins God the other day and was confronted, once again, by more Darwinist stupidity.

Dr. Hunter was pointing out how Darwinists don’t even understand their own theory.  Quickly one Darwinian fundamentalist critiqued a point made concerning the fact that a large percent of the population still don’t believe in Darwinian evolution. The opponent, someone calling himself troy, claimed that Hunter was using a “argumentum-ad-populum” and that “is just that – a childish fallacy”.

This is just utterly risible! As I explained in just a few words in response to “troy”, no one on earth relies more on argumentum-ad-populum, i.e. “consensus science” (an oxymoron), than Darwinistas (to borrow one of John A. Davison’s terms)!
Here’s the answer I wrote:

How many times have I been told “overwhelming consensus”, “virtually ALL scientists agree”, “number of peer reviewed…” etc etc. by some evolutionist seeking to justify his religious evolutionism by the number of scientists who agree!
Well I hate to rain of your clownish parade, troy et al., poor Dawinists, but just a few centuries ago the overwhelming consensus was that the earth was flat.
Since then the world has witnessed incredible and inane resistance within the sci community (in Darwinism it should be called the sci-fi community) against dozens upon dozens of -now proven- theories.
Do you need a list? Do you have a few Gigs available to store all the data?
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post.
If that last instance resembles “to a ‘t’” the current situation dissenters of the “modern synthesis” face – I give you C. Hunter for ex.- it is entirely pertinent as we see here every day!!
There is no such thing as consensus “science”.  If its consensus, it isn’t science and v.v.
“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had”. – the late Michael Crichton
My goodness but that sounds uncannily familiar.
Shame on you Dawieners!
It’s profoundly disingenuous of you to be constantly harping on consensus for your lame brained hypothesis and then go on and on complaining whenever opponents bring up quantities of unbelievers, like CH did above.
Face the music!  If the public continues to doubt Darwin, after  over a century of having it rammed down their throats as a fact beyond any reasonable doubt, its because the public is smarter than the nitwit, educated fool scientists who, acting more like priests in their dogmatic catechism, just don’t get the glaring problems involved in their religion of Darwinian fundamentalism.
Why? Because their minds are on HOLD.

You can tell that I have no qualms at all about calling these stubbornly unreasoning people names they well deserve. Indeed, the radical Darwinians do all in their power, including breaking the law, in their feverish attempts at “protecting” the public from all that opposes their own fanatical views.  Here I could mention Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzales and a few hundred other cases of Darwinian fundamentalism at work against freedom of thought and expression.  Thus it is they that are the true “science deniers”, utterly intolerant of any view but their own!

Am I saying that the peer review process is a fallacy in itself? Of course not. I’m saying that one cannot use it as a “proof” of anything.  Peers that review in biology, are more often than not those of the same opinion and in the Darwinian materialism cases, eager to approve of any article they think further justifies their own views and more than eager to disapprove of anything even remotely hinting at intelligent design.

Peer review is not an “end of debate” process. No matter how many reviewers may approve an article that doesn’t mean the view expressed therein is correct. I need to mention no more than I already did above in my response; Flat earth was a peer accepted view that was obviously wrong.  Yet deep prejudice in the scientific community of the day couldn’t accept anything contrary to what they believed. Too many careers depended on it!  Nothing has changed.

“The scientific establishment bears a grisly resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition. Either you accept the rules and attitudes and beliefs promulgated by the ‘papacy’ (for which read, perhaps, the Royal Society or the Royal College of Physicians), or face a dreadful retribution. We will not actually burn you at the stake, because that sanction, unhappily, is now no longer available under our milksop laws. But we will make damned sure that you are a dead duck in our trade.” (Gould, D.W., “Letting poetry loose in the laboratory,” New Scientist, 29 August 1992, p.51)

The story of peers approving hypotheses that were clearly erroneous has been repeated hundreds of times since. Peer review is good but it doesn’t guarantee that only correct ideas will get through the system and indeed often guarantees quite the opposite!

In conclusion, if Darwinists insist on perpetually referring us all to the sheer numbers of  “peer-reviewed” literature in their favor and the “scientific consensus” as proof positive of their theory, they should stop either pretending that argumentum-ad-populum is a fallacy or stop using it everywhere themselves!
It is not peer review itself that is in question here but the way Darwinists use it as evidence their inane theory must be true.