The Armchair Antichrist

Again with the Agnosticism

The Armchair Antichrist — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:10:31 +0000

It seems like this is one topic I will never be able to let go of. I understand that the majority of the people that will live on this planet are going to believe in a god of some sorts. That’s OK. But, I would at least like to clean up things on my side of disbelief/belief. And that entails cleaning up the terminology. Many who lean towards the side of disbelief do not care about it. They don’t think it makes a difference. Some even happily use it wrongly. This is a grave error.

When you ignore terminology or even use it wrongly whether intentionally or unintentionally you invite Christian apologists and saboteurs of all sorts to tear you apart.

Read this article for example: http://www.slate.com/id/2258484

This is the type of straw man and outright misrepresentation you get. If you did not understand the correct terminology you might even be fooled into agreeing with this fool (or genius).

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G20 Catch-22

The Armchair Antichrist — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:30:36 +0000

The G20 summit occurred a while ago. Why am I talking about it now? Well it’s because I refuse to do news and well I’m just bored. Anyways, there were many complaints and criticisms. Here is a response to some of those criticisms.

The bulk of the criticism can be summed up as, “You could have fed millions of starving children with the $933 million spent on security”. But, before we get to that we have to explain why security cost so much. This leads perfectly into another criticism of the summit which goes like this: “Why did they have to do it in Toronto? They’re just trying to provoke us.”

However, this is not the case. The goal of the government is not to ‘provoke’ people. That just doesn’t make sense. The real explanation for why it was held in Toronto can be easily found if you take a look at the previous cities that the G20 was held in. Washington D.C. London. Pittsburgh. Do you really think it would make Canada look good if the G20 was held in Muskoka or Sudbury? And would people be making such a complaint if it was held in such small towns? You’re damn right they would.

There is another complaint that could be made if the G20 summit was held in a small and remote town. It would be criticized as being too secretive much like the meetings of the Bilderberg Group. A more open summit meant that it would be held in a larger city. But, herein lies the predicament. In a large city you are inevitably going to ‘provoke’ some people and that means there must be security. And this security costs money. This is the catch-22. In some way or another you are going to ‘provoke’ some people. You just can’t please everybody.

Now, I will deal with some smaller issues. Did the police ‘allow’ their cruisers to get burned? Yes. Were there agents provocateurs dressed up as black bloc? I find it unlikely. I think the incident in Quebec put an end to that tactic.

Was there police brutality? Yes. But, I don’t think it was done out of malice or the desire to beat people up. I think it was more because of police ‘incompetence’. If they knew how to set up a proper perimeter and could control the movement of protesters better then I doubt there would be any need to beat people up (or charge them with horses). But, alas they were only police and did not have the brains of military strategists.

If you are reading this I hope you don’t see it as a dedicated praise of the government, the system, big brother, or whatever you like to call it. In fact, I have a better solution. In this day and age it is very easy to connect with people from across the world. There is really no need to fly across the world if you just want to talk with them. The world leaders of G20 could have just done a video conference which would be broadcasted on the radio, TV and internet. That way you can have a very transparent meeting that costs much less money. So maybe you can please everybody. Never mind, the politicians would never agree to this. They enjoy the pomp and splendour.

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Refuting Atheism

The Armchair Antichrist — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 01:50:17 +0000

Sounds awkward doesn’t it? Religious people fail at doing this all the time. But, it is very possible considering that God is who they think he is. And I will explain how. It is simply, well I guess not simply, to demonstrate the existence of God. Yes, it is just that!

There are many ways to NOT refute atheism though. For instance, arguing against evolution is not a good way to refute atheism unless God suddenly appears before the entire world when you succeed in doing so. The same with arguing against the Big Bang theory or any number of scientific theories that force religious people to find more mysterious places to put God in.

The religious reasoning behind this kind of thinking is very strange indeed. It works from no longer having a good scientific explanation for something and that being evidence for God. Not having a good explanation for something is just not having a good explanation. Saying “God did it” is just an assumption and puts on just another layer of mystery. It solves nothing and never actually provides any evidence for God and therefore, fails.

I have even heard people try to refute atheism by just arguing against the use of the word. They say that since you don’t have proof of God’s non-existence you are not an atheist, but an agnostic. Unfortunately, I often hear this from some atheists too. This thinking reflects a lack of knowledge in the terminology. I am both an atheist in that I lack a belief in God/ do not believe in God and an agnostic in that I do not have knowledge of God’s non-existence. Agnostic is not a position in itself. It must be used in combination with theism or atheism.

What really should be asked is if this non-belief/disbelief warranted? I think it is. Nobody has yet provided any good evidence for God’s existence, meanwhile the proposition of God comes with many problems and inconsistencies that make God’s existence very unlikely. This is the reason that religious people rely so much on faith. One does not need faith to believe in things that are warranted.

Religious people please catch up. I have burnt through pretty much all of your arguments already. Please give me something to write about or at least something to laugh about. I am getting bored.

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Order 67

The Armchair Antichrist — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:17:43 +0000

If you have not noticed from a recent dialogue I have been outted. Yes, it is true. I am the Dark Lord himself. I might claim to be an advocate of freethought (and actually know the definition of it), but I am really a restricter of thoughts. Yes, indeed, I am proficient in force corrupt, the dark side version of mind trick. And I have been using this power for many years to achieve my status as the owner of a blog with a low visit count. Insidious aren’t I.

But, that isn’t the half of it. Not only did I make the order to eliminate all the Jedi regulars through Order 66, I also ordered the elimination of those hidden and indecisive Grey Jedi with Order 67. There is no hiding for those who do not agree with me. You will be converted or destroyed.

P.S. Remember to attack the argument and not the person.

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Stupid Questions

The Armchair Antichrist — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:49:51 +0000

Yes, there are such things as stupid questions. Please ignore what your teachers, professors or whomever it is that has ever told you that. They were lying to you.

One such case is when people ask me questions through instant messaging about things things that could have easily been found through Google. What eventually happens is me Googling whatever they have asked me which usually brings me to Wikipedia. The end result being me copy and pasting what I have found from Wikipedia to them.

The lesson is that if you know how to use a computer well enough to ask someone through instant messaging a question you have the capacity to use search engines or Wikipedia to find that answer yourself. This is especially true if you are looking for computer related help. There is no excuse for such laziness.

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Religious Hard-on

The Armchair Antichrist — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 01:10:32 +0000

I have a short story from a while back. It happened back in high school. More specifically, it was in French class in grade 10 (even though it was no longer required and I never took it again). Our very bald and Belgian teacher told us to open our agendas and turn to the page with the calendar. He told us that he would be away for Ash Wednesday and that there would be a substitute teacher filling in for him.

Then for some reason, probably because of his jolliness, he decided to ask us what Ash Wednesday was. One student with a particularly elvish name decided to make a joke out of it and answered, “Some Christian holiday”. This was not a particularly offensive answer even though I admit that it was lulzy, however it was returned with a somewhat harsher rebuke.

“Some Christian holiday?”, repeated our French teacher. “Maybe only Christians should be able to celebrate Christian holidays”, he said. Everybody else should have to go to school. Unfortunately, the fact that Ash Wednesday was not a statutory holiday did not dawn on him. Sure, nobody’s going to argue that you can’t be absent from work for a religious holiday, but you’re not going to get paid for it either (if it’s not a statutory one).

His weak rebuttal also raised some other concerns. What exactly is necessary for something to be a religion? Under his reasoning it would be perfectly fine to make up a religion on the spot that has everyday of the year a holiday. Similarly, I could just add a whole load more of holidays to any existing religion and claim to be a member. To respect only the holidays of Christians would be highly discriminatory. And yet you would not be able to adequately judge who is a Christian or not or who is a bonafide believer for any religion.

So, what we have here is an epic fail from an otherwise good teacher all because he got a little butt hurt from one student’s ambivalence to his religion. Religious hard-ons sometimes make people sound very, very stupid.

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Repetition Repetition Repetition

The Armchair Antichrist — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 04:26:50 +0000

The Basics

1. Atheism is not the claim that God does not exist. It is simply the lack of belief in God. God may or may not exist and the same goes for the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Santa Claus, and all the other deities and mystical creatures that may or may not exist.

2. Agnosticism is not a valid position. We are all agnostics in that we ultimately do not know whether God exists or not. If you lack faith in God you are an atheist. And if you have faith in God you are a believer. There is no middle ground. You can’t have 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and so on belief in God (unless you really are extremely indecisive).

3. Atheism is the default position. God is not something that is obviously known. If you can demonstrate that God can be known please do not hesitate in the comments.

4. Respect for your religion and religious beliefs is not a right. Religious beliefs are opinions the same with political, musical, artistic and other opinions. The fact that you believe in something strongly does not make it any less of an opinion and does not mean they should be respected.

5. Atheists would gladly stop ‘caring about your religion’ if religion stopped interfering with and intruding into all areas of life. Unfortunately, we do not have that handy explanation that believers do of not being able to withhold information that could save someone’s soul.

6. Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot are not evidence of atrocities committed in the name of atheism. You cannot do something in the name of not believing in something. Rather, they are evidence that blindly following anybody or anything can lead to atrocities (i.e. those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities).

7. It is not the safest bet to believe in God (Pascal’s Wager). There are thousands of gods that you could possibly choose from and infinitely more that could exist. Therefore, there are an infinite number of hells you could burn in. The probability that you pick the correct god and avoid all those hells is the same as any of the gods existing in the first place (about nil).

8. The fact that many religious people do good things is not evidence for the validity of a religion similar to how you say that bad things done by believers has nothing to do with religion. You can’t have it both ways. If confirming evidence is such then disconfirming evidence must be the exact opposite.

9. The stuff written in your holy books is not objective evidence. It’s just one huge circular argument.

10. God has nothing to do with morality. Morality is not based on commandments. God’s thumbs up or thumbs down does not make things moral or immoral. Morality is based on loyalty, honesty, promises and harm; very human things that we don’t need God to understand.

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God Exists!

The Armchair Antichrist — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:59:27 +0000

Yes, it’s true. I am God.

What? You dispute this?

You say I am only a mere human and not God?

But, wasn’t Jesus Christ both human and God simultaneously? If that is a satisfactory explanation for him it is for me.

What now? You want me to prove that I am God?

That’s quite arrogant of you considering I am God. I will tell you straight that I will not entertain the demands of common people. This is a lot better than giving you ‘proof’ in a book that I wrote that says that I am right.

But, why should you believe me?

It’s called faith. That’s the reason you believe in that false god of yours instead of me, the real God isn’t it? So, if it works for him it works for me.

And if you still don’t believe me, well, I’m just a mysterious God. I work in ways you simple humans could never imagine. I’m quite sure that should cover any and all loose ends.

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Personal Relationship with Jesus

The Armchair Antichrist — Sun, 30 May 2010 00:18:08 +0000

I wish it were that simple. If all religious people simply had a ‘personal relationship’ with their deity then we wouldn’t have so many problems. They would be right about their faith not having anything to do with organized religion.

From a practical point of view churches and other places of worship would not get any tax break and would actually be taxed like any business. Why should a institution get special privileges just for bringing people together to be friends with an imaginary friend? It would be beneficial for the church and for the government in keeping them more separate.

But, then again this is not like any relationship I know. Some people like to talk about their friends. But, to bring up the same person again and again ad nauseam gets well, nauseous.

There is another way to look at it though. This ‘relationship’ is an abusive one. And the repetitive calls to become friends with this special friend are warnings. This is no secret. Every mention of God’s love is paired with threats of the eternal nature. And typical of abusive relationships the victim is convinced that they are the ones who are the problem and the one who needs to change.

It’s unfortunate that those who are really in denial are accusing others of being in denial.

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The Purpose of Blasphemy

The Armchair Antichrist — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:15:42 +0000

In light of the all the uproar about depictions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, following South Park’s depiction of the prophet in a bear suit among other things I have decided to write an article about the purpose of blasphemy.

Is its purpose only to insult, provoke, and enrage as what some religious people claim? Or is there some substance behind it?

The point is that people may be insulted and offended. That is completely within their rights. But, to be enraged to the point of making death threats and becoming violent is way out of line.

I see the organized blasphemy (i.e. Draw Muhammad Day) that has been going on more as an act of solidarity. It sends the message that we rational people of the secular world will not be bullied. We will stand up for our fundamental right to freedom of speech.

Furthermore, the point is not to insult Islam. In fact, we encourage moderate Muslims to actively speak out against the extremist minority that has hijacked their religion. They will probably not agree with and probably be offended by drawings of Muhammad, but it is important for them to see that the goal of these actions is to promote free speech not to insult, provoke, and enrage.

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