Inside the Atheist Mind: Unmasking the Religion of Those Who Say There Is No God
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About this ebook
"There is only one way to deal with bullies, even in this politically correct world—and that is to crush them."
USA Today bestselling author Anthony DeStefano is tired of playing nice. After years of responding patiently and agreeably to the pseudo-intellectual arguments and tactics of today’s militant atheists, he’s had enough. In this entertaining, no-holds-barred retort to atheism and its proponents, DeStefano reveals the intellectual bankruptcy at atheism’s core and equips believers to respond to its hollow arguments.
A witty and devastating takedown of the "new atheist" position, Inside the Atheist Mind systematically debunks the theories of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others, revealing how inconsistent, illogical, and frankly ludicrous their conclusions truly are. Poking fun at atheists in a clever and intelligent way, DeStefano demonstrates just how full of holes the new atheism is and reveals that it is actually a "religion" of its own, complete with a creed, a set of commandments and sacraments, and a rigid moral code with rewards and punishments. More than that, DeStefano exposes that atheism is itself a "superstition" of the worst kind.
Using irony and a healthy dose of playful sarcasm, Inside the Atheist Mind lampoons, teases, and deflates the atheist position, unmasking it for what it is--an empty, intellectually barren philosophy, devoid of any logic and common sense.
Anthony DeStefano
Anthony DeStefano is the bestselling author of A Travel Guide to Heaven, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, and Inside the Atheist Mind, as well as many award-winning children's books. He has appeared on numerous national television and radio programs, including Fox's America's Newsroom, Fox and Friends, Huckabee, The 700 Club, Focus on the Family Radio, and Janet Parshall's In the Market.
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Reviews for Inside the Atheist Mind
31 ratings25 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book was no good
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The best of Grisham, and still my favourite. The bad guys don't entirely get their comeuppance but there is a reasonably satisfying denouement.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This 1990s classic brought Grisham to fame. While the book stands the test of time, the genre has lost its allure: the denouement comes too quickly and the legal action isn't captivating enough to keep the plot moving. The romance is formulaic, and the characters are superficial. Still, it makes for a nice travel read: the conspiracy is simple enough to stay engaged without being confusing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Probably my favorite Grisham...
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I read this book in high school for a "free read" - the teacher gave us a list of "acceptable" contemporary books. My three star rating is more due to the fact that this was just not my cup of tea, not that it was badly written or anything. Many fans of this genre love Grisham. It just wasn't for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was not impressed with the other Grisham book I read (The Last Juror), but this one was fun. The twists were decently believable without being too predictable, and none of the characters were unrealistically gifted (a common flaw in thrillers). Though I've never seen the movie, I could picture Julia Roberts as Darby Shaw. My one issue was that I never felt much actual suspense; I was not attached enough to the characters to care much if they made it out okay. That said, this was a nice bit of brain candy. I hear Grisham's older works are his best, so I'm actually looking forward to reading The Client and The Firm, both of which are on my TBR.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When two Supreme Court justices are assassinated on the same night, there is plenty of speculation as to who the assassin or assassins are and why the judges were murdered. Like many others, law student Darby Shaw thinks she knows the motive. She writes a brief, soon to be known as The Pelican Brief, and shows it to her law professor/lover, Thomas Callahan. Unfortunately, he shows it to a friend of his who works for the FBI, who passes it along, and it falls into the wrong hands. When Callahan is killed by a car bomb, Darby realizes someone wants her dead and she goes on the run. She hooks up with Washington Post reporter Gray Grantham and the two of them try to stay alive long enough to expose the truth. This was an exciting but implausible thriller. Darby is a well-written character and it's nice to read a book with a strong, intelligent heroine. Unfortunately, it's not clear until well into the book what Darby's feelings for Callahan really were, it should have been clear earlier that she loved him and was not a student having an affair with a professor in order to get an A. She conveniently has plenty of money, so she can use cash on the run, rather than leave a trail by using plastic. And it strains readers credibility that a law student can outwit trained assassins. Some of the other characters in the book blend into each other and I wasn't always clear as to who some of them were. Grisham does clear up some loose ends, but at the last minute, as if he suddenly remembered them. Despite these flaws, the story is exciting enough to keep the reader turning pages and worth reading as long as you don't think too much about it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My big brother worked for West Publishing at the time this movie was made, and he generated the screens of data that Julia Roberts pages through in one scene. See, every American lawyer uses West's law databases, so my brother's work provided some real street cred to this flick. *snort* Regardless of how closely I watched, I didn't see a line of it -- sorry, Cris. Not a bad movie, though.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I like and have enjoyed many of John Grisham's novels, and I admire, respect and marvel at his many accomplishments and achievements, they are awesome; but, this particular work is in a category all its own.Pelican strains credulity beyond belief, after reading this it would be difficult to imagine that anything good would come of his future efforts, or that anyone would ever bother; then he follows with the "Client" a really funny book, with a great character - a memorably enjoyable reading experience.Pelican is a dud, client is nirvana! Grisham's production is variable and operates in a very broad range.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Couldn't put this book down - great read.Back Cover Blurb:Late one night, Abe Rosenburg, the Supreme Court's liberal legend is gunned down in his own home. The same night, Myron Jensen, the court's youngest and most conservative justice, is strangled . What linked the two men and what caused their deaths? Darby Shaw thinks she knows the answer.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is my second Grisham book. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Firm. The Firm had a dark, brooding undertone which this book lacks. I found the protagonist rather flat and didn't much care about the outcome. It was all a bit 'meh'.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I’ve known of the book for some time and even, on one or two occasions picked it up and considered reading it – always to return it to the shelf: For some reason I thought it was a ‘lawyer’ story.Now, with it firmly on the CAE reading list, as a matter of duty, I’ve read it.I am tempted to name a new literary genre:The Time Filler.A good time filler is strong on plot, adequate with language, sufficient with character and not too far from realism to cause concern. It will roll along never pausing for too long in any one place or with any one person, love affairs are reduced to brief encounters, killings are counted in serial-numbers and enough petrol and aviation fuel is burnt to raise the Earth’s average temperature another degree.The Pelican Brief is a good time filler.I took four sessions to finish the 420-odd pages, and didn’t feel pressed for time – it is a rapid read.The plot is sort of realistic in that you can imagine someone wanting to bump off a couple of American Supreme Court justices to change the ‘political’ make-up of the Supreme court – but the book does stretch credibility a little with the descriptions and personalities of both the victims and their executioner – it seemed as though Gresham had gone through a check list of ‘most likely to make a best seller’ qualities and selected them for inclusion.The same too with his heroine, Darby Shaw, who is a least female and intelligent – more intelligent than most of the other characters in the book. However, she never really escapes the cliché of female as victim in need of a good man to support her. Why did she have to be a blond bombshell? Why couldn’t she have been short, stumpy even, and ugly? Why does the book have to end in such a ‘happy ever after’ way on a beach?One answer is the sales figures – and film rights.All the way through I felt I was getting exactly what I wanted – no surprise other than a needed plot twist, no truly ambiguous character – just good guy and bad guy (and a very obvious – you got it wrong, good guy portrayed as bad).And some very film-able locations – including Washington, New York and a pre-deluge New Orleans.It occupied me pleasantly enough, but I ended with a – that’s it? and so what? Turned the light off, and slept well.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is John Grisham at his best. A wonderful legal thriller.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5It has been over 5 years since I read this book and I still have a bitter taste in my mouth when I think about it. Calling it anticlimactic would be an understatement. It seems as though the author tries to make up for the lack of depth in the plot by introducing random plot twists. If you're the type of person who drools over legal thrillers you may like the book more than I did. I just can't forget that this book had the worst ending of any book I have ever read. I literally cringed when I picked it up to enter it into my library listing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A decent read, but not Grisham's best. Probably my least favorite Grisham novel. It started slow for me, but picked up about halfway through. An interesting plot, but it could have been made more exciting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of Grisham's better novels. Plenty of cat and mouse action. Definately worth a read!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book kept my interest, page after page.The story is different, in fact,very different from normal storylines in most of the books out there on the market. It is refreshing and interesting because it shows how one ordinary lady, Darby Shaw, can come up with a solution that all the experts could not think of. Even after two justices are killed without a trace of evidence, she decides to uncover the killer. Then, when her brief is handed over to the FBI, the agent dies two days later in Darby's place.Once, she realizes that the killers are after her, she knows that she must stay one step ahead of them, so she doesn't stay in one place for two nights. During these chapters the book is thrilling when Darby is being chased, and each time you think this is her last day on Earth she escapes death.In my opinion, Grisham, wrote a trilling, legal mystery that will keep your interest from the first page to the last page.Enjoy, I highly recommend this book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I couldn't put down the book while I was reading. I finished reading the book very fast.
An amazing thriller. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I've just read The Firm, and now The Pelican Brief. The former hooked me in very quickly. The Pelican Brief has a confusing start, dumping a pile of unrelated events upon us, setting the scene. It takes a little while for us to meet the main character, and at no stage do we get a strong understanding of her. Sure, she's clever, resourceful, etc., but she is two dimensional. Hence, I don't care about what happens, and this lessens the tension of the story.Having read both of these books back to back, I can also see the similarities of Grisham's view of the legal profession, and whilst he is the expert, and I am not, I find it hard to believe that the lawyer firms he describes are just big sweatshops, where everyone works 12-18 hour days, six days a week. Lawyers are supposed to be intelligent...Not sure now if I am going to keep reading Grisham - the lack of attention to character development is the big miss for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book was good. A real page turner.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent murder mystery. Very suspenseful.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The first John Grisham book that I devoured. It was so good. Very intriguing, and a little bit of a paranoia magnet...I totally saw conspiracies everywhere after reading this book. Grisham kept up his great writing for anther 3 books or so, but then it was the same idea recycled time after time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Darby Shaw has written a brief, that later becomes known as the Pelican Brief. Shortly after her boyfriend/professor shares it with others, he is killed in a car bomb. This sets off a series of events in which Darby is chased by hired killers as well as the White House chief of staff. She puts her trust in a journalist from the Washington Post as they try to stay one step ahead of their pursuers. Can they stay alive before the story breaks?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two supreme justices are murdered on the same day. Many people are attempting to find the relationship between the two men and a motive for the killing.Darby Shaw is a bright law student at Tulane and thinks she knows why the justices were murdered. She researches her opinion and publishes her findings in a document called "The Pelican Brief.'Darcy is a lover of law school professor Thomas Callahan and gives him a copy of the brief. He gives it to a friend in the FBI to see what he thinks and soon after, Callahan is murdered and Darcy becomes a hunted person.John Grisham is an excellent storyteller and master of creating suspense. The reader can empathise with Darcy who stays alive by her intelligence but doesn't know who she can trust. Nevertheless she continues in her attempt to expose the guilty person, at the risk of her life.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Loved it better than the movie.
Book preview
Inside the Atheist Mind - Anthony DeStefano
PRAISE FOR INSIDE THE ATHEIST MIND
Most atheists are pretty bitter, angry, and humorless souls. They will probably not like Anthony DeStefano’s stinging and entirely hilarious takedown of the smug and arrogant brand of pseudo-intellectualism that modern atheism has become. As his targets whine DeStefano will shine, and his revealing book will enlighten, entertain, and probably melt some snowf lakes!
—MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER
GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS
I’m thrilled that someone has finally decided to take atheism head on. I applaud DeStefano’s dedication and carefully researched work. This book is funny, honest, raw, and will probably offend quite a few people, but I believe that everyone—no matter what beliefs they hold to—should take the time to dig in for themselves. You won’t regret it.
—GLENN BECK, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR,
AUTHOR, AND MEDIA PERSONALITY
"Inside the Atheist Mind is a powerful retort to today’s aggressive proponents of atheism, revealing how illogical and intellectually bankrupt their arguments truly are. Anthony DeStefano uses irony, sarcasm, and above all, an abundance of well-researched facts to debunk the philosophy of modern atheists—which is so often hollow and hypocritical. This book will help equip Christians and all people of faith to confidently defend themselves in the face of increasingly hostile attacks from unbelievers."
—RICK SANTORUM, FORMER US
SENATOR FROM PENNSYLVANIA
Some children behave so very, very badly that reasoning with them is to cast one’s pearls before swine. Anthony DeStefano understands this and happily spares not the rod in giving these wayward little beasties—known as the
new atheists—the sound and proper hiding they so richly deserve. I brazenly defy anyone who thinks his atheism reasonable to read this wise and witty book.
—ERIC METAXAS, #1 NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND HOST OF THE
NATIONALLY SYNDICATED ERIC METAXAS SHOW
The superstition that is modern-day atheism is torn apart in this new, insightful book. Exposing these atheists for who they really are, Anthony DeStefano runs circles around their now debunked attempt to fool the public. You’ll find this book empowering, revealing, and enlightening.
—JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS COMMENTATOR
AND FORMER US CONGRESSMAN FROM UTAH
In his previous books, Anthony DeStefano brought the wonders of faith, prayer, and Heaven to the masses. In this new book, he delivers a devastating look at the intolerance of the ‘new atheists’ who seek to drive any public expression of faith into the shadows and to make those who believe in God feel as though they are uneducated and naive lemmings. The book shows the critical role that faith and religion have played in the important fields of science, art, literature, and music, among others, despite the claims of the new atheists that religion is the enemy of progress.
—KEN BLACKWELL, SENIOR FELLOW FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE
AT THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FORMER
SECRETARY OF STATE AND STATE TREASURER OF
OHIO, AND FORMER MAYOR OF CINCINNATI
Anthony DeStefano’s new book is a powerful response to the ‘new atheist’ movement that is sweeping the globe. It will help people of all faiths to stand up to the aggressive attacks of these fervent unbelievers.
—CARDINAL RENATO MARTINO, PRESIDENT
EMERITUS OF THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL
FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE AND FORMER
PERMANENT OBSERVER OF THE HOLY
SEE TO THE UNITED NATIONS
ALSO BY ANTHONY DESTEFANO
ADULT NONFICTION BOOKS
A Travel Guide to Heaven
Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To
Angels All Around Us
A Travel Guide to Life
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
This Little Prayer of Mine
Little Star
The Donkey That No One Could Ride
A Travel Guide to Heaven for Kids
The Sheep That No One Could Find
The Puppy That No One Wanted
Roxy the Ritzy Camel
The Miracle of the Bread, the Fish and the Boy
GIFT BOOKS
I Just Can’t Take It Anymore!
OK, I Admit It, I’m Afraid
The Love Book
Why Am I Here, Anyway?
© 2018 by Anthony DeStefano, Inc.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV
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are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
Scripture quotations marked NABRE are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved.
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Epub Edition February 2018 9780718080594
ISBN 978-0-7180-8059-4 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-7180-8056-3
Names: DeStefano, Anthony, author.
Title: Inside the atheist mind : unmasking the religion of those who say there is no God / Anthony DeStefano.
Description: Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038905 | ISBN 9780718080563 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Atheism.
Classification: LCC BL2747.3 .D428 2018 | DDC 211/.8--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038905
Printed in the United States of America
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Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.
This book is dedicated to
Father Frank Pavone
CONTENTS
A Note to Atheists
1. The Arrogance of the Atheists
2. The Ignorance of the Atheists
3. The Ruthlessness of the Atheists
4. The Intolerance of the Atheists
5. The Shallowness of the Atheists
6. The Cowardice of the Atheists
7. The Death-Centeredness of the Atheists
8. The Faithfulness of the Atheists
9. The Malevolence of the Atheists
10. The End of the Atheists
Suggested Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Notes
A NOTE TO ATHEISTS
If you are a militant atheist—the kind who loves the writings of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and that whole crop of arrogant unbelievers who are in such vogue today—please note that this book is not written for you. My purpose is not to convince you to believe in God or to prove God’s existence in any way. There are hundreds of books on the market that do that already.
No, this book is not for you. It’s about you. It’s about all those wonderfully deceptive, malicious, ignorant, cowardly, and hateful things you say and do on a regular basis.
This book is also not meant for agnostics who are sincerely searching for the truth, or for people who are angry at God because of some terrible suffering they have endured. Again, there are many good resources that attempt to help people who are honestly struggling with their faith.
No, the focus of this book is on those obnoxious and aggressive new atheists
who not only reject God but also wish to evangelize the whole world with their Gospel of Nothingness.
In the opinion of this writer, too many books written in response to these pseudo-intellectual blowhards have been altogether too nice. The authors have all tried to be kind and reasonable and amiable in an effort to demonstrate that believers don’t have to sink into the mud in order to defend the faith. That tact is charitable and extremely admirable. But unfortunately, it just doesn’t work with bullies. And that’s exactly what modern-day atheists are—bullies.
So if you happen to be one of these militant atheists and you intend to read further, please don’t expect the sort of kind and gentle approach you’ve experienced when dealing with believers. There won’t be any coddling, respect for your views, friendly debate, dialogue, or turning the other cheek. Not in this book.
I’m afraid there is only one way to deal with bullies—even in this politically correct world—and that is to crush them.
CHAPTER 1
THE ARROGANCE OF THE ATHEISTS
I’m sure you’ve seen them before—arrogant, spoiled children. Kids who have no respect for their parents, their teachers, their elders, their peers. Kids who for some reason think they know everything, when in reality, they know nothing. They’re condescending, obnoxious, prone to shouting, mean-spirited, and selfish. They’re the kids who are always bragging that they have better clothes, better sneakers, better toys, better video games, better houses, better everything than their friends. They never seem to learn humility. They’re always clamoring to be first. Always looking for attention. Always screaming to be recognized as the best. And if, by chance, they aren’t given the credit they think they deserve, then woe to the guilty culprit whose fault it is—because that person will be treated to a noisy temper tantrum.
The type of arrogant children I’m talking about never take correction in a constructive way. They never take any kind of challenge to their superiority.
Their first reactions are always anger and petulance. Even worse, these children never seem to know when to keep their opinions to themselves. As someone once said of them: Two-thirds of what they think on a topic is borrowed from their parents or older siblings, and the remaining one-third is based on whether they have an immediate desire for something.
¹
Now, kids like this usually have no basis for believing the things they do. Their attitude stems from some form of immaturity or insecurity. But if their arrogance, by chance, is founded in real circumstances—for example, if the child comes from a wealthy family or is gifted
in some way—then their smugness is often of the very worst kind. Left unattended or uncorrected, these are the kids who become the notorious bullies and haters
of the world.
But whether a child’s arrogance is a consequence of wealth, upbringing, immaturity, insecurity, or simply natural disposition, the end result is always the same: rudeness and bad behavior. The end result is always a child who mistakenly thinks that everyone is beneath him; who deludes himself into believing that he is somehow smarter and better than everyone else, when, in fact, he is much worse.
Now, most of you who are reading these words have encountered children like this at one time or another. If you have, please fix that image in your minds for just a few minutes. It will be very valuable in understanding not only the subject of this chapter but also the theme of this entire book—because this image of the typical arrogant, condescending, bullying child that I’ve just described is, in actuality, the exact picture of the typical modern-day atheist.
That’s right. Just as we’ve all seen spoiled, misbehaving children in action, we’ve also witnessed the spectacle of the new atheists spreading their particular brand of toxic arrogance throughout society. You know who they are. They’re the ones who are offended by the slightest bit of religious imagery in public, the ones who are mortified if even a whisper of Merry Christmas
escapes the lips of some well-meaning but naïve department store clerk during the holiday season, the ones who object vehemently to the phrase In God We Trust
on money or the walls of government buildings. These are the self-righteous twits who cause a storm of protest whenever something overtly religious is spoken of in anything but hushed tones or behind closed doors. These folks are loud, nasty, unapologetic, and in your face. And, unfortunately, they’re not going away.
In the following pages, I’m not going to focus on proving God’s existence or showing how much sense it makes to be a believer. As noted earlier, plenty of books on popular theology do that already. Rather, my main purpose here will be to expose once and for all the blatant hypocrisy, dishonesty, and intellectual bankruptcy of the atheists themselves. For when you really look at what the new atheists are saying, you don’t find a carefully constructed, logical argument against the theistic position; in fact, you don’t find any argument at all. What you find is a lot of hot air. A lot of bluster. A lot of disdainful, unfounded, and empty dogmatism. Above all, what you find is arrogance.
Arrogance has been the calling card of atheists for a long time. It didn’t start with Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher. Friedrich Nietzsche—the great patron saint of atheism, and, coincidentally, the favorite philosopher of Adolf Hitler (a fact atheists conveniently neglect to mention)—proclaimed famously in the nineteenth century that God was dead
and in his grave.
² That preposterous pronouncement set the tone for atheistic arrogance over the next hundred years.
The militant atheists of the twenty-first century have raised this kind of pretentious egotism to an art form. Sam Harris superciliously writes, It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail,
and that atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious.
³
Richard Dawkins haughtily states: Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
⁴
Bill Maher rants: Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking . . . and those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy.
⁵
Christopher Hitchens condescendingly pontificates that religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody . . . had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs).
⁶
These are not arguments; they’re snide, schoolyard taunts. And they demonstrate perfectly the deeply ingrained sense of superiority that modern-day atheists seem to have. By ridiculing believers for failing to accept the obvious
and copping out
and evading evidence
and being infantile,
they show themselves to possess the very same traits that are so characteristic of the arrogant children I just described.
The position of the typical atheist today can be summed up in the following way:
Believing in God is not just wrong or misguided. It’s tantamount to insanity. It’s the same as believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Since there is absolutely no empirical or scientific evidence for God, there can be no rational basis to believe in him. Since God can’t be seen, felt, or heard with the senses, and since there isn’t any geological or fossil record of him, and since he can’t be proven mathematically, he simply can’t exist. Period.
The reason why so many people throughout history have believed in God, they smugly assert, is because these poor ancient folk were ignorant of scientific facts. If they had known what we know, they never would have believed in something so absurd as God.
And as for the people today who still believe despite the marvels of scientific achievement, they’ve obviously been brainwashed by their religious upbringing, or have some kind of psychological need to believe in a supernatural being and an afterlife. They surmise this dependence comes from three primary sources: a fear of death, an unwillingness to accept the permanent loss of loved ones, and an inability to cope with life itself.
In other words, modern atheists think that those who believe in God fall into one of two general categories: we are either imbeciles or cowards!
This is not an exaggeration. This is truly what the new atheists believe. Read God Is Not Great by Hitchens, The God Delusion by Dawkins, or The End of Faith by Harris. The titles of these books betray the attitudes of the authors. Not one of these works presents a carefully reasoned argument against belief