That’s a new one. As far as I know, Russell believed no such thing.

“…he tries to link lack of belief in God with a belief in the utopian perfection of man.”
I’ve heard of these utopian atheists, but have never actually met one. Am I alone in this?

“One cannot help but note, in passing, how much hopelessness and despair there is in Vox’s fatalistic view of man…”
Notice, too, that we (at least those of us that don’t believe in free will) are supposed to be the deterministic, naturalist fatalists, and ones that live as though we do believe in free will, even if we don’t (although having free will and not would functionally be identical anyways), to boot!

jim “Religious folks have been at war with others, as well as with themselves, throughout recorded history.”
Yes, but that’s completely different, because the other was worshipping the wrong God, or gods, or the wrong version of those.

“(Vox) can say what he wants- contradicting himself along the way, of course- and when he’s called on it, he simply asserts that you can’t ‘prove’ reason.”
Vox seems to view everything as a debate. The object of a debate isn’t really to prove your position, it’s to win.

“Christian apologetics is much like jello. It’s been changing shape and form to fit changing circumstances for 2000 years, when it’s not simply parroting the same old arguments, and then walking away claiming victory no matter WHAT actually goes down. “
Yes. Before abolution was popular, the Bible was always for slavery. Now, it’s always been against it. The good part about having people on both sides of the equation is that you’ve got someone to blame while you’re right, then later you can take credit for their actions when you change your mind. Modern Southern Baptists get to take credit for the Quaker’s opposition to slavery. Ironic or sad? You decide.

Dominic Saltarelli “He’s hangs literally everything on there being a clear link between atheism and Marxist derived ideology.”
Conflating atheism and communism is a common apologist tactic. Try drawing them a venn diagram (where communism is a smaller circle that’s mostly within the big one of atheism). Most B’s are A but not all A’s are B, or somesuch.
Incidentally, they do the same thing with “Darwinism” and “random” or “chance”.

“…the actions of those who try to claim “Nagaland for Christ” or to the “Liberation theology” movement in South America?”
Didn’t you hear? Those are heresies. The only non-heretical movement is the one that the person you’re talking to believes in.

These are the kind of specific examples showing that there is clearly no link between not believing in God and being a violent socialist, the very thing upon which Vox’s entire rant against “The Red Hand of Atheism” rests upon. Get rid of that and he literally has nothing.

And as far as the crimes of the socialists cited by Vox, aside from the French Reign of Terror, they all took place during a very brief period of time, when the world erupted into war between communists and capitalists. Vox makes it seem like its just the communists who went on killing sprees by citing as many alumni of the International Lenin School as he can.

Take Ante Pavelic, who led a movement to force people to convert to Catholicism, and even had his own concentration camp going around the same time Hitler and Stalin were liquidating large swaths of humanity themselves.

Or Suharto, the dictator of Inonesia, who made it a point to kill any and everyone who didn’t have religious affiliation, thinking that was a sure fire way to exterminate all communists.

In the face of these facts, the only thing Vox would have left is the numbers game. Namely, between Stalin and Mao, atheists have a more impressive body count.

To which my reply is: “Yeah, and?”

I think it’s also valid to point out that the hard evidence is amenable to more than one interpretation. What Vox cites as evidence that atheists have murderous hatred of religion could also be regarded as evidence (with abundant additional evidence) that the Russian church was very heavily involved in exercising political power, and that the conflict was more a political power struggle than any kind of theological debate. That incidentally has the side-effect of falsifying Vox’s claim that religion is not a factor in government affairs like war (and slavery, and serfdom, and so on).

Secondly (and I’m sure my bias is showing through here), after the initial showing, the actual evidence, IMO, quickly becomes secondary, replaced by PLACEMENT and INTERPRETATION of that evidence. And THAT’S what apologetics are all about- convoluting the workspace of inductive reasoning with all sorts of flak, then taking the hill while everybody else is trying to see through the smoke.

For instance, consider TIA. Vox often cites the evidential arguments from the atheistic authors, reinterpreting them so things swing his way. Or to be fair, and trying to approach it from the other side, Vox’s ‘proof’ that PZ Myers is ‘meanspirited’ is only proof to those who already believe such things, and is easily countered by a number of arguments, such as the idea that symbolism is a manipulative tool used by those who don’t want you to think.

And pointing out contradictions isn’t any more fruitful. I mean, the two tales of what happened to Judas Iscariot after the crucifixion, not to mention the FOUR different stories of the resurrection, are easily reconciled by those who have the will to do so; at least, the trick works for those who already believe, and the rest already know the score.

My point (if there is one) is that you can’t ‘nail down’ jello, and Christian apologetics is much like jello. It’s been changing shape and form to fit changing circumstances for 2000 years, when it’s not simply parroting the same old arguments, and then walking away claiming victory no matter WHAT actually goes down. The best we can hope for is that common sense slowly whittles away at the foundations, and that, perhaps, a threshold is one day reached where the whole idea just seems too silly for most people to contemplate. Until then, there are no sure-fire approaches; you do what you can.

But what you have to remember, is that Vox makes many specific citations to actions carried out by communists which were clearly aimed at destroying religious institutions. The destruction of churches, the killing of clergy, quotes from prominent communists calling religion poisonous and evil. This is the evidence he cites to create said link.

So long as counter-arguments are untainted by hard evidence, its Vox who comes out on top in a debate. That’s just the reality of the situation.

I know that the knee-jerk response is to angrily sputter that they were simply replacing one power structure with another, but hard evidence trumps all.

Take for example P.Z. Meyers “crackergate” from sometime back. Vox gleefully jumped all over that little dust up to show how this utter disregard for symbols that other people feel are important is just another proof that atheists are anti-social mean-spirited buffoons.

This is the same Vox Day who regularly refers to Barack Obama as “the magic negro”. All anyone needed to do was point out that words are symbols too, and his use of them is far more needlessly hurtful than anything P.Z. does to a cracker. And there’s absolutely nothing he could say in defense, you’d have nailed him at that point.

So if you really want to argue with Vox on something, present counter-evidence, and you’ve essentially pinned him to the wall. He has a very bad habit of leaving himself wide open when swinging, he’s all offense, no defense, relying on volume and intimidation more than anything.

How about instead pointing to the people, the motivations, and the actions of those who try to claim “Nagaland for Christ” or to the “Liberation theology” movement in South America? It severs the thin thread upon which Vox supports his strongest argument.

More like evolutionary programming driving the need to survive and dominate the local gene pool. We are, after all, animals and subject to our base instincts. Hopefully, in time, we will evolve into beings that can control behavior that is harmful to others, independent of any Christian-driven motivations.

Only, what happened? Religious folks have been at war with others, as well as with themselves, throughout recorded history. And the idea that the so-called atheistic regimes have been SO much bloodier has NOTHING to do with innate characteristics, and EVERYTHING to do with things like modern weaponry, tactics, transportation-not to mention population densities.

It’s also worth mentioning that Vox has only his own assumptions to tell him that Stalin, Lenin, and Mao would have been any less bloody had they sought to establish their control over the population for the glory of Jesus.

One factor that Vox leaves out is the declining influence of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Not counting the anomaly of George Dubya and the millions harmed by his escapades in Iraq, recent decades/centuries have seen a general shift away from the heartfelt and motivational faith of medieval leaders and towards a more secularized/superficial sort of piety that is employed as an expedient way to achieve other, more genuine goals. This decline in religiously-directed leadership means that almost any significant activity is going to be skewed towards the secular, good or bad. Vox can complain about the bad things and ignore the good things, but Christianity hasn’t kept pace with the real world, and is becoming increasingly irrelevant—last-gasp activism by desperate believers notwithstanding.

Wow, what a mouthful! And a truthful mouthful, at that; at least, as regarding motivations for the invention and upkeep of these superstitions. God is the adult Santa Clause, the invisible ‘cop on the beat’, marking sins when you thought no one was looking. Keeping us straight under the shadow of His big, big stick.

Only, what happened? Religious folks have been at war with others, as well as with themselves, throughout recorded history. And the idea that the so-called atheistic regimes have been SO much bloodier has NOTHING to do with innate characteristics, and EVERYTHING to do with things like modern weaponry, tactics, transportation-not to mention population densities. Imagine the Crusades with populations in the billions, and deliverable nukes! Pu-lease!

I don’t doubt that there have been instances where the idea of an invisible, all-knowing Watcher has kept some folks’ baser tendencies in check. But history shows us that it’s also played the other way, through Divine Justification for all sorts of atrocities. But beyond the discussion of ledger balancing, there’s the question of telling the actual truth apart from any imagined consequences, pro or con. Lying is an easy habit to pick up, and I suspect the habit often starts with JUSTIFIED lying; which is just the sort of lying that empowered the setting up of these religions in the first place. As you’ve so often pointed out, these holy books are by and large works of fiction, invented by people who thought they knew a better way to steer people. Summed up, they are lies. And books filled with nonsensical apologetics are also books filled with lies, in that they seek not the truth, but first and foremost to convert- the imagined ends always justifying the means.

Shouldn’t the pursuit of truth ALWAYS be front and center, no matter where it leads us? I’m afraid there will always be those whose answer to that question is “no”.

Or pretend to believe. Even if Vox Day is right about everything he says here in this chapter (of course he is not), the argument is still falacious. He is simply saying that this is how athiesim works and I don’t like the results so it can’t be true. Who’s the utopianist now?