Tag: Atheist manifesto

Book Plunge: Atheist Manifesto Part 4

Should we be concerned about a theocracy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Theocracy. I hear atheists crying out about it numerous times as if this is the dream of every Christian. Now in some sense, Christians do believe in theocracy. We do believe that one day God will be truly recognized as king throughout the world and that that will come through Christ. This does not mean that we think that that means some men should rise up, claim to speak for God, and enforce one religion by law.

But yeah, atheists always think the latter is what we’re really pushing for. Every Christian wants Christianity to be the law of the land. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who thinks this way, but this person is the exception.

Still, Onfray has a whole chapter devoted to this. One of the starting points is about the Gospels. They were written about a half-century afterward and we don’t have any copies until the second or third century. If anything, most ancient historians would be ecstatic if the majority of works from the ancient world were like that, if not all ancient historians.

Naturally, Onfray appeals to Hitler saying Hitler appealed to the making of the whip by Jesus in the temple. Obviously then, John is responsible for Hitler. Absent is any mention of the effects of Nietzsche on Hitler, whom Onfray spoke of favorably, but hey, double standards are no big deal. Right? It also doesn’t matter that Nietzsche’s philosophy could naturally lead to a Hitler while John’s theology doesn’t.

Later on he has even more claims. The RCC approved the rearming of Germany in the 1930’s. They signed a concordat with Hitler when he took office in 1933. They were silent over the boycott of Jewish businesses, Nuremberg racial laws in 1935, and Kristallnacht in 1938. They provided Hitler with genealogical records so he could know who was and wasn’t Christian. They aided the pro-Nazi Ustachi regime of Ante Pavelic in Croatia. They gave absolution to the Vichy regime in 1940. They also never condemned the destruction happening in 1942. They offered a requiem in memory of Hitler and set up a network to smuggle war criminals out of Europe. They also entered into their ranks people who performed tasks for Hitler. Hitler was never excommunicated and Mein Kampf was never on the list of forbidden books. Keep in mind, all of these are presented as facts.

I am not a historian of the time period so I cannot say, but I remain skeptical. We saw the facts that Onfray presented about the existence of Jesus. It sounds more like conspiracy theories and the Vatican is always a favorite topic of those. Also mentioned would be the idea of Nazis having emblazoned on their belts, “God with us” which makes as much sense as saying that atheists in America that spend coins with “In God We Trust” on them must be closet theists.

Of course, Onfray writes about slavery. There will be zero bothering to look and see scholarly responses. Onfray is sufficient with throwing out something and the implication being “This is offensive!” without bothering to see anything that is on the other side. Remember, Onfray’s book has no bibliography or notes of any kind.

There is not much more that can be said. Onfray wants to throw out anything and hope that it sticks and his book is written with no apparent structure. It is the rant of someone who needs to be better informed.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Atheist Manifesto Part 3

What does Onfray have to say about Christianity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s clear we have no reason to be surprised by Onfray at this point. It is said that the ignorance in the atheist community has got to the point not where I am surprised, but where I expect it. I am most often surprised when I meet the atheist who does know what he’s talking about. He is sadly the exception.

Onfray is not one who knows what he’s talking about. He starts with the statement of course that Jesus never existed. Yeah. We all saw this one coming. No contemporary documentation and no archaeological proof. Somehow, the Pauline epistles and the Gospels within a generation and in the time of eyewitnesses don’t really count. Were we to go with this rule, we would rule out figures like Hannibal, for instance, from the historical record.

But what about Josephus and Tacitus and others? Intellectual forgeries! A monk copying them saw there was no mention of his story and so he decided to put one in without any shame whatsoever. Therefore, Onfray says “Nothing of what remains can be trusted.” One wonders if Onfray is ready to throw out all history copied down by Christians just to uphold his mythicism.

Keep this in mind because in the very next section Onfray tells us about a number of madmen at the time. Judas the Galilean, Theudas, Judas’s sons Jacob and Simon, and Menahem. Then he tells us about the Jewish war in the 70’s.

Little problem here.

What would be his source? Well, we have one source for Messiah claimants other than Jesus. Just one.

Josephus.

You know, that guy whose writings can’t be trusted.

Onfray points as well to Bible contradictions and improbabilities. Naturally, there’s no bothering to look at any commentaries on the topic to see what they have to say. Nah! Too much of a hassle! Again, the problem is that Onfray also has no bibliography so there’s no way of knowing where he gets his bogus information from.

Onfray does say the crucifixion is improbable since the crime Jesus did would involve stoning. Not only that, Pontius Pilate would not likely bother to get involved with someone like Jesus. This is all shown to be nonsense when one realizes that it was the Passover time and Jesus had done two remarkable events, namely the Triumphant Entry and the cleansing of the temple, and stoning would not be enough as the Jews wanted to make a mockery out of Him and shame Him so they would have Him stoned. Pilate would get involved because you don’t want a would-be king rising up at the time of Passover when the city has a huge population of faithful Jews.

He also says the burial account is unlikely. After all, no cleansing is mentioned, but does it really need to be spelled out? The main point is the tomb. Onfray also says the name Arimathea means “After death.” Odd. Carrier has said it means “Best disciple town.” Can these guys get their story straight?

From here Onfray turns to Paul. Paul is a raving hysteric forcing his neuroses on the world. Onfray goes to the thorn in the flesh and how everything has been suggested for this. Then he says, except sexual problems. No doubt, he has not done any real reading on this. When I saw him going there, my first thought was he would say something about Paul secretly wrestling against homosexual temptation, which I hear all too often.

He also says one sign of Paul having a deep-seated pathology is that he fails to acknowledge it. Well, this is interesting then. I surmise that Onfray has a deep emotional wound that causes him to have an intense hatred of anything Christian whatsoever and the best way to deal with his neuroses is to force them on the rest of the world by writing a book like this and getting everyone to agree with him. My great evidence of this is that nowhere in this book does Onfray acnkowledge any deep-seated pathologies!

From there we go on to Constantine waging war on pagans and such. That part I really have no interest in and want to leave for those familiar with church history more than I am. For now, I will just say I am suspicious entirely of his history based on what I’ve seen thus far.

We will continue another time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Atheist Manifesto Part 2

What more do I have to think of Onfray’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Reading Onfray is a task for anyone who tries. It’s hard to read without thinking that you’re really the temper tantrum of a child who doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. He will be talking about one thing and then suddenly seemingly jump to something else.

In part 2 of his book he talks about monotheisms. One of the first sections is about down with intelligence! Monotheism hates intelligence!

Remember? The monotheisms that are people of the book? The Christians who are responsible for copying and transmitting the ancient pagan works that we have, the founding of the university, and the rise of science? Yes. Those people. They were obviously haters of intelligence!

For Onfray, if you are a man of reason you will be on guard against magical thinking. I was unaware that just saying something is magical thinking is a refutation of it. Who knew? Some people might have questioned the idea I have of presuppositional atheism that if you’re an atheist, your thinking is automatically rational and if you’re a theist, it’s stupid. Onfray comes incredibly close by saying such statements about magical thinking and reason to saying exactly what I have been saying.

Of course, this comes to us well in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Onfray doesn’t bother to say it’s good and evil. It’s not the tree of the knowledge of science or history or literature. It’s good and evil. In Hebrew thinking, this is a merism. It contrasts two opposite things to say everything between them. What is really at stake here is not knowledge so much as wisdom. It is mankind wanting himself to be the fount of wisdom instead of God.

We also have this part about the three monotheisms. It is the picture I shared last time. We are haters of reason, intelligence, books, and freedom. I say this, by the way, as I sit in my library in my apartment surrounded by my books and if you go outside of this room, you will find books scattered throughout our apartment.

We also hate women, sexuality, pleasure, the feminine, and desires and drives.

I am a married man.

I enjoy being a married man.

I enjoy the benefits of being a married man. I have yet to meet a married man who hates sex and the feminine and the body and such. Of course, such a person could be out there, but I doubt it. I find this especially bizarre to say about Islam since Muhammad had about a dozen wives and his followers could have up to four. Yes. They obviously hated sex and women.

Onfray also tells us that there were numerous apocryphal writings, more than those that are in the New Testament. Indeed. So what happened to them? Eusebius through Constantine is what happened! At this point, it is clear why Onfray doesn’t have notes in his book. Good luck finding this one.

He also tells us that Paul demanded the burning of forbidden books in Acts 19:19, but no such demand exists. From the account, the people themselves decided to do it. Besides, one would think Onfray would support this since these were books about magical spells, likely to ward off demons. Is Onfray upset that these books were lost to us?

Naturally, there is the idea of the hatred of science. The Catholic church impeded scientific research. Again, good luck with this one. There were plenty of scientists doing science in the time and the ones that were persecuted (All two of them!) were not in the Middle Ages.

Onfray also tells us the religions of the book detest women. You know, like how in Genesis man and woman are both equally 100% in the image of God. That kind of thing. Jesus having disciples who were women and openly communicating with them and Paul sending a woman to deliver, which would also entail and answering questions about, his most important letter, the letter to the Romans. For Onfray, we who are monotheists only see women as good for sex and only then when we want to reproduce. As he says “For a monotheist, there can be no more hideous oxymoron than a barren, sterile, woman.”

I wonder what monotheists he is talking to. I have not met any who think this way.

Now while Jews have some statements about women being impure during menstruation and after birth and the Koran has some negative statements, Christianity has not escaped! After all, in 585 there was discussion over a book called Paradoxical Dissertation in Which We Attempt To Prove That Women Are Not Human Creatures. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that I granted that this is all historical and this is a book that a Christian wrote.

This is still ridiculous. One Christian wrote a book one year and it was discussed. Therefore, this represents the opinion of all Christians throughout all time.

Fortunately, at least in dealing with monotheisms, we have a section dealing with arguments for theism and…..oh of course we don’t! Onfray never bothers to deal with what his opponents actually say. That would interrupt the rant.

And next time we look at his work, we will look at obviously the most problematic religion, Christianity. (Funny how that so often works out that way isn’t it?)

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Atheist Manifesto Part 1

What do I think of Michel Onfray’s book published by Arcade Publishing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ever since the new atheists, atheism has been going downhill. It looks like each time someone has to write to try to come up with something even more ridiculous than the last guy. On the internet, one deals with the internet atheist, a special breed of atheist that seems to believe anything provided it argues against Christianity. For those who call themselves, free-thinkers, they all seem to think alike. Well free-thinker, you get what you pay for.

Popular also among internet atheists is the meme. Now I enjoy a meme as a humorous illustration of an argument, but sometimes they are meant to convey something so profound, and it kind of is. It’s profoundly dumb. Such is the case when I saw shared a meme quoting a book that has to be one of the most ridiculous quotes I have ever read.

Yes. I find this hilarious as a man who makes it a point to use reason everyday and tries to be as sound in my thinking as possible and a lover of the mind sitting among books aplenty. I am a great lover of freedom and as for a hatred of sexuality, women, and pleasure, well, I am a happily married man so go ahead and draw out your own conclusions.

I could go through the meme more and more but you get the idea. Onfray is someone who has not really interacted with great Christian thinkers. I got his book and sadly, the quote is indeed very real. As I started going through it, I figured I’d check the bibliography to see what works he cited.

Problem there.

He has none.

Oh he will mention books throughout his own book, but he won’t give page numbers or anything like that. He will make claims just floating in the air. The vast majority of them are completely bogus. The book really reads as if it’s a childish rant.

So let’s look some at part 1. We’re going to start near the end because if everything was documented, the response would be as long as the book itself. I’d like to highlight a few areas.

Let’s go to page 50.

Onfray says we would not consider locking someone up who has a brain tumor, which is no more of a choice than a pedophilic fixation. One can dispute that pedophilia is a fixation that one has no choice over, but let’s suppose for the sake of argument that it is. If I know someone who has a brain tumor and that brain tumor causes them to act violently toward people around them, then yes, I think they need to be locked up in some way.

In the same sense, someone who is a pedophile and is going to actively be a threat to small children needs to be dealt with in a way that he won’t harm people around them. It is amazing that Onfray treats this as if it is something just as innocuous as a brain tumor. Perhaps he should speak to many of the people who have been damaged by pedophiles. (And we can expect he will make no remark about Catholics either!)

On 52-53, Onfray speaks about the ignorance of many Christians. While this is true, it says nothing about the truth of Christianity. He says believers will listen to Saint Paul but have never heard of Gregory of Nazianze. Well, strike one here. He says they set up the infant creche, but they know nothing of the founding quarrels of Arianism or the council on iconophila. Strike Two. He talks about communion, but papal infallability is unheard of. Strike three. I do know about these, so what then?

Onfray goes on to get worse. He says that believers attend Christmas mass but don’t know that the church picked this date to coincide with the winter solstice and Sol Invictus. No source is given for this claim. The winter solstice would have never fallen on December 25th anyway. He also says death by stoning was the standard punishment for what Jesus was charged with. Stoning, however, was not really to be done by the Jewish populace at the time and crucifixion was done to shame the person more. Jesus was meant to be a public example.

He then says you can talk to a Christian about the neglect of the work of taking care of the poor. The Christian will ask about liberation theology. Not this one. This one will accept that the church is not perfect and will point to ways we need to improve but will still show that Christians are giving more to the poor and doing more charity work. I have no wish to endorse liberation theology.

He goes on to say that Paul decries the pleasures of the flesh and despises women. Onfray thinks you will hear that mystical ecstasy is a higher pleasure. No. Here you will be told what passages you have in mind and then let’s discuss them.

He then says that if you mention the massacre of indians you will be told about Bartolome de Las Casas. Again, not here. I will ask for your historical sources and if the Christians are in the wrong, that’s something horrible and we need to own up to it, but it doesn’t change that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s a shame that Onfray did not go out and dialogue with real Christians or look at real Christian writings on the topic.

On page 60, we get much of what is predicted. He has earlier said in the book that there is no evidence Jesus existed and now we can know when he was forged with certainty. You have to wonder what’s with all these people thinking like this? Creationists are often mocked for going against the overwhelming consensus in science, and perhaps rightly so, but atheists definitely go against it.

By the way, he also talks some about the tree of knowledge in the book. The idea is apparently that Christians hate knowledge and the great sin was getting knowledge. No. The sin was the knowledge of good and evil in which what is really meant was trying to usurp divine wisdom. It was trying to rule on one’s own what they had really been given to rule. It was a defiance.

When we return, we will look at what he has to say about monotheisms.

In Christ,
Nick Peters