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Saturday, March 21, 2015

Conrad Black attacks the shabby, shallow world of the militant, atheist

Conrad Black, also known as Baron Black of Crossharbour, KSG, was stimulated by a conversation with Christian apologist, and physicist, John Lennox. Black decided to write a column for the National Post (Toronto, Canada): Conrad Black: The shabby, shallow world of the militant atheist.

Richard Dawkins tweeted ...
Conrad Black seems to be at large again. Spot the factual errors, illogicalities and failures to understand.
Good advice. I wonder how many can be packed into a brief diatribe?

Keep in mind that no matter how many strawmen are erected, the important issue is whether gods exist. If you are a Christian, and you are going to attack the "shabby, shallow world" of atheists then the very least you can do is present your strongest case for the existence of gods.

Check out Conrad's Black's evidence for the existence of gods. (Warning: you will have to ignore all the rhetoric about the benefits of religion because it isn't relevant. On the other hand, there's a certain enjoyable irony in reading about how Christians are more moral than atheists.)


20 comments :

Steve Watson said...

I have to admire the chutzpah of Lord Pompous Windbag invoking Dostoevsky -- this from the guy who thinks having boatloads of money makes everything permissible (like helping oneself to more, then absconding with the evidence thereof).

The only shabby shallowness on display here is Black's own.

Faizal Ali said...

Communities untouched by religious influences have been unalloyed barbarism, whatever the ethical shortcomings of some of those who carried the evangelizing mission among them.

I can't think of a single community, ever, that was "untouched by religious influences." What is he talking about?

colnago80 said...

Convicted felon Conrad Black is a fine one to talk about morality.

SRM said...

Good point. How typical that Black wouldn't recognize indiginous religions, often the motivator of barbaric acts, as real religions, yet so quickly mistakes atheism for a religion.

SRM said...

Yes but he is a white collar criminal, and so it was rather an affront to nature and all notions of decent society that he was convicted in the first place.

SRM said...

Always fascinating that religious people believe the only thing stopping them from going next door and murdering their neighbours, is that they read in a book that it should not be done.

Anonymous said...

Well, that's as silly a comment as I've read in a while ...

SRM said...

Could be. Maybe it was their pastor who read it in a book, and then told them it should not be done.

Faizal Ali said...

I'm not even sure that's what he's referring to. I thought he was trotting out the well-worn trope about the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge. If he was referring to other, non-Christian cultures, he's even stupider than I thought.

Faizal Ali said...

I haven't read any of his books, so maybe I shouldn't judge. But it's often seemed to me his reputation as an intellectual heavyweight owes more to the sense of gravitas created by his voice and physical presence, rather than to the actual content of his words. If he spoke like Gomer Pyle, no one would take him seriously

Jon Fleming said...

Sweden? Buncha ravening barbarians, those Swedes.

steve oberski said...

Hey Scott,

You should try to get out more often.

And when you do you could explain where exactly religious people do get their ethics and morality from, if not their big, boring books of really bad ideas.

As you seem to think it's really silly to make such a claim.

steve oberski said...

He's really pissed about losing his order of Canada from the looks of things and he apparently blames atheists.

khms said...

I have no idea what Scott thinks, but if there's somewhere atheists get morals from (and it seems there is), then the fact that a lot of their morals are the same or similar to the morals of lots of people of lots of religions suggests, at least to me, that they get theirs the same place. That wouldn't keep them from believing they got them from the book, and it's likely that that is involved in those parts of their morals that are specific to their religion ... but probably not the rest.

steve oberski said...

Fascinating.

What morals might those be ?

The demonization of homosexuals ?

Denying women equal treatment under the law and a right to bodily autonomy ?

The racism and misogyny expressed by our friend Robert Byers ?

The murder of children by denying them blood transfusions as espoused by our drive by JW Newbie ?

These are all behaviours put forth by the religious as moral and ethical for the sole reason that they read it in a book.

So I fail to see how ethical behaviour based on an understanding of human nature and a desire to maximize the well being of human beings by evidence based rational though is in any sense "the same or similar to the morals of lots of people of lots of religions".

anthrosciguy said...

On the religion makes morals question, two case studies: besides his being a devout Catholic while he was on a crime spree, Black had a close spiritual adviser in the person of an archbishop who was bishop of London, Ontario during a period when several priests there were sexually abusing children without consequence even though at least one such case was presented to the church leadership.

SRM said...

I have no idea what Scott thinks, but if there's somewhere atheists get morals from (and it seems there is), then the fact that a lot of their morals are the same or similar to the morals of lots of people of lots of religions suggests, at least to me, that they get theirs the same place.

Well, that is the point. These behavioral aspects are inate as one might expect for a social species such as ours. They do not come from a book, or from a god who is said to have inspired a book. But how often have we heard religious people wonder (quite seriously) where atheists could possibly get a moral compass from. Even if there was a god, the belief or disbelief in that god could not in itself determine the acquisition of a moral compass. When people quote the bible, as they often do when talking about morals, they are selectively citing bronze age prejudices to support their modern age prejudices.

oldgarageluvver said...

http://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/0307386120

Tribe in Brazil has no religion at all. Very rare. It seems they function just fine without it. I think this is what lord pompous windbag was claiming.

Jmac said...

The tribe is called Pirahã and like many other tribes in that region and many other indigenous peoples all over the world they are engrossed in spiritism, which a form of religion.

Petrushka said...

An atheist can murder a woman or rape a child, but it takes religion to expect praise or to get paid for it.