...and the thinking world's all, "WTF"?

Weird sophistry from a Fundie Bonk Job

I do believe that talking birds are more capable of stringing sentences together into actual logic (if even by chance) than these people.

The United States Supreme Court has heard arguments from California atheist Michael Newdow that school children are religiously coerced when they recite the Pledge of Allegiance -- infamous these days because it includes the words "under God."

Mr. Newdow's reasoning? "I don't believe God exists."

If that's true, it's hard to understand why Mr. Newdow believes he has any rights to be violated.

No, it's simple to understand. Newdow, like many people, doesn't believe that his rights come from God. Which is only logical. The rights we give ourselves come from -- tadah! -- us!

If Creator God isn't real, then we are all just animals in an accidental universe.

Why does this freak out Fundies so badly? Are they really that insecure about their existence that any chance that we're not "the chosen species" threatens to unravel their world?

The first amendment to the United States Constitution does indeed say Americans have a right to be free in matters of religion. But why do we have any "human rights" at all? How do we know what they are?

How do we know that there's oxygen in the air we breathe? How do we know it's oxygen that we need, anyway? Is he being purposely obtuse or is he really this stupid? Don't answer that...I know.

Attention, Mr. Newdow and all atheists: If God isn't real, then our founding documents aren't worth the paper they're written on. There's no such thing as right and wrong, and you haven't got a right to complain about being "coerced" to recite the pledge or use currency that has "In God we trust" stamped on it.

Nice logic. How neat that it works out for the Fundie Bonk Jobs no matter what! If God exists, the Atheists are wrong! If God doesn't exist, the Atheists are wrong to complain because they have no rights! Gee, how convenient that, without ever bothering to prove that first, God exists, and second, that all rights come from God, the author has jumped right to the conclusion that God must exist because we have rights and we have rights because God exists. Circular logic anyone? How about some nice fallacy?

I am regularly taken to task by atheists who don't like what I write. They criticize Christians for "forcing" our values on others who don't share them. They make it very clear that, unlike Christians, they don't believe there are standards of right and wrong that apply to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Most Atheists don't contend that there is no right or wrong. There are such things as right and wrong, but they aren't absolute, and they don't come from an imaginary man in the sky.

Fine. There's no such thing as right and wrong.

Thank you for coming out tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen. I'd now like to introduce you to the Straw Man argument. "Atheists say there is no such thing as right and wrong". Let's now begin attacking this fake argument.

The only way people have human rights is if they are created in the image of God.

No, the only way people can have human rights (or morality or society) is if they grant them to one another. Morality and human rights are part of a social contract we make with one another when we decide to be a part of society. Human rights were not handed down from a make-believe man in the sky. Read the Bible. Read about its sanctioning of slavery. Read about its sanctioning the suppression women as less than second class citizens. Read about its sanctioning of warring, and murdering, and raping, and incest. Where are the human rights in the Bible, the supposed word of God and code for how we should live our lives?

The fact that Newdow's worldview is nonsense wouldn't keep the Supreme Court from ruling on his complaint. The court has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to split legal hairs while ignoring weightier matters of justice. The "justices" -- like most Americans -- hold a worldview that says God is a mere belief that one can choose whether or not to accept.

The Justices aren't ruling on whether or not a worldview including God is a mere belief to be chosen...they're ruling on whether or not the government is endorsing a religion...which it isn't allowed to do, according to the Constitution, which -- according to this guy's reasoning -- came from God . Ergo, God says that the government can't endorse God. Whoa! Aaaand I've gone cross-eyed.

God's reality, however, is not an issue of personal belief; it is an issue of fact and whether that fact can be proven to be true.

And, it turns out, that "fact" can't be proven to be true. So it really does come down to a matter of whether or not one chooses to believe.

If God's reality cannot be proven to be true, then America needs to throw out the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and quit talking about justice and human rights

People like this really frighten me. These are the same people who say that, without God in a person's life, that person will rape and murder. Obviously, this is not true. Well, at least not for the sane among us. Maybe this guy would rape and murder and steal of he suddenly realized that God doesn't exist, but we have a nice padded room all ready and waiting for him.

The good news is that God's reality can be proven. For the better part of a century, the leading edge of virtually every field of science has been amassing evidence that the universe is too complex and too finely tuned to be a cosmic accident.

I love this argument. It's the same one that says, when a person wins the lottery, it is impossible that it happened by random chance. Furthermore, this argument can be used to make the claim that no one has really ever won the lottery because the odds are just too high that it would ever happen by chance. But people have won the lottery. Just because an event has occurred (evolution, for example) that doesn't mean that it must have been planned.

Apart from a Creator, no one can even explain where it came from, much less how it developed into such a marvelous place.

I like asking Creationists where the Creator came from. They usually respond, "He's always existed". Hmm...then why can't the universe have always existed? Or, why have Creationists concluded that there wasn't a creator of the Creator? Do they have evidence that there was no other creator? And is this other creator still alive? And did that creator have a creator? And on and on. You see, it all depends on where you decide where to stop "going back", as it were.

The best science says God is real.

Actually, the best science puts forth hypotheses which can be tested in a repeatable manner, which, "God science" does not, and can not, do. Hack science says God is real.

Mr. Newdow says, "I don't believe God exists." It doesn't matter whether he believes it or not; God's reality is a fact.

It would be especially nice if the God freaks could establish God's existence as fact, but they can't. So, to bandy about their claims that the existence of God is fact only reinforces the impression that they really have no clue about real science or even what the hell a "fact" is.

If America has to accommodate whatever idea anyone might believe -- even if it contradicts the facts, even if it makes no sense -- then we'd better prepare for the lawsuit from the Flat Earth Society (http://www.flat-earth.org). Because we'll also be needing to remove all the globes from America's school rooms.

Ugh. The fact that the Earth is round can be proven.