An atheist resorted to name calling in a debate.
We should not be surprised, but the Christian in the debate was surprised, and confused. The atheist is James Lindsay, a popular intellectual who makes his living by explaining the woke to the non-woke. The Christian is Jonathan Pageau, an orthodox Christian and icon carver, who has also become a popular intellectual. When two intellectuals clash, you hope for something more than name calling.
A manual for atheist subversion
Name-calling is the strategy Lindsay proposed in his book, Everybody Is Wrong About God. Pageau did not know this, and kept trying to reach out in good faith, until Godwin’s law inevitably took effect, and Lindsay called Pageau a fascist.
I read Lindsay’s book, because I try to take the arguments of my adversaries seriously. His strategy is to not take Christians seriously, but to mock them. Lindsay wrote, “by dwelling on the debate, we perpetuate its counterpoint, theism, as something debate-worthy instead of something that already lost.” His book is a blueprint for shifting the culture towards atheism in two ways.
Mock, don’t debate
Don’t call yourself an atheist
Lindsay disguises himself, and encourages other atheists to disguise themselves, from Christians by not calling themselves atheists. He justifies this disguise by arguing that atheism is the null-hypothesis, the default position that should exist before a question is asked. To Lindsay, belief in God is a mistake, an out-dated idea that must fade away. Atheism exists in opposition to a thing that should not exist. By even using the word atheism, atheists perpetuate the idea of God, an idea that Lindsay wants to extinguish.
Which is why he behaves like a jackass on twitter.
For those of you who are not in rebellion against Logos, let’s take a look at the argument.
Religion is inevitable. The New Atheists (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens) fought against Christianity because they thought that a non-religious future would be more rational. Lindsay is a devotee of Sam Harris. The opposite turned out to be the case. As Christianity dwindles, more brutal and irrational forms of religion take its place.
New Religions
Religion is inevitable because humans have rational nature. Other creatures obey instinct, and grow and live in unthinking reaction to stimulus. Men choose between things. In doing so, we rank things as better than or worse than. Choice is only possible because we have a standard by which to judge a thing as “better” or “worse.” That standard by which we judge things and make choices is our god. It is the thing we serve and to which we devote our life. All our actions, thoughts, and words are directed towards it.
If we dethrone Christ in our hearts, something else will take His place, and become the standard by which we judge the world and navigate within it.
Gnostic religions, against which James Lindsay rightly fights, do not define the good. They define the evil, and then seek to destroy it. For this reason they are revolutionary. They seek not to build a better world, but destroy the existing one. Destruction of what exists will usher in the utopia.
Woke
The woke religion, for instance. It defines white people as evil. The white person is guilty by definition. The solution is to “abolish whiteness,” and “de-colonialize.” These are buzzwords for violence, but they keep that part quiet until they have power. Like in South Africa, where the president yells “Kill the Boer (white man)” and American journalists say “that’s just a song.”
Climate Fanatics
The Climate religion defines carbon as evil, and sees every weather event as an oracle from the gods about how we have not atoned enough for the sin of the Industrial Revolution.
Libertarianism
Libertarians define the State as evil, and propose its abolition as the solution to all political problems.
Communism
The proto-type of revolutionary ideologies. The Capitalist is evil, and needs to be killed. Once the capitalists are liquidated, and their capital distributed, then utopia will follow.
Atheism
Atheism is libertarianism applied to theology. God is evil. If He ceases to exist, the utopia of a rational secular state will begin. Atheists do not define the good, they only define the evil. They even say that morality is a sort of pretending.
The way forward
God is good. We all worship, but Christians know what they worship. The Love that created the universe tore open the veil, stepped through it, and announced Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.
If you do not know what is good, you might belong to a new-age cult hellbent on revolution. If you choose, you have a highest value, a god. Make sure it is the right one.
Crack open a Bible, listen to some Jonathan Pageau, and go attend your local Catholic parish.
Buy my book.