The Scathing Atheist

by Noah Lugeons

Most of the labor that goes into putting the podcast together every fortnight is a labor of love.  I really enjoy writing, recording and editing the skits.  I love composing the music for each episode.  I get to hang out with fun, like-minded people for interviews and panel discussions.  I get to answer emails and feedback from intelligent and often appreciative listeners.  I’ve even started to enjoy the sound-processing and all the related crap.

But I don’t enjoy the research.  It’s not that I don’t like reading up on the news articles or investing my time in knowing what’s going on in the world.  Hell, one of the reasons I started the podcast was in hopes of forcing myself to keep up with all the atheist news.  But there’s a downside to it as well.  As I’m checking my usual slate of sources, once in a while I see a headline so insanely stupid that I can’t help but click on it.  And then I have to read some babbling neuronal flatulence like:

Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens, The New Theists?

Now I warn you before you click that crap that it’s some “deep down the rabbit hole” nonsense and even though the piece is short, you almost have to reread it to prove to yourself that it actually means nothing whatsoever.  To save you the trouble, I’ll break it down paragraph by paragraph below:

• Paragraphs 1-4: A word-salad attempt to redefine the word “sacred” to mean practically everything (as well as nothing).
• Paragraph 5: The revelation that if you simply ignore the actual definition of sacred you can call anything sacred.
• Paragraph 6: A biblical quote to prove that the author knows how to use quotes.
• Paragraph 7: The conclusion that because sacred can mean anything, atheists are really theists because they’re involved in a sacred mission to rid the world of notions like “sacred”.

It really is that stupid.  He says things like:

 when someone rejects the notion of God because of the wars that have been fought over that name, as well as the abuse, the fundamentalism and the ecological destruction that is bound to so much religion, they are demonstrating a profound concern for both people and the planet.

And since we established earlier that being concerned about the planet is “sacred”, that means people who viscerally reject god because of all that crap are on a mission from god.  The author doesn’t waste any time explaining what it means when someone viscerally rejects god because he doesn’t exist.

As for connecting the body of the work to the title, well, he makes no attempt at that whatsoever.  There’s no attempt to connect the lines between “sacred” (which has been clearly defined as meaning what-ever-the-fuck Peter Rollins is talking about in that particular paragraph) somehow automatically equates with “theist”.  Probably by using the same “are-you-still-paying-attention” tactic he uses to bleach “sacred” of any precise meaning.

He also clearly employs the old headline trick where you just pose the most ridiculous claim possible and then toss a question mark on the end.  As long as you phrase it as a question you’re never wrong.