A new atheist season
That’s what I tend to call them: “seasons.” I tend to write a fair bit about atheism, but most of what is written works its way into the archives without causing much of a stir; Binks will occasionally link to one in his periodic roundups, but that’s about as far as most such offerings will go.
Which is fine. Let’s face it; this blog is basically written “by me, for me.” Once in a while, I write articles explicitly for the consumption of others; the recent Wyoming articles were principally for my wife’s benefit, for example. But in general, what I write is written for me; this blog is essentially a media, information, thought and current event news aggregation point for me. (I do often reference the reader in my articles, admittedly; it’s a linguistic habit I borrow without shame from David Warren.)
And my blog traffic is commensurate with that writing style and focus. My Ultima website, which actually is reader-focused, gets about three times the traffic that KHdN does. It follows quite naturally, from this fact, that I don’t exactly see a lot of activity in my comment forms.
That said, a curious trend has emerged over the years. Periodically, I write an article about atheism that attracts attention. For whatever silly reason, one atheist or another simply can’t look away from this poor, deluded, brainwashed, programmed-from-youth theist and must stoop to offer the benefit of the cold glow of his (it’s usually a male atheist) freethinking reason. The penultimate example of this was a debate I had with…Daniel, I think his name was. It had to do with something I’d written about Battlestar Galactica, and Ron Moore’s tendency to include homosexual characters for no good reason. Moore does it to be “inclusive” rather than for really compelling narrative reasons; it’s perhaps ironic that he is now being criticized for making too many of the series’ antagonists (several Cylons, Admiral Helena Caine) homosexual…or, at least, bisexual.
But for Daniel, it was apparently too much that I disagreed with the needless inclusion of gay characters — my agreement was necessary. A debate of some length ensued that eventually downspiraled into the usual relativistic claptrap about how “consent” between parties is the sole arbiter of morality.
Before that, the likes of Nicholas and The Barefoot Bum (I’ve never actually learned whether the article in his name us supposed to be integral) graced the comments of various threads. Others have also come by and offered debate, though not so memorably.
I call such times “seasons,” both because of their overall duration and because of how they go on for a time and then give way to other things. This blog, like Time Immortal before it, has seen several of them.
And at the time of this writing, another such season seems to have begun in earnest. Apparently, the “Atheism Demotivators” article I threw together — based almost entirely on content excerpted or borrowed from Vox Day — was submitted to StumbleUpon by a reader. Korinthian, a StumbleUpon user (a Stumbler?), evidently took exception to the article’s mostly humour-oriented content (a series of “demotivator” posters poking fun at several famous New Atheist personalities) and left a short and rather unoriginal comment on the article. What followed was a small exchange between him and myself that was as much an exercise in trading barbs as it was a reasoned discussion. And to be fair, I was comfortable simply playing the cat to his mouse; he offered precious little in the way of novel argument, and it was both sufficient and sufficiently entertaining to just toy with him.
Until he offered up his most recent reply, that is.
And no, it’s not that he offered up an argument that I was powerless against; it’s not that he said something new or novel. Indeed, he did little more than repeat typical “Internet atheist” boilerplate.
There are only two good arguments for atheism, and a host of poor arguments. Korinthian, in his most recent comment, managed to touch offer up most of the poor ones, and left open the door to a lengthy discussion of the two good ones.
I’ve had it in mind to wrote a lenghty summary of, and response to, just these arguments, with an eye toward publishing the collected works in a boom through Lulu. Korinthian unwittingly provided a workable framework and order for such an undertaking.
Of course, he also dodged a few questions, which I have put to him again in the hope of him answering them more completely. In the meantime, this post serves as notice to Korinthian and all curious others that I have in fact received his latest comment, and now have plans for it, and for my reply. I pray the good reader will indulge me some short-term apparent silence (or near-silence) on the issue until such time as what I will be writing is ready for posting.
Korinthian: if you provide me with a valid email address, I can I inform you when the response is published. Failing that, you’ll have to keep checking back.
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