I received this comment from a guy – perhaps going by a fake name and email address – who took umbrage with my article ‘Can atheists be good without God?’ Which is grand. But since his objections were more of a rant-cum-screed than a comment, I will answer it this way. Underneath his vitriol and emotion, he actually raises some important questions so this may be of interest to anyone wrestling with the God question:

“You ridiculous, semi-literate, bog-trotting, moron.You think that one can only be ‘good’ because of an imaginary ‘man in the sky’? You absolute t*t! You believe in a so-called ‘God’, because your deficient ‘mammy and daddy’ told you to. NO OTHER REASON! They also told you about Santa, and the f*cking fairies. I’m not even going to waste my time with the ‘Big Bang Theory’, the fact that ‘Creationism’ MUST have ‘created’ parasitical wasps, the AIDS virus, and cancer. In addition, your imaginary ‘God’ ‘created’ the world, (not the universe surely?) around the time of The Agricultural Revolution.

Then there’s the Magdalene Laundries, paedophile priests, and of course, Nazi empathy. “GOOD”????? What separates human beings from animals, is intellect, NOT GOD FFS! And DON’T ‘DEBATE’ WITH THE LATE, GREAT HITCHENS VIA THIS MEDIUM, YOU SPINELESS TWAT! What I find laughable, is that you’re ‘grounding’ your morality in fairy tails, NOT facts! That’s after you’ve unnecessarily, and somewhat pompously ‘explained’ ‘ontology’. Of course ‘man’ is a byproduct! Our ‘Sun’ WILL eventually swallow the Earth, no doubt whatsoever! Did God ‘design’ that too?

Dawkins is correct. It’s as obvious as ‘night and day’! Unfortunately it’s not as romantic as wrapping it up in fairy tails, which is basically your argument.

I‘ve had enough of this nonsense! IF YOU ARE GOOD BECAUSE OF A FAIRY TAIL ‘GOD’, THEN YOU’RE NOT GOOD OF YOUR OWN VOLITION, HENCE YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT ALL! If it’s a ‘man in the sky’ that stops you murdering and raping etc, then you’re a f*cking psychopath! It wasn’t badly written, (although it’s VERY easy to tell that this was rewritten many times, and in the planning stage for weeks -lmfao!), but the substance is non-existent!”

I don’t know about anyone else, but people write things every day on the Internet that I disagree with. Not once, however, has it ever occurred to me to hurl abuse at them. We all have our hobbies, I suppose. Maybe this guy should take up disco dancing or something; this level of anger can’t be good for him.

Anyway, let’s look at some of his arguments:

– You ridiculous, semi-literate, bog-trotting, moron! You think that one can only be ‘good’ because of an imaginary ‘man in the sky’? You absolute t*t! You believe in a so-called ‘God’, because your deficient ‘mammy and daddy’ told you to. NO OTHER REASON!

When somebody starts off by calling you names, you can guarantee it’s because they’re not confident in their arguments. Remember that bully in school? The one that cut his tie really short and typed rude words into calculators? He never had anything substantive to say, so he called you names. That’s what we see here.

Firstly, my “mammy and daddy” had nothing to do with my belief in God. They’re both non-believers. Secondly, even if they had, that would not disprove the existence of God. C.S Lewis called this the ‘fallacy of Bulverism‘, whereby a person merely assumes a person’s belief is wrong, then tries to explain why they believe it: “You only believe in God because your parents are Christian!” Well, this argument cuts both ways: “You’re only an atheist because your parents are humanists!” See how silly this type of argument is? It’s a genetic fallacy, not to mention dodgy amateur psychology.

– I’m not even going to waste my time with the ‘Big Bang Theory’, the fact that ‘Creationism’ MUST have ‘created’ parasitical wasps, the AIDS virus, and cancer.

I think he means here that the Big Bang somehow disproves God. This is false. If the universe has a single point of origin – as a big bang would imply – then what started it? How can something come from nothing? It can’t. A Big Bang needs a Big Banger.

In fact, the Big Bang theory – developed by Catholic priest Georges Lemaître – lends itself well to Christian theology, with several bible verses (Colossians 1:15-17, 1 Peter 1:20, Proverbs 8:22-31) proclaiming that the universe began in a single creation event. Evidence for a big bang is exactly what you would expect to find if God exists.

He does, however, raise a valid point regarding the existence of AIDS, cancer, and nasty insects. In other words, the existence of things he thinks are “evil”.

The first step to addressing evil is to ask: what exactly is “evil”? If God created everything, and evil is a thing, then God – as this guy implies – must have created evil. This is a fair assumption. If the premise is true (God created everything), then the conclusion would also be true (God created a thing called “evil”).

The problem here, though, is that evil is not a thing, in the same way that “cold” or “dark” are not things. Cold and dark are merely the absence of heat and light. Likewise, “evil” is the absence of “good”. When God created the universe, he created everything good, after which something happened that reduced the good in the world. That loss of good is called “evil”.

Of course, as Richard Dawkins proclaims, the universe is without “good” and “evil,” so an atheist doesn’t get to call anything “evil” – except when referring to personal dislikes.  To acknowledge “evil” is to acknowledge “good,” which is to acknowledge something transcendent.

– Then there’s the Magdalene Laundries, paedophile priests, and of course, Nazi empathy. “GOOD”?????

Nowhere in my article did I claim that Christians don’t do bad things. They do. Christians are sinners. The difference with Christians, however, is that they have an objective moral standard by which their behaviour can be judged. Any Christian who does something terrible does so in direct violation of Christ’s teachings. This is a wonderful thing.

But no such standard exists for atheists. In fact, the Nazis (since he brought them up) were just speeding up the evolutionary process in search of the perfect race. Is that wrong? Says who? The universe doesn’t care. In fact, the universe might even approve. (By the way, read up on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom if you want to know how Christians responded to Nazism).

– What separates human beings from animals, is intellect, NOT GOD FFS! 

This is in response to my claim that, on atheism, human life is no more valuable than any other living creature (a mosquito was the example I used in the article). This is a logically sound position given that all humans, according to Richard Dawkins, are nothing but flesh-machines that propagate DNA. As such, on atheism, the human brain is hardwired for survival; it does not care for intellect (or truth or reason).

Therefore, elevating intellect to the status of a value-giving property is completely arbitrary. Well, I happen to think mosquitos are more valuable than humans because mosquitos can hover above the ground. Shove your intellect. Hovering is where it’s at.

Also, if human value is determined by intellect, does a person with an IQ of 140 have more value than a person with an IQ of 80? Are pigs more valuable than newborn humans? Atheist philosopher Peter Singer thinks so. Determining value on a sliding scale according to intellect is a dangerous idea. Only in the bearing of a Creator’s image can human beings have intrinsic value. If there’s no Creator, and therefore no ultimate purpose, then humans don’t have intrinsic value.

– And DON’T ‘DEBATE’ WITH THE LATE, GREAT HITCHENS VIA THIS MEDIUM, YOU SPINELESS TWAT!

CAPS LOCK! He’s serious now. Never blaspheme against a high-priest of atheism or you will suffer the wrath of CAPS LOCK. Of course, the discerning reader will have noticed that I wasn’t debating Hitchens; I was merely responding to his challenge. If you want to see somebody debate Hitchens – and beat him soundly – check out this debate with William Lane Craig or this one with John Lennox.

– What I find laughable, is that you’re ‘grounding’ your morality in fairy tails (sic), NOT facts!

No. My morality is grounded in the fact that a moral law exists. Murdering babies for fun will always be wrong, even if society one day thinks it’s OK. This is a universal moral law. Everyone knows this. But a moral law can only exist if a moral lawgiver exists. This is not a fairy tale, this is a reasonable philosophical position. It could be wrong, but it’s reasonable.

– I’ve had enough of this nonsense! IF YOU ARE GOOD BECAUSE OF A FAIRY TAIL (sic) ‘GOD’, THEN YOU’RE NOT GOOD OF YOUR OWN VOLITION, HENCE YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT ALL!

Notice the repeated use of the word “good”, even though he later agrees (with Dawkins) that “good” and “evil” don’t exist. On one hand, he acknowledges the existence of “good,” then, on the other hand, dismisses it altogether. This is how quickly atheism becomes absurd.

But, yet again, as I explained in the initial article, this is a common misunderstanding of a basic theistic position. I have lost count of the number of times that atheists have got this confused. The issue is not about the motivations behind Christian behaviour; it’s about whether or not “good” and “evil” are objective features of reality (and they are; that’s why people react to them). If so, how? A moral lawgiver – God – is the most reasonable answer.

– It wasn’t badly written, (although it’s VERY easy to tell that this was rewritten many times, and in the planning stage for weeks -lmfao!), but the substance is non-existent!

Cheers! I’ll take the compliments wherever I can find them. Hopefully, this response provides you with more substance – LMFAO.