Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Disparages Atheists

Down with the dualists! By the power of Leibniz and Hume!

Specifically he declared that “atheism, materialism and relativism” are “perverse phenomena” that “threaten the stability of society” and that must be fought against by an alliance of Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Well, I guess we should consider this in the discussion of whether or not atheists should support the interfaith movement.

Maybe if they stay at each others’ throats they won’t come after us.

Note how he just wants the Abrahamic religions to lock arms… against the “threat” that is people who have a diverging opinion.

Apparently, “atheophobe” is not yet in Google Translate’s dictionary… how do we fix that?

Some of the best moral advances, some of the most humanist attitudes don’t need that “a created order that transcends man”.

To claim that it does is pretty much the fear-mongering that is still being peddled today.

All it takes, is a glance at say Sweden to see just how scary a society really is that is secular and non-believing.

“Not bad” is a gross understatement. Italy would love to be Sweden on many social indicators!

thordaddy,

Who’s got your panties in a bunch?

thordaddy,
I can’t make heads or tails out of your remark about what “always amazes” you about atheists, but maybe if you put yourself into the receiving end of powerful people’s irrational fear and loathing, and find yourself the contrived scapegoat and “common enemy” that will unite otherwise murderously opposed rivals, you might understand why atheists would find Frattini’s remarks to be outrageous. Here’s the same quotation with some minor changes that might help you to see what I mean:

Specifically he declared that “thordaddy, thordaddyism, and any and all people who agree with thordaddy, or support thordaddy, or merely tolerate thordaddy” are “perverse phenomena” that “threaten the stability of society” and that must be fought against by an alliance of Christians, Muslims and Jews.

After you’ve walked a mile in them, I want my moccasins back.

thordaddy,
what are you on about?

Are you implying that this “created order that transcends man” ISN’T discriminate? I’m pretty sure that you can’t come to that conclusion by looking at interpretations of this order in holy texts. Well unless you cherry pick, which you’d have to.

Or

Are you implying that scapegoating and discriminating atheists is a good way of making an indisciminate-man made order. Who on earth would want to have their principles based on the deliberate discrimination of a group of people who hold different views.

Why is it so amazing that we are up in arms about that?

A Ugandan paper recently published names of the ‘Top 100 Homosexuals’ and called for their hanging, claiming that they are spreading a deadly disease and that they were raiding schools in order to recruit 1 million children. This is a country that tried to introduce the death penalty for homosexual acts. There was international uproar, and so there should be. Discrimination of any group of people based on blatant prejudice is just unacceptable.

Imagine if Franco Frattini’s remarks about atheism, materialism and relativism were instead regarding homosexuality, conservatives or mixed race couples. Would it be so amazing for us to kick up a fuss then?

Richard Wade,

You actually have things backwards. It is you who fear and loathe those who believe in Supremacy and therefore understand that they cannot strive for Him in an indiscriminate manner.

So you have decided to attempt to exist outside the created order. Ok… You can be free like that. But what makes you think that such a rebellion should be without consequence? What makes you think that those who observe and attempt to live within the created order so as to not suffer the consequences MAKES LIFE UNFAIR for Richard?

A true atheist — not one of immature mind — understands that he must acknowledge God before he denies His existence. In this manner, the “mature” atheist understands that he is attempting to do the impossible AND EXIST as though God did not exist.

And so what does such a person look like, Richard? What does such a person attempt to do in order to neutralize those that believe in the efficacy of discriminate behavior, i.e., superior behavior?

He EXISTS and PROPAGATES an all-accepting indiscriminancy.

Such a person is very dangerous when he is inexplicably elevated to a position of authority.

Sorry thordaddy, there is no “created order”. The earth was not created in a means anywhere close to what has been described in the Abrahamic texts. Living in such a fantasy as an Abrahamic religion may be beneficial to those that believe, but it’s not the truth of reality. Then there’s the risk of people that believe just a little too seriously, and use their religion as a justification to kill apostates and heretics.

There’s no point in Christians, Jews and Muslims fighting against atheists, except as a temporary distraction from hating and killing each other because the other two, despite worshipping the same god, are living under the wrong covenant.

Thordaddy

By your definition, I am not an atheist. I do not, and have not EVER acknowledged the existence of God, because there has never been any reason to do so.

So I am just a non-believer with a mature enough mind to understand that what you have posited, is nothing more than a smokescreen for the fact that you are incapable of establishing the existence of your God.

If you cannot do this to the satisfaction of people who are outside of this created order you speak of, your created order is nothing more than yet another smokescreen for your inability to establish the existence of God.

You line of argument is utterly meaningless.

Anna,

Don’t bring a weak mind to a place where men roam.

Tri Stock,

An atheist is a radical autonomist… A self-refutation… One who attempts to live in mutually exclusive “states.”

All purported atheists — materialistically-mandated — don’t ASSERT, “I do not believe in the existence of!!!”

No tri stock… You acknowledge (give indication that you are rejecting something real) God AND THEN deny His existence.

Now, you may go the route of the God meme, but ironically, you then engage in an infinite regress until you reach the origin of the God meme. The conception of the inconceivable.

Remember, according to tri stock, there is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for God, but you just mentioned Him in your last post and are carrying on with someone that knows Him personally as though He was our mutual acquaintance.

How can you do that AS AN ATHEIST?

JD,

There is no strawman in clarifying what you believe.

You are an atheist that doesn’t believe there is a created order. Period.

But you also whine about men who attempt to create an order that is not to your liking.

In essence, you believe in a universal disorder.

You act accordingly per liberal orthodoxy and attempt to exist in a state of all-accepting indiscriminancy.

For this IS THE STATE of a disordered universe.

I guess, in your own coherent fashion, you are going with the flow?

It’s worth noting that “atheism, materialism and relativism” do “threaten the stability of society.” In fact, as atheists, materialists, and/or relativists, we should revel in this fact, because the existing stability of society sucks (e.g., because it causes mass poverty, bigotry against gays and other groups, etc.). As atheists, materialists, and relativists, we have a vision of a different and better stable society, but we can’t reach it until we’ve destabilized the existing society.

Thordaddy is correct to note that atheists are “rejectors of a created order that transcends man” (except about the ‘transcends man’ part, which contradicts the ‘created order’ part anyway: that which is transcendental is by definition eternal and unchanging, hence uncreated) The existing order is most indeed a created one, and specifically one created with the intentional purpose of benefiting certain groups of people disproportionately. Rather than fighting it, I hope that all of you embrace this: yes, I do reject a created order that treats gays, women, people of color, minority religious and ethnic groups, the poor, etc. as second-class citizens. Yes, I do reject a created order that creates vast inequalities of wealth under some quasi-spiritual theory in which a certain class of ubermensch deserve to rule over the rest of us. Yes, I do reject a created order in which the dignity of one is subject to the whim of another.

However, thordaddy is most definitely wrong when (s)he suggests that “atheists who attempt to live outside the created order AND believe they shall suffer no consequence are dangerous to a free society,” because (s)he apparently mistakenly believes that what we have now is a free society (which, as most any member of one of the marginalized groups listed above will tell you, it isn’t). Say rather that atheists strive for a free society, while the existing social is not only dangerous to a free society but completely incompatible with it and designed specifically to prevent the arising of a free society. And if we’re doing what we ought to be doing (as atheists and relativists), we should definitely be prepared to face “consequences” (i.e., anti-radical/anti-revolutionary violence) from the elite of the existing society that will stop at nothing to maintain their hegemony.

thordaddy:

You acknowledge (give indication that you are rejecting something real) God AND THEN deny His existence.

As a theological noncognitivist, I don’t so much deny the existence of a god as deny that the concepts “God exists” and “God does not exist” even have coherent meanings. God is such a stupid pseudo-idea that it doesn’t even deserve the ontological status of non-existence.

Sean:

But yeah, thordaddy is a misogynist and homophobe, and pretty bad at communication to boot

Actually, if you’re familiar with the philosophical position he (I won’t say “(s)he” since I’m now fairly sure it’s “he”) is arguing for, he’s doing a fairly good job at communicating it. It’s just that it’s a stupid position, so the arguments sound stupid by extension.

@ thordaddy,
A lesson to be learned from this back and forth with you is that you can’t reason with or argue with certain people. You are one of those people. It is one of those rare dichotomous scenarios in which you either disengage or destroy. I far prefer the first option but prepare for the second.
Not all of us atheists are bleeding heart, liberal, anti-gun types*, “thordaddy”. BTW, your moniker smells of Nordic white supremacy. I also noted your penchant for not-so-veiled threats. I’m pissing myself with fear.
Hopefully, your particular brand of idiot will never have a chance to do what you so badly want to do to us, but if it should happen, some of us are ready and willing to quickly give those who threaten us the opportunity to test their belief in an afterlife firsthand…and our numbers grow daily.
*Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Actually, if you’re familiar with the philosophical position he (I won’t say “(s)he” since I’m now fairly sure it’s “he”) is arguing for, he’s doing a fairly good job at communicating it.

It’s fairly clear in this thread, but it got quite far in the other thread before thormommy even mentioned God/atheism or the “created order” (she was trying to phrase it as a non-religious argument and it didn’t go well).

But actually, I was more referring to her reading comprehension than her writing, which, now that I think about it, is probably a deeper problem than just “communication”. A lot of what we’ve been saying goes in one ear and out the other, and I think it’s just because she thinks of the world in different terms and just isn’t equipped with the necessary concepts to decipher other viewpoints. Or else she automatically frames them in such a way that he finds the anathema (treating them as crimethink, or some such). Or she simply prefers to ignore anything she doesn’t have a snappy response to.

@Richard Wade,
I really do try to be nice and play well with others. Really, I do.

JD,

No, it’s much simpler than that. The reason man was able to conceptualize a “unicorn” or “the flying spaghetti monster” is because there EXISTS empirical evidence for horse, horned mammals, flying things, spaghetti and monsters.

So how was man able to conceptualize God? There IS NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for Him ANYWHERE in ALL of the universe.

Man conceived the inconceivable is the atheist’s assertion.

godless monster,

Settle down, boy.

I asked you for some “veiled threats.”

Just one… From anywhere…

Or be a punk.

Godless Monster,
Yes I know you try to play nice, and I’ve always appreciated that about you.

Remember, he loves what you and JD, Sean and Miko are doing. It doesn’t matter how incisively your arguments pierce his nonsense, it doesn’t matter how deeply stabbing is your repartee, you’re giving him exactly what he wants. He’s sucking time, bandwidth and most of all, attention out of you, which is all he wants.

Notice this discussion is now about him, rather than Franco Frattini? Notice how you’re going in smaller and smaller circles? You’re orbiting him. Mmmmm. He loves that. Delicious.

All of you please consider trying an experiment. Ignore him no matter what he says, and continue to discuss the original topic. See if his next few comments get more bizarre, more inflammatory, more desperate and have less substance. Attention addicts go into withdrawals quickly. Watch him shrivel up like a starving mosquito.

I won’t be talking about the troll any more. That’s more food. If all of you are going to keep feeding him, it’s way too boring for me. I’m outa here.

Ah. I see you’ve disengaged. Great.

thordaddy,

I believe in giving respect where respect is due. What is wrong with the following theological stance?

I believe that the supreme creator of the universe is actually Jesus’ grandmother whom I will call “Thormomma”. Thormomma and Yahweh had a falling out and Thormomma banished Yahweh and his slacker son Jesus to a small planet in the outskirts of the milky way galaxy. Of course since Yahweh and Jesus were so vain, they tried to get the hairless primates of that planet to worship them. Of course, not all fell under their spell. Some worship other false gods but the Truth was revealed to a select few that the real supreme being was Thormomma. It was also revealed that all the primates who worship Yahweh and Jesus will not be looked upon kindly by Thormomma should Thormomma decide to grant any kind of existence after death. It was also revealed that Thormomma likes atheists because they at least don’t worship false gods nor the wayward Yahweh or Jesus.

You may say I just made all this up but is this really any less plausible than Christian theology?

First of all, Richard Wade, you’re a (wise) gem 🙂

Secondly….I’d LOVE to see a politician in Canada pull a Frattini ~ he/she would be mocked mercilessly 🙂

AxeGrrl and sarah, mmmwah. 🙂

Signore Frattini seems to be a complicated guy. A BBC news profile from 2004 writes this:

Silvio Berlusconi is offering the perfect balm to a troubled and wounded European Commission – cool, calm and non-controversial Franco Frattini.

The 47-year-old Italian foreign minister seems to be a polar opposite to the former nominee, the outspoken Rocco Buttiglione.

Mr Buttiglione’s views on homosexuality, women and immigration so inflamed the European Parliament that Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was obliged to withdraw the entire 25-member team.

The BBC goes on to describe Frattini as so quiet and good at smoothing over conflicts, that he survived that and continued rising in political influence. They characterize him as “unswayed by passions and non-argumentative,” keeping a low profile and “repeatedly emphasizing the importance of unity in Europe and of healing divisions.”

“Europe can only be viable if it is united and capable of speaking with a single voice,” he wrote in a recent editorial.

It would seem that in the last six years Frattini has become a wee bit more confrontational, controversial and outspoken. Perhaps he thinks that pointing at a boogeyman for everyone to hate will unite them under his banner, and he’ll gain more power and influence. Basic demagoguery.

Frattini’s call for unity against the atheists reminds me of Mitt Romney’s infamous speech during his candidacy early in the GOP presidential primary season in 2007. Faced with suspicion and derision from many sides over his Mormonism, he tried to say that their common enemy is oooh, those eeevil secularists. Join me and we’ll make America safe for God again! Fortunately, it didn’t work. Uniting against a common enemy requires at least the pretense of liking your allies. I guess it was too much to ask of the religious right.

Richard beat me to it. I was going to quote the same thing and simply ask anyone still think interfaith alliances are a good idea? And before you say that’s why we need to be at the table, I still maintain, they’d only invite us to the table as a CYA measure and your voice would not exist. It would only be thundered (yeah, I did that on purpose) over.

Also note that Mr. Frattini only includes the three Abrahamic religions are included. I daresay he probably would also witchhunt people who give praise — even in the form internet monikers — to pagan gods of thunder and rain and farming and such. Welcome to our world.

Sharim wrote:

This reminded me of Carl Paladino (a Roman Catholic) promising an Orthodox Jewish group that he’d discriminate against LGBT people.

And let’s not forget the Rabbi who withdrew his endorsement of Paladino over this…..

Not because Paladino made anti-gay remarks, but because he later apologized for making them!

Rabbi Breaks With Paladino Over Apology