The Return: In Which our resident idiot returns with his diatribes.*

This video is at the end of the day not entirely the result of a man who is innately misunderstanding the foundations of logic. Despite that being true, it’s really the nature of everyone to move towards fundamentalism when you wish to make your point in this world of 140 character limits. It’s also a reaction to what has been termed as “The New Atheists”.

Quick run down for those unfamiliar with the debate. The New Atheist movement is effectively a fundamentalist movement, but instead of being religious it is atheistic in nature. Although I agree with many of the New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and so on), I don’t particularly find their rhetorical style to be something I can endorse. By my nature, I abhor fundamentalism. Fundamentalism shuts down dialogue, in my eyes being a fundamentalist requires you to be so dedicated to your platform that you are not willing to consider the other side. It’s particularly pervasive in religion, which has caused atheists since we tend to be in the minority to react by becoming more opposed to religion, spawning in my eyes a radical new breed of atheist that disregards the other. Which is disheartening.

Anyway, here’s the video that has got me all twisted up and banging my head against my desk: 

The first part of my reaction is why on earth is this dude shouting. Though Dawkins vehemently opposed religion, I can’t think of a single moment that he’s ever shouted despite some of the truly evil things said straight to his face. Sin one: volume does not help your case.

Ignoring the dichotomy of absolute truth for a moment solely to avoid that discussion and focus on the real nature of the video by looking at it’s first blatant attack on atheists. It’s not even an argument, it’s a character attack to demonize atheists. Let me start by first doing exactly what he says I can’t do: I condemn genocide in all of it’s forms period. While I can admit that an atheist has participated in genocide (Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin), I’ll not stoop to the level of throwing genocide in the face of Christians because I have better taste than that. Throwing down a gauntlet like that is meant to trap an argument in petty name calling and dirt throwing which is frankly time consuming and running in circles.

The reason that I condemn genocide is not just an issue of morality. I believe it to be morally wrong and incorrect, however you can remove morality from the discussion entirely. Here’s one way of looking at it: if you are attempting to advance your species group, it is not evolutionarily prudent to exterminate vast numbers of the species for any reason. Natural selection is survival of the fittest, and yes we do select how that works (if you don’t think that’s true, stop dating and looking for “the one”, your qualifications for the one require selective breeding and therefore are controlling natural selection). Genocide can be seen as an extension of this selection, but I disagree on the basis that genocide has entirely different motivations: largely the imposition of one group’s will over another group and culling ideologies.

Time after time, however, genetic diversity has been the key to a species’ survival, and lowering the percentage of candidates in any gene pool will destroy that species. Looking at dogs, so called “purebreeds” are absolutely riddled with genetic insufficiencies due to the fact that selective breeding has been taken so far that genetic diversity is restricted to the point of shortening life spans, lowering quality of life, and in some breed’s case effectively killing them. This is somewhat the case by the destruction of human life on a genocidal scale. It’s just wrong.

That’s his “argument” against atheists, really, in this video. To look further at his claim, it is up to me as an atheist to prove that something does not exist. Which is logically impossible. It’s why the criminal justice system is based on the theory of innocence until guilt is proven. I can’t prove that I did not commit a crime, it’s up to the person accusing me to prove that I did commit that crime. It is not up to me to prove a negative, it is up to the claimant to prove a positive. While New Atheists jump up and down and assert that they have proven God does not exist, those claims are just as ridiculous. It simply cannot be done.

So, I issue my own challenge to this man: prove to me that Odin does not exist. The Allfather saw the world taken over by Ice Giants, cast forever into a state of constant winter. We have evidence that our planet was plunged through a complete Ice Age, proving consistency with that claim. Odin battled the frost giants and expelled them from their rule on this earth, restoring the natural seasons and saving us from eternal winter. In human history, we have never had to return to such a wretched way of living, despite how much fun snowboarders would have. There exists no record of the frost giants return, further supporting the claim that they have been permanently banned from our world. As we developed as a species, Odin no longer needed to intervene as much and has returned to seeing over other places in his domain. So, if Odin has done all these things, I issue the challenge to this man to disprove his existence, and there’s a hundred grand on the line.

You see, it’s absolutely ridiculous of me to issue this challenge. I look like an idiot doing it. I invite you to laugh, because it is quite funny. On the one hand, it betrays a very large lack of knowledge about Norse mythology. It’s also very petty and antagonistic. And it’s attacking people I actually care about. There’s no point to it other than to push out my chest in pride and say “I WIN!” while not actually winning anything but contempt.

Listen, if you want to believe, I beg of you: do so and have spirited discussions about it. Challenge me, challenge your friends, challenge strangers. It’s healthy, it’s important. Humanity will only get better with a diversity of opinion. There’s no point in shutting out any avenue of discussion at the end of the day, although some are more fruitful than others. Learn about new ways of thinking, explore all manner of ideas and ways of living. To borrow a Biblical metaphor, set fire to the steel and hammer it down removing the dross and impurities you find there. Engage Atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Taoists, and so on. There’s a wealth of human experience. Press other people to think, but always press yourself harder. Know and understand what you are arguing about so that you can learn more and grow on your end and help me grow on mine.

And for the love of whatever you find binding, please stop being a fundamentalist. It really harshes my mellow, man.

*Resident idiot is effectively me, I’m coming at this from the perspective of being fully aware that it will not change any minds and yet I’ll still go ahead and spend time on it.