A weekly series of responses to the things christians say to atheists, based on the video reproduced here on 30th January 2012. The aim is to tackle one every weekend, to give both a moderate, polite response to each question ('Piano'), followed by a more forceful rebuttal of the same question ('Forte').
The fool hath said in his heart that there is no god
Piano
Psalm 14 verse 1. Atheists do hear this assertion quite frequently - certainly often enough that we tend to know the verse of the bible that is being used. Oddly enough, the same is not always true of the christian who asserts it.
But when it comes down to it it is just a verse from the official handbook of the Christian faith, the bible. That makes it more than a little biased and it means that it relies of certain assumptions that you take for granted. In order for it to mean anything useful to the listener they would need to have some sort of faith that the bible is inspired by a god.
This is where the problem lies. If you don't believe in a theistic god (as atheists by definition do not) then it is an obvious fallacy to assume that they will respect the contents of the bible.
Coming from the opposite point of view, even bible readers who have any belief in a theistic god have all their work in front of them. Considering that it is claimed to be the inspired word of their god, it is riddled with inconsistency and contradiction. There are so many of these contradictions that I know you know about them and will not even bother to quote one.
On a more frivolous note, how can you 'say' anything in your heart anyway. You might think it in your mind or say it with your voice. Thought crime being a capital offence in the Old Testament, either might be considered dangerous.
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Forte
What an offensive thing to say! Are you calling me a fool? Surely it is much more foolish to rely on blind faith in something transcendent which you cannot see, hear, smell, touch or taste. This collection of writings that you call 'The Old Testament' doesn't make much sense, but the more you read the fragments, the more you realise that much of it is about the fight between Yahweh and the other gods in the host of heaven. By trying so hard to deny the truth of polytheism, surely it actually achieves the opposite. Even the one god who you choose to worship is undeniably a monster. Here are the words of Richard Dawkins:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
See this link for a detailed unpicking of every phrase of it to prove to you, from your bible, that it is undeniably true.
How dare you use the moderate cuddly parts of christianity to lecture me about being a fool when you can't even recognise your own god for what he is?
Next week: You're a What?
there is also the passage (in Matthew?) where Jesus says that to call someone a fool is equivalent to murder. So is te psalm writer equivalent to a murderer? what about the person who quotes the psalm?
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