About a week ago, Massimo Pigliucci posted a link to this article on Facebook. That posting generated a lot of comments, to the point where Massimo had to intervene to stop it. This article was prone to be jumped upon by those on the other side of the issue, as is the case with most infighting in any group. And that was in fact what happend at the Vox Popoli blog which proclames (emphasis added):
Baggini’s efforts are well-placed, but one thing he misses in his essay is that the New Atheists, having seen their “error theory” repeatedly blown away and shown for the logical and empirical nonsense that it is, are in the process of shifting to what can be described as the “compartmental” theory. This hasn’t yet made its way down to the run-of-the-mill internet atheists, whose primary form of “debate” still consists of calling people stupid despite the fact that all of the available evidence demonstrates rather conclusively that the objects of their ridicule are, as a point of fact, rather more intelligent than the atheist himself.
First, I would like to see what evidence he is referring to when he says that “all of the available evidence demonstrates rather conclusively that the objects of their ridicule are, as a point of fact, rather more intelligent”, because I suspect he’s using a very unorthodox definition of evidence here. Second, I consider myself to be one of those ” run-of-the-mill internet atheists” they are referring to here, and while I have done my fair share of calling stupid people out, I think, and hope, I’ve only done it when they actually said or did something stupid, not solely because they believe in God. I don’t think that believing in God makes people stupid. It makes them wrong and misguided, but not stupid. Nevertheless that is not the point I want to concentrate on in this entry.
What I want to point out is the hypocrisy of the entry by Vox. See, on the one hand he criticizes the atheists for calling others names, specifically “stupid”. Then, without batting an eyelash he turns around and says the following (emphasis added):
Atheism will always exist. As it is written, there have always been fools who have said in their hearts that there is no God.
Bit hypocritital no? First he says that our primary form of “debate” is calling people stupid, which of course must be wrong, then he turns around and presents his argument/debate which basically amounts to nothing more than calling us fools. Now, I’m nothing but a mere run of the mill internet atheist, who is mentally inferior as demonstrated by all the available evidence, but this sort of reasoning sounds a little….well…..stupid foolish to me!