Educating Dan The Educator

An atheist responds to a typically uniformed (or lying) theist:

As an atheist all my adult life, I can tell you exactly what atheism is: It is the lack of belief in any sort of theism. It is simply the response to theism of saying, "I don't believe it." It's the rejection of the belief in any god or gods. That's all it is. It's knowing one doesn't have to be locked into a god-belief, and opting out (or never getting sucked into it to begin with). It's being free from the addictive superstitions of religion, seeing that religion and morality are two entirely separate things. There is absolutely no call for an atheist to "explain" themselves — the burden of proof is entirely upon one who presents something as true; i. e. the theist. Theists make the most outrageous claims, without any proof that stands up to close examination. Atheists don't believe them.

The Mr. Valenti she is responding to made the following idiotic statements (my comments follow each of Sky-Daddy loving Dan's paragraphs):

The author fails to offer compelling evidence that the "no God" argument is worthy of being taken seriously. This has always been atheism's great polemic weakness. Having to argue the existence of an alleged non-existence, it must deny God by referring to God. The poor atheist must accept this on faith and hope others will do the same.

I had to read the above twice to really believe someone could write something so shockingly devoid of reason and logic. Keep in mind this arrogant jackass is "A writer, broadcaster, and educator" and " the author of 12 books" (see here).

Let's educate "educator" Dan Valenti. First, no evidence is needed not to believe in something for which no evidence has been provided. What evidence can Mr. Valenti produce to show why his non-belief in Islam is justified (I'm assuming he is not a Muslim)? If he does not believe that the Koran is God's word and Muhammad is his prophet then Mr. Valenti is just going to have to deny Allah by referring to Allah. Poor non-Muslim Dan Valenti must accept this nonexistence of Allah on faith and hope others will do the same.

Is it fair to use such an argument against Mr. Valenti for his failure to see the truth of Islam? Of course not, yet he uses the same argument against atheists, who do not assert anything when it comes to gods, but simply ask theists to provide the evidence that justifies believing in invisible supernatural beings. I'm confident Dan "The Educator" Valenti would expect Muslims to provide real evidence that their beliefs are true before he adopts their religion as his own.

May I ask just what it is Dan Valenti thinks atheists have "faith" in? Does Mr. Valenti think it takes faith not to believe in fairies, bigfoot, leprecauns and other numerous magical beings that some claim exist? If I told Dan the Educator that an invisible magic elephant occupies my living room, would he need "faith" NOT to believe it? Yet such inane, illogical reasoning is typical of the god-believer. No wonder atheists think religous belief is nonsense, when even "educated" theists can't defend it without resorting to logical fallicies.

More of Dan "The 'Educator'" Valenti's self-refuting words:

It's easy to show how atheism unravels as an exercise in logic. On the basis of his own lack of experience, and discounting the overwhelming evidence of historical human experience, the atheist deductively concludes there is no God then advances that faulty major premise as an article of faith, one that dooms subsequent reasoning. However valid, the argument cannot be true.

Since Mr. Valenti has no experience of being a Muslim, I guess he is discounting the overwhelming evidence of the historical Muslim experience, deductively concluding that Allah does not exist. He must also believe that the Sun orbits the earth, as the overwhelming evidence of human experience proved that it did for centuries. And please, what "article of faith" is he referring to? Does he hold it as an article of faith that Zeus and Thor do not exist?


The nonsense continues:

Truth, however, is the atheist's first victim. Instead of the wondrous presence of the universe and everything in it, which by moral certainty we know exists, the nonbeliever presents life as an empty, uncaused desert populated by a human species that...is prone to savagery.

Assertions but no evidence, the lazy theist's stock in trade, is the best that this "educator" can come up with. The truth has always been the victim of mysticism and superstition. The way of religion, with its elevation of faith over observation and reason, and its consequently magical view of the universe, only leads to false beliefs. But mystical Dan states that truth is the victim of atheism, in the same way, I suppose, as nonbelief in astrology makes truth a victim. He further states the obvious and makes the daring claim that the universe exists and is a wondrous place, as indeed it is, but I've never known an atheist to deny this. The facts are quite contrary to Danny Boy's (he has the philosophy of a child, so I think boy is an apt description, of his mind if not his body) moronic view, for it is the theist who ultimately must deny the universe and existence its rightful place of primacy and substitute it and give its glory to an invisible, imagined super-being that the boys and girls call "god." Theism in all its forms denigrates this world and this life and instead worships the unknowable. It says that there is another, better world to come, and leads people to become disillusioned with the wonders of reality and instead long for those imaginary streets of gold that exist nowhere but in the fevered dreams of the Dan Valenti's of the world. Mr. Valenti projects his own hatred of the real world onto the atheist, making the nonbeliever into the one who sees life as empty, when nothing like that follows from rejection of god-belief. It is Danny Boy who thinks this life and universe would be empty without his sky-daddy, and so accuses the atheist of holding to such a view. But of course it is the theist who distorts the truth of the wonders and fulfillment of a real life in a real world, and who can't see how anyone else can see it differently without also playing the theistic game of sky-daddy (tyrant) make-believe.

More from Mr. B.S.:

Of course atheism is growing, but not because adherents find the message captivating. Rather, they embrace your position because it avoids the duty of finding out firsthand about God, a lifetime effort that finds no place in an Instant Age where attention spans die on the keyboards of high tech. In the era of surfing the net on a computer while text messaging on a phone while listening to an iPod while watching TV, the capacity for sustained awareness and focus spirituality presumes has little chance.

I would like to ask Sky-Daddy Dan (that has a nice ring to it, but maybe I should say Sky-Daddy freak Dan) how he gained this "firsthand" knowledge of "God". It doesn't take a lifetime to know that the Sun and moon exist, or for you to confirm that another person exists. I can even, without confirming directly through years of investigation and experiment, come to near certainty of the reality of most any fact in at most a matter of weeks by reviewing what experts in a particular field have discovered. That Danny Boy Valenti states it takes a lifetime of sustained awareness of his invisible magical world to discover its "truth" only confirms the imaginary and nonexistent nature of it.


The Sky-Daddy Freak continues with his unrelenting torrent of dog crap:

There's no such thing as honest atheism. Those who openly declare God doesn't exist stand indicted by their own pointing fingers...they unreasonably and illogically embrace an irrational assertion they have no way of proving.

How many times, oh Danny Boy, do atheists have to explain to you something you should have firmly grasped at least by the time you graduated from high school? Its called the BURDEN OF PROOF, and it falls to the one making the assertion, i.e., the one claiming something (such as that an invisible all-powerful Sky-Daddy exists). There is no obligation to "prove" that something doesn't exist unless that something has already been proven to exist. Please "prove" that my invisible magic elephant doesn't exist. Can't do it? Then by your own words you are "irrational". But then, astute observers have always known that theists are usually hypocrites and never consistently follow their strange and incoherent reasoning.


Educator Dan must have been trained at the Goebbels school of propaganda (if you tell a lie often enough it becomes "the truth", especially when you accuse your opponent of doing exactly what you're doing) in order to produce this next sentence:

Atheists, as it turns out, believe things much more fantastic and absurd than those they mock.

And what things, dear Danny Boy, do atheists mock? Dying and rising god-men? The efficacy of petitionary prayer (no study has ever confirmed that prayer is anything more than talking to oneself, and in fact the studies that have been done show it has no effect at all)? That flying planes into buildings will earn you an immediate place in heaven and the services of 72 virgins? Yes, only a Sky-Daddy freak could believe it is more absurd to deny such things than to embrace them. Thank you, Educator Dan, for enlightening us all.