***THORAN***
Then you’re doing it wrong.

***YOU***
And That’s OK.

***THORAN***
NO IT’S NOT! If there are Atheists as stupid as creationists, they deserve no more respect than Creationists do.

***YOU***
In it Sartwell admits:

The atheistic worldview “is similar to the worldview of religion—neither can be shown to be true or false by science,

***THORAN***
My beliefs are BASED on Science you moron.

***YOU***
r indeed by any rational technique.

***THORAN***
How do you think I deconverted in the first place?

***YOU***
hether theistic or atheistic, they are all matters of faith,

***THORAN***
Faith is the closed-minded pig-headed refusal to think lest God punish you for having a brain, “Faith” is beyond stupid. “Faith” is anti-intelligence. Ignorance is the neutral point between intelligence and “Faith”.

***YOU***
tances taken up by tiny creatures in an infinitely rich environment.”
His view of the universe as a natural, material system is based on his interpretation of his experience not on a rational argument.

***THORAN***
So… he’s an idiot.

***YOU***

“I have taken a leap of atheist faith.”

***THORAN***
How is that even possible? You jump out a window and rejoice that Superman lets you go splat?

***YOU***

Atheism can be as much a product of family, social, and institutional context as religious faith.

***THORAN***
And my family is Catholic so bullshit.

***YOU***

“The idea that the atheist comes to her view of the world through rationality and argumentation, while the believer relies on arbitrary emotional commitments, is false.”

***THORAN***
I have a feeling this guy isn’t an Atheist at all, he’s starting to sound like a Theist straw-man.

***YOU***

Just as religious people have often offloaded the burden of their choices on church dogma, so some atheists are equally willing to offload their beliefs on “reason” or “science” without acknowledging that they are making a bold intellectual commitment about the nature of the universe, and making it with utterly insufficient data.

***THORAN***
Wait… so… to you, intelligence is something OUTSIDE your own mind? You yourself are not a skeptic, you just bow to an external force you call “reason”? And by the way, what Atheist is so dismissive of “reason”? Creationists have been known to talk about “reason” the same way Vulkiens talk about “emotion”. Creationists, and you.
You can’t be that dismissive of intelligence itself and then complain when we call you idiots.

***YOU***

Science rests on emotional commitment

***THORAN***
*facepalm*

***YOU***
(that there is a truth), a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system backs us up.

***THORAN***
You know nothing about Science.

***YOU***

What a refreshing blast of humble and honest air!

***THORAN***
No it isn’t. It’s the ravings of a complete idiot. Possibly a straw-man, definitely an idiot.

***YOU***
You cannot but admire such a sincere, transparent, and honorable atheist.

***THORAN***
Admire? He said he takes Leaps of Faith and he doesn’t base his beliefs on reason! HE IS A MORON!

***YOU***
But the article ends on a painfully sad note, which may partly explain Sartwell’s atheism, and maybe even his humility:

Genuinely bad things have happened to me in my life:

***THORAN***
I’m actually going to delete this part. If he is not a reverse Poe, then I will be making fun of genuine trajedy. If he is a reverse Poe, he’s an emotionally manipulative troll. Either way, best to skip it entirely.

***YOU***

By not believing in God, I keep faith with the world’s indifference.

***THORAN***
Faith in indifference… what?

***YOU***
I love its beauty. I hate its suffering…I’m perfectly sincere and definite in my belief that there is no God. I can see that there could be comfort in believing otherwise, believing that all the suffering and death makes sense, that everyone gets what they deserve, and that existence works out in the end.

But to believe that would be to betray my actual experiences,

***THORAN***
Betray experience… betray an abstract concept that is basically memouries… betray a non-person… ok I’m missing something here.

***YOU***
and even without the aid of reasoned arguments,

***THORAN***
And there’s your problem. No skeptic does ANYTHING without thinking about it. ESPECIALLY believe things.

***YOU***
that’s reason enough not to believe.

***THORAN***
No it’s not. In fact, I would be happy if you accepted Jesus as your personal lord and saviour. One less idiot amongst our ranks.

***YOU***

As is so often the case, the agony of suffering is a large contributor to Sartwell’s atheistic faith.

***THORAN***
Idiot.

***YOU***
There are many like him,

***THORAN***
We’re not all Batman!

***YOU***
young and old, who find personal and global pain an insurmountable obstacle to Christian faith.

***THORAN***
The fact that “thought about it” doesn’t even occur to you as a reason someone might deconvert says a lot about you.

***YOU***
In my experience, quoting Romans 8:28, preaching God’s sovereignty, or offering philosophical arguments about suffering in such situations is usually ineffective.

***THORAN***
Gee, quoting a book we think is bullshit to prove a book we think is bullshit doesn’t work on people who think is bullshit. What are the odds?

You assume he’s the one and only Atheist who actually confirms your straw-man is the only atheist on the planet who’s “honest” and all the rest are lying.

That’s exactly why you should be suspicious.