The Smallest Minority

The Smallest Minority
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
I am Simon Jester . . . and so are you Wahabism Delenda Est Hey, FEC! BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION! "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.) email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 6 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003! An Invitation to My Readers Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience? BLOGROLL: PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET A Keyboard and a .45 AIM Blog Another Gun Blog The Armed Schoolteacher Bitter of The Bitch Girls Cowboy Blob Captain of a Crew of One damnum absque injuria Dave Kopel Days of our Trailers GreatBlueWhale Gun Pundit GunTruth Kim du Toit Mrs. du Toit The Mad Duck Michael Bane Rustmeister's Alehouse Serenity Sharp as a Marble Snowflakes in Hell Smoke on the Water Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Gun Nuts Media On the Patio Phil and Dave of Random Nuclear Strikes Fodder of Ride Fast & Shoot Straight Rivrdog Say Uncle View From the Porch Walls of the City JimmyB, The Conservative UAW Guy Engineering Johnson KeeWee Yosemite Sam and Denise from The Ten Ring The Unforgiving Minute Mr. Completely Og the Neanderpundit USCitizen of Traction Control World Examiner Joe Huffman Chris & Mel John and Beth Donovan The Packing Rat Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell DirtCrashr of Anthroblogogy Rob of The Kitchen Maj. Chuck Ziegenfuss of From My Position... On the Way! Matthew of Triggerfinger Sarah of Carnaby Fudge KevinP who maintains this excellent Wikipedia entry on the Joyce Foundation Dave Hardy Clayton Cramer Engineer-Poet Primeval Papa FURRINERS Kiwi Pundit The Policeman's Blog Free Market Fairy Tales Samizdata Musing The Second Version The Last of the Few The Inside Edge Jigsaw's Thoughts OTHER GOOD READS Baby Troll Blog The Winds of Change Sense of Events The Everlasting Phelps Knowledge is Power QandO Blog Radio Blogger Rachel Lucas Mad Rocket Scientist THE PSYCHE BRIGADE Dr. Sanity Dr. Helen One Cosmos ShrinkWrapped Neo-Neocon Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred OTHER AZ BLOGS Useful Fools Zonitics Jackalope Pursuivant Primeval Papa Oxypolitis Arizona Rifleman A Gator in the Desert DEPT. OF OUR COLLAPSING SCHOOLS Joanne Jacobs EducatioNation Teacher, Teacher The Irascible Professor OTHERS KIND ENOUGH TO BLOGROLL ME Adding to the Noise America's North Shore Journal Anthroblogogy Atomic Nerds Baboon Pirates Bad Dogs and Such The Bastidge Black & Right Blognomicon Benevolent Misanthropy (Ian Hamet) Charming, Just Charming Chublogga! Classical Values Common Sense and Wonder Combs Spouts Off Conservative Scalawag The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns damnum absque injuria David Drake Digital Retrograde The Dougout The Emigre with a Digital Cluebat Empire of Dirt Ether Mind The Fabulous Mint 400 The Freeholder Heinleinblog Impearls Interested-Participant Isaac Schrödinger Josh's Weblog Keith Devens Kill Righty Libertopia Liberal Morality The Liberty Zone The Liberty Papers Living in the Surreal World Mike's Eyes Miss O'Hara The Mind of Mog The Ministry of Minor Perfidy MonkeyWatch Adam Lawson NashvilleFiles Near the Salty City PervasiveLight Pierre Legrand's Pink Flamingo Bar Practical Penumbra The Passing Parade Right As Usual Rough Diamond Rules for Rulers Sharp as a Marble She Who Will Be Obeyed! The Speculist Sperari Striderweb A Trainwreck in Maxwell The Warren Warthog's Rants Wasted Electrons Wheels within Wheels Wicked Thoughts	Monday, October 30, 2006 Atheists and Anti-theists. Or: "Brights?" Don't Make Me Laugh! You know, I sometimes hesitate to write these pieces. Partially because they're the ones that draw 100+ comments, and partially because they generally serve only to piss some people off. However, it's a topic that I find pretty fascinating, and (given the 100+ comments) others obviously do too. I noted recently that Rev. Donald Sensing had written a piece entitled Can Atheism Be Justified?. I greatly respect Rev. Sensing - in fact it was to him I addressed an Important Question. I said then, and I believe now, that Rev. Sensing is one of the not-so-common deep thinkers in the blogosphere. The Reverend's essay begins: Dinesh D’Souza writes, A group of leading atheists is puzzled by the continued existence and vitality of religion. What an interesting thing for atheists to ponder. In the modern day one either has to accept some kind of deistic understanding of the origin of the universe or an evolutionary understanding that excludes any sort of deity from contributing to the origin of the universe and all contained therein. I am not saying that one must either be religious or non-religious, for the dichotomy is true even for adherents of non-deistic or nature religions. Either deity (or deities) had a hand in existence itself, or it/they did not. So why would a deity-denying atheist be puzzled that religion is thriving? If evolution as they describe it is true, then religion is itself a product thereof. Not only that, but Judaism is an evolutionary product, so is Christianity, so is Islam, so is Buddhism, so is Shamanisn, so is … well, you get the idea. And so is the theory of evolution itself. And astrology. And tarot-card reading. And medical science. And faith healing. And everything else. So why do materialists single out religion as a particularly puzzling thing to exist? Why religion and not, say, athletics or stamp collecting or consumption of alcohol? See what I mean? Cuts right to the quick of it, doesn't he? I took some time to read D'Souza's column. In it, he references Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and E.O. Wilson - all of whom I have linked to or quoted myself in Why I Am an Atheist. D'Souza's arguments for why religion is popular and atheism is not are (in my opinion) irrefutable. Example: (I)magine two groups of people -- let's call them the Secular Tribe and the Religious Tribe -- who subscribe to one of these two views. Which of the two is more likely to survive, prosper and multiply? The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose. The secular tribe is made up of people who are not sure why they exist at all. The religious tribe is composed of individuals who view their every thought and action as consequential. The secular tribe is made up of matter that cannot explain why it is able to think at all. Should evolutionists like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Wilson be surprised, then, to see that religious tribes are flourishing around the world? Across the globe, religious faith is thriving and religious people are having more children. By contrast, atheist conventions only draw a handful of embittered souls, and the atheist lifestyle seems to produce listless tribes that cannot even reproduce themselves. Oooh! Ouch! (Truth hurts, or so they say.) And that last paragraph on the fact that secular societies are not breeding while religious ones are is a telling one. D'Souza, too, turns the question around most effectively in his last paragraph: My conclusion is that it is not religion but atheism that requires a Darwinian explanation. It seems perplexing why nature would breed a group of people who see no purpose to life or the universe, indeed whose only moral drive seems to be sneering at their fellow human beings who do have a sense of purpose. This is a question I've fielded here in comments on more than one occasion. But bear with me a few more minutes. In this month's issue of Wired magazine, editor Gary Wolf looks into The Church of the Non-Believer, and it's a very interesting exposé. Wolf starts off with fire and brimstone (sorry about the mixed-metaphors.): MY FRIENDS, I MUST ASK YOU AN IMPORTANT QUESTION TODAY: Where do you stand on God? It's a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I'm afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position. This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith. The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking. You know, I sort of understood that there was a battle going on, but I hadn't before realized just how virulent it was. I've repeatedly stated that I'm a small "a" atheist. I guess that makes me "noncommittal" in the war on faith. Actually, that's not completely accurate. I found this quote somewhere, but I failed to link to the source: Consider the two statements: "I don't believe there is a God." "I believe there is no God." One has a belief, the other does not. The latter is the position of what's thought to be the true atheist (though the nomenclature is screwed up, because atheist should really mean no theistic beliefs, e.g. asexual, or amoral, and antitheist is the word we should use for someone we currently term an atheist). I'm an atheist. They are *ANTI*theists. I'll stop here for the moment. Please read the entire, quite excellent Wired piece. There will be a discussion later. Oh, and it runs just a bit over 7,000 words. I don't want to hear how long-winded I am anymore! ;-) \| posted by Kevin at 5:40 PM PermaLink HOME