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Well, usually I don’t. I was procrastinating, an activity I have raised to a fine art form. But anyway, here it is:

Why We Must At Least Pretend to Believe in God, Though I Will Make It Clear Later In This Piece That By ‘God’ I mean ‘My God In Particular,’ by Some Douchebag Named Dennis Prager

1. Without God there is no good and evil; there are only subjective opinions that we then label “good” and “evil.” This does not mean that an atheist cannot be a good person. Nor does it mean that all those who believe in God are good; there are good atheists and there are bad believers in God.

You just said that believing in God doesn’t make a person “good” or “evil.” You realize that, don’t you? You just…completely…derailed…your…whole…oh, never mind.

2. Without God, there is no objective meaning to life. We are all merely random creations of natural selection whose existence has no more intrinsic purpose or meaning than that of a pebble equally randomly produced.

…and this is a problem, practically-speaking, because..?

3. Life is ultimately a tragic fare if there is no God. We live, we suffer, we die — some horrifically, many prematurely — and there is only oblivion afterward.

As opposed to an eternity burning in a pit full of fire being stabbed endlessly in the ass with a pitchfork?

4. Human beings need instruction manuals. This is as true for acting morally and wisely as it is for properly flying an airplane. One’s heart is often no better a guide to what is right and wrong than it is to the right and wrong way to fly an airplane.

Well, most pilots use their heads, not their hearts, to fly their planes. Generally they have to prove that they can fly a plane also without an instruction manual before they’re allowed to do it with actual passengers aboard.

5. If there is no God, the kindest and most innocent victims of torture and murder have no better a fate after death than do the most cruel torturers and mass murderers.

Are we really worried about what happens to cruel torturers and mass murderers after they die? We can say for sure that they’re not torturing or murdering anybody anymore–isn’t that the important thing?

6. With the death of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many Westerners believe in little. That is why secular Western Europe has been unwilling and therefore unable to confront evil, whether it was Communism during the Cold War or Islamic totalitarians in its midst today.

I’m wondering what actions the writer would be willing to concede fulfill the requirements of “confronting evil.” Clearly making laws against hurting or killing people or stealing their stuff isn’t in his definition. Is he looking for the West to reopen the Crusades, maybe?

7. Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed that men’s and women’s natures are basically the same, that perceived differences between the sexes are all socially induced. Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.

I think the translation of this is, “People are fucking nuts and if they can’t express that by believing in God, they turn to believing in feminism instead.”

Wheee!

8. If there is no God, the human being has no free will. He is a robot, whose every action is dictated by genes and environment. Only if one posits human creation by a Creator that transcends genes and environment who implanted the ability to transcend genes and environment can humans have free will.

Erm…does that mean if you don’t believe in God he doesn’t give you free will? Or do you have that regardless of what you believe?

9. If there is no God, humans and “other” animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals.

Yep, that certainly entirely explains that! I have been wondering where all those proposed laws that give dogs and cats the vote and try to ensure their Second Amendment rights to bear arms are kept intact are coming from and now, I know.

10. Without God, there is little to inspire people to create inspiring art. That is why contemporary art galleries and museums are filled with “art” that celebrates the scatological, the ugly and the shocking. Compare this art to Michelangelo’s art in the Sistine chapel. The latter elevates the viewer — because Michelangelo believed in something higher than himself and higher than all men.

Or you can compare it to this fine art here. Nothing scatalogical, ugly or shocking about any o’ this! The artists believed in something higher than themselves, you know.

11. Without God nothing is holy. This is definitional. Holiness emanates from a belief in the holy. This explains, for example, the far more widespread acceptance of public cursing in secular society than in religious society. To the religious, there is holy speech and profane speech. In much of secular society the very notion of profane speech is mocked.

And this is a problem, practically-speaking, because..?

12. Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable. If there is nothing higher than man, no Supreme Being, man becomes the supreme being.

But you just said that without God we were all equal with the animals.

13. Without God, there are no inalienable human rights. Evolution confers no rights. Molecules confer no rights. Energy has no moral concerns. That is why America’s Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed “by our Creator” with certain inalienable rights. Rights depend upon a moral source, a rights giver.

Actually, not all of America’s founders were on board with that.

14. “Without God,” Dostoevsky famously wrote, “all is permitted.” There has been plenty of evil committed by believers in God, but the widespread cruelties and the sheer number of innocents murdered by secular regimes — specifically Nazi, Fascist and Communist regimes — dwarfs the evil done in the name of religion.

Secular regimes actually never murdered anybody in the name of “There Is No God!” They murdered people to preserve their own power. Just like religious regimes. Oh evil, thy name is..!

Stupidity. Definitely.