Atheism: A Cult to Nothing – Debunked

Stuart Schneiderman describes himself as a “Life Coach Executive” and he’s pitched in on his blog “Had Enough Therapy?” on Dawkins & Hitchens mission to hold the pope accountable for the crimes committed under his watch while he allegedly protected the perpetrators.

He is of course entitled to his opinion.  But what he is not entitled to without being called to task is sloppy research and non-sequitur conclusions.

I rest my case with the sloppy research accusation right up front as he claims Dawkins’ real name is “Dawson”.  I doubt it’s a typo as he repeats the mistake.  Just in case Mr. Schneiderman edits his blog post (and I have no reason to suspect that he will), here is the original text which I include as an image for the record.

Let’s be generous and put that down to a simple mistake as he did at least get Professor Dawkins’ name correct in the closing paragraph.

Schneiderman launches into a defense of the Catholic Church and lets his canon loose on atheist societies including Stalin’s Soviet Republic as not exactly being paragons of morality.  My beef with Mr. Schneiderman here is that he failed to go on to erect the usual canards regarding Pol Pot and Hitler.  I hate it when I can’t call him out on Godwin’s Law.

We can begin with his defense of the Catholic church.  I quote Schneiderman’s blog entry;

“I recall a conversation I had with a Catholic friend many years ago. He had been disturbed to discover the sordid behavior of many members of the priesthood in the past-- such predations do not date to yesterday-- so he asked a cousin of his, a cardinal in the Church, how he could justify his belief when so much sin has been committed in God's name.

The Cardinal was nonplussed. He responded: if the Church had not been created by God it would never have survived this long.”

God clearly created the Catholic Church as can be demonstrated by its longevity!  Do I really need to list religions that are older than, or at least as old as Catholicism and that still remain in existence?  Do I really need to remind Schneiderman that Jews still in fact exist?

Schneiderman continues to suggest that the Catholic Church cannot prevent sin (crimes) but it has the ability as ordained by God to forgive them, and this somehow “proves” the effectiveness of the church.  The pope’s now infamous “smoking gun” letter most certainly demonstrates the church’s ability to forgive its own.  I’m not wholly sure that they have forgiven the Jews for (allegedly) killing their Christ yet though.

Let us now move onto Schneiderman’s facile canard regarding the horrors and deaths caused at the hands of atheists, and of course he brings Stalin and Communism into the mix at this point.  According to Schneiderman Stalin was responsible for as much, if not more, death and bloodshed as the Catholic Church.  I quote:

“If anything, communist dictatorships murdered more people in a shorter period of time than any religion has ever done. If communism was competing against religion, it emerged victorious in terms of body count.”

Foremost Stalin was a dictator operating a brutal totalitarian regime, and the removal of the powerful religions from his country served a purpose in subjugating the population.  Stalin is guilty of many atrocities and many deaths, but his regime was not one based on atheism.  He didn’t kill and torture in the name of atheism, he did this to maintain his political agenda.  That’s it, plain and simple, atheism was incidental to the politics of the regime and the removal of religion was useful.

But perhaps more importantly, the “they do it too argument” is not in any way a justification for the crimes committed by an institution that claims God given moral authority.  The Catholic Church abused, molested and raped those under its care, and an excuse that “atheists did it too” does not fly.  If you are going to hold the moral high ground, you must at least act morally.  The argument therefore falls flat on its face under the fallacy of non-sequitur.

Schneiderman critiques atheists as lacking in something by not having a religion, and this is substituted with the need to practice secular rituals such as NASCAR, 4^th July Celebrations and football.

“Be that as it may, we should also note that people who have absolutely no truck with God or the Bible believe fervently in metaphysical entities like ideas and ideals. As I have said, this amounts to a thinly disguised idolatry.”

With this wibble and woo Schneiderman is arguing that holding thoughts and opinions is a religious practice.  Well it’s not and it’s also not metaphysical, it’s otherwise known as living and breathing and getting on with your life.

"Ideas are metaphysical entities, whether you worship them at an altar or not. Once you accept that they exist, though not in anything like a physical sense, you should next ask yourself whether they exist when no one is thinking them. If gravity is an idea that is expressed in the behavior of physical objects, did gravity exist before anyone defined the concept. And if it did, if it was an idea, well then, who or what was thinking it?"

This is as basic as “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, will it make a sound?”  Before Newton people were not flying off the planet, Schneiderman is arguing that naming a concept gives it its reality.

Schneiderman’s reasoning is flawed to the extreme and nothing more than wishful thinking.