Debate conclusion : Christians are our cultural enemies

This is part of my debate conclusion against Christian apologist G. Brady Lenardos. You can read the full conclusion, as well as the rest of the debate, on his debate page or on my message board.

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Not only does the presuppositionalist emperor have no clothes, but he is a shriveled, dirty shadow of a man, with the despicable mind of a tyrant.

Christians are offensive because they do everything they possibly can to add the label “God” to everything good done by human beings. But by doing so, they degrade the efforts and values of the people who do that good. To the mountain of knowledge presented to us by the naturalist, scientific study of reality, the presuppositionalist can only bleat : “you need God to say that !”. Does he present actual discoveries ? No, that would actually take effort. Claiming victory for a preposterous and incoherent belief by default is much easier.

The scientist stands on the shoulders of giants – the Bacons, the Newtons, the Galileos, the Darwins, the Einsteins. The Christian is perched on one single book of tribal myths, and can but throw stones and do his best to spit at the peaks of human accomplishment. By doing so, he mostly splashes himself.

The Christian worldview is a bleak worldview. For a belief system supposedly comforting to befuddled human beings, it is singularly nihilistic. Christianity offers the human being a reality where purpose resides in an unchangeable, undecipherable divine will, meaning and value pounded to the ground by absolutism, hope does not exist except as a literal deus ex machina, morality and rationality are subjective to divine fiat, all men are corrupt and evil from the get-go, and man’s ideal states – in both the Adam and Eve myth and the description of Heaven – are those of ignorant, apathetic puppets.

What does Christianity have to offer to any sane individual ? Apart from perhaps assuaging guilt for his crimes, and permitting him to live a dishonest, dissolute life ? The hope of an afterlife as a heavenly puppet, with one’s loved ones roasting below ? Or maybe the assurance of being special and being able to pretend to have all the answers, ignoring all these inconvenient facts ? Probably the latter.

At present, due to the emergence of individual freedom in the Western world and its repercussions around the world, we are caught in a cultural war. Christianity and Islam – two campfire superstitions used to justify war and racism – have achieved world dominance. They both stand squarely against natural and Western values – material gain, romantic love and sexuality, equality, tolerance and respect, the importance of life – as well as our most noble and venerable institutions – the discovery and application of scientific principles, peaceful trading and commercialism, as well as acting and being judged based on one’s values, even if we disagree with each other on what the best values are.

Mr. Lenardos has made his choice to fight for religious collectivism and against the expression of individual values. As an individualist, I concede his freedom to make that choice, and to bear the consequences in his own heart. But those of you who read this debate, saw the arguments, and now go back to your daily lives, should examine whether this is the position you wish to continue to take. The epistemic freedom you take for granted – freedom of thought, moral autonomy, and non-religious knowledge – and the values you hold – honesty, justice, love, peace, purpose, pride, to cherish life and its truths – are not to be found in Mr. Lenardos’ world, or the bleak world of Christianity.