Dear White Atheists and White Liberal "Theologians"/Philosophers

Enjoy trying to get your golem under control.

Sincerely, and with much laughter,

Crude

If you're passionate about your faith, please don't make it your source of income

It's anecdotal, but the track record for people who do this strikes me as absolutely terrible.

You end up with once-devout Catholics and Christians having to defend or at least stay silent about moral monsters, for fear of losing their inevitably already low-paying jobs, or being cut off permanently from career advancement. It's probably not for nothing that Ed Feser, while brilliant, also is - as far as I know - primarily employed outside of the Church, and indeed has managed to at least manage an independent source of income via book-writing, etc. If he were employed by the Church, he'd likely have been muzzled or fired a while ago.

If you're passionate about your faith, get into another career. Also, ask yourself how much work you could do for the faith while anonymous. We live in an age where anonymous people can make videos, write books, do all kinds of things - even earn an income, at times - while still being somewhat aloof.

An ode to Mark Shea's career

Just showing up to raise a toast to the effective end of Mark Shea's career.

I arrive at this party late, only because I kept bi-annual tabs just to make sure this corpse didn't get up and start shambling around again. But no, there won't be any reanimating this one: Shea's gone. He's just a crazy man getting angry at everything now and lashing out with some combination of hyperbole and hysteria.

The one lingering contribution he's made is how funny it is for him to be "Catholic - and loving it!" when any random sampling of him for years will hit on him being frantic, angry and miserable. Made doubly educational, since just about every person the maniac has denounced as "hateful" seems on the whole not only happier, but nicer than him.

God, as always, has a sense of humor.

Fast thoughts 6/20/19

* The continued secularization of the West (and, if we're being perfectly honest, of the Church as well) hasn't led to any increased popularity of just about any of the New Atheists. Dennett has fled the scene, Dawkins was sidelined by a combination of a stroke and a vague aura of the patriarchy, and the third-stringers either found other things to talk about or faded into obscurity (though usually with some hilarious sex-creep allegations.) The message the world has sent to the atheism-obsessed is clear: "We may not like Christianity, but the sort of people who are obsessed with atheism are typically a pack of creeps and weirdos, so we don't need your services either." If being an atheist meant having to hang out with Richard Carrier, most people would just go to church.

* My faith in God has solidified over the years, having realized that too many arguments for God were too successful, and arguments for atheism are famously hard to come by. That said, there is one privation in this universe of ours that sometimes causes me to question God's goodness: the fact that no journalist has yet asked Pope Francis, face to face and in the midst of a live press conference, if he's ever engaged in sodomy since becoming Pope. Admittedly, if anything is going to get an actual papal assassin to leap out of the shadows and garrote you on the spot, it's a question like that, but given the sheer volume of gay scandals (yes they are GAY scandals, stop telling me plowing a 16 year old boy is pedophilia and has nothing to do with homosexuality, good God) it's a question that someone has to ask. I know the Pope's official line here was "The problem was clericalism" but I'll believe that the moment June is recognized as Clergy Pride Month.

* By the by, the Pope's insistence that he didn't know anything about McCarrick really brings to the fore an old claim of mine: the only defense of Pope Francis is that he's actually retarded. Keep in mind that Vigano claims he told Francis about McCarrick, Pope Benedict certainly did restrict McCarrick for his homosexual abuse behavior, and even the Pope's response is that he just can't *remember* if Vigano told him anything, but he swears if he did then he totally forgot it when he elevated McCarrick to a prominent position in the Church. So B16 never told Francis about this? And if someone did tell him he *forgot*? And no one reminded him "Hey your holiness, about your promotion of this guy, you realize he's sucked like twenty seminarian's dicks *this year*"?

* I know that saying some of this will stir reactions of horror or disgust from any good, faithful Catholic who considers themselves a loyal son or daughter of the Church, but that's okay because I'm actually getting irritated with them too. Partly because, while plenty of people complain about the rotten clergy, too many Catholics insist that - nevertheless - they (every single one of them) are owed our complete submission and respect, for they are divine authorities, etc, etc. The question I always ask when this line is deployed is simple: 'If the cardinal told you to cover up a pedophile crime, would you? Do you think God would condemn you if you handed them over?' It's a line of inquiry that the sorts of people I'm talking about hate, because what they fear - more than anything else - is a loss of public stature as a Good Person in the eyes of those they care about, yet the question means they're going to get marked as a reprobate by at least SOME of the important people. Good. A bit of that is needed.

* I see the USCCB voted to change the wording about the death penalty, and then literally *applauded themselves*, in what theologians decry as "a display of complete assholery". It's just as well their collective standing as moral leaders was squandered years ago, since none but a handful of them ever display anything of value in their Soundbite Christian. But what took the cake was one particular jagoff - was it Dolan? - talking about how an ancient 'loophole' in Catholic moral teaching had now been closed. Someone should really ask this guy if, then, it isn't possible that the Church's moral teaching hasn't been absolutely *riddled* with loopholes for two thousands years, rendering their entire deposit of moral faith open to doubt. And then when he moves to respond, throwing their drink in his face and saying, "Shut up, it was rhetorical, no one cares what you think."

* For any Protestants reading, don't get cocky, even the Southern Baptists are turning into a freakshow at this point, and I bet the Prots collectively had more of those shitty Rainbow Flags decorating their churches this month than even my feminized clergy have managed. I suppose you could always pledge to flee any Church which does that, which is the standard Protestant response, but I have another suggestion: how about you stand, fight, and run some vipers out of the den? Take back what's yours.

Are you even remotely surprised that Joe Biden has been accused of being a sexual creep?

The same people who insist that Trump is guilty of collusion with Russia because he joked about Russia releasing Hillary Clinton's emails will swear up and down that this is totally normal and acceptable behavior and not at all creepy and sexually harassing, even if the women say that yes it actually is.

The funniest part is that this comes hot on the heels of him apologizing for not believing Anita Hill's bullshit ages ago and how the whole "white guy" thing about innocent until proven guilty has to go, and we have to start believing women.

Anyway, get ready for an onslaught of pictures of Biden acting around women the way Richard Carrier would if they didn't threaten to mace him the moment he shambled within twenty feet of them. At least until Biden decides that, you know, he never actually wanted to be president, he just wanted to pick a VP who looked cute in a tight sweater.

Holy crap Edwardo D Bablionski (or whatever) is still around and trying to be an internet atheist

Hey all. I'm still around, still praising God and lamenting the sorry state of my Church and culture. But I've been very busy with other things, including yelling at people online in other venues. Such is life.

But I'm always silently watching the places I always used to keep an eye on - the ever-inspiring Ed Feser. Malcolm the Cynic. TOFSpot. Shadow to Light. Started checking out Dalrock and other places too.

Before I go on, let me tell you a funny story.

Back in the days where I used to lock horns with people on Dangerous Ideas (Victor Reppert remains an anomaly: a largely nice liberal man who makes good arguments, and who can go for days without making me want to throw a rock at him), I used to spar with BDK, before he got exposed for being quite a fink. (Search the archives if you give a crap about that kind of petty stuff.) The real point is that at one point, in a backhanded compliment about my being exacting/anal in an argument, he told me I should get into programming.

That stuck in my mind as a compliment, and for a few other reasons, I got into it. Before long, I picked up work doing exactly that, and nowadays I'm up to my throat in tech. Decent money too. VR simulations, mobile apps, full stack... helluva resume at this point. In my other window I'm moving through the tail end of a Data Scientist course so I can start to dip my toes into machine learning and AI programming on top of it all. I love it to death.

Still as interested in politics and religion as I ever was, of course. Moreso in some ways. But the fact is, I wanted to do more. Get more intellectually dangerous. After all, I was drawn to Dangerous Ideas at the start for a reason. Gotta keep the danger growing.

And so, I have been. Hence my scarcity, at least as Crude.

So anyway, I was checking out Ed's latest stuff, and lo' and behold, there's a name I remember in the comments section. Edwardo Bablionski, snarking away! It was like going back to Nineteen Ninety Freakin' Five for a moment, watching this guy manage, in the space of a few paragraphs, to come across as as much of a windbag as he ever did. Quite literally the same, if you're so unfortunate as to stumble on his web presence. It's like GeoCities threw up in there.

It was depressing to see, honestly. Not because of the mere commenting, but because it was the picture of a man, frozen. No development. No growth. The same obsessions, the same routine, even the same lack of skill. Good God. Like the cowboy-hatted mediocrity and company, they don't even get better over time. They're one trick ponies, this particular crop of atheist, and they never were good at the trick to begin with.

New Atheists no more. Now they're the Grey Atheists.

Meanwhile, Ed's got new books, getting into new venues. We've got new developments, from Gab and Dissenter to Comicsgate and more. I trust most of you are developing as you can, if God permits you the peace and comfort to do so. Sharpen your skills, advance your abilities - perform, and fight, and have fun doing it! Teach your kids to do the same.

But don't be like these other guys, the Edwardo Bablionskis and Mediocrities and all that, struggling to see how many times they can fit the words "ad hoc" into a single comment without going over the 2000 character comment limit on Blogger. For all these jagoffs 'fucking love science', they seem to do precious little of it - and I, the guy who's only grown more skeptical of it over the years, will probably get a paper or two peer-reviewed at some point in my fields of choice. For no other reason than I think it'd be funny.

As ever, God's got a sense of humor.

Learning from the left

Remember back when Harry Reid 'went nuclear' in the Democrat-controlled Senate, deciding to end filibusters to bypass the Republicans? Everyone knows how that ultimately played out: Democrats used the power, then lost it, and for a while now a Republican-controlled Senate has been using it to great effect.

Cocaine Mitch McConnell himself has poked his head out of his shell to say - I told you this would happen, guys. And that was probably a sincere warning: conservatives, being cuckservatives, probably would have been so chastened by reluctance by Reid to 'go nuclear' that they'd have had trouble doing so themselves later on. But there was no such reluctance, and since then, McConnell - and the GOP - have pushed things further. 

People don't really talk about 'bipartisanship' anymore (it was always a Uniparty ruse anyway), and chances are they buried the concept with McCain's corpse. Assuming they finally put that guy in the ground.

The point is: the left tends to forget that the tactics they tolerate today are the tactics the right uses tomorrow. And tomorrow's coming faster than it ever did, thanks to the internet.

Think of all the opposition to Trump. The open advocacy of resisting him in every way. Of trying to get him ousted. Of threatening any of his allies with punishment for daring to support him. Lawsuit after lawsuit to prevent - if only via nuisance - a law from being enacted. Outright decisions to declare some cities and even states 'sanctuaries' against federal law. Really, against laws they simply don't like.

If you don't think that's coming home to roost, prepare to be surprised.

Eventually, a leftist is going to win an election, and the right's not just going to complain - they're going to say the leftist's election is illegitimate, and their orders carry no weight. The leftists will pass laws, and the right won't enforce them. Indeed, the right will blatantly refuse. I don't know the law, I don't know the limit. But eventually it's going to happen.

This country will not last.