My response to Anne Landman and the so-called "atheists and free thinkers" of Western Colorado 

My response to Anne Landman and the so-called "atheists and free thinkers" of Western Colorado

July 22nd, 2017
John Wilkensen
On 7/21/17, the Daily Sentinel ran a story titled "Atheist group objects to prayer, wants officials to ‘get to work’" written by Erin McIntire.
Has anybody besides me had their fill of Anne Landman and the local so-called “atheists and free thinkers”? It is not all that hard to conclusively prove that they are neither free nor anything but shallow thinkers.
First of all, many (if not a majority) of history's greatest scientific minds were theists/deists. Why? Because they were less intelligent than Landman et al? Don't make me laugh.
Let's talk some real “nitty gritty” reality here.
First of all nobody KNOWS diddley squat about how or why the universe and/or human beings came into existence. How do I know that Landman and the laughably-named “free thinkers” don't know diddley squat? Easy. Because I myself don't know diddley squat and, like Diogenes looking for his “honest man”, I've spent much of my life trying to “know myself” and “searching for the truth”. I've read countless books by countless people light years smarter than Landman et al. I have been graced with considerable intellectual curiosity which enables me to easily recognize a lack of same in others, especially pain-in-the-ass, blow-hard, fascistic leftists and other collectivist propagandists.
Neither “side” (theists or atheists) can actually prove with “scientific” certainty anything to the other, so that's not the point of faith/hope. (Some kinds of faith/hope are called “religion”; “atheism”, a form of nihilism, is one such “religion”, one among thousands of other intellectually lame and uncurious hypotheses.)
The main issue is not whether it is possible to prove the existence or nonexistence of an Intelligent Designer of the universe.
The main issue is “how then shall we live” – (aka “how then shall we treat each other”) – as posited by Francis A. Schaeffer.
Is it easier to live a good life and treat your fellow humans (and other critters) with empathy, grace and kindness by 1) simply pretending to believe you know to a moral certainty there is no “god” and you are such a magnificent specimen of noble humanity that you can, by sheer force of your more-powerful-than-everybody-else will, “live a good and righteous” life, or by 2) having some kind of logic-based hope in a just Intelligent Designer of the universe and an absolute moral order to the universe we inhabit which made self-evident certain, dare we call them, “Natural Laws” regarding how we should behave if we want to live in a state of harmony with each other and the universe instead of in a state of conflict with both?
Countless thousands of far more intelligent minds than the so-called “free thinkers” have labored mightily over the question and chosen the latter option. The ancient Israelites, with their invention of monotheism and the Decalogue and the so-called “Golden Rule” also chose the latter option.
Two such giants come to mind.
Albert Einstein said: “Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.”
Thomas Paine, in “Age of Reason” said: "Jesus knew that if a man were impressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be with a logic-based belief in a God, a fixed point of moral reference, an absolute moral order to the universe, his moral life and behavior would be regulated by the force and power of this belief, he would stand in awe of God and of himself (a creation/child of God), and would not do those things which could not be concealed from either. Jesus also understood that to give this belief/faith the full and fair opportunity of life-governing, life-changing force, it is necessary that the belief/faith acts alone in an atmosphere of free will/freedom/truth completely void of all external coercion."
Another one of my heroes/teachers, Leo Tolstoy, said, "government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us." “You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!” See also, "The state is a gang of thieves writ large — the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society" ~ Murray Rothbard.
And therein lies my problem with Landman et ilk: most of them are not “liberals” or “progressives” because they are neither liberal nor progressive. They are in fact – (and 100% of them will cheerfully lie about this) – hardcore socialists or “leftwing” fascists. Whatever you want to call their ideology, it amounts to Dominate-The-Other statism/collectivism/coercion/violence/thievery/murder.
REAL liberals, classic liberals, with whom I empathize, identify and mostly agree, are like John Stuart Mill (author of the magnificent essay, "On Liberty" who said: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” Does that sound like modern leftist-fascist prog/libs? Not hardly.
Real liberals are like socialist economist, Scott Nearing, who said: “The human race is on trial. They've been given their chance, plenty of chances, and they've done a second-rate job. There are so many of them now and they're so ineffective. Weighed in the balance and found wanting. The repentance and regeneration has got to come from within, and where is it? Maybe we should be got rid of with the least suffering and trouble.” “As far as I'm concerned, I prefer to have nothing to do with the credit economy. We don't owe anybody a nickel. We don't borrow any money. We don't pay any interest. We prefer to pay as we go, and wish the bankers would find useful occupations for themselves and leave the economy alone.”
None of the bright minds I admire would have remained consentingly silent – as Landman and the “free thinkers” do – about the mother of all evils, the global debt-as-legal-tender oligarchy and its war-based economies. To the contrary, to a person, they all want/hope to use the fraudulent musical-chairs-type monetary numbers to fund their pet ideological projects with the sweat and toil of The Other. That's why they are so good at “Otherizing” the people they view as being a threat to their domination of others.
I figure it is less “politically incorrect” to call Landman et ilk “prog/libs” than “leftist fascists”, which would no doubt upset them considerably. Besides, some of them might be hardcore Hitlerian/Stalinist socialists.
What I passionately dislike about prog/libs like Landman and the “free thinkers” is that they want to use the violence of government to steal from A to buy the vote of B to get into “political” power to fund their pet ideological agendas and force them down everybody else's throats, a thing they usually accuse the so-called “religious right” of doing. Then, if you disagree with their strategies and tactics, they try to demonize you as “racist”, “hater”, “bigot”, “misogynist”, “homophobe”, “selfish”, “greedy”, etc, etc. They prefer to speak in cutesy canned political talking points and slogans rather than specifically define their words per Voltaire's famous admonition, "if you wish to converse with me, define your terms."
Now, it is obviously true that most of the worst evils humans have suffered have been perpetrated in the name of various multi-meaning words like “god”, “religion”, “law”, “government”, “truth”, “money”, “taxes”, “fair share”, etc., etc. "Again and again we come back to the realization that if controlling man is the destination, the road to it lies through control of language." ~ Thomas Szasz. But that phenomenon occurs only because the Dominate-The-Other vermin/reprobates/Amalekites will stop at nothing to invent wannabe clever linguistic devices to confuse the minds of their intended victims, the so-called goyim/peasantry/proletariat/hoi polloi. That fact cannot logically function as a blanket justification for the ignorance-and-manipulation-based hatred prog/libs so visibly bear toward so-called “religion” in general.
Regarding the Grand Junction City Council's tradition of having an invocation or silent moment of some sort prior to doing business, it doesn't offend me because I understand what is actually going on. It's kind of a cultural thing.
The politicians believe a majority of their constituents believe in some sort of “religion”, so by conducting a prayer before doing the business designed to screw those same constituents, the politicians are “sending a message” to their constituents, “see, we're just like you, so you can like us, trust us, and 'partner with' us”.
It doesn't offend me if politicians sometimes want to make minor/meaningless cultural concessions to their constituents.
If their agendas were morally and intellectually honest, it shouldn't offend the atheists and “free thinkers” either. But their agendas are neither moral nor intellectually honest. They hate the Judeo-Christian traditions – (Jesus was the most powerful anarchist in history, according to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, often called the “father of anarchism”) – and they hate the Decalogue and the Golden Rule precisely because they forbid using the power of “government” to steal the labor, property and money of The Other to line their own pockets and fund their pet agendas. Although the stuff I have been discussing here seems clearly metaphysical, the hard, cold physical fact remains that these people want to steal your labor to line their pockets and fund their pet ideological agendas.
The harsh fact is also, the so-called “atheists and free thinkers” believe they are a higher form of life than everybody else, they believe they're smarter than everybody else, and that you, the peasantry/proletariat/hoi polloi, boys and girls, are supposed to be too stupid to understand what I just told you in this essay.
The truth of the matter is that the pseudointellectual “atheists and free thinkers” all put together wouldn't make a pimple on the butt of even ONE individual like Jesus of Nazareth, Leo Tolstoy, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Marie Curie, Maria Mitchell, Blaise Pascal, James Prescott Joule, Lord Kelvin, Johannes Reinke, Guglielmo Marconi, Max Planck, George Washington Carver, Wernher von Braun, Bach, Handel, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and literally thousands of other names impossible to list in this limited space.
Full disclosure: For reasons set forth by Peter Kershaw (see also HERE) in his excellent books, "In Caesar's Grip" and "Hush Money", I do not subscribe to any of what I like to call the “Baskins Robbins flavors” of statist organized “government” religions. With many of history's brightest minds, I am a theist, an Anarcho-Christian, a Voluntaryist, a follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and a voluntary complier with the Intelligent Designer's natural cause-and-effect rules (aka “laws”) for human behavior. I have read dozens of works by such bright minds as William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Henry David Thoreau, Emma Goldman, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky and other famous so-called “atheists”, and while I respect their minds, I did not find their so-called “atheism” to be a remotely persuasive dogma. Instead of talking nitty gritty on the merits, they all seemed to inevitably drift in one way or another, however subtley, cleverly and/or indirectly, into speculation and political manipulativeness.
Well, logical circumlocution has never worked for me. I guess I have always marched too much to my own drummer. Accordingly, I came to the conclusion that human beings don't speak “truth”, they speak words, which are supposed to be accurate units of measurement of human ideas, as long as the speaker's intent is honest learning, sharing and communication. The deception-and-manipulation-loving Dominate-The-Other crowd (aka “government”) flat out doesn't do that.
In order to clarify my own thinking and understanding of the human conundrum – (called by the Apostle Paul “the mystery of iniquity” at 2 Thessalonians 2:7 KJV) -- I came to define “truth” as: all existence/reality, past, present and future. And, in an effort to get atheists to use their brains to grasp reality, I came to define “God” as “the Great I AM Spirit of collective individual human desire for existence (life), significance (to be loved), self- realization/fulfillment (aka life, "liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"), and contentment (happiness).” It logically follows that we individual humans are "little I AMs" who, in order to live in peace and harmoney with each other, must obey the Great I AM's natural cause-and-effect rules/laws regarding human behavior. Absolutely everything the perpetrators, promoters, practitioners, enablers, followers and apologists of the Dominate-The-Other model/paridigm believe in and do is based on deception, manipulation, force, violence and intimidation.
I hate nihilism and political correctness, which I view to be unintelligent deception-and-manipulation-based ideologies highly destructive/toxic to the human species. I very much prefer hope/faith to nihilism. I believe in Intelligent Design (ID) theory as opposed to Random Conglomeration of Molecules (RCOM) theory. I believe “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” (Psalm 19:1 KJV). I believe “the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1 KJV). Like Blaise Pascal, I very much prefer the fairy tale with a happy ending to the fairy tale with a sad ending or no ending at all, simply because I have made a fully-informed logic-based choice that hope/faith makes me happier, and helps me try to be a better person, than the depressing/destructive Nowheresville of Nihilism.
The main thing, boys and girls, is to not let “atheists and free thinkers” or “politicians” dominate/control your minds. Don't let them attain positions of power in “government”, and don't let them steal your labor, property, or money. And, perhaps most importantly, don't let them get you to believe in their nihilistic “rob A to buy the vote of B” bullshit (by no matter what name they call it). It IS unsustainable.
So, BE the change you want to see in society, think for yourself, and always "vote" with your time, talent, labor and money.
Interested persons can read three other essays tangential to the subject of atheism titled "On the Atheism Display at the Mesa County Public Library", "What is an Anarcho-Christian'?" and "On the Role of Religion in Political Fraud".