How To Be A Smarty-Pants Athiest

Written, apparently, when I had a chip on my shoulder for some reason. These days I try not to get riled up about what we puny humans have to say about the ultimate nature of reality. Actions speak louder than words. Nevertheless I'll include it for the controversy value. If by chances some athiest happens by and feels offended by it, just try to imagine that some asshole wrote it and it will be okay.

How to be a Smarty-Pants Atheist

A 4-step Guide to Cultivating a Holier-Than-Thou Attitude Without All That Annoying “Holy” Business.

Step One: Choose Your Battles

A more appropriate way to state this might be “choose your battle.” The term “Atheist” implies a straightforward and categorical disbelief in Theism, that is, a belief in a god or gods. But from a pragmatic perspective, disputing this entire category of beliefs and potential beliefs gets into a lot of deep, dense, philosophy. Looking like a smarty-pants in this context is a lot of work. Although you should never state it as such, your real job as a Smarty-Pants Atheist is to attack Christians. More specifically, fundamentalist, bible-literalist, young-earth creationist Christians, of the most virulent stripe you can imagine. Try to think of them as a bunch of nasty, stupid, hypocritical fish in a barrel.

Step Two: What’s Good for the Goose is NOT good for the gander.

Unlike the ignoble ranks of believers, who are all simply defending a set of indoctrinated cultural memes out of ignorance and hatefulness, you’re defending a subtle set of transcendent intellectual conclusions based on thoughtful reasoning. As such, you’re free to bend the ordinary rules of logic as fits your objectives – while wielding them mercilessly against your opponent. There are a number of argumentative styles (that would be logically invalid under normal circumstances) that you’ll find particularly useful: ad hominem, tu quoque, straw man, false dichotomy, psychogenetic fallacy, argument to the future (particularly useful when explaining away metaphysical irritations like free will), argument by selective observation, non sequitur – they’re all fair game.

At the same time, don’t miss an opportunity to accuse an opponent (or better yet, an imagined opponent) of least probable hypothesis, equivocation, ad nauseam, tautology, post hoc ergo propter hoc. There’s nothing like a little Latin to make you feel like a smarty-pants.

Now, some would-be Smarty-Pants Atheists can become confused at this point, thinking about all of these principles of logic and the rational basis of truth and so forth. You may feel tempted to wonder if perhaps reality in all of its visible and invisible aspects may present a larger question than any one person can contain, and if perhaps there is value to be found in being open to an array of different beliefs and viewpoints. If you do not have the personal resolve to ignore these trains of thought there is a cold, hard pew in the back of the fuzzy-minded Agnostics’ church waiting for you.

Step Three: It’s the Science, Stupid.

Those silly Christians don’t understand science! Since all thinking people know that science is the basis of all modern human wisdom, this is far and away your most potent weapon and you should use it early and often. Remember, because you have selected a specific subset of theistic beliefs which is in direct conflict with components of the scientific community, opportunities for this attack are quite easy to come by. It is easy enough (though not technically logical – see step 2) to extend this to the simple principle that everyone who believes in a god or gods contradicts the findings of science and is therefore certainly stupid and possibly insane.

Don’t ever be hampered by the fact that, like the vast majority of people, you have relatively little knowledge of science, that you could not comfortably explain why you believe in things you’ve never seen, like the atom, that you don’t really know what quantum means and you’ve never read any of the critical philosophical examinations of the practice of science such as Popper, Russell or Kuhn. Leave the contemplation of muddy waters to the indolent oriental lotus-eater. Your job it to stick to the script: science is true, everybody smart knows it, Christians don’t – because they’re stupid. If you are advanced in your practice of Smarty-Pants Atheism you can develop an amusing sideline in ridiculing theists who insist on combining the irrational hysteria of god with the rational bedrock of science. The phrase “god of the gaps” is useful in this regard.

Step 4: Keeping the Faith.

Your definition of the word “faith” comes complete with your “Smarty Pants Atheists’ Association” membership card. It is a blind and stupid adherence to a belief bereft of rational justification. From this starting point it is easy to see that Christians – who seem to place such enormous importance on faith – are the victims of a laughably inadequate philosophy. What kind of person would identify so strongly with such a rotten concept as faith?

Congratulations! With continued practice, your command of these four simple principles and techniques will qualify you as a Smarty Pants Atheist in no time. Now it’s time to get on the internet and start letting the world in on your superior worldview. When you start receiving angry (or even better, misguidedly compassionate) letters from confused Christians, you’ll truly know that you’ve arrived.

this is what is up with this.