Rainblog

In the early days of Twitter - I guess all Twitter’s days are fairly early, actually - I used to run a somewhat controversial but popular parody account. I thought it was funny and so did lots of other people, but not everyone agreed. From time to time, someone who apparently didn’t get the joke would fire off an angry tweet about it, usually full of profanity and crude epithets.

This bothered me a little at first, because I was trying to walk a fine line, aiming for gallows humor without being actually offensive. If my tweets were making people really angry, I wasn’t doing it right. So when I saw one of these furious tweets, threatening to kick my adopted persona’s virtual ass, I would look at the tweet stream of the poster, trying to work out why they were so riled up.

The thing that I discovered was that in pretty much every case, the people who sent these things were … how shall I put this … “not the sharpest knives in the drawer”. Few of them seemed to have anything substantive to say, and when they did, their grammar and spelling left a lot to be desired. For many of them, Twitter just seemed to be an extension of their SMS chats, so that their streams consisted of little more than a string of @-names followed by one-word messages such as ‘lol’. There was a lot of anger, a lot of braggadocio and crude sexual boasting. Those who had political opinions trotted out the kind of thuggish expressions of knee-jerk patriotism and prejudice that are about tribalism rather than reason. They were the kind of people, in short, who might pick a political side in much the same way that they would pick a sports team, and express their support for it in the same way.

Once I realized that the people who didn’t get the joke were mostly cretins, I stopped worrying about them.

Fast forward to today: the outspoken atheist writer Christopher Hitchens has died, and the hashtag #godisnotgreat (and its twin #godisgreat) is doing the rounds on Twitter. Needless to say, the existence of this tag has sparked a furious reaction, and the counter-attack is going full force.

There have been many great thinkers who were people of faith. Even today, religion has its share of brilliant minds. Like Hitchens, I don’t agree with their conclusions, but there’s no denying the sheer intellectual horsepower they can bring to the debate. However, I think it’s safe to say that most of them are not on Twitter. The counter-charge against the late Mr Hitchens is being led by people who are, once again, not the swiftest armadillos on the highway.

Reactions to the #godisnotgreat tag include a variety of logical (or illogical) modes. Predictably, the argumentum ad baculum features prominently:

Mr_ICENATION
#GodIsNotGreat whoevee made this ^^^^ DIE!!!!!
12/16/11 7:49 AM

DELOFROZE
#GodIsNotGreat…WHO EVA MADE THIS A TRENDIN TOPIC …ILL PERSONALLY KILL EM MYSELF….GOD IS THE BEST THANG EVA MANE…AMEN
12/16/11 1:34 AM

YuGottaLovette
@theReasonists lol you need help & to go to church .. GOD will punish you lol. #GODISGREAT ..
12/16/11 5:07 AM

as does the argumentum ad populum:

JazzeRadioChica
RT @RealWizKhallifa: #GodIsNotGreat… He’s more than great! RT if you agree!
12/16/11 7:54 AM

SamMight69Her
#GodIsNotGreat because he’s the GREATEST Retweet If You Agree
12/16/11 1:08 AM

(‘SamMight69Her’? Really?)

The argumentum ad hominemis also popular:

tatishurtado12
You must be a fucking dumbass if you think that #godisnotgreat
12/16/11 8:04 AM

consuelolarsen1
@raynevandunem #godisnotgreat is a sad tweet. Sad people think so when life isn’t working out for them. #smh
12/16/11 8:23 AM

and the ignoratio elenchi also gets some airplay, as in:

MyLife_hisTory
Christopher Hitchens wrote a book called #GodIsNotGreat. now tell me you Christopher Hitchens fans, WHERE IS HE??? OH YEA 6 FEET UNDER!!
12/16/11 7:56 AM

Many of the arguments offered appear to be simple assertions offered without evidence (possibly classifiable as petitio principii):

MissesEricaKane
What kind of tt is #godisnotgreat… are you kidding? He is beyond greatness
12/16/11 8:05 AM

KushNdOJNigga
#godisnotgreat , he’s the greatest
12/16/11 8:15 AM

based_goddess23
who ever started this #GodIsNotGreat TT is an idiot. With out God you wouldn’t be here
12/16/11 8:20 AM

iserve_JESUS
#GodIsGreat JUST because he is….
12/16/11 7:59 AM

The following example is difficult to classify, but it could be seen as a kind of implicit ad hominem, tacked onto the end of a simple assertion.

kelo3adi
#GodIsGreat and anyone that doesn’t think so can stick their heads where the sun don’t shine
12/16/11 4:26 AM

Explicit examples of argumentum ad verecundiam are oddly rare:

AlexSagot
God is a rock, fortress, my strength. Life is found in Him, and can not be lived away from Him. #GodIsGreat Psalm 18:2
12/16/11 7:14 AM

although arguments that appeal to faith can be seen as an instance of this type:

claire_bear_98
“God is not great” the people who hashtagged this have not experienced my God!! #Godisgreat
12/16/11 8:03 AM

Some commenters don’t make any argument at all:

leslienewton3
@KandisSofyaNGGV Do yall see that trending topic #GodIsNotGreat dat shit just made me mad
12/16/11 8:08 AM

while others demonstrate that their beliefs are part of a complete package:

FratfricnMericn
I find out #Godisnotgreat is a trending topic? What the FUCK. This isn’t fucking Iraq or Russia or some shit, this is America!! #Godisgreat
12/16/11 4:59 AM

For this commenter, two unsupported axioms are joined by implication, which might be formally correct, but is not likely to convince anyone who questions either of the two axioms.

KenChris_
I’m smart cause #GodIsGreat
12/16/11 4:47 AM

Interestingly, God’s most important role in the lives of many believers appears to be that of ‘alarm clock’:

TBlount10
Thank you lord for waking me up this morning. #GodisGreat
12/16/11 7:00 AM

Acshawtie
#blessme dear lord,#GodIsGreat #thankful everyday he wakes me up.
12/16/11 7:23 AM

Artina_Nadroj
You woke up this morning, you should agree that #GodIsGreat
12/16/11 7:37 AM

Finally, one believer provides an example of a hitherto unknown logical form that can only be described as an argumentum ad what is this I don’t even:

BryceFregia
Hey atheist that are saying #GodIsNotGreat try watching a leg grow out and even, then try telling me that. Cause #GodIsAmazing
12/16/11 7:53 AM

There’s really not a great deal that anyone can say to that.

Man with cross and Quran, Tahrir Square

This photograph was taken in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in April. I don’t know what he intended to say by carrying the symbols of two religions, but my guess would be that it was a plea for religious tolerance and solidarity. Elsewhere - in signs carried by other people in Tahrir, and in graffiti on nearby walls - it was common to see the crescent moon of Islam drawn alongside the cross of Christianity, often half-enclosing it as if in a protective embrace. The repeated message was one of unity and mutual respect.

Now, violence between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Cairo has left dozens dead and hundreds injured. It’s all so pointless and unnecessary and, if what I saw in April was any guide, contrary to the wishes of the majority of Egyptians.

This is a whole week of unsurprises. Most people were unsurprised on Saturday when the Rapture that had been predicted by radio host Harold Camping failed to happen. Now, we can all be unsurprised again that Camping is walking back his prediction. Camping (who is now three for three on failed apocalyptic predictions) says that his math was correct but his interpretation was wrong. He now says that he was wrong about Saturday being the appointed date for the Rapture and that instead it marked a “spiritual Judgment Day” that “places the entire world under Christ’s judgment”. 

I confess, I misjudged Mr Camping. When the news came that he was nowhere to be found on Saturday, my first thought was that his followers would do well to check the church’s books in case it turned out that a large quantity of the church funds had been ‘Raptured’, probably to Brazil. But either he’s not ready to get off the gravy train just yet, or he’s at least sincere about his nonsense.

Reportedly it took Mr Camping most of the weekend to come up with his rather lame notion of a “spiritual Judgment Day”, which suggests that he’s not the world’s fastest thinker when he’s under pressure. Any middle-schooler could have come up with something better at a moment’s notice, even if it was only “cherubim ate my homework” or “I forgot to carry the one”. Unlike the Rapture, which has at least been blessed by a few hundred years of tradition (according to Wikipedia, we may have Increase and Cotton Mather to thank for this one: who knew?), the rather wishy-washy “spiritual Judgment Day” seems to have sprung fully-formed from Mr Camping’s own head. He has clearly abandoned the map and is striking out on his own.

In the run-up to the much ballyhooed Rapture Hour of 6pm on Saturday, I wondered briefly how Camping would react to the failure of the Lord to deliver on time. An outright admission of error was obviously not on the cards and I suspected that he was a little too long in the tooth to run off to Rio with a suitcase full of cash. My guess was that it could go one of a few different ways. One option was that he would admit to a minor error, but simultaneously pat himself on the back for having encouraged people to reflect on the Day of Judgment and their own fate, claiming some unspecified number of souls saved for Christ by his timely warning. Another was to assert - with no evidence whatsoever - that something of overwhelming spiritual significance had in fact occurred, but it just wasn’t the kind of thing that you could actually see. This was ultimately the option he chose. Evidently, the “spiritual Judgment Day” consists mostly of Christ ticking off another milestone on his big End of the World project plan: very significant, of course, but not directly observable on Earth.

Given that any religion is pretty much one long series of unsubstantiated assertions, it seems petty to complain about yet another. A “spiritual Judgment Day”? Sure, why not? Still, there’s a feeling even among the faithful that Mr Camping isn’t exactly playing by the rules. The unwritten rule of religion is that you’re not supposed to make up new stuff. When even Tim LaHaye thinks you’re full of shit, you’re pretty far out there. 

Like an eight-year old who can’t stop shrieking “made you look! made you look!”, Camping is unwilling to give up. We are still on schedule, he says, for Judgment Day itself, which is still due to happen on October 21st. As far as I know, Mr Camping hasn’t committed himself on whether there will or will not be a Rapture before or on that date. Maybe the Rapture will run simultaneously with the return of Christ, which should make for a busy morning, or maybe He’ll sneak it in on some random weekend before then, depending on His schedule. No man knows the day and hour, y’know? We should make some allowances, remembering that most big projects run over deadline and over budget. Perhaps Christ is still furiously trying to decide which features he can drop and still ship on time. Maybe the Rapture got crossed off the list, and the celestial focus groups are now recommending cutting back the Seven Seals to just the essential three or four as a cost-saving measure.

Christian eschatologists can take comfort in the failure of Mr Camping’s predictions, however. One of the necessary signs of the Last Days is an increase in the number of false prophets. Even if Mr Camping can’t get the date right, he may still be helping to fulfill one of the requirements for the End of Time.

mikehudack:

The new face of intolerance and hatred.

Abortion … homosexuality … and … England. Wait, what?

Pope distorting scientific evidence about condoms, claims Lancet

“Whether the pope’s error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear … When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide.”