As a "Dull" I have some questions for our "Bright" friends. I need to have these explained to me, to us (believers), because we're unintelligent, weak, and believe in fairy tales.
First question is how does insulting people that believe something different add to the discussion of the existence of God? Does being insulting help prove God doesn't exist?
Second question is how to justify the claim that atheists in charge would have better results than "Dulls" have had? (During this questioning I'm focusing on Judaism and Christianity because that's my religious tradition.) The atheist regimes in history brought Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union, and Communist China, to name the big ones. I saw one defense of this observation stating Hitler was a Catholic, so he was (secretly) religious; as if that explained it all. I don't think being a member of a church makes anyone a Christian any more that sitting in the garage makes one a car. David Berlinski: "What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiteres, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing." Anything bad we "Dulls" have done doesn't even come close to the results of these "Bright" regimes.
On the flip side of that is good works. Why do "Dulls" give more than "Brights"? I'm thinking of all that charitable work, and charitable organizations that the "Dulls" have founded and support. Hospitals, shelters, feeding the poor, paying attention to prisoners, universities, ending slavery, civil rights ("Dull" Christian Minister Martin Luther King), actually a whole range of things that improve the plight of humanity. I remember a "Bright" say after the worst of cleaning up after Katrina was done, that mostly what he saw were Christians and their organizations helping. (Note that the government wasn't of much help.) He said he had to hand it to them, they were there when needed, and the "Brights" really didn't help out that much, if at all. Christians have given $billions to the suffering and poor all over the world. "Dulls" give far more than "Brights" in charitable donations. Lots of stats from many sources bear this out. "Dulls" volunteer far more than "Brights". The question is, what's to recommend, what evidence is there, that "Brights" care for others? Or don't "Brights" care about others? I know some individuals do, but as a group or movement? Not so much. Side note here. "Brights" are all for governments taking care of people in trouble, just not them personally, and taking money from others to do it, which in turn empowers the Nazi, Fascist, Socialist, Communist expression of "Brights".
God made it quite clear to us "Dulls" that service to others is job one. Question to "Brights", what is your job one?
Next question is about the arts. "Dulls" have some incredible architecture, music so lovely I tear up, literature that takes the breath away with its expressions, paintings and sculptures that's so gorgeous it make one's eyes glow with appreciation, philosophy that really forces us to think about how we relate to life, nature, each other. The question is, what have "Brights" provided us in architecture, painting, literature, music, philosophy, sculpture? What aesthetics have "Brights" provided us that compares?
Back to insults. I've noticed when engaged in dialectic, when an opponent begins loosing ground, insults happen, from them. Another tactic is to point out something singular, and event or person, as if that's of consequence.
Answers to the questions here I'm sure will clear things up, and help us "Dulls" understand better why "Brights" have so much more to offer, and why we should denounce God.
