Why are peacocks sexy and Scandanavians blond? A Darwinist perspective.

Commentor bachfiend on my mockery of natural selection:

bachfiend:

But sexual selection isn't natural selection.

Right. Natural selection is "more effective replicators more effectively replicate", whereas sexual selection is "more effective replicators more effectively replicate".

One theory is before the "whereas", and one is after it. Different theories.

Peahens selecting peacocks on the basis of the size or perfection of the peacock's tails (and it's not certain what the peahens find so attractive) isn't the same as peacocks dying early because they can't avoid predators or get enough food to survive.

Right. In natural selection, reproductive success is critical. In sexual selection, reproductive success is critical. Completely different theories.

Why do Scandanavians have blue eyes, blond hair and fair skin. If you were an adaptionist, you'd say that in scandanavian winters there isn't much sunshine so having fair skin is a means of increasing vitamin D synthesis in the skin.

Could be.

Jared Diamond's explanation is that the small groups of humans who happened to reach Scandanavia after the end of the last glaciation just happened to be blue eyed, blond and fair skinned.

Could be.

I'm waiting for the science. There is science here, isn't there?

He goes on to note that what humans find sexually attractive in mates is usually limited to what they see in their childhood...

Sure. Humans find that huge bossy people several multiples of their height and weight are incredibly sexually attractive.

"Step on me... pleeese... step on me..."

"I looove it when you tell me to clean my room..."

That explains why some guys like Amazons...

leading to xenophobia, so if anyone with a new mutation causing darker skin wouldn't be able to find a mate.

Xenophobia: "No same-sized people need apply!"

We hate people who aren't much much bigger than we are.

Having blue eyes in snow conditions isn't an adaptation, because the individual would be more prone to snow blindness.

"Olaf, I can't find Jared Diamond's new book. The snow is too bright..."

Open to you now to mount a counterargument ...

Sigh...

My reply to P.Z.Myers: atheism is a small cup.

Stirring up the Pharyngula crowd is like suddenly opening the door on Tourette's clinic keg party. Fun, but not for tender ears. Luckily I don't have tender ears.

Myers replied to my observation that Darwin's theory reduces ultimately to 'stuff changes and survivors survive'-- which can be stated more rigorously, but less succinctly-- 'organisms heritably vary and relatively successful reproducers relatively successfully reproduce.'

Darwin's assertion that adaptation is the consequence of random variation and natural selection is banal (random variation) and tautological (natural selection). Stuff changes and survivors survive isn't much of a theory.

When challenged, Darwinists defend this witless 'theory' as if you had just taken a axe to their mother. Why?

Atheists are not a notably pacifist crowd, and when you mess with their creation myth, they try to make you pay. Take a look at the comments on my post questioning my professional competence, my sanity, my  honesty, you name it. Of course, I'm relatively immune from these nasties, but imagine if you're a young student, or a new post-doc, or a researcher trying to get established, and you have 'a few questions about Darwin's theory'. If you don't genuflect, you're toast, professionally.

So, on to Myers' reply.

Myers:

First of all, it is a significant advance to recognize that species are not fixed and do change over time. There was a time when this hypothesis was flatly rejected, and it's a sign of progress that even the creationists nowadays are forced to recognize evidence of patterns of change in species — they just usually try to impose artificial, unsupported claims of barriers that limit change. This is the fact of evolution: life has changed significantly over long ages, and we are all related to all other forms on earth.

So Darwin taught us that species are not fixed and do change over time.

Myers:

Darwin did not come up with that, though.

Oh. Yea, that's right. Animal breeding had been going since the dawn of man, and it's fairly obvious even to hunter-gatherers that changes in environment (e.g. predators) could change a population.

Darwin's contribution was an explanation for how that change occurred through differential reproductive success of variants in populations.

 "Differential reproductive success of variants in populations", which means precisely that "relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate". Colloquially, 'survivors survive'.

Myers invokes an obvious tautology.

Again, Myers:

Darwin's contribution was an explanation for how that change occurred through differential reproductive success of variants in populations.

Then he asserts that my simple observation of this explanation tautology is a "fallacious reduction":

Egnor has distorted that principle through a fallacious reduction to "survivors survive".

There's nothing fallacious at all about the reduction. 'Survivors survive' is just a colloquial way of saying "relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate", which is a precise restatement of Myers' "Differential reproductive success of variants in populations".

It's a tautology.

Myers avers:

That is not what scientists study. We do not go to a field area for a few years, notice that each generation of birds is the progeny of the living individuals of the previous generation, and declare victory; that would be a tautology. (The alternative, that the birds were spawned by the dead zombie corpses of the failed members of the previous generation, would be rather interesting though. Hasn't happened yet.)

Indeed evolutionary scientists don't do that. Scientists study adaptations, often in considerable detail, and then declare that the adaptations evolved in accordance with Darwin's theory.

Science:

Scientists study adaptations, often in considerable detail...

Tautology:

... and then declare that the adaptations evolved in accordance with Darwin's theory ('relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate').

Darwin's theory is a narrative gloss. The real science is the study of the adaptations.

Darwin's theory does no conceptual work. No lifting.

Myers:

Let's fix Egnor's erroneous reduction. "living things vary heritably and survivors survive" doesn't reduce to l"survivors survive". More accurately, it should be "living things vary heritably and better adapted variants survive and increase their frequency in the next generation".

Myers' "better adapted variants" are defined as those who "survive and increase their frequency in the next generation". What else could "better adapted variants" possibly mean? Variants that were... greener? Variants that were... silkier? Variants that were... fluffier?

The functional definition of species adaptation is 'survival in the environment'. There is no other consistent testable meaningful definition of 'adapted'. And of course survival is a prerequisite for relative reproductive success, and more or less correlates with it.

Survival at the species level means relative reproductive success at the individual level. Species survive because individuals reproduce successfully. 'Successful replicators successfully replicate' is natural selection at the individual level. 'Survivors survive' is natural selection at species level.

'Survivors survive' is a perfectly accurate synopsis of natural selection at the species level.

It's a tautology.

Myers:

That is not a tautology. We can assess degrees of adaptation to local conditions independently of simple survival.

That's the best Myers can do? Play on the difference between survival and relative reproductive success? 'Individuals replicate' and 'species survive' mean the same thing, on different levels. Replication of individuals is how species survive.

Myers is pitiful.

Myers provides a real-life example of the 'power' of Darwin's theory:

For example, look to the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant in the Galapagos (hey, look, we even have online exercises in which you can analyze the data!).

'Online evolutionary exercises': 'Ok class, one, two, three, four... keep those tautologies up... no slacking...!'

They examined, for instance, the effects of a major drought on their study island; they did not simply say, "some birds will die, some will live, survivors will survive", but instead made specific predictions that variants that were better able to exploit difficult or marginal resources in this time of starvation would be better able to survive. And that is what they saw: larger beaked birds that were able to crack the spiny, hard-shelled Tribulus seeds were better able to live through the drought, while the smaller beaked birds that couldn't eat Tribulus seeds at all died off in large numbers. And in the next generation, what they saw was a genetic and morphological shift in that beaks were on average significantly larger.

Let's focus on the woo:

they did not simply say, "some birds will die, some will live, survivors will survive"...

No no no... make sure you're seated...

...but instead made specific predictions that variants that were better able to exploit difficult or marginal resources in this time of starvation would be better able to survive.

Translated from 'evolution talk' to English, this means:

...but instead made specific predictions that variants that were better able to exploit difficult or marginal resources get food in this time of starvation would be better able to survive.

My head hurts.

Myers:

"Survivors survive" may be tautological, but "large beaked birds survive" is not.

Damn right. No tautology there. The Grants made specific predictions that birds who were better able to get food in a time of starvation would... be better able to survive. This I guess was in conflict with the research teams who predicted that birds who were better able to get food in a time of starvation would... be less able to survive. Evolutionary biology is contentious.

Myers:

Neither Coulter nor Egnor seem to have the slightest clue about what evolutionary biologists actually do...

I do now. It's not pretty. How much did we pay for this?

...and their proud ignorance invalidates what they claim to understand as the subject of study in evolution. Every study of evolution is built around specific hypotheses about mechanisms, not dumb blind counts of nothing but the living and the dead, but measures of differential reproductive success against some detailed parameter of their genetics.

Darwin's theory: 'Organisms heritably vary and relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate'.

All those terms Egnor cluelessly throws around — "natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium" — have specific, different meanings, and do not reduce to merely "survival".

Different shades of lipstick.

As expected, the outcome of the first Coulter Challenge is that one fool, Coulter, is multiplied into two publicly exposed fools, Coulter and Egnor. I like this game, let's play some more. Next?

I like this game, too. Let's keep playing.

A while back, I asked Myers (and other atheists) eight important questions-- about existence, laws of nature, moral law, etc. Myers' answers were pitiful. The sort of answers that atheists have no choice but to give.

Yet Darwin's theory animates atheists. It replaces 'shit happened' with 'organisms heritably vary and relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate'. Much of evolutionary theory is dedicated to hiding this banality and tautology under shovelfulls of science jargon.

Meanwhile, the real work of biology-- biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics, cell biology, microbiology, physiology, etc. goes on. Biologists learn early that they must pay homage to atheism's stupid creation myth if they are to continue their work and remain in the profession. Atheists are the gate-keepers.

Richard Dawkins asserts that Darwin's theory allows one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. As an example of the deep scientific insight provided by Darwin's theory, Myers notes that more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate, and that birds that are better able to get food during famine are better able to survive.

Myers is an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Atheism is a small cup.

"And no, atheism has no political or economic structures in the world"

  Commentor bachfiend:

And no, atheism has no political or economic structures in the world. Organizing atheists is like trying to herd cats.

Ohhh... how to respond?

"And no, atheism has no political or economic structures in the world." 

Hmmm... :

"Organizing atheists is like trying to herd cats."

Aside from their aversion to state power and herding, atheists are also inveterate collectors:

In which I take up P.Z. Myers' challenge on Ann Coulter and Evolution

Traffic must be slow on Pharyngula-- perhaps the latest generation of psych meds have finally calmed the Pharyngula hordes. So P.Z. Myers reissues his challenge from years ago:

Ann Coulter is a horrible, ignorant person who once wrote a whole book accusing liberals of being Godless, as if that were an insult, and advancing arguments against evolution that made the standard noisy creationist look like a veritable scholar. I looked at her arguments, and I made a public challenge back in 2006 for any defenders to pick one paragraph from the book and we'd discuss it in detail — there have been no takers, not one person willing to stand up and support in detail any claim she had made.

Well, nobody insults Ann Coulter without a reply from me. I love Ann Coulter (Platonically, of course). Love, love, love. She's basically right about everything, and the only thing I don't like about her books and T.V. appearances is that when she attacks atheists/Darwinists/liberals she's so clever that my sides ache from laughing. I still can't look at a picture of John Edwards without thinking of her name for him: 'Silky Pony'.

I have all of Coulter's books, paper and electronic (so I can always have her insights close). Coulter has more wisdom in one of her neurons than P.Z. Myers and his Pharyngula inmates have collectively in their telencephalons and diencephalons (I know, I know, that implies a materialist reduction of the mind. It's a metaphor).

So, in reply to Myers' challenge, I'll pick a Godless paragraph. The first paragraph of the first chapter about evolution will do.

Coulter:

Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story, based on a theory that is a tautology, with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record—and that's after 150 years of very determined looking. We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God.

So much wisdom. Let's break it down:

Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution,

Coulter is imprecise, but, hey, artistic license. Atheists' creation myth is Darwin's theory. Until the 1860's, it was hard to call yourself an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Atheism is such logical nonsense that no intelligent person believed it. 'Shit happened' is terrible metaphysics.

Most atheist wannabes were deists or some such-- 'God made the world, and then he didn't care, so shit happened'. Biology was particularly hard to explain, because life had such obvious teleology that even atheists had to admit it. 'Atoms and the void' doesn't get you to physiology, anywhere outside of a padded room.

Then the miracle happened. Charles Darwin banished 'shit happened' and with a master-stroke, and atheism of the intellectually fulfilled sort was born (or evolved or something). Darwin replaced 'shit happened' with 'stuff changes and survivors survive'. The best idea anyone ever had.

Within seconds (in geological time), atheists were proclaiming the theory proved. Huxley trounced Wilberforce (although nobody who was at the debate remembered it as a trouncing, but...), Galton invented eugenics, Haeckel faked his embryos, Dawson glued Piltdown man, and Darwinism was off and running.

The most difficult theoretical hurtle Darwinism has had to face is not, as some have asserted, the problem  of building the New Synthesis from Mendelian genetics and Darwin's (Lamarckian) theory. The most difficult theoretical hurtle Darwinists faced is disguising 'stuff changes and survivors survive' so that its utter banality isn't obvious. Neologisms don't just happen by themselves (unlike life). They need to be created. So Darwinists gave us natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium. All Darwinian 'selections' reduce to: 'living things vary heritably and survivors survive'. Of course, 'survivors survive' is more precisely: 'relatively more effective replicators relatively more effectively replicate', but succinctness is a virtue. The great challenge for Darwinian theorists since the 1860's has been to make Darwin's banality/tautology (stuff changes and survivors survive) seem like a scientific theory. Slather on the lipstick. You gotta dress up the banality (and the contradictions) with science-sounding stuff.

The most important textbook for Darwinism has always been a thesaurus.

Thanks to Darwin's theory miracle, there is now a whole coven of intellectually fulfilled atheists. Life evolved by natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium. Stuff changed and survivors survived.

'Shit happened' was relegated to... atheist cosmologists.

...which is about one notch above Scientology in scientific rigor.

Coulter is imprudent here. The Church of Scientology is litigious, and ranking it below Darwinism could incite a lawsuit.  Careful, Ann. Scientologists have feelings, even after a good dianetic auditing and a Clear State. Being called 'dumber than Darwinism' hurts.

But let's take look at the respective scientific rigor of Scientology and Darwinism.

Scientology is testable.

Scientists could find Xenu, or thetan spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, or hydrogen bomb residue in volcanoes. No Xenu, no scientologic cosmology. No DC-8's with anti-matter propulsion in the precambrian, no scientologic taxonomy. No thermonuclear fallout in volcanoes, no scientologic anthropology. A testable hypothesis.

Darwinism is hard to test.

What exactly could scientists find to disprove 'stuff changes and survivors survive'? Could you find 'stuff that didn't change' or 'survivors that didn't survive'? Not likely.

That's what Darwinists really mean when they say "Darwin's theory is a fact". It's so damn banal that it couldn't not be true. And it proves atheism, which, coincidently, is the religion conclusion of nearly all evolutionary biologists!

Scientologists are moderately obnoxious.


Scientologists sue people who make fun of their religion.


 Darwinists are severely obnoxious. 


Darwinists sue people who ask questions about their religion.


Scientologists don't use public funds to push their religion. 


They get a tax exemption, but that's just keeping their sucker converts' money.


Darwinists take tens of millions of dollars in expropriated Christian taxpayer's money to do research that concludes that the religious views of expropriated Christian taxpayers are evolved delusions.

Oddly, atheists never publish research demonstrating the delusional evolutionary origins of... atheism. Hmmm...

Scientology is honest about its status as a religion.

Registered. Official.

Darwinism denies the obvious fact that it is a religion, instead asserting that it is 'science', although it's less testable than Scientology.

Ironically, late 20th century Darwinists are so obsessed with their faux-science-religion that they would have called themselves 'scientologists', if the name wasn't already taken.

Coulter:

It's a make-believe story,

Darwin's theory is a bit more than banality and tautology. It's just-so stories, predicated on banality and tautology. Think of a trait, make up a story about how it might have helped a survivor survive, and voila, you gotta breakthrough. Front page, Evolution. The toughest part is writing the press release. Best part is that the fundie taxpayers pay you to do this!

Of course for a scientist, a moment's reflection (a moment too long if you want your job) reveals that nothing in the actual evidence excludes intelligent agency. Intelligently designed stuff 'changes and survives', too. Banality and tautology works for anything. So atheists, thesauruses in hand, work feverishly to conceal the fact that every bit of evolutionary data is at least as consistent with theism as it is with atheism. Shhhh....

based on a theory that is a tautology,

'Survivors survive', 'reproducers reproduce', 'more effective reproducers more effectively reproduce'. Natural selection. Kin selection. Punctuated equilibrium. You know the drill. Keep the thesaurus handy.

with no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record 

Evolutionary biology-- the actual non-ideological study of the fossil record-- reveals that organisms have changed over time. The data are clear.

Darwinism-- the ideological study of the fossil record-- asserts that evolutionary change is non-teleological. The data are non-existent.

—and that's after 150 years of very determined looking.

Every week, in the press, Darwin's theory is finally... proven, even though it's 'already a fact...' The federal judge said so.

We wouldn't still be talking about it but for the fact that liberals think evolution disproves God.

Evolutionary biology, which is a field of science within which Darwinism is a theory, is obviously real science and has contributed substantially to our knowledge of life. The cataloging of fossils and species, the study of changes in anatomy and function, the study of changes in living populations, are all genuine and important scientific endeavors. These tasks have long been a part of biology.

Evolutionary biology was infested by atheists in the mid-19th century. What had been rational non-ideological science became a desperate program to intellectually fill the godless' empty intellects, and Darwin's theory provided the gruel. Thin gruel, but gruel. For atheism Darwin's theory was the best idea anyone ever had.

Until Darwin, atheists had 'shit happened'. After Darwin, atheists had 'stuff changed and survivors survived'. A new dawn.

A new dawn for atheism, but not for science. Real scientific theories propose extraordinarily specific descriptions of nature, usually expressed mathematically. The best theories propose natural laws that are logically unlikely, but empirically true.

Newton's theory of gravitation specifies an inverse square law with a precise constant of proportionality. Newtonian mechanics required the invention of calculus. Einstein's general relativity specifies 20 tensor equations that are so difficult that Einstein needed help to specify them. Quantum mechanics involves matrix equations and complex differential equations. String theory has required novel mathematical research to describe it.

'Temperature changes and heat is hot' isn't a scientific theory.

'Light changes and brightness is bright' isn't a scientific theory.

'Stuff changes and survivors survive' isn't a scientific theory.

Darwinism is a ruse for a metaphysical assertion-- "There is no God". Darwinists say it's proven. A fact in fact. The ruse 'theory' is little more than a tautology, so how could it not be true?

But it intellectually fulfills atheists, up to the brim (it's a small cup), and lives on in science classes and biology departments.

Your kids are forced to learn it, and you pay for it. And if you have questions about the theory, atheists will... see you in court.

OK P.Z., the ball's in your court (figurative, I mean).

"... nothingness spawned a tiny nugget of inflation..."

Atheist metaphysics is a hoot.


Commentor Anonymous:

Even if you accept the argument that our reality is the result of an unmoved mover (and I don’t), you are left to ponder what sort of principle compels the existence of this “god”.

Logic is the 'principle that compels the existence of God'.

Our existence argues strongly that a state of nothingness does not exist due to the fact that it could always be described or defined in relationship to our existence.

I thought Derrida was dead. Atheism is gibberish, and accords with deconstructionism nicely. What atheism deconstructs is logic and reason.

I don’t see any reason why this apparent natural abhorrence of nothingness must necessarily lead to the existence of the Aquinas unmoved mover any more than it would lead to the existence of any other imaginable cosmology.

The reason the Prime Mover's existence is demonstrable is that an essentially ordered causal series of elevations of potency to act cannot go on to infinite regress. It is a logically rigorous way of demonstrating the truth of the view of most people that there has to be a cause of everything. They're right, and Aquinas shows why.

I find it more probable, and thus easier to believe, that nothingness spawned a tiny nugget of inflation field rather than omnipotent and omniscient god.

Logic 101: Nothingness is no-thing, so it has no agency. It can't do anything because it doesn't exist. It can't create 'inflation fields', or unicorns, or pineapples. Nothing can't spawn anything, because its nothing.

If one asserts that logic doesn't count, and that we can simply assert that nothingness can do things, then we deny the principle of sufficient reason, which asserts that things have reasons for their existence.

If nothing can 'spawn' stuff, why not apply the 'nothingness spawns' principle to origin of species? Why bother with evolution, if you can just assert that trilobites and dinosaurs and monkeys were 'nothing's spawn'? If the whole damn universe is spawned by nothing, why not assert that everything in it is spawned by nothing. Poof here, magic there, no need for science. Sh*t just happens. Applied atheist metaphysics.

It is surely parsimonious, and spares us all of this federal funding for science.

Archbishop Chaput notes "ferocious public smears and legal threats" against Christians

CNS on Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput's speech at Catholic World Youth Day in Madrid:

Archbishop: New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC Not ‘Trustworthy’ on Religion

Friday, August 19, 2011 

By Michael W. Chapman

(CNSNews.com) – The news outlets CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and MSNBC do not “provide trustworthy information about religious faith,” said Philadelphia’s incoming Archbishop, Charles Chaput, at the Catholic World Youth Day ongoing this week in Madrid, Spain.

Chaput, the former Archbishop of Denver, made his remarks in an address on religious freedom to a group of more than 10,000 young pilgrims in Madrid on Wednesday. As initially reported in First Things, Chaput told the audience that, “In the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex ‘marriage,’ and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only against Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers.”

“And with relatively few exceptions,” he said, “the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief.”

"...ignorance, laziness, and bias..." The Archbishop left out raw hate. He understates the anti-Christian malice of the media.

The Archbishop continued: “We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith -- and sometimes they can’t provide it, either because of limited resources or because of their own editorial prejudices.”

“These are secular operations focused on making a profit,” he said. “They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.”

Christianity has always been a bulwark against secular power. The mainstream media today identifies itself with that power, and hates the Church with remarkable passion.

Archbishop Chaput noted that the media gave a lot of coverage to the so-called “Arab Spring,” involving civil unrest in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. “But very little of that coverage has mentioned that the turmoil in Muslim countries has also created a very dangerous situation for Christians and other religious minorities across North Africa and the Middle East,” he said. “In Egypt, angry mobs have attacked Christian churches and monasteries, burning them to the ground and murdering the people inside.”

The media silence on the attacks on Christians in dar-al-Islam has been deafening.

In addition, he said there has been widespread anti-Christian violence in Iraq, Syria, and Tunisia, but little news coverage of this in the U.S. media, adding that it is illegal to wear a crucifix or own a Bible in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, said the Archbishop, in Pakistan, “Christians face frequent discrimination, slander, beatings and even murder.”

For the media, anti-Christian bigotry doesn't count as bigotry. There is an incessant bleating about anti-Muslim discrimination in the U.S., but virtual silence about the pervasive and violent anti-Christian (and anti-Semitic)  policies in Muslim countries.

Archbishop Chaput also warned that it is dangerous for democracy to force religion out of the public square.

“Forcing religious faith out of a nation’s public square and out of a country’s public debates does not serve democracy,” said the Archbishop. “It doesn’t serve real tolerance or pluralism. What it does do is impose a kind of unofficial state atheism. To put it another way, if we ban Christian Churches or other religious communities from taking an active role in our nation’s civic life, we’re really just enforcing a new kind of state-sponsored intolerance -- a religion without God.”

Atheists worship state power, and a prerequisite for the rise of state power is the destruction of the Church. Atheists invariably devolve into totalitarians when atheism becomes the ruling ideology. History demonstrates-- from the French Revolution to the Bolsheviks to Mao to Pol Pot to Kim Jung Il-- there are no exceptions.

At World Youth Day in Madrid, atheism flashes its cloaca.

Atheists were showing a little of their legendary 'godless love' at the Catholic World Youth Day in Madrid.

Torching Catholic banners:

Heckling Christian kids:

Mocking and spitting on kids who were praying the Rosary:

This from a young Christian girl at the celebration:

We had been wandering Madrid all day, chillin

The boys were wearing their kilts so we got stopped for photos many times

One guy who stopped us said there was an anti Catholic protest in Sol so we went to check it out

There was this HUGE crowd of people so Seamus & Louise didn´t want to come check it out with us, they sat at a corner

We went in and people were shouting filthy slurs and cursing the Pope and it was awful

So we knelt down and prayed a Rosary for them in the crowd and got surrounded by angry protesters, shouting and threatening and spitting and filming us and mocking us and trying to burn our flags.

A gay couple came and made out in front of us but whatever

Anyway, Dominic made us stand up because he felt threatened so we finished our Rosary standing but on the last decade, a fight broke out right next to us between the Catholics who had been standing behind us and and the protesters so some of the other Catholics lead us out of the crowd.

We went back and dropped our bags with Louise and this time Mim stayed back so it was just Me & Dominic & Greg & Billy who went back and prayed a second rosary on the side of the crowd and we got more of the same, people getting up in our faces screaming

We were met with a couple more of Juventutem but they left after we finished our second Rosary before one had an emotional breakdown.

Everyone left but the group I just mentioned above and we chanted BENEDICTO, BENEDICTO and VIVA PAPA and waved our Papal flag and so on up against the police line

Lots of people yelled at us still

Then, the police line broke and they charged at us and we had to run for our lives a little more urgently than after our Rosary

Then the riot police came out and beat the ___ out of the protesters

At least one guy lost a WYD pilgrim from his group in the crowd and a lot of medics showed up… A lot of people got lost & hurt

The cops wouldnt let us take the metro there so we went off to find a pub

That´s BASICALLY what happened

Father John Zuhlsdorf notes on his blog:

Expect more of this in the future, dear readers.

This is the cloaca secularism and even the liberal Catholic agenda brings us, allied as it is with secularism, because it undermines Christian values and therefore respect for human freedom and dignity.

Start think about this sort of thing every day.

Start getting used to the idea.

There is a strong thread of totalitarianism and hate that runs through atheism. Ultimately, it is hatred of God and of man. As atheism recoups from it's political downfall in Communism, it is reasserting itself in Western democracies in its characteristically malevolent way.

We need to recognize it, call it out, and defy it.