New Atheism - Further Evidence of Its Deleterious Effects, part 2 of 2

As stated in part 1, the typical New Atheist fallacies committed by Christopher Hitchens during his debate with Jay Richards are further compounded by the laymen New Atheists as exampled throughout the internet. In this case, I will consider the picture perfect example of a fallacy compounder in the form of Aidan Maconachy (from his article "Christopher Hitchens Debates Creationist Jay Richards") a DHDH Meme carrier (for Dennett-Harris-Dawkins-Hitchens).

Following on the heels of Christopher Hitchens' statements which we considered in part 1, he wrote,

Hitchens made the very good point that centuries of "barbarism, misery, ignorance, slavery and early death" hardly leads one to believe in a beneficent designer God.

Obviously, this means that if someone steals your car and runs someone over with it, your car was not designed by a beneficent engineer-right? Nay, rather this solidifies the doctrine of the fall.Aidan Maconachy also notes,

Richards responded by describing God as the "definition of goodness and love". However his all-loving deity for some reason turned a blind eye to the holocaust and the other epic atrocities that scar human history. His argument from science was equally unconvincing.

Setting aside the emotive references to the Holocaust (which Sam Harris blames on the Jews), et al, I think that he is missing the point: that God is the definition of goodness and love is meant to draw attention to the fact that without God's standards of goodness and love the most that the atheist could do is claim that they personally disapprove of the Holocaust but since the Nazis disagree with their personal disapproval we are at a stalemate that was only broken when the allied forces survived as the fittest over the Nazis.

Aidan Maconachy then makes reference to the virgin birth and resurrection question and the "science has nothing to do with his world view" statement and writes,

And that's the crux of it. How can people like Richards try to enlist science in their quest to 'prove' God, when they also believe biblical fairy tales?

Yes, this is the crux of it, if God exists then the Bible is not necessarily filled with, note another emotive term here, "fairy tales." In fact, it is the very fields and methods of science that were established largely by believers in God that uncovered laws in the universe and the continuity to which they give rise. As far as we know, laws do not proceed forth from arbitrary collocations-from explosions. When continuity is broken, such as when a dead body rises, we can discern the possibility of a miracle. Jay Richards holds that the scientific evidence for a creator leads, eventually perhaps, to a chain of causation which concludes in the Bible's theology.I actually do not understand how atheists deny any miracles at all. It would be more logical for them to state that for example; Jesus rising from the dead was no act of God but a serendipitous combination of natural laws in an unexpected and or rare chance event.Aidan Maconachy notes that "It makes it appear that they are only using science as a partisan tool, reducing it pretty much to a pseudo-science." "Ditto," seems like an appropriate retort since there are atheist-activist-scientists who infer atheism from biology and others who claim that science and atheism are inseparable. Yet, science has nothing to offer atheism (see my essay Omni-Science).
Aidan Maconachy wrote that Jay Richards,

described God as "a transcendent, eternal, personal being." The problem with this glorious picture, is that the God of the bible was in fact more like a mean spirited psychopath, than anything approximating Richards' description.

Yes, the childish emotive assertions continue. The statement is that since the God of the Bible is like a mean spirited psychopath He cannot be a transcendent, eternal, personal being. This is a non-sequitur. Let us grant the emotive statement and state that God can be like a mean spirited psychopath and also be transcendent, eternal and a personal being (although, maybe not personable). I am forced to wonder if such simple to correct logical fallacies are overlooked due to the amount of time, energy and focus being placed on the adrenaline spiked excitement of the emotionally charged pseudo-arguments.Aidan Maconachy seeks to reinforce his likening of the God of the Bible to a mean spirited psychopath by noting that "The biblical deity described himself as 'a jealous God.'"Yet, in his eagerness to discredit this God and accredit Christopher Hitchens he overlooks another very basic point: jealousy is bad when it is misplaced but good when it is well placed. In other words, jealousy could be based on petty misunderstandings, etc. but could also be a well founded and an appropriate reaction. God's jealousy is, by definition, perfect jealousy.Sadly, he further compounds this error by writing that God "routinely called for the slaughter of those he deemed unworthy." This is just generic enough to be meaningless. Yet, it does function as a self-serving jab: routinely and deemed unworthy are simply generic and unfounded.

He further states

It wasn't enough to slaughter the fighting men - the women, children and livestock had to be wiped out also to satisfy his craven lust for vengeance.

If I were an atheist I would not be so bothered about slaughters and lust for vengeance as I would be by my inability to condemn slaughters and lust for vengeance. Note that he does not present any sort of argument against such actions but merely makes an argument from outrage which he appears to expect his readers to accept likewise-due to emotionally driven feelings.
Moreover, he is also pseudo-condemning the past actions of the ancient Middle Easterners whom, on his view if followed logically and biologically, were acting in accord to the less evolved morality of their time. He fails to note that what was routine was these culture's practice of human, often child, sacrifices to false gods and that the God of the Bible gave them hundreds of years to repent. In effect, these cultures condemned themselves (human sacrifice is discussed here).The last part of Aidan Maconachy's article is something that a critic of atheist could not make up as it is such a picture perfect as an example of the New Atheist movement's deleterious effect upon discourse.He writes,

Although Hitchens made a strong showing, he won by default. The glaring flaws and contradictions in Richards' argument guaranteed it. Attempting to prove "God" verges on silly.

Need any more be said?

Christopher Hitchens won by default because since attempting to prove God verges on silly, Jay Richards was doomed before the debate even began.Of course, these are not real "flaws and contradictions" but are those which an atheist defender of the indefensible New Atheist tactics is forced to concoct. They either concoct these pseudo-flaws and pseudo-contradictions in order to claim theistic failure, due to basic lack of knowledge about what they are attempting to criticize or because they are simply incapable of meeting the arguments on the argument's own merits.