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Texas shooter was an atheist, mocked believers in God

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Richard Dawkins on atheism, morality, free will and human rights
Richard Dawkins on atheism, morality, free will and human rights

I saw some images purportedly taken from his now-deleted Facebook page that showed that he liked a bunch of atheist pages, but I wanted to hold off until we had some actual comments from people who knew him personally.

This is from Daily Wire:

According to former classmates of Devin Patrick Kelley, the 26-year-old man who killed 26 people and injured over 20 others in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on Sunday was an avowed atheist who mocked those who believed in God.

DailyMail.com spoke with former classmates who attended New Braunfels High School with Kelley. They all told a similar story: Kelley — who had a history of violence and was given a “bad conduct” discharge from the Air Force — “preached atheism,” acted “creepy” and “weird,” and seemed to hold a “very negative” worldview.

“He had a kid or two, fairly normal, but kinda quiet and lately seemed depressed,” Kelley’s former high school classmate Patrick Boyce told DailyMail.com. “He was the first atheist I met. He went Air Force after high school, got discharged but I don’t know why. I was just shocked [to hear the news].”

Another former classmate, Nina Rose Nava, told the outlet that Kelley “was different in school and creeped me out,” but she added that she “never” would have thought he would do “such a horrific thing.”

[…]”[I]n complete shock! I legit just deleted him off my [Facebook] cause I couldn’t stand his post,” wrote Nava. “He was always talking about how people who believe in God [were] stupid and trying to preach his atheism.”

Nava’s impression of Kelley’s posts were echoed by Christopher Leo Longoria, who said he “removed him off [Facebook] for those same reasons!” Longoria described Kelley as being “super negative all the time.”

Michael Goff agreed with Nava’s opinion of Kelley, replying, “He was weird but never that damn weird, always posting his atheist sh** like Nina wrote, but damn he always posted pics of him and his baby — crazy.”

He was only able to buy weapons because of two mistakes made by the Air Force, his former employer.

The NY Daily News explains:

The Air Force blundered by not submitting Devin Kelley’s criminal history to the FBI database used for gun background checks, as required, officials said Monday night.

Kelley appears to have both lied and taken advantage of a loophole in federal firearms laws to purchase his weapons despite serving time in military prison for domestic violence.

[…]Kelley, 26, was pushed out of the military in 2014 after serving a year in the brig at Miramar Air Force Base in California.

He was convicted in military court in 2012 of beating up his first wife and fracturing the skull of their young son, while assigned to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. She divorced him that same year.

[…]Based on his plea under 18 U.S. Code section 922, Christensen said it would have been illegal for Kelley to possess or purchase a firearm.

“It’s also illegal because he was convicted of a domestic violence charge. So, for two reasons, he should not have had a gun.”

So, this is a case where government failed to do its job, and keep weapons out of the hands of a crazy atheist who hated Christians.

If there is a silver lining to Kelley’s shocking evil, it’s the story about the man who shot the atheist murderer. He is a Christian man, a marksman, a former NRA instructor, and the owner of a legal firearm.

The Washington Times explains:

A former National Rifle Association instructor has come forward as the “good Samaritan” who shot and wounded the gunman who attacked the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Stephen Willeford, 55, has been hailed as a hero for confronting the shooter and forcing him to flee, but he insisted in an interview Monday that “I’m no hero.”

“I think my God, my Lord protected me and gave me the skills to do what needed to be done, and I just wish I could have gotten there faster,” said Mr. Willeford told 40/29 News in Fort Smith-Fayetteville.

[…]Mr. Willeford, 55, said his daughter alerted him to the gunshots, after which he removed his rifle from its safe, loaded his magazine, and ran across the street to the church. He didn’t even pause to put on his shoes.

“He saw me and I saw him,” said Mr. Willeford, adding that he stood behind a pickup truck for cover.

Authorities said at a Monday evening press conference that the suspect, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, was hit twice in the confrontation.

I doubt that will be reported in the mainstream media – defensive use of guns by legal owners of guns is not popular with the progressive mainstream media. I’m sure we’ll get lots of stories demonizing the NRA, though. But I didn’t see any Hollywood elites or progressive journalists defending the people in that church.

Objective morality on atheism?

Let’s review what objective morality (moral realism) really means in practice for atheists. Does atheism provide a rational foundation for human rights and moral duties?

Let’s see what Kelley says:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

(Richard Dawkins, “God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85)

Oh wait, that’s not Kelley, that’s Richard Dawkins. Atheists like Richard Dawkins think that morality is make-believe, and if they can get away with being immoral, (think Harvey Weinstein), then they will. Survival of the fittest. The strong abuse and kill the weak. It’s “natural selection”. That’s what was printed on the t-shirt of another atheist mass murderer when he engaged in some love-your-neighbor (atheist style) at Columbine High School a while ago. Not every atheist is a crazy mass murderer, of course. But it’s important for atheists to think seriously about whether they willing to take atheism seriously when it comes to morality. In a recent debate, Matt Dillahunty, who claims to be an atheist, wouldn’t even condemn the Holocaust as evil. Why not? Because he takes Dawkins seriously about what morality is on atheism. It’s make-believe.

It’s very important for atheists to think through what sort of objective morality is possible in an accidental universe where there is no free will (to make moral choices), no life after death (where those who escape justice in this life face it in the next), no human rights or human dignity (because we’re just randomly evolved meat machines), and no objective moral lawgiver to impose moral duties on us. Obviously, atheists living in the United States of America are going to inherit the Judeo-Christian values that were present when the country was formed. They’re going to act better than their worldview in most cases. My worry is how will atheists act when push comes to shove and their self-interest comes up against moral intuitions that – on their own view – are just illusory?

Atheists, come over to the light side. We have cookies. And objective moral values and duties. You ought to want that! Don’t be a Dick Dawkins.

Polemics

How the WMAP satellite confirmed nucleosynthesis predictions and falsified atheism

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Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

Prior to certain scientific discoveries, most people thought that the universe had always been here, and no need to ask who or what may have caused it. But today, that’s all changed. Today, the standard model of the origin of the universe is that all the matter and energy in the universe came into being in an event scientists call “The Big Bang”. At the creation event, space and time themselves began to exist, and there is no material reality that preceded them.

So a couple of quotes to show that.

An initial cosmological singularity… forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity… On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.

Source: P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag ).

And another quote:

[A]lmost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.

Source: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 20.

So, there are several scientific discoveries that led scientists to accept the creation event, and one of the most interesting and famous is the discovery of how elements heavier than hydrogen were formed.

Nucleosynthesis: forming heavier elements by fusion
Nucleosynthesis: forming heavier elements by fusion

Here’s the history of how that discovery happened, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) web site:

The term nucleosynthesis refers to the formation of heavier elements, atomic nuclei with many protons and neutrons, from the fusion of lighter elements. The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place. One second after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe was roughly 10 billion degrees and was filled with a sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons and neutrinos. As the universe cooled, the neutrons either decayed into protons and electrons or combined with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). During the first three minutes of the universe, most of the deuterium combined to make helium. Trace amounts of lithium were also produced at this time. This process of light element formation in the early universe is called “Big Bang nucleosynthesis” (BBN).

The creation hypothesis predicts that there will be specific amounts of these light elements formed as the universe cools down. Do the predictions match with observations?

Yes they do:

The predicted abundance of deuterium, helium and lithium depends on the density of ordinary matter in the early universe, as shown in the figure at left. These results indicate that the yield of helium is relatively insensitive to the abundance of ordinary matter, above a certain threshold. We generically expect about 24% of the ordinary matter in the universe to be helium produced in the Big Bang. This is in very good agreement with observations and is another major triumph for the Big Bang theory.

Moreover, WMAP satellite measurements of mass density agree with our observations of these light element abundances.

Here are the observations from the WMAP satellite:

Scientific observations match predictions
Scientific observations match predictions

And here is how those WMAP measurements confirm the Big Bang creation event:

However, the Big Bang model can be tested further. Given a precise measurement of the abundance of ordinary matter, the predicted abundances of the other light elements becomes highly constrained. The WMAP satellite is able to directly measure the ordinary matter density and finds a value of 4.6% (±0.2%), indicated by the vertical red line in the graph. This leads to predicted abundances shown by the circles in the graph, which are in good agreement with observed abundances. This is an important and detailed test of nucleosynthesis and is further evidence in support of the Big Bang theory. 

“An important and detailed test”.

For completeness, we should learn how elements heavier than these light elements are formed:

Elements heavier than lithium are all synthesized in stars. During the late stages of stellar evolution, massive stars burn helium to carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, and iron. Elements heavier than iron are produced in two ways: in the outer envelopes of super-giant stars and in the explosion of a supernovae. All carbon-based life on Earth is literally composed of stardust.

That’s a wonderful thing to tell a young lady when you are on a date: “your body is made of stardust”. In fact, as I have argued before, this star formation, which creates the elements necessary for intelligent life, can only be built if the fundamental constants and quantities in the universe are finely-tuned.

Now, you would think that atheists would be happy to find observations that confirm the origin of the universe out of nothing, but they are not. Actually, they are in denial.

Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.

You cannot have the creation of the universe be true AND a self-existing, eternal universe ALSO be true. Someone has to be wrong. Either the science is wrong, or the atheist manifesto is wrong. I know where I stand.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Polemics

How the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation falsified atheism

7 Comments
Christianity and the progress of science
Christianity and the progress of science

Prior to certain scientific discoveries, most people thought that the universe had always been here, and no need to ask who or what may have caused it. But today, that’s all changed. Today, the standard model of the origin of the universe is that all the matter and energy in the universe came into being in an event scientists call “The Big Bang”. At the creation event, space and time themselves began to exist, and there is no material reality that preceded them.

So a couple of quotes to show that.

An initial cosmological singularity… forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity… On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.

Source: P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag ).

And another quote:

[A]lmost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.

Source: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 20.

So, there are several scientific discoveries that led scientists to accept the creation event, and one of the most interesting and famous is the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Here’s the history of how that discovery happened, from the American Physical Society web site:

Bell Labs radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were using a large horn antenna in 1964 and 1965 to map signals from the Milky Way, when they serendipitously discovered the CMB. As written in the citation, “This unexpected discovery, offering strong evidence that the universe began with the Big Bang, ushered in experimental cosmology.” Penzias and Wilson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 in honor of their findings.

The CMB is “noise” leftover from the creation of the Universe. The microwave radiation is only 3 degrees above Absolute Zero or -270 degrees C,1 and is uniformly perceptible from all directions. Its presence demonstrates that that our universe began in an extremely hot and violent explosion, called the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

In 1960, Bell Labs built a 20-foot horn-shaped antenna in Holmdel, NJ to be used with an early satellite system called Echo. The intention was to collect and amplify radio signals to send them across long distances, but within a few years, another satellite was launched and Echo became obsolete.2

With the antenna no longer tied to commercial applications, it was now free for research. Penzias and Wilson jumped at the chance to use it to analyze radio signals from the spaces between galaxies.3 But when they began to employ it, they encountered a persistent “noise” of microwaves that came from every direction. If they were to conduct experiments with the antenna, they would have to find a way to remove the static.

Penzias and Wilson tested everything they could think of to rule out the source of the radiation racket. They knew it wasn’t radiation from the Milky Way or extraterrestrial radio sources. They pointed the antenna towards New York City to rule out “urban interference”, and did analysis to dismiss possible military testing from their list.4

Then they found droppings of pigeons nesting in the antenna. They cleaned out the mess and tried removing the birds and discouraging them from roosting, but they kept flying back. “To get rid of them, we finally found the most humane thing was to get a shot gun…and at very close range [we] just killed them instantly. It’s not something I’m happy about, but that seemed like the only way out of our dilemma,” said Penzias.5 “And so the pigeons left with a smaller bang, but the noise remained, coming from every direction.”6

At the same time, the two astronomers learned that Princeton University physicist Robert Dicke had predicted that if the Big Bang had occurred, there would be low level radiation found throughout the universe. Dicke was about to design an experiment to test this hypothesis when he was contacted by Penzias. Upon hearing of Penzias’ and Wilson’s discovery, Dicke turned to his laboratory colleagues and said “well boys, we’ve been scooped.”7

Although both groups published their results in Astrophysical Journal Letters, only Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the CMB.

The horn antenna was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. Its significance in fostering a new appreciation for the field of cosmology and a better understanding of our origins can be summed up by the following: “Scientists have labeled the discovery [of the CMB] the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century.”8

It’s the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century.

In the New York Times, Arno Penzias commented on his discovery – the greatest discovery of the 20th century – so:

The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole.

Just one problem with the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th century: atheists don’t accept it. Why not?

Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.

You cannot have the creation of the universe be true AND a self-existing, eternal universe ALSO be true. Someone has to be wrong. Either the science is wrong, or the atheist manifesto is wrong. I know where I stand.

Positive arguments for Christian theism