Lileks, with some thoughts on evangelistic atheism:
Religion seeks the metaphysical truth to existence, and science explains the physical truth. The former is predicated on accepting the unprovable, and hence science is not its opposite. That’s the part I don’t get: the need to set up science as a contrapositive model. It’s like saying you shouldn’t want to see the Batman movie because the jetstream is dipping south and dragging cold moist Canadian air over the planes. Huh? I want to see Batman. But rain will be falling over most of the Dakotas. Why does that matter? It’s the Batman movie. The rain will be too late for the small grains, but may prepare the soil for next year. I think we’re talking about two different things.
I’ve never understood it, either. Of course, these are the same people who idiotically assume that because I’m skeptical about Warmageddon, that I must be a Christian creationist.
Or because you don’t go into a raving slather whenever someone mentions Christian creationists, you must obviously be one yourself.
Evangelical anything — religion, not-religion, interior decorating — is based upon a strong emotional investment. Personally, I’ve never understood why some of my fellow atheists feel a need to create a framework for their atheism out of the scraps of religion. What, exactly, are you emotionally invested in? Oblivion? That doesn’t even make any sense. The much-vaunted “future of humanity”? You’ll be dead, thus it’s an irrelevancy.
If you don’t believe in something, it doesn’t matter one blue wit what the believers think of your lack of belief, right? So why spend time and effort attacking it? I’d rather be playing a video game or cooking or sleeping or mowing the yard or drinking or… well, anything else at all, really.
Maybe they’re secretly hoping someone can prove them wrong.
Maybe they’re just trying to convince themselves.
Rand, you don’t understand, do you?
All the smart people believe in Global Warming. Because you don’t believe in it, you must be really, really dumb.
And because only really, really dumb people are Christians, why you must be a Christian, too, and (gasp!) a creationist to boot! Oh! the horror!
QED, man.
The quality of thought (or lack thereof) by these people makes me wonder how they made it out of high school. Or maybe they never did, at least mentally, because so many of their antics are so juvenile.
My two cents’ worth.
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
Rand,
I wish your comments section supported emoticons, like one for putting one’s tongue in one’s cheek for that first sentence.
*sigh*
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
Allow me to attempt to answer the rhetorical question here. Note that this isn’t my position, but what I believe is the position of a lot of atheists.
Science is a method of thinking, not a body of facts.
Religion is incompatible with that method of thinking.
That is all. Thank you.