[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 09-30 03:08, David L. Willson wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-09-30 at 03:57 -0400, Angelo Bertolli wrote:
 
> > Hmmm, I don't know.  I certainly don't claim to be an atheist, and I 
> > really don't agree with atheists who try to "disprove" religion.  Hmmm, 
> > but I guess I wouldn't call nominal atheism a "system of faith."  I 
> > would say it's more the complete lack of faith in anything religious.
> 
> In order for atheism to 'succeed', there must be no God, or that God
> must tolerate atheism.  Since God cannot be disproven, an atheist needs
> an amount of "faith" that God doesn't exist.

Hm, as I've said before, I was an atheist most of my life - almost ever
since I can remember. It's only in the past few years that I opened up to
agnosticism as being more realistic.  Then, I moved off that to thinking
there is a higher power of some sort. I can't/won't make claims about that
beyond that, and I know it cannot stand up to any sort of critical analysis.
And so I don't try to convince anyone else of what I think about that. I
certainly don't believe in any one group's dogma or literal interpretations
of their texts.


However, I don't think atheism requires any faith at all. I've recently seen
this quote several places, including in Pharyngula comments:

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby".

I think many atheists honestly find no real reason to accept the evidence as
not having a "faith" - they just might not have had the same imprinting as
theists had. It's not about tweaking the nose of god or the church or what
have you, though I think some adolescents might go through this stage. 

I think Sam Harris made the argument that no one is born with religious
beliefs. No one is born a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. - they are
made. Some atheists just never let the religious memeplex in, perhaps. 

By the same token that many/most people don't believe in unicorns or elves
or that the moon is made of cheese, atheists reject religious claims,
because as Sagan says, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence". Not believing in unicorns requires no faith at all.

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net  
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com/
Laughter is the closest distance between two people. 
-Victor Borge 
(contributed by Chris Johnston)