I am an atheist simply because I don’t believe in God, gods or anything supernatural. I cannot prove otherwise but the onus is on the claimant to present credible evidence, not just arguments from ignorance (complexity, beauty, science doesn’t know everything, etc.) and other logical fallacies.
I never believed in gods, even during the years that I attended Christian kindergarten and elementary schools. I took the Bible stories as just that — stories. And classmate’s claims that God wrote the Bible made no sense to me. God was just so…not there.
I went through a supernatural phase though. In the 1970’s, I was intrigued by Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of, pyramid power, the Bermuda Triangle, Nostradamus, and other pop pseudo-sciences and pseudo-profundity. And Disney’s Escape from Witch Mountain had me trying to fly with the mere power of my thoughts. I could feel myself flying with my eyes closed but not when opened. Darn reality.
Also, it took some time for me to completely reject superstition. I had to be careful of my thoughts lest the universe use me as an ironic example, like choke to death on a vitamin pill, or instill cancer if I got too happy or full of myself. Perhaps it was due to residuals from Christianity and/or cosmic karma crap. I got over it. Now, there’s no more universal score keeper. Exciting! Now I can simply be responsible for my actions, not thoughts, and balance my personal needs and desires with social responsibility and environmental stewardship. No gods required.
Torsten Pihl
United States
I think a lot of kids go through the supernatural phase as you describe. I can distinctly remember being on a playground set on an overcast evening with a friend of mine who was into witchcraft and pagan stuff. He was from a kind of oddball family, and I think his mother encouraged it. He said some incantations and something moved in the clouds that he attributed to magic. We both thought that was cool, but I didn’t entirely believe it. I think even then I could tell the difference between good and bad evidence. Kids don’t really have a firm enough grip on how reality works to say for sure whether they’re living in our world, or a Harry Potter world. I think if it had turned out that I really did live in Harry Potter’s world, where magic worked, I would have been fine with it. Problem is, after living in this world for a while, I now find that you have to be a gullible fool if you are to believe that. I can’t say for sure that the capacity to arrive at that conclusion so easily wasn’t due to not being indoctrinated as a child.
I like that very much. To me that was the most pernicious aspect of religion…no zone of privacy…not even in your head.
That’s another pernicious aspect of religion: that adults shirk their duty to validate reality for children.
In Search of… is not the show that Nimoy prefers to bring up, I believe.
But then, the pilot for the version of Star Trek that actually was approved was the ESP episode. Lot of woo back then.
Glen Davidson
Torsten, You wrote the onus is on the claimant. I have 3 logical proofs of God’s existence in my bog intro (Templestream) which have so far been unscathed by atheist critics.
Also, a quick question for PZ, if he cares to respond:
If you believe the Bible is wrong in forbidding bestiality, can you provide a logical basis for morally justifying it?
Uh huh.
No, existence isn’t a matter of proof, ignoramus.
What indicates existence is observational data–which you do not have for God.
Glen Davidson
Turning off comments is a good way for your arguments to stay “unscathed” isn’t it? Chump.
PZ, there’s more info with regard to my question at this link:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1645439856635422478#editor/target=post;postID=5762025240082023393
Marcus Ranum,
I frequently have a big problem with atheists who seem to only be able to spam and make ad hom attacks. I’ve just turned off all comment moderating so you can feel free to offer your best logic. Go for it.
Where is the first occurrence of the word “bestiality” in this thread?
Oh, yeah.
huh.
rickw, you cannot logic God into existence. You need credible evidence. The so-called evidence that I have been personally presented lately is that God hides along roadways, causes traffic fatalities, and the religious survivors claim a miracle. Never mind the reality of statistics.
http://religidiocy.com/
And for non-religious non-political debunking…
http://debunkatron.com/
By the way, this is Torsten Pihl. The American one, not the Swedish one. http://torstenpihl.com/
rickw
Are you under the impression that PZ is in favor of bestiality? Care to cite where he said so?
I don’t know what PZ would say in response to your silly remarks (though I imagine he would not be kind), but I can tell you why I do not approve of bestiality. I believe that informed consent is a vitally important aspect of sex, because sex requires opening one’s body to very close contact with another. One must consent to this close contact. Animals cannot consent, because they do not understand what human sexuality is, nor are they capable of understanding potential consequences of sexual contact with a human.
See? Easy.
Well said, otrame. Bestiality is the rape of animals by humans, plain and simple. If you support that, you are supporting a form of rape.
However, rickw isn’t even talking about bestiality even though he uses that word. Rickw is talking about photos of mating ocurring between animals, and he points to the Friday Cephalopod series as the main culprit. (Maybe those flowers are too hot for rickw to handle?) It’s a case of TSTKYS for rickw.
Another godbot has bome blogwhoring.
<yawn>
@5 rickw
“Torsten, You wrote the onus is on the claimant. I have 3 logical proofs of God’s existence in my bog intro (Templestream) which have so far been unscathed by atheist critics.”
rickw, existence is not an attribute.
It’s like, I have a 2008 toyota pickup truck, it is red and fast and 4×4, and it exists.
logical “proof” does not show existence.
Assuming others believe something is not helpful if you seek truth.
And that is where it will be going, down the bog hole.
RickW: Oops! You assumed your conclusion in Proposition 2. My uncle tried this on my when I was 12. I saw that he was trying to slip the assumption that creation needs an intelligent creator back then. It still doesn’t work.
Physical forces such as gravity are sufficient to produce “hierarchical” systems.
P.S. Look up “Begging the question” under rhetorical fallacies and lean to avoid it.
*learn*
Have a chat with Gödel. “What would be proof of God?” is your opener.
It’s almost sad to watch the low-level types like Rick here trotting out the same tired old question-begging fallacious arguments. Almost.
So, Rick Warden, the xian blog-whore has struck again, eh?
And as usual, his hypocrisy is exposed:
He says here:
Read Markita Lynda’s response at #18, Rick. You made a logical error in your second premise.
As for bestiality: Rick, you made an accusation here. Put up or shut up here. Don’t use it as bait for your own blog which has damned few comments except for (mostly) those atheists you’re whining about!
As for your whining about how atheists act on your blog? Here is where you are a hypocrite. You blog-whore a lot. You wanted atheists to go to your blog in the first place.
You got some, just not the ones you had called. Deal with it.
You also do ad-hom a lot. Here’s an example: You accuse Richard Dawkins of justifing genocide, a charge that you got spanked for on your own blog, where you keep ignoring the points that are raised against you, and now you come back here with the claim that no atheist has successfully beaten your illogically worded challenge which got slapped down so quickly in this thread?
By the way, you have yet to take up this challenge.
Yes, I know the irony: I’m complaining about blog-whoring while I’m posting a link to another blog. Mind you, I’m only posting a link on one blog in response to Warden as compared to his posting a link on 20 other blogs!
And there is no “challenge” to anyone other than Warden himself.