The scandals keep dribbling out » « I’m ready for 2025 to end

An atheist creed

I rediscovered an old poster with a few of my words on it, so I figured I’d throw together a quick video with a few words of inspiration.

Transcript below the fold.

Happy 2026, I hope. I was doing some New Years cleaning, and was organizing my bedroom closet. I own 60 or 70 t-shirts, and they were in a sloppy pile, so sorted them out and folded them and tucked them away, and then folded up all my pants and stacked them neatly. Please clap.

While I was uncluttering, I discovered a few things buried in the neglected mess, including a mailing tube from someone named Quentin Long. It was dated February of 2010.

I guess that tells you how long its been since I cleaned that closet. It was like finding an index fossil.

Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise to rediscover on New Years Day. Quentin had made a poster of my own words and sent me a copy. It reminded me of something I’d written years ago, and more or less forgotten — it was my atheist creed. I’d written it as a response to a common Christian canard, that atheists don’t believe in anything. I am not some kind of radical nihilist!

Here’s what I’d written. It’s a good way to start the new year.

I believe in time,
matter, and energy,
which make up the whole of the world.

I believe in reason, evidence and the human mind,
the only tools we have;
they are the product of natural forces
in a majestic but impersonal universe,
grander and richer than we can imagine,
a source of endless opportunities for discovery.

I believe in the power of doubt;
I do not seek out reassurances,
but embrace the question,
and strive to challenge my own beliefs.

I accept human mortality.

We have but one life,
brief and full of struggle,
leavened with love and community,
learning and exploration,
beauty and the creation of
new life, new art, and new ideas.

I rejoice in this life that I have,
and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
and an earth that will abide without me.

It may be many years old, but it’s still valid…for me. That’s the foundation of what I believe, but it may not be the same for every atheist.

Maybe there’s something you’d subtract from my creed, and that’s fine. I think it’s too long, myself, and consider it in need of some editing.

Maybe there’s something you’d like to add, that’s also fine. I think I’d add something about the centrality of change — we’re all riding the winds of flux all the time, and grasping that is important for understanding biology and evolution, for instance…also physics and chemistry. But I already said it’s too long, and adding a whole ‘nother concept while keeping the length down would be more work than I feel like putting in to it now.

I do think it’s a good exercise for every atheist to write down the positive beliefs that they hold. We might see some common aspects and some significant differences!

OK, that’s all I wanted to say. Also thanks to Quentin for reaching up out of the past to remind me what I stand for.

The scandals keep dribbling out » « I’m ready for 2025 to end

Comments

  2. John Morales says

    Don’t take this the wrong way, PZ, but that was YouTube.
    I expected to see the poster itself.
    You holding it up to the camera type of thing.

    And so, I was disappointed.

    (OTOH, I remember those heady days of Pharyngula in 2010. Kilocomment threads, pharyngulation, the lot. Salad days)

  5. says

    I can’t show the poster yet — it’s been tightly curled in a mailing tube for 15 years, and I’m working on flattening and mounting it. Once it’s presentable I’ll post a photo.

  7. drivenb4u says

    Oh cool, I’m pretty sure this was published on some other site and that’s how I found you on Science Blogs. Been following ever since!

  8. birgerjohansson says

    Optimistic things I believe in.

    (As for the Eschaton… that will have to wait for AGI and nanotech)
    .
    AGI and fusion power will arrive in as little as 50-80 years.
    Cryogenic storage will not be around for at least a century.

    Terraforming Mars will have to wait for those AGIs to divert an ocean’s worth of volatiles from the ‘scattered disc’ component of the Kuiper belt, easily taking a couple of millennia.

    Drastically extending lives will require germ-line GM but as we have found the causes to the relatively long life spans of naked mole rats and the 200-year life spans of bowhead whales the informational aspects of such an undertaking may not be quite as collossal as expected.

  9. John Morales says

    Excuse me, PZ, but this once, forgive me:

    Me to Bot: ready?
    Bot: Please provide the quote, image description, claim, or specific topic you would like to find the source for, and it will be tracked down.

    Me: [copypasted what is quoted in the OP]
    Bot: Thinking
    Searching
    The passage is a personal statement known as the “Atheist’s Creed” penned by American biologist and science blogger Paul Myers (also known as P.Z. Myers) in 2008.
    It was posted as a two-point, stylized creed on his blog (likely Pharyngula, though the search results don’t specify the exact blog name) in reaction to an artistic conceptualization that portrayed atheists as believing in nothing. The full text provided in the query is the complete, expanded version of the “creed” as cited in various sources.

  10. mizzi says

    Thank you Mr Myers and a hopefully happy new year to you and you all. This reminds me of the days when I first discovered your blog and a whole new range of topics to care about. It must have been 2004 or thereabouts and I’ve been here nearly every day since, for insight by you and all you erudite commenters with lots of different perspectives adding to the value and fun. How time flies. Waxing a bit nostalgic here….

  12. John Morales says

    Good one, R. I sure can see the content:
    ↓
    One of the reasons we atheists have to be loud and assertive is that we are floating alone in a vast sea of ignorance. Case in point: here is an artist who has obviously never met an atheist.

    I am expressing my feeling towards the very Idea of Atheism. I almost pity those who have such beliefs. I’m not saying they are wrong or right. I’m just saying that what they believe in is more depressing than any other possibility.

    So I made this simple picture to express my feelings for somebody who believes in nothing.

    Here we see a person sitting in a blank room without any doors or windows. What is most troubling is the fact that this person wants to be here, and is unwilling to move from his chair. Alone, neglected, and lost to the ravages of time. Without anything to grab onto and hold as a symbol of his own identity. Those who seek nothing as a reward shall ultimately receive it.

    I don’t think Atheists can even believe in love, which is the saddest part.

    If this picture offends you, remember that it is not directed at you. Even if you are an atheist.

    Atheists don’t believe in love? Where does this nonsense come from? This fellow is a fool who sits alone himself, imagining what atheists must think, and he conjures up this ridiculous picture based on the idea that atheists are lonely nihilists who believe in nothing. I know a lot of atheists, and no, his portrayal is not accurate.

    I’m not offended by the picture — I’m just sickened by the smug ignorance of its creator. There are a lot of comments over there, too, all of which are getting hidden away by the host, which tells us who has got his eyes firmly closed in this debate. I think he needs to retitle his picture to “Self Portrait.”

    This atheist simply believes in all that is, and doesn’t believe in that which isn’t. Since the artist doesn’t understand that we do believe in something, including love, here’s a short, simple creed for the godless.

    An atheist’s creed

    I believe in time,
    matter, and energy,
    which make up the whole of the world.

    I believe in reason, evidence and the human mind,
    the only tools we have;
    they are the product of natural forces
    in a majestic but impersonal universe,
    grander and richer than we can imagine,
    a source of endless opportunities for discovery.

    I believe in the power of doubt;
    I do not seek out reassurances,
    but embrace the question,
    and strive to challenge my own beliefs.

    I accept human mortality.

    We have but one life,
    brief and full of struggle,
    leavened with love and community,
    learning and exploration,
    beauty and the creation of
    new life, new art, and new ideas.

    I rejoice in this life that I have,
    and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
    and an earth that will abide without me.

  16. Rob Grigjanis says

    I believe in time,
    matter, and energy,
    which make up the whole of the world.

    Space would like to have a word.

  17. lumipuna says

    The phrase “transcript below the fold” is quite apt when the transcript begins with a mention of folding clothes.

  18. says

    @16 Rob Grigjanis : ‘which make up the whole of the world.’ Space would like to have a word.
    I reply: please, you should understand the clear meaning of the word ‘world’. The creed specifically mentioned what I would interpret as this planet, it did not say ‘universe’.

  19. Rob Grigjanis says

    shermanj @18: I suspect ‘world’ in this case is supposed to mean ‘universe’, but even if not, the planet (and you, and I, the words we type on the screen, etc) still takes up, and is moving in, space.

  20. John Morales says

    Gotta be your setup, rorschach.
    ↓
    #48 PZ Myers
    March 7, 2008

    Well, you won’t find it on google yet, because it is my creed, which is mine, which I just wrote down this morning.

  22. John Morales says

    If it works for me and not for you, then… well, it may not be the setup.

    HTTP 429 means “Too Many Requests.” and is issued by the server.
    Maybe a bunch of people tried retrieving it at the same time.
    Maybe you spammed it, who knows? ;)

    (BTW I’m there too, comment #221)

  23. says

    I’m printing out and framing the last paragraph to hang above my desk.

    “I rejoice in this life that I have,
    and in the grandeur of a world that preceded me,
    and an earth that will abide without me.”

    Says it all, really.

  25. John Morales says

    FWIW, kudos to the Wayback Archive.
    One thing that has not become enshittified.

    cf. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/16/tech/internet-archive-wayback-machine
    ↓
    Inside the old church where one trillion webpages are being saved

    San Francisco —

    Just blocks from the Presidio of San Francisco, the national park at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, stands a gleaming white building, its façade adorned with eight striking gothic columns.

    But what was once the home of a Christian Scientist church, is now the holy grail of Internet history — the Internet Archive, a non-profit library run by a group of software engineers and librarians, who for nearly 30 years have been saving the web one page at a time.

    Inside the stained-glass-adorned sanctuary, the sounds of church sermons have been replaced by the hum of servers, where the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine preserves web pages.

    The Wayback Machine, a tool used by millions every day, has proven critical for academics and journalists searching for historical information on what corporations, people and governments have published online in the past, long after their websites have been updated or changed.

    For many, the Wayback Machine is like a living history of the internet, and it just logged its trillionth page last month.

  26. Allison says

    I’ve been involved with several religous groups, and don’t have much use for
    creeds or catechisms. (neither do they.). It’s mostly for people who can’t be bothered to
    actually figure out how to Do The Right Thing, and prefer to have some
    rules which they can misinterpret to allow them to do whatever they want.
    I think that applies to atheists as well.

    I sometimes say I have a creed. It’s “don’t be a dick.” It sounds like
    a low bar, but it’s amazing how many people can’t manage even that.

  28. lanir says

    I’ve been saying for a long time that the only thing I really believe in is people. There are a small number of people I trust implicitly. A larger group that I trust a lot. And so on and so forth. I can’t have proof ahead of time but for a lot of trust issues, I have faith that things will work out if I’m with someone I trust enough.

    I don’t really think anything to do with science needs my faith though. The pieces I can understand work well enough that trusting that areas I’m not an expert in work as well feels a lot more like having “faith” that if I look at a house, the walls I can see are not the only ones. That if I walk around behind it, there will be other exterior walls to complete the structure and an interior beyond the small bits I might see through windows from my current perspective. There might be exceptions but they are exceedingly rare. I don’t encounter many Potemkin villages made of nothing but facades.

    I can’t really think of anything that sounds like it fits as a faith thing. I’m not into any mystery cults like christianity.

    Oh there is one other item I should probably put in a creed though. Because I don’t think we can depend on gods or other divine forces to make the world a better place, that means we’re going to have to do it ourselves. Atheists who don’t get this simple concept are not my people. They suck.

  29. psanity says

    Thanks for the link, Rorschach and John. What a trip down Memory Lane! So many of the old crew, even a poem from Cuttlefish. Yes, I totally fell down that rabbit hole, but I had a good time there.

  30. StevoR says

    Think and be kind.

    That'[s my creed or my slogan I guess? FWIW my ethical axioms which require no diety to enforce, no supernaturalism just are :

    People are all people regardless of what else they are.

    The world is already bad and cruel enough without any need for anyone to make it worse

    Therefore think and be kind to all living things, the world we share and ourselves.

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