Pascal's wager is often used tongue-in-cheek and that feels apt to me. The idea of making like God exists because I'd be more likely to go to heaven if indeed God (and heaven) exists is not a viable way of living for me. Pascal based his theoretical proposition on mathematical probability--and not on the probability of God's existence, but on the probabilities that apply if we posit God's existence.

Of course it is. I'm responding to Cherryfemme's pointed examples of ways it is not.

A couple of points here:

"In God We Trust" did not begin appearing on US coins until 1864 and did not appear on paper currency until 1957. That means that the republic managed to get along quite well for the first 70 years of its existence without any mention of a divine being on the currency and managed through most of its first 200 years without it being the official motto of the USA until that was adopted in 1956.

What's more if we look at the Constitution and how the federal courts have handled the issue of the First Amendment *after* the 14th Amendment was passed (which, more or less, made the Bill of Rights apply to the states) I think we detect a decidedly *anti-theocratic* strain. Along with First Amendment there is Article VI of the Constitution which states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Now, it's instructive to note here that it's no religious test. Not 'no denominational test'. Since the Founders were well aware of Jews, Muslims and Hindus we can, at least provisionally, presume that had they meant to limit that protection to Christians they would have said so. Many in the United States may wish that we *were* a theocracy or treat the nation 'as if' it were a theocracy but, at least at present, our laws protect us from being as theocratic as it appears a lot of Americans would like us to be.

Cheers
Aj

Why Atheists need to come out:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast....=Yahoo%21+Mail

I think this is very key:

there has to be some kind of mutual respect and not baiting people on both sides. That means I have to do my bit in not calling people stupid, silly, illogical or deluded or say things to them like "my moral compass is better than yours because it's based on rational thought"

I know people get battered by people in religions, but there's no need to bring out the guns before they open their mouths, imo, if atheism wants to be understood and respected. If I act like a dick and I am the only one they know, guess what people are going to think?

I'm not saying I'm a martyr, I do let my opinions be known if someone is giving me shit - and real shit, not just slightly ignorant (read: not knowing, not ignorant as in asshole) but maybe not going in with "BLAH BLAH BLAH" gun blazing or making flippant comments might be an idea. I personally find it pretty damn helpful.

This is one of the hardest bits about being a minority (of pretty much any stripe) is that we *must* hold ourselves to a higher standard. I understand that this kind of sentiment doesn't have much cache these days when the last thing anyone wants to hear is that they have to go above and beyond but there it is. This is a problem well-known to the various ethnic, religious or racial minorities living in the West. Whether I like it or not (and I don't), I have to uphold a standard that my wife, my colleagues at work, or the vast majority of the people reading these words don't. Why? Because I'm a black woman and therefore, if *I* lose my temper it means something different than if my buddy at work, whom we call The Ogre, loses his. I'm the "angry black woman" and he's, well, The Ogre. Ogre can keep his job while losing his cool but if I lose mine, my days are numbered.

Something similar applies with atheists. As tempting as it might be to call names, we can't. It is simply not an option. The reason is straightforward. If I say "only a flipping idiot could believe in creationism" I've not just spoken for myself but in the eyes of nontrivial numbers of your fellow citizens (whatever Western nation you live in) I have spoken for *every* atheist that has *ever* lived or will ever live. From that moment on, ALL atheists think that people who are creationists are idiots. Now, does that street go both ways? No. If every third Christian said that atheists are low-down dirty dogs who should be shot on sight, that is simply those individuals expressing their opinions and the rest of us have to treat each incident as isolated. Even if you had a thousand Christians in a room and one out of three felt that atheists should be exterminated, we would *still* be required to treat all 333 of them as isolated from one another. If they then sallied forth and actually took their ideas to the streets and started killing atheists willy-nilly it would not be 333 people in a 'gang' (or, dare I say, terrorist group?) but 333 individual bad apples*.

No, it's not right and no, it's not fair but that does not change the facts on the ground one bit.

What's more, I maintain (and here I may be wrong) that if you think you're right, you can afford to be magnanimous. I have no reason to say that someone who is a creationist is deluded or illogical because I am just this side of certain that creationism is wrong. Not just mildly off or has a digit on the wrong side of the decimal point but is really, truly, catastrophically wrong. Now, I'm going to point out where creationism fails to deal with relevant questions in biology but I don't need to insult someone by calling them stupid to do so. The facts are on the side of evolution, the data is on the side of evolution and all of the experimental and observational evidence is on the side of evolution. Now, I *will* point out that the only way someone can maintain that nature shows 'perfect design' is to ignore very large swaths of how animals bodies are built and how they function--but that's not calling someone stupid, it is simply pointing out that anyone who thinks that building an eye with the light sensitive cells pointing *away* from the source of light (as the primate eye is built) is ignoring something very important. Evolution has an answer for why that is the case but creationism has *no* answer for it (and by the way, just as an aside, it doesn't have to be that way. The cephalopods (squids, etc.) have their eyes built the right-way-round so it's not like it's *impossible* it's just not something that happened on the evolutionary branch that led to us and it did happen on the branch that led to squids. Yet, none of that is calling someone stupid it is simply marshaling the facts.

We can make the case for ethics and morality without saying that our morality is 'better'. In the post I did last week about morality, I was not saying that my morality is better because I'm an atheist (something I don't believe) but that there's no reason to believe that religion proceeds morality. In fact, I would argue that it is the moral horse that pulls the religious cart, as opposed to what many sectarians state they believe that the religious cart pulls the moral horse.

Cheers
Aj

*Bad apples are *always* white. If it were, say, 333 Native American Christians then that's ALL Native Americans (not just Native American Christians). If it were every other white Christian in America that would still be a large number of isolated, 'one bad apples'.

@honeybarbara and dreadgeek (sorry, a lot to quote so just addressing the ideas posted):

While I agree that throwing insults around is counterproductive, at the same time I believe that address illogical conclusions is very important. I truly do think that religion (and particularly the "big three") has been one of the most destructive forces during the span of the Common Era, and continues to be today. Especially in nations like the US where freedom of religion gives free reign to fundamentalists who do still have an impact on the struggle for equality (particularly LGBT rights and women's rights). If atheists do not become more vocal, and present themselves as something more than just "another opinion" then the masses continue to maintain the delusion (and yes, I do believe it is a delusion) that judging law, civil rights, technology and so on based on a 2000 year old religion is somehow valid. Does that stop progression and advancement? No, it certainly doesn't. But at the same time it does present road blocks for researchers, f.ex. stem cell research (see stem cell reserach in Canada pre- and post-Harper, or under Bush in the US and so on).

So while I agree that throwing insults around is pretty useless and childish, not to mention completely counterproductive, I do think that there needs to be more vocalization against the consequences of entertaining or humouring religious pseudoscience.

I don't really run into it that much (read: close to never) because religion where I am is considered to be private. People talk about wanking before they'll talk about beliefs. So I kind of see the other end of it a bit. when someone *does* talk about their belief systems (and please do not read that as "christian") someone will inevitably make a flip or mocking comment meant to change the subject to something more jovial and less embarrassing as one's personal relationship to the divine, whatever that is. So presently, I don't live in that kind of culture and I suppose my comment should really be taken in context to that.

I don't personally have an argument about validity if it very very rarely comes up. All I do is assert that I am an atheist and that although their beliefs are groovy (sincerely), I don't venture into the realm of belief. I *do* get sudden arguments about what they are saying is true (logically valid) and I just keep saying, over and over "that's a belief. beliefs are things that can't be proven or disproven, there's nothing wrong with that. No judgment, really. That's totally cool. But I'm an atheist. That means I'm a materialist and I don't do belief. Cool that you do, if it's healthy for you, rock on."

And I DO have to repeat that about four times, occasionally explaining that atheism isn't just not believing in God or a religion, but not believing in souls, spirits, ghosts or astral travelling. but hey, if that makes you feel fullfilled, excellent. But please also understand one will never be able to prove or disprove that your spirit leaves your body to do things. Therefore it falls into belief, that's all I'm saying. I do not think I'm better, I'm not smug, I'm not judging you, I'm just an atheist and I don't really go for belief based ideology.

If they try to tell me that they can prove their beliefs are concrete and testable, then I just change the subject cause I'm not interested in their argument. I've heard all of them, they aren't interested in mine and I'm not wasting my energy because I don't enjoy arguing with a brick wall. Those that love a debate, have at it. My life is too short. Plus I have the luxury of walking away and not hearing that again for another six months to two years.

Plus here they'd probably be mocked by just general populace to the point of utter rage and frustration. You just don't talk about those things in the first place if you don't know someone, people will think you were all kinds of batshit... it would be like walking up to stranger and asking them if they like anal sex.

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Yeah. I find it pretty easy to say that creationism is nothing but hooey and that if you believe it, you simply must not have thought about it much. I also don't see where that's any different from saying that "all the evidence and all the research and all the science supports evolution, blah, blah, blah" except that the former is more succinct. The funny thing about all the evidence, research, science, and blah blah, is that creationists are already aware of that and still cling to creationism. Boy, is that dumb. Yep, dumb I said.

Some of the most interesting discussions come out of derailed threads.

Don't let a little hand-slap get you down. ;)

I know we already talked about it, but I just want to say here publicly that as far as I'm concerned, that was fine. I'm not even sure it was a total derail.

Just wanted to share with you a song I found on youtube tonight, performed by Holly Near with Emma's Revolution. The name of it is "I Ain't Afraid." It's also known as "The Atheist's Anthem."
Smooches,
Keri

http://munkdebates.com/Hitch

To honour the memory of Christopher Hitchens, "Munk Debates" has put up unlimited streaming of the debate between Hitch and Tony Blair on the subject of "Is Religion A Force Of Good For the World" for the next couple of days.

It's interesting and entertaining and worth a watch.

I am an Atheist
 

It was so nice to find this thread here. I just get so tired of answering the question "Well, what do you believe in then?" Like I owe someone who is religious and explanation for my lack of belief in a god. I don't tell anyone what they believe in and I want he same respect in return.

I went out to dinner with a friend and her new boyfriend once, who I'd never met. We were just making conversation and he decided to ask me what religion I was. I told him I was agnostic, more leaning towards atheist. I didn't say anything derogatory about religion or religious people! I wasn't the one who introduced the topic, even. But apparently that was enough for him to let me know that I was arrogant, I was selfish for not believing in anything...who did I think I was...blah blah blah. :|

I didn't really argue with him, because it would have been a complete waste of time. He obviously didn't want to listen to anyone else's opinion. But the difference in the way he treated me before and after the question was crazy! He was super polite before that and for the rest of the meal he was really rude and dismissive.