Betrand Russell (I'm fairly sure it was him) used to call himself "A Teacup
Athiest". He said he couldn't prove, beyond any doubt, that there wasn't a
pink teacup orbiting the sun, but he didn't think that meant that the
likelihood of it existing was on equal footing with its not existing. I
sometimes tell people I'm a tooth fairy agnostic (a phrase I stole, from
Richard Dawkins I think). Basically, I can't prove to someone who really
believes that the tooth fairy definitely doesn't exist. But it just doesn't
seem very likely, does it?
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Louis Mann<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion<mailto:brin-l@mccmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 4:50 PM
Subject: Religion kills
> "By atheists" and "in the name of
> atheism" aren't the same thing. It's
> about, as was mentioned a few posts back, ideology. When
> beliefs get
> in the way of reason. And in that sense, Stalinist Russia,
> Nazi
> Germany, Spain under the Inquisition, Maoist China, and the
> Balkan
> conflicts are all the same thing. It's ideology.
> "Atheism" is not an ideology, it's just a
> position of non-belief in
> gods. The one problem is that a large proportion of
> humanity seem to
> be wired for religion, so if one decides they don't
> believe in God,
> there's some room for other dangerous nonsense to fill
> the gap. In
> Russia, that was Marx-Leninism and Lysenkoism, and very
> similar in China.
> Charlie.
i sit corrected, "in the name of atheism". as a devout atheist i believe
there ain't no gawd, but i can't prove it, so i take it on faith. i believe
the universe is cyclical and the big bang occurs when all the galaxies in the
universe are sucked into super black holes which are then sucked into a super
duper black hole at the center of this universe, which then explodes it reaches
critical mass, so that the process of expansion, contraction and the heat death
of the universe starts all over, again.
jon
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