Door-To-Door Atheism

[bloodyrosemccoy]

A Room of One's Own Day
Women's Healthy Weight Day
Anniversary - Macintosh Computer (Apple)

 

Phil Plait from The Bad Astronomy Blog links to a very good article by Lauren Becker on why young-Earth creationism isn’t just an idiotic belief, but also a scary one.

 

As someone who holds the Scientific Method as a core belief—as somebody who cannot believe something contrary to the evidence—I find that every once in a while I have to post an evangelical scientist link. I say that I respect everyone’s right to believe whatever they believe, but I may not always respect the beliefs themselves, and sometimes their implications and potential consequences make me downright nervous.

 

Also, I’d just like to point out that when I look at a mind-blowingly awesome image of the cosmos and say, in reverent tones, “And people wonder why I’m an atheist,” I am dead serious. Life is so much cooler that way. You cannot use that garbage about how you must believe in a god when you’re holding a newborn baby in your hands, because I don’t, and it makes it even more incredible. That’s the one big misconception about skeptics—that they’re sad and dead inside—so I work hard to debunk that whenever I can.

 

Trust me, folks. The real version of the Grand Canyon, the 300 million year old one with the fossils and the erosion and the cryptobiotic soil, will make you happy to be honest with yourself and be a lot cooler into the bargain.

Comments

[kjpepper.livejournal.com]

Ya, really it makes much more sense (and it's much more amusing) to think of God as a ten year old kid that leaves an orange in a dark corner of the pantry, forgets about it and then a week later (a cosmic week, since time is relative, so for us it would be like a crazy many eaons later) he comes back and finds, y'know, civilization and mold and stuff all over it and is all like HOLY CRAP! MOM! LOOKIT! and she screams and makes him throw it out. I like that creation myth. :)

I'm a pagan, but I also believe that unexplained phenomena does happen all the time, but there just isn't a scientific explanation out there for it yet. It's like thinking about what Newton or Galileo might think if they woke up in present day New York.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hee, I can picture that as a Far Side cartoon. (I always liked Douglas Adams' story about the people who believed that the universe was sneezed out of the nose of something called the Great Green Arkleseizure, and the people wait in terror for the day they call the "Coming of the Big White Handkerchief.")

It always surprises me how often people assume that not knowing an explanation means that there IS no explanation for something. Just because people in Ye Olden Days didn't KNOW about gravity doesn't mean that there wasn't an explanation for it. It's the difference between, when presented with an unexplained phenomenon, responding with "Oh, God did it" or "I don't know what did it. Let's find out!"


On a completely unrelated note, I love your hair in the new icon. Makes me wish I could do that with my hair, but I think it would wind up a ragged mess.