Atheism, Part Two

I will start with a piece I wrote just recently. Remember, atheists are not rubber-stamped. We have our different interests and interpretations of the facts.

When you get up every morning you know what's going to happen all day long. That is, you don't expect people to walk on water, the sun to stand still in the sky, or to suddenly be able to move faster than a speeding bullet. No magic will happen and you don't expect it to. And yet if somebody asked, you are possibly conditioned to answer, "Yes, the magic could happen." Nevertheless, you don't expect to wrestle with an angel on the way to the bus stop. You know the sun will cross the sky, the result of two heavenly bodies in their respective positions relative to one another.

Reasonable people know that evolution is a fact. I refuse to grant credence to anyone who opposes the truth of the evolutionary theory. Some would posit that a creator is necessary to the process, but the same rule that You know when you wake up what will happen all day long is much more reasonable and there is no evidence contrariwise. From the Big Bang until now there is no measurable evidence of divine intervention.

Death seems a necessary component of evolution, allowing for adaptation to occur. Also, the fact that almost every single organism is food to other organisms. The human notoriously will eat almost anything that doesn't eat it first. What's intelligent about a system that depends on death for survival?

Early humans had no libraries or Einstein from which to draw information. By the time their minds developed so that they could question their circumstances they had to already believe much that entered into legends and myths. Emotionally they could not bear to let go of departed loved ones. They saw enough death they had to know of the inevitable in their own case and like Woody Allen would prefer not to be there when it happened. So all the mysteries became the myths and notions that became codified into religions. Whatever could toss that dislodged boulder onto your house has the power to alter other circumstances. The whatever being invisible like your dearly departed, therefore they all likely live together in invisibility. Anthropomorphism. If you don't know the word look it up.

Science has debunked the myths and fantasies of the religious doctrines, leaving raw faith to sustain the gods.

The evolution that gave the world humans delivers a blurred demarcation between animal and human intelligence the more we know. The same force that causes a human to love a dog can cause a cat to love a chicken. Animals can solve problems and manipulate the environment. The problem is, the human is an insatiable problem solver and a greedy manipulator. He is making the other species go extinct. He is currently like two species intermingled, in that a sizeable portion has essentially adopted the golden rule, while a great many others follow the eye for an eye principle. The greedy eye for an eye crowd appears to be in command because the golden rulers are too polite or too few in number to successfully resist. It is becoming more recognized by the minute that humanity will likely soon make itself extinct.

Those who hold onto notions of divine benevolence can make all the excuses they wish, but when on a daily basis toddler children and other humans get blown to smithereens simply because they are there when the totally unnecessary wars gravitate in that direction, I have to scoff.

Christians holding onto Jesus have virtually no evidence the physical man existed. Even if they could place him in history there is no evidence of his miracles. Another situation for You know what's going to happen all day long.

In conclusion, I don't have to prove there is no god to be right. All you need do is provide one scintilla of evidence to make me alter one word of what I have ever written on the topic. God is not dead, because he/she/it never existed.

I never thought it through in such detail, but that all sounds about right. I also consider that I don't know everything.

Roger, none of us can know everything. But we do know a hell of a lot more now than just a hundred years ago even.

OF COURSE you do not have to prove there is no god in order to be correct...if you are asserting it is possible there are no gods.

If you are asserting, as you have many times, that THERE ARE NO GODS...then you do have the obligation of a burden of proof.

Since it is impossible to meet that burden, perhaps it is time you stopped asserting that there are no gods.

The absolute fact is: Either there are NO GODS...or there is at least one GOD.

Atheists like you who insist there are no gods...are like theists who insist there is (at least one) GOD.

Those assertions from theists who make them are bullshit...and the opposite assertion from atheists who make them are also.

Hightor's post on another thread about the Sword of Damocles highlights a possibility evolution will have still another chance to get it right. My pessimism regarding the future grows almost daily. On the other hand, it would seem almost impossible to kill every last thing on such a planet as this, so evolution will continue to work with any scenario that presents itself once we are gone.

Absolutely, Edgar. Evolution will continue to operate.

And that will say absolutely NOTHING about whether there are any gods or not. "Evolution" may simply be the mechanism that gods use to arrive where we are.

Your piece does a good job outlining some of the reasons that make the existence of god or gods unnecessary and, as our knowledge of the cosmos and the sub-atomic world grows, unbelievable.

The capacity for belief in the supernatural may simply be an emergent mechanism in the human mind which has accompanied our evolutionary development.

Absolutely...and probably the reason I tend to guess that it is. But I certainly am not even close to "it is so." It is much more reasonable for me to assert that it is possible.

And looking at what is going on today in our country with regard to the kind of crap people are willing to "believe"...our capacity for that kind of thing is HIGH.

Seem to me that the position, "the existence of at least one GOD is unnecessary to explain anything"...is a given. I am willing to stipulate that...and do in my take on the possible existence of gods.

Most discussions of atheism center on evolution. It is a fertile territory to explore. But we don't even need evolution. Atheists actually don't have to have a reason to be atheists. Most discussions and arguments are thrust on them by believers who feel an atheist's existence is a threat to their own, striking at the core of their very existence if religion can so easily be nullified. The human, being a territorial animal, will defend a territory with any means at its disposal in extreme cases. Hence, racism (territorial ethnicity hatred), wars (territorial aggression), gods (territory inside the imagination, the greatest territory of all to deists). It is a fear of personal annihilation driving the faithful to attack atheism with so much energy.

Nonsense. Most people (theists, agnostics, whatever) don't fear or dislike atheists at all. You seem to want to suppose they do for some reason.

If you want to describe yourself using the descriptor "atheist"...who gives a damn? I certainly do not...and neither do most of the people I know.

If, however, you want to assert, "There are no gods"...then you will be called upon to provide the proof for which you have assumed a burden.

Your problem, Edgar, is that you want desperately for my take (an agnostic take) to be defective or fence sitting.

I think YOU are the one doing the fearing. You fear that your insistence that there are no gods is illogical.

Stop fearing that. IT IS ILLOGICAL to insist that there are no gods. There may be no gods (your blind guess on the matter may be correct)...but the insistence IS illogical.

I should not have to point out that annihilation of any person is not our goal. Perception by believers otherwise inclined notwithstanding.

If you are saying that no atheists ever want to annihilate anyone...

...you are kidding yourself.

There are plenty of atheists who had the goal of annihilating others.

Some would seek to transcend the argument, saying the universe itself is god. Pure anthropomorphism. The instant you inject "god" into it you are seeking to inject human ego into the fundamental clockwork of all existence. Humans and Earth are not that important. We once had a potential for riding out the remaining lifespan of the universe until we willfully destroyed our habitat. There is no future in self destruction.

Anyone asserting that there are no gods...is merely asserting a blind guess.

Did you encounter the Ancient Mariner on the Staten Island Ferry Frsnk?

Condemned to say the same story over and over again.

No, I did not.

That must gave been all the other passengers then.