Yeah, what this world needs is more secularism:

"About 174 million people were killed during incidents of democide [deaths due to government policy] in the 20th century, "of which communist regimes murdered about 148 million," he said, adding, "Communists overall have murdered four times those killed in combat."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47616

You'll probably tell me none of those were homosexuals, social dissidents, feminists, artists, or other sundry free thinkers that didn't wish to live according to societal norms. It's only the evil Christian western democracies that do that.

Don't make the dumb mistake of associating atheism with amoralism. I'd venture I'm more moral and ethical than many religious nutters. And I think I should get points for choosing my beliefs, not just sucking them down without a thought. See the Josephson Institute for Secular Ethics and read Sam Harris' book, and tell me that you think a thoughtful guy like Sam Harris is without an ethical framework. Simply ridiculous.

My point was that your attempts to portray any religion as a bogeyman is silly when secular philosophy is just as capable of creating mayhem and destruction.

I don't associate atheism with amoralism. It's just that any ethical framework that you come up with has no more justification than anybody else's. That's why Communists can kill 130 million people and feel morally justified while others see it as abhorrent.

Do you seriously think that Christians simply accept their religion with blind faith? That they've never had their beliefs challenged, and never questioned their own faith? It seems to me that you just can't accept that other people have come to different conclusions than you. Rather than respect their beliefs, you mock and belittle them at every opportunity. Ironically, it is the same behavior you accuse your religious opponents of engaging in. Hilarious.

People telling me I'm going to burn in hell because I don't believe in the storybook character of their choice does go a bit beyond "mocking" atheism. As a person who believes according to reason and evidence, I'm willing to allow those who believe in an imaginary friend and live accordingly (and please, there's no way anybody can show rational evidence of a god, so to say they've "questioned" their beliefs isn't quite making it -- if they even have -- since faith is blind acceptance). Unfortunately, those who are religious fanatics seek to not just live according to their beliefs but to rule according to them. Therein lies the difference.

And the problem with challenging me for not believing in anything without evidence is...well, how can anyone rationally challenge that? Especially not while they're trying to convince the court that people saddled up the dinosaurs.

The mistake in the purely rational approach is that it is not self-contained. It's an old argument (Locke's Prime Mover theory) but the basic fact of the existence of the Universe is not explicable by rational means- in other words, keep asking "Why?" and eventually the only satisfactory answer is "Because."
Filling in the "Because" is where science stops and religion begins.
One can of course argue about the details, like whether the Prime Mover had a Son born of a virgin in a backwater Roman province, whether He cares if tab A is inserted to slot B or slot C, or even the PM was a conscious entity at all; and in rational terms no one theory is better than any other.
But assuming that reason and faith are mutually exclusive is grossly oversimplifying the issue. Their writs run in different areas.

Noel just gave you examples of how religious people have questioned their beliefs. He also touches on the fact that humans aren't entirely logical or rational. Much of what we believe is often based on emotion. Trying to change a persons emotionally-based beliefs is often futile. It seems silly that you continue to fight against it when logically and rationally you know you won't change it.

I don't see why you get so worked up over the fact that some people may think you're going to hell when you don't believe in hell to begin with. It's not like they're going to put you in stocks. But mock secular communist ideology in China and they'll throw you in prison. Despite all your complaining, you enjoy more freedom in Christian western democracies than anywhere else in the world.

Nash and Noel have pretty much covered what I would say here. Amy, I visit your blog occasionally, and I think many of your posts are funny, intelligent, and well argued. This particular subject, ironically, seems to show you at your *least* rational.

The means I accept have proof are provable ones. Because others choose to accept fantasy beliefs given to them by others who have a business interest in getting others to accept the fantasy -- yes, that's an explanation -- but not an acceptable one. Whether we enjoy more freedom in the west than they do in the east -- I wouldn't argue with that. But, there are a great number of Christians trying to turn this into a Christian country. That I don't accept.

"I don't see why you get so worked up over the fact that some people may think you're going to hell when you don't believe in hell to begin with."

Because so many of these people choose to rub it in our faces through their proselytizing and doomsaying. Anyone who has ever had to deal with weekly hordes of Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, or that guy with the crazy eyes in the subway who follows you three blocks to relate, in its entirety, his very unique theological slant, will understand.

It's hardly fair that religious zealots are free - even encouraged by their congregations - to push their agenda on everyone else while any slightest provocation by an atheist or agnostic (the Kansas professor with his email, this flight of whimsy [because you have to admit it -was- rather clever] , and Amy's entry here) are immediately pounced upon and devoured by whirling dervishes of Divinely-Inspired Wrath.

And Nash? I'm posting this from China. And I mock secular communist ideology ALL the time. Seriously.

People who advocate the "Invisible Man Who Lives in the Sky" theory don't put their beliefs to the same scrutiny that scientific ones get. They want you to accept their beliefs by default, because of a few weaknesses in evoluntionary theory. If the theory of evolution can get you 60% of the way to explaining the biology of the two-toed tree sloth, but there are a few gaps in the fossil record along the way, the creationists seize joyfully on those gaps and expect you to accept their theory strictly on that basis.

The proper way to view those gaps is to simply say, "I don't know the answer - YET." Then keep looking for the answer - fill in those gaps through more scientific discovery - but don't accept a fairy tale as the answer just because we haven't found the answers yet.

If I assert that an invisible pink unicorn is standing in the corner, it's up to me to prove it is there, it's not up to you to prove it ISN'T there. But I not only expect you to believe in it by default, I think you are an inferior person lacking in some pristine virtue called "faith" because you can't make yourself believe it's there. You'd be pretty annoyed too. Just imagine if you got this visit from John and Mary.

http://nowscape.com/atheism/hanks_ass.htm

Thanks, Pirate Jo, I was just coming back to say that -- or something like that -- about proof. You're quite right about the beliefs being inferior. They are. For the reasons you state above. And to the person who suggests I'm displaying some irrationality here -- where is it?

Invisible Pink Unicorn?

Pardon me for asking, but are you by any chance also from the Dope, Pirate Jo?

Nope, that's not me - I'm not even sure what "the Dope" is. Another website somewhere, I take it?

Stark: Are you a Chinese citizen living on the mainland? Three Chinese dissidents were arrested today for criticizing the government.

Pirate Jo: It is absured to continue arguing with Pink Elephant believers once you realize you won't change their minds by reasoning with them. Condemning all Pink Elephant believers as evil just because a few of them may support other beliefs which are harmful is silly. Unfortunately, Amy does both.

Did anyone else notice that the pink unicorn is now an elephant? Is that a freudian slip or what?

@Noel: "But assuming that reason and faith are mutually exclusive is grossly oversimplifying the issue. Their writs run in different areas."

If "true believers" would agree with that, why do they try so hard to get "equal time" for faith-based biology "lessons", also known as "Intelligent Design"? I think Amy gave the answer to that:

"Unfortunately, those who are religious fanatics seek to not just live according to their beliefs but to rule according to them. Therein lies the difference."

Exactly. That's why political leaders are so fond of unprovable/unfalsifiable ideologies of any kind: They can do whatever they want, and they are always right. Doesn't really matter how the ideology du jour is called.

@Nash: "But mock secular communist ideology in China and they'll throw you in prison. Despite all your complaining, you enjoy more freedom in Christian western democracies than anywhere else in the world."

The current lack of prisons for rational thinkers in the Western hemisphere is clearly not an achievement of organized religion. On the contrary: Western democracies try to do a good job of separating church and state. Fundamentalists have kept trying to get in through the back door ever since. I'd have to look it up, but I bet I don't have to go back in time more than 100 years in order to find the case of a biology teacher who got fined or even locked up for the crime of teaching "Darwinism" in a Christian western democracy.

Well said, Rainer.

There's been a couple jabs about the ID/Evolution "debate." These are two separate questions. The fact that some (or even most) people accept a set of false and/or stupid beliefs along a belief in God does not invalidate the others. In other words, the fact that creationism is wrong has no bearing on question of God's existence. Nor should the bad behavior of some believers be used to make generalizations of all the others.

Another poster said something about "..the slightest provocation by an atheist or agnostic...is immediately pounced upon." In regards to the extant case, the "Bibles-for-porn" exchange, it was pretty obviously designed to be trouble for the sake of causing trouble, and extremely funny trouble at that. You can hardly complain when they achieved exactly what they set out to do. As for Amy's post, I hardly think you can describe my or Nash's posts as "fire and brimstone." It's more like the conversation one would have after a long week over a crisp malted beverage at the local watering hole.

As for the "Invisible Pink Unicorn," we get into some pretty deep epistimelogical stuff, here.

If someone claims that there's a Invisible Pink Unicorn in the room, one can hardly object that he can't be seen. Of course it can't be seen, it's invisible. Likewise, one cannot rationally prove God's existence, because by definition God's existence is beyond reason.

When the unicorn advocates starts demanding things that impinge on other's rights, like a tax to feed the unicorn or the demand that unicorn biology be studied in the regular equine biology class, they've gone too far, and that's why we have both an establishment clause and a free exercise clause in the First Amendment. Thank God, or Allah, or Ctulhu, or the Unicorn, for that.

But the unicorn still might be there.

Noel Erinjeri