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Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumPZ Myers: I had a better impression of Canadians before I read that tripe
I had a better impression of Canadians before I read that tripe
May 23, 2012 at 8:00 am PZ Myers
Stop me if youve heard this before: Atheism is another religious belief. I dont have enough faith to be an atheist. Someone curdled the contents of my brain pan and replaced them with a thurible. Yeah, familiar nonsense, isnt it? And now a Canadian legal philosopher, writer, professor and practicing legal consultant, Iain Benson, is forcefully regurgitating them again, with the added bonus of amazingly false claims.Atheists, agnostics and religious of all forms are believers and all have faith. The question is not whether they are believers but rather, what they believe in, he says and insists the new atheists such as the late Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, who pride themselves on not having any beliefs, are wrong.
Atheists are men and women of faith. Their faiths are different but they are still faiths and their beliefs still beliefs, no matter how much Dawkins and those like him wish it was different. Humans are stuck being believers, and thats all there is to it, he says.
We pride ourselves on not having any beliefs? Really? I have lots of beliefs, and I question them whenever necessary; I also expect my beliefs to be supported by evidence. I believe the earth orbits the sun, and I have evidence for that. I believe the earth is 4½ billion years old, and I have evidence for that. I believe life evolved, and I have evidence for that.
I dont have faith, though, unless youre willing to redefine faith to such a degree that it has no relationship at all to what theists mean by the term.
(complete piece at link)
I wish I could post the entire entry, it's that good.
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PZ Myers: I had a better impression of Canadians before I read that tripe (Original Post)
Rob H.
May 2012
OP
trotsky
(49,533 posts)1. Myers, as usual, destroys the writer's "argument."
Sadly it won't matter, because the next one will come trotting it out again in a couple weeks, and their fellow god-believers will nod and agree that they all know exactly how atheists think but HOW DARE ANY ATHEIST TELL US WHAT WE BELIEVE!
edcantor
(325 posts)2. Thanks for this thoughtful read !
I really enjoyed many of the comments as much as the article itself.