Penn Jillette and his thoughtful essay on belief, atheism, and what he does believe in (also in audio form). It astonishes me that no god means that we atheists must have NO beliefs, no spirituality, no faith in anything, to many of religious persuasion. Mind you, those types are atheists too, just only of every other god but their brand:)
The Jillette essay contains an early non sequitur: “You can’t prove a negative” is incorrect. For example, one of the two statements “Mike Rann isn’t male” and “Mike Rann isn’t female” can be proven correct, given sufficient access to test the physical incarnation of the human being referred to here as “Mike Rann”.
The rest of the essay carries on from this shaky start to refer to a series of behaviors that are enabled by the atheistic stance, that apparently make the writer more fulfilled and less liable to waste time on ineffectual activities. In my opinion, the claimed outcomes are very hard to quantify, and especially hard to show that atheism alone enables these results, and the somewhat short essay is unconvincing in arguing its case.
The Jillette essay contains an early non sequitur: “You can’t prove a negative” is incorrect. For example, one of the two statements “Mike Rann isn’t male” and “Mike Rann isn’t female” can be proven correct, given sufficient access to test the physical incarnation of the human being referred to here as “Mike Rann”.
The rest of the essay carries on from this shaky start to refer to a series of behaviors that are enabled by the atheistic stance, that apparently make the writer more fulfilled and less liable to waste time on ineffectual activities. In my opinion, the claimed outcomes are very hard to quantify, and especially hard to show that atheism alone enables these results, and the somewhat short essay is unconvincing in arguing its case.
–karma