Don’t miss today’s Doonesbury! A snippet:
Fig. 1. Just wait!
H/T: Hempenstein
update: pwned by P.Z.!
“Reasonists” hanging in there
September 6, 2009 • 8:25 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Well, that is what you get when “journalists” [which believe in “journals”] and philosophists [which believe in “philosophy”] wade into a discussion empty-headed. 😀
PS. Don’t mind PZ Le Pew Pew’s catcalls. Catheism is cute, but how can you reject *cats*???
I saw Doonesbury this morning and got a chuckle from it.
I have nothing against Reasonists. It’s the Militant New Reasonists who bother me. They ignore all the sophisticated modern conspiracy theories!
They also use bad tactics. Their rude scoffing at the lizard men conspiracy theory alienates the moderate lizard man conspiracy theorists who might otherwise be on our side. The Militant New Reasonists need to accept that lizard man belief will always be with us.
Yes–the militant new reasonists are shrill and strident. Plus they hurt “the cause”. Besides, one can’t know everything, and there is no way to prove that lizard men don’t exist.
Lizard man belief is perfectly compatible with science if you understand that we are talking about dimensions beyond the natural world.
Carl Sagan never said anything militant against the lizard men believers. Neither did Darwin.
Today’s “militant new reasonists” would do well to take their cue for these wise men.
Does Doonesbury have any real influence any more?
I always felt that afer GT went on extended vacation in 1984, the strip was never quite the same.
The problem I have with atheism is that while we can be pretty sure that there are no lizard men on earth, we can not exclude the possibility that there exist such creatures on other planets, in effect, if the universe is very large or perhaps even endless, then I see no ground why such creatures could not have evolved.
So, the simple fact we have no evidence for something does not mean that it does no exist, for instance ancient Greek had no evidence that animals like kangaroos exist, but they would have been silly to pretend that such things does not exist simply because they have no proofs for that. We may have discovered a lot of things since that time, but how can we be know that the reality is limited to our current knowledge ?
Moreover, if there really exist a multiverse (about which we know absolutely nothing), how can we exclude beforehand that there exist in it some weird things/ creatures which are completely outside the reach of our understanding ?
Popular version of atheism (understood as the positive belief that there exist no things beyond human understanding ) is clearly a leap of faith, for we have no way to know that.
No, atheism is the lack in belief of any gods. Your statement is nonsense.
God is like demons, fairies, and gremlins because he is an invisible immeasurable entity that people claim exists and claim to “know” about.
So Atheism is identical to your lack of belief in all mythical, invisible, and imaginary beings other than the one you call “god”.
We can’t prove lizard men don’t exist even on this planet, since no one has looked everywhere… but those who understand DNA and evolution also understand how unlikely this is. They are perfectly rational to assume that lizard men don’t exist… in the same way we can assume that real gnomes don’t exist.
However, lizard men would at least be detectable– no gods are. They would be material and we know that material life can evolve. We can’t prove they don’t exist, but if one did exist, we’d expect to come across evidence for such. A body, for example. DNA. An evolutionary mechanism for such a seeming blend. A good definition of lizards that would apply to possible lizards on other planets. The same for “man”. The same for “lizard man”.
Your thinking is very young and sloppy, Gruesome_pet. You appear to have a need to see atheism as something it isn’t so you can imagine that your “faith in faith” is noble or useful or salvation worthy. It isn’t. You are just patting yourself on the back for confirming your own biases lack many a faitheist that has come before you.
We can scientifically say that there is no more evidence for god than there is for Xenu or Satan or the IPU. So believing in such an entity is no more rational or supportable than the invisible entities one doesn’t believe in.
Science cannot support a belief in god any more than it can support a belief in gremlins. That’s a fact. (Flog the religionists who muddled your thinking so that you haven’t been able to understand this.)
We have no way to know that real witches don’t exist. But when people believe they do, they end up causing suffering of other people. The same goes for gods and the demons people imagine their gods protect them from.
Thank you for this comment, it’s illuminating. I found the video in http://www.juststopandthink.com useful for reflecting on the points you make.