Religion

[katieboyd]

 I was thinking the other day of what symbols like the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn mean to me. They were meant to bring out the ridiculousness of teaching creationism in schools. To me, however, these two symbols of fake religion, meant to point out the arbitrariness of religion and the difficulties of faith, have a

Comments

[kenoubi]

I completely agree with your original rant, but obviously in a world full of mostly theists (and really, I'd put a lot of new-agey stuff under the same umbrella) self-identifying as an atheist is going to have some kind of social meaning also. Do you have a strong sense that it's more than that? I mean, I think God is improbable enough that it's hard to imagine the evidence that would convince me of that (I'd sooner think I was delusional or hallucinating) but it also just never really comes up in my day to day life. If it did, I can imagine it needing to be a more central part of my identity to keep from being pushed aside.

(Also, am I ever going to see you again?)

[muffinsicon]

  self-identifying as an atheist is going to have some kind of social meaning also.

This was my thought at first read also. It is starting to become like a matter of faith for you. A central tenant of your world view--a view of a world defined by theology--that you openly acknowledge.

In a world without believers, your lack of belief would be bizarre.

[emuofdarkness]

I don't think being emotionally attached to your atheism makes you a 'believer'. I just think it's important to you. I for one don't like seeing people doing dumb shit to each other in the name of something they made up. It gets me emotionally attached to the idea of "stop believing in something that makes you do dumb shit!" This, perhaps, could be dubbed atheism.

It seems like you are trying to be a realist, influenced by a scientific approach. I mean, scientists thought there was something they couldn't detect with human sense and set out to prove it existed. Hence all the wavelengths we know about that we can't see. But I doubt that will ever happen with gods.

I am not coached in rhetoric or philosophy, so there are holes in my approach, but when all available (as unbiased as possible) evidence points to a certain conclusion, I tend toward that conclusion. And right now, evidence points towards no gods beyond what is concocted by the human mind. I don't call that belief, I call that realism.