The Geeky Atheist

On reddit, someone noticed a search for the question referenced in the title turned up this:

So, in an effort to change this, people are beginning to link to xenu.net with a link like this:

It is possible to be happy

If you want to help people searching for happiness not have a chance to be lured into Scientology, it would be great to bring Xenu.net up in the search results regarding happiness.

I've been a bad person in that I haven't been updating recently here. I've been on YouTube with a few videos, but plan on updating in both spots now.

I've been listening to debates between theists and atheists for a while now, and for the most part, I have heard most of the arguments. A recent episode of Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot was with a Christian philosopher that debated/discussed the efficacy of the Kalam Cosmological argument with William Lane Craig. Linked from the show notes post is a radio interview with William Lane Craig.

Their discussion was good, but I wanted to hone in on something from that interview. At 14:40 in the audio, the conversation follows about the "first cause" in Kalam's argument:

Interviewer: Bill, you argue that we can recover some attribute about the cause just by conceptual analysis. What would this cause of the universe be like. Well, it couldn't be material because it brought about matter. It couldn't be spacial because it brought about space. It couldn't be subject to time because it brought about time. [...] Are you saying he has some trouble with that?

Craig: Yes, he didn't dispute that the cause would have to be timeless, immaterial, and spaceless because it brought time and space into being. But he wanted to dispute my inference that the cause would be personal, and one of the arguments that I give for the personhood of the first cause [...] is the following argument: there are only two candidates that I know of in the philosophical and scientific literature for entities that can exist timelessly and immaterially, and that would be either an unembodied mind (consciousness without a body) or else an abstract object, like a number, a mathematical object. But mathematical objects don't stand in causal relationships. [slight chuckle] The number 7 has no causal impact upon anything. It is part of the definition of abstract objects that they are causally effete or causally impotent. They don't stand in causal relations. That implies therefore that the cause of the origin of the universe must be an unembodied mind. And therefore the cause of the universe is a personal being.

And Wes' response to this was just to say, "Well, how do you know these are the only two alternatives? Maybe there's some timeless, immaterial entity that we don't know of."

Interviewer: Well give it to us, I mean...

Craig: Exactly, I thought that was a very weak response. I said, "Fine, tell me what it is, I'll include it in the list." But there is no non-ad-hoc candidate in the philosophical and scientific literature, apart from minds or abstract objects that I know of. Nor could he name one.

Emphasis added by me. You can see in his own language where we have an argument from ignorance and an a false dichotomy. We have an example here of a merging of two logical fallacies: the argument from ignorance and the false dichotomy. I've dubbed it the unknown false dichotomy.

Examining the Unknown False Dichotomy

To examine why this reasoning is flawed, all we need to look for is some past beliefs that were argued, "it must be this or that" and the actual answer turned out to be some third option that no one had thought of.

The most impressive example that comes to mind is from Einstein. Prior to Einstein, light was argued that it was either a particle or a wave. One one side, you had people pointing to the photoelectric effect proving that light was made of particles. On the other side, you had people arguing that it was wave-like due to the famous double-slit experiments. There were only two proposals at the time, and both had their supporters. But as Einstein demonstrated, there's a wave-particle duality. The elusive third option that was previously unknown.

This example clearly demonstrates the mentality at the time: it can't be a wave because look at the photoelectric effect. It can't be a particle because look at the dual slit experiments.

But we're missing the other side of the unknown false dichotomy, because if you asked these scientists if they could be wrong, they would most certainly say, "Yes, there's clearly something we don't understand." Unlike Craig, they recognize that just because we haven't thought of another possible answer doesn't mean it must be one of the existing answers. Reality doesn't always fit our pre-defined views, and we must be ready and open to discovery of anything that fits the bill more precisely than any other view.

The key thing to remember is that in reality we have to deal with probabilities, not absolute truths. Just because our understanding of wave-particle duality fits our measurements right now doesn't mean that we have a 100% true theory on the way light works. But when we look at what happened before the big bang, if "before" even makes sense, we can't make any assumptions. When someone claims, "I only know of X possibilities, and since it can't be (X-1) possibilities, it must be the last one!" they've gone about trying to prove their point by disproving all the counter claims. But just because you've rejected all the other claims doesn't make yours true without actual evidence.

We have no evidence of anything prior to the big bang, and therefore our state of mind should not be one that we assume a specific truth, but rather an open mind ready to accept whatever any evidence we may garner can show.

This week has been interesting. Although my wife and I came out to my parents back in March, we haven't mentioned anything to my wife's parents. On Saturday, they flew in to visit us for 9 days. After doing a cursory tweet about a slip-up I did tonight, I wanted to expand on my thoughts of when to come out of the closet as an atheist.

A little background. My parents were much less fundamentalist than myself or my wife's parents. My wife's family is fairly fundamentalist, centered around Pennsylvania and Virginia. These are the same group of people that we heard call Obama the antichrist, amongst many other things. While we did civilly talk politics tonight briefly, I don't really want to delve into that.

A couple of reminders for those stumbling across my blog for the first time. My wife and I deconverted recently and both were calling ourselves atheists by January of this year. We married just over 3 years ago, when both of us were fundamental, young-earth creationists. More about that here.

A few interesting things came up tonight:

• My stepdad mentioned to them that it was so nice to have a daughter-in-law that was a believer. I didn't ever know he said this to them.
• They said how nice it is for my wife to sing and me to play the piano at church (I did this as an atheist last Christmas). My wife and I are trying to schedule the Thanksgiving trip such that we just can't quite make it to church, "darn."
• They were asking me about some details they hadn't heard from me about what I was looking for when I met my then-to-be wife on Match.com.

The last one is where I made a small slip up. In passing I used the phrase, "I was a Christian." This is what I tweeted about:

GeekyAtheist: Slipped up a little with the in-laws tonight. In the middle of a conversation, I said, "and I was a Christian." They didn't catch "was."

A few interesting comments came in, and I realized what I then tweeted: "Trimmed tweets trigger terse thoughts." Thus, I decided it was time for a blog post.

The basic response I go was about coming out of the closet to them. While I am trying to be more and more open and never lying about my true convictions, I try to avoid the subject with some people. My in-laws are some of those people. It's not for fear about debating them -- it wouldn't be much of a debate, they are emotional people and would probably explode and not be able to actually discuss it. It's purely for the only reason I think religion has any merit. For some people, their faith that a guy in the sky is keeping an eye out for them is the only thing keeping them going. My in-laws are some of those people.

My father-in-law has been struggling in the job market for the past couple of years, but after getting a decent job last fall, he was laid off back around March again. He does several interviews every week, but nothing seems to come through. He has hopes that an interview he has lined up for Tuesday after they travel back will be a bit more fruitful. They wanted to support their child in her career and came out here to support her, and had to sacrifice a lot to do it. They are the type of people that won't take a handout, so our pitching in is more subtle -- I've been doing a lot of cooking, and leaving very little opportunity for them to pick up any of the tab.

But to them, God is a support structure. The last thing I would do to them is shake their support structure by asserting there is no God. While I obviously feel that I'm right, I don't think this is an opportune time to express our convictions. Since we only see them two, maybe three times a year, it's not that hard to structure our visits such that we can avoid being at church on a Sunday (not because we wouldn't sit through it, but purely because they always expect us to perform). Also, it's been surprisingly easy to deflect or avoid comments about God. For example, a friend from high school that I didn't really feel like debating the other night had this conversation with me:

me: just go with who's successful and do what you love
me: it'll work out
him: yeah
him: and the most important thing
him: stay in God's favor
him: one thing about being back in X... I've been cleaning up my life a little bit at a time
him: and that's probably the best thing for me
me: Yeah, X was a nice, laid back place to be
me: I don't know if I could live there anymore though
me: too remote

While I will definitely come out to him one of these days, it's fairly easy to avoid the topic at all. And the interesting thing about believers is that they just assume you are a believer, especially if they knew you were in the past. That's why my "was" comment earlier didn't ruffle any feathers. That's why my complete avoidance of the God subject in the chat above didn't raise an eyebrow. That's why I don't think I'll have any problems avoiding the topic.

If they do find out, it's not the end of the world. This is who we are, and we are proud of who we are. We are happy to talk about it, or to not talk about it. The only thing we ask is that we are respected, and we will continue to respect those that respect us with few exceptions.

So what does everyone else think? Anyone else in a similar spot?

It's time to get back in the swing of things with my video Sundays.

• Hot off the presses, Potholer54Debunks has a new video debunking the creationist myth that the Grand Canyon had to have been formed in the flood.

• A look back at the classic "Mr. Show", their video The Limits of Science:

• That Mitchell and Webb Look take on the Abraham and Isaac story:

I had a theist follow me on twitter, and as I usually do, I click around a bit. He had a video on YouTube that required much more than 500 characters to reply to. Here's the video:

It's hard to respond to this video, because there are so many separate statements. I'm going to tackle the first half of the video and respond to every statement. I'm not responding to the second half purely because if I can't show how ridiculous these statements are by just responding to the first half, the rest will fall on deaf ears as well.

From looking around, this person is clearly a Christian, and thus my answers will be showing the hypocrisy in his statements (and likewise the book he got them from).

Just in case no one reads to the end, the main thing points anyone should take away from this are:

1. All of the statements must be false for all other gods than the one you believe in, otherwise your god is not the thing that inspires/creates the concept being questioned. Otherwise, all gods are equally valid.
2. Even if you claim "X does not exist if god does not exist", unless you can prove that atheists cannot experience or see "X", it doesn't make it true.

Now, onto the fun part:

First of all, if there is no God, man has no soul or spirit.

I don't have a problem with this statement. The interesting part is that this is somehow implied a problem with atheism. This is only a problem to those who want to believe that we will have something after death.

People have no greater value than other life-forms.

I'm actually somewhat agreeing with this statement. After all, if all of the other organisms did not exist, we wouldn't have a source of food and we would eventually run out of oxygen. Thus, everything in the universe is truly needed to get us to where we are today, and without it, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

There is no right and wrong, no morality and no integrity.

Right and wrong are defined based on a moral understanding, so let me address morality. I've already defined my thoughts on the origin of morality. Beyond showing that there is a clear way to have morality without a god, this statement also implies two things:

1. The only thing keeping theists moral is their belief that they will be punished eternally if they sin.
2. There are many instances of things that we consider immoral today in the bible (slavery, incest, polygamy, genocide, rape of children, etc.). The main moral teaching people claim for the bible is the golden rule. However, the golden rule dates way back before it was ever mentioned in the Bible.

Human destiny belongs to the clever and strong.

This is true, and I'm surprised you wouldn't agree with it. Who is the most powerful person today? Arguably it would be Barack Obama, a clever and strong (in the needed ways) person. Our destiny of the human race does depend on world leaders deciding to cooperate, despite their opposing and often conflicting religious teachings.

At any level, we have leaders who make decisions for groups of people. This trickles up all the way to the scope of our planet. Thus, we have ourselves constructed a system in which we allow the smart, trusted, or powerful people to make our decisions. When enough people disagree, we have revolutions or civil wars to attempt to overthrow the leader.

The concepts of worth and value do not exist.

I assume that this means of life itself and not the economics terms. Life is as valuable as you allow it to be. For the extreme case of value, let's ponder whether you consider your life valuable enough to keep living. If you think the only reason you would want to live is to please a god, I think you're lying to yourself. In fact if you honestly believe there is a heaven, you should be taking as much risk as possible to spread the gospel to the far reaches of the world. Who cares if you're martyred, right? You'll be going to heaven, and will be praised for doing your best to spread Christianity.

Of course, you want to stay alive. You don't want to take the risk. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the source, but I remember hearing of a study that showed that Christians who were facing death in hospitals fought harder to stay alive by requesting experimental medicines and procedures than non-believers in the same situation. The opposite should be true -- if god dealt you a hand that would get you to heaven more quickly, why not take it?

There is no love, and love is no better than indifference

There are many sciences that have studied and essentially explained love. Evolutionary psychology can hypothesize about how we evolved love. Additionally, neuroscience, anthropology, biology, and psychology all have a lot of research showing how love is a physical, natural thing, not inspired by a god.

Life is no better than death.

If you say so. I personally value my life greatly, as it's the only one I have. I'd say I've enjoyed being alive more than I did not existing.

There is no difference between life and non-life. Humans are just simply a collection of atoms, how is that different from a rock?

That's the inverse intelligent design argument. That's like saying if you have a wedge and a platform that it's no different than putting the platform on the wedge and having a lever.

Obviously the way things are put together makes a huge difference. A rock does not reproduce, asexually or sexually. That is one of the main differences between life and non-life.

There is no hope beyond death, and death is the end.

Correct. To be honest, this was the hardest thing to cope with as I was losing my faith in Christianity. However, I see nothing wrong with this statement, other than it is an implication of atheism.

There is no purpose or design in the universe.

Correct. Implying purpose is something we like to do, as it's been helpful for us in our evolutionary past. For example, let's look at simplistic behavior of someone who doesn't know about pain relievers: if someone had a toothache and found that chewing a certain weed/herb made the tooth not hurt anymore, one would imply that its purpose was a pain reliever.

However, the plant itself doesn't serve a purpose. In fact, the same pain relieving effect can be a toxin to its natural predators and this was a line of defense that was naturally selected that allowed the plant to survive.

Even though this is all hypothetical (I'm too lazy and tired after my road trip today), it shows how we have evolved to assume a purpose behind things. However, I'm completely fine with thinking there is no divine purpose in life.

Peace is no better than war. War can be good because it is the perfect environment for natural selection, "Survival of the fittest."

Says the person who has a god that commanded war a lot in the bible, and whose religion has a history of starting wars in the name of that god. After all, there is a time for war, and there is a time for peace. There is a time for everything.

Natural selection is indeed survival of the fittest, but we've reached a point in modern warfare where it's no longer about fittest. Nuclear holocaust is not about fitness, but purely who has the nukes and presses the button first. Because of our gross allocation of planet-threatening warfare, we've come to realize we need to learn how to get along rather than go to war. This is much more of a modern concept than a concept you find in the bible.

Humans are not responsible for the care of the earth. Why are humans more responsible than elephants. Why does human intelligence make them responsible for the care of the Earth? Why not simply the exploitation of the earth?

This actually made me laugh out loud. Do you realize who in America is most against attempting to reverse our recent influences on our atmosphere? Bible-thumpers. Most atheists recognize this planet as being something we have the ability to influence, and as a whole we've recognized that our technological advances have had negative impacts on the planet.

Why should we take responsibility? Well, if we don't, we may not survive. While that may not be reason enough for you, I take pride in us possibly being one of the only intelligent organisms in this universe, and I would like us to exist long enough to potentially meet others if they exist. I may not be here for it, but if I can do something to ensure that our descendants are, I'm going to do it.

Freedom is no better than slavery.

Again, says the person who's holy book sets out the rules for slavery. Yes, your bible specifically states how much to pay for slaves and how to treat them. In fact, it specifically outlines what the limits of punishing a slave are:

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

That's right, the slave owner can punish his slaves within inches of death, as long as the slave doesn't die within two days. Only if the slave dies is this wrong and the owner should be punished.

The abolition of slavery happened relatively recently, and I would take that as a victory for the morals of society overcoming the moral teachings of our ancestors, including that of the bible.

There is no beginning and no end and time is an illusion. The past and the future don't exist because they cannot be directly observed. And the present is always moving into the past, so it cannot be directly observed. And without direct observation, we are told things do not exist.

While an interesting thought experiment, this statement doesn't actually reflect reality. We are not told that direct observation is required to think things exist. Direct observation is one form of empirical evidence, but it is not the only. We have writings, pictures, archaeology, and many other physical pieces of evidence that allow us to see that dinosaurs existed. By writings, we can see what people did back in their time. We can also compare writings to archaeology and other writings to better understand what really happened in a given period.

This argument is trying to claim that we atheists claim that we can't believe in anything we can't directly observe. That's just a flat out lie.

Innocence is no better than guilt.

So the only thing keeping you from stealing, raping, murdering is that you fear it would upset your god?

There is no murder, because murder depends upon human value. Unique human value. We don't speak of killing an ant as murder. Or even of killing a dog, or even killing an elephant. That's not murder.

Actually, for the dog argument, I've actually heard that be called murder. In fact, one of the definitions of murder is, "to kill brutally or inhumanly."

To the original statement, we as a society don't like people killing each other. If we allowed people to kill each other, we would be in constant fear for our lives. Thus, there is a benefit to encouraging people from killing other people. We've chosen a word "murder" to represent that concept.

There is no reason for sexual purity and the concept of marriage. The only reason for sexual purity is because of certain sexual taboos that come from religion. And specifically Judeo-Christianity.

The bible specifically shows, without disapproval:

• Rape: Offering young daughters up to be raped instead of letting the mob have access to the two angels. (Gen. 19:8) 2 Peter 2:7-8 calls this same man "just" and "righteous"
• Incest: (Including, but not limited to) Daughters getting their father drunk and having sex with him. (Gen 19:31), God getting angry for not reproducing with his brother's wife (Gen 38:8-10),
• Polygamy: A lot of verses

... And without that, one can have sexual relations with as many people as one wishes, at the same time or different times. After all, the most successful organism is the one who bears the most offspring.

Two thoughts:

1. STDs are a good reason not to have sex with many partners. If you claim god responsible for STDs, then you might have a point.
2. While we may be more successful as humans if we reproduce a lot, we will overcrowd the planet and drive extinction of the very animals we rely on as a source of food.

According to atheist ideas, there is no reason for compassion and caring for others. There's no reason for generosity or philanthropy. There's no reason for kindness. There's no reason for gentleness above cruelty.

You're only kind to people because your God tells you to be? I've already linked to the golden rule page above, and that shows that this statement is false.

Human joy is no greater than animal contentment.

This is just a nonsensical statement. It certainly is superior to whomever is experiencing it. However, the animal doesn't know what it's missing out on.

We're in a unique position as humans because we've evolved a consciousness.

There's no love beyond lust, and no intimacy beyond physical touch.

This again is another repeat statement.

Honesty is no better than lying and stealing.

Again, basically the same as "no morality"

At this point I became too bored with the repeats and lack of actually stimulating things to discuss. If these statements are representative of the level of discourse provided by the book you mention, I would highly recommend against this book. It sounds like a lot of fluff with some tired, old arguments.

I'm going to be attending two conferences this year, maybe three if dates line up correctly.

First up is The Amazing Meeting 7 (TAM7) organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Through The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Podcast, I came to realize how great of a meeting this was. With the potential to meet Penn & Teller, James Randi, Phil Plait, Adam Savage, as well as many other distinguished people, I made it a goal to attend this year. I finally booked my tickets about a month ago. TAM is from July 9 through 12 in Las Vegas.

Next, I found the Atheist Alliance International Convention with Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher headlining, and many other noted speakers including people I admire such as Jerry Coyne and Eugene Scott. I'm extremely excited about this conference and the prospect of potentially being able to see Dawkins speak in person. This conference is held in Los Angeles from October 2 through 4.

Lastly is the Texas Freethought Convention which is still being organized. If the date is the same as last year, I unfortunately will most likely be out of town. However, if I'm in town, I'll definitely be there.

For the past few months I've been monitoring for various speakers that I would love to see. The top of my list includes Dawkins, Hitchens, and Ehrman. It's incredibly hard to find a schedule for Hitchens -- I wish the man would put together a simple website. Hell, I would volunteer to post and host an official website with a calendar of events.

To illicit some feedback, I have a few questions for the few readers I get:

1. Are you attending any conventions this year, especially the ones above?
2. Who in the atheist/skeptic/freethought movements are you most interested in hearing speak?

Hopefully through these conferences I'll be able to put a face to many of the bloggers I've come to read and appreciate, as well as possibly meet some of the more influential public figures like Dawkins and Hitchens.

• Nikola Tesla: They tried to make the world forget his name: This is a great introduction to Nikola Tesla, a great mind that most of us don't recognize the accomplishments of.

• Pat Condell: Take your god and shove him: This relatively recent find on YouTube has a good grasp of funny analogies and metaphors. Plus, he has an English accent.

• Atheist Experience: Feeling one with the universe: I was sitting in the studio for the live recording of this episode. This call almost had me laughing out loud. With his dodging nature as soon as I heard the word "recreational" I knew where this call was heading. This was the call I referenced in my Getting Spiritual post. It's where Jen, the cohost, uses the phrase, "found God in a bong." Surprisingly, I've had more hits on this phrase from Google than any other phrase.

• Five minutes with Richard Dawkins: This new interview is in an interesting format: 5 minutes, uncut. Not a lot of new material, but interesting nonetheless.

• Hitchens Uncut: Unlike the above Dawkins video, I felt that this interview actually did cover some new material (at least for me). Especially the bit about the waxing. Unfortunately this video doesn't have a way to embed, so you'll have to click through to see it.

I've been reading a so-far great book Philosophers without Gods, and in one of the essays the author notes that he desires for there to be a god, but he just can't bring himself to believe in a god. He goes on to discuss Pascal's Wager.

Pascal's Wager is this:

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....

..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

"That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

This argument boils down to this analogy: you can't win the lottery if you don't play. However, this author knew all of the flaws in the argument, but still saw something in the argument. The part of Pascal's argument that I had not read much commentary on is his argument of how you can believe in something you do not actually think is true.

His proposition is that if you begin to live as a believer, God will eventually reveal himself to you:

God's will has been to redeem men and open the way of salvation to those who seek it, but men have shown themselves so unworthy that it is right for God to refuse to some, for their hardness of heart, what he grants to others by a mercy they have not earned

... Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not.

There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.

The author of the essay describes his reluctance in accepting this proposition, even when faced with the idea of being granted knowledge of God:

My worry is different. If I follow Pascal's program, I will, indeed, land in a state in which I believe, and in which I am genuinely convinced that I can give a good reason for what I believe, if challenged. But am I entitled to trust my confidence when I am in that state? After all, I deliberately performed a series of steps that I knew would, if I followed them, put me into exactly that state. Now, it is one thing if, in the course of events, I find myself in that epistemic state. But it would seem to be quite another if I deliberately put myself into that state. In that case, it looks as if I am deliberately going about deceiving myself, believing because I want to believe.

And that wraps up one of the core problems with religious people's reasoning. To them, they feel like they have the evidence. However, to anyone who has not undergone the act of presupposition, their evidence is not evidence at all. Pascal actually summarizes it quite well in this cryptic passage:

Why, do you not say yourself that the sky and the birds prove God?

No.

Does your religion not say so?

No. For though it is true in a sense for some souls whom God has enlightened in this way, yet it is untrue for the majority.

Pascal understands that what evidence believers have is not empirical evidence, but rather reaffirmation of a presupposition.

My journey to unbelief came to a point that I decided the only evidence I could truly trust was empirical evidence, and that anything that required emotions or desires to be true must be discarded in favor of empirical evidence. It was that rationalization that eventually led to me becoming an atheist.

A huge breakthrough was announced today. Two essential elements of RNA have been made from scratch in a "primordial soup". This is an interesting feat for science and potentially understanding how we got here.

Quoting the article:

"By changing the way we mix the ingredients together, we managed to make ribonucleotides," said Sutherland. "The chemistry works very effectively from simple precursors, and the conditions required are not distinct from what one might imagine took place on the early Earth."

In other words, while we cannot guarantee that this is the way that we got on the path of forming RNA, it gives a scientifically tested theory as to how that might have occurred. This is a huge deal because provides us the empirical evidence to show that our theories about abiogenesis are possible, and we do not need a god to give rise to life.

The conclusion of the article is a great quote:

"Ribonucleotides are simply an expression of the fundamental principles of organic chemistry," said Sutherland. "They're doing it unwittingly. The instructions for them to do it are inherent in the structure of the precursor materials. And if they can self-assemble so easily, perhaps they shouldn't be viewed as complicated."

I love science.

On Friday I was listening to the latest episode of reasonable doubts, in which they referenced an incredible site: Common Sense Atheism.

On it, they have a list of over 400 debates organized with links to video, audio, and text when available. If you're ever in the mood for a "debate," this list is a great place to look.

I'll warn you though, you should mix your theists up. I watched three debates with Dinesh D'Souza this weekend (vs. Christopher Hitchens, Dan Barker, and Dan Dennet) in reverse chronological order. I was shocked at two things:

• D'Souza's arguments haven't changed much, if at all.
• He used to be an angry debater. In his debate with Dan Dennet was very callous and "elitist." Contrast with his more recent debate with Hitchens, where they both were much more cordial.

The same could be said about Hitchens. I used to despise him as a Christian, because he was so callous. If you watch his recent debates or discussions, he is a very reasonable person, and only becomes irritated when shown arrogance. I actually quite like Hitchens now, and I think that if I were a Christian still, his discussion would be much more appealing now than it was back a few years ago.

With that said, I'm most interested in finding video or audio of Bart Ehrman debating D'Souza over "God's Problem." It took place a week ago.

I admire Ehrman, and it's fascinating to hear him think and refute arguments on his feet. I find myself not listening for the debate itself, but listening for the interesting counter-arguments or viewpoints I may not have considered before. Ehrman's biblical knowledge is just simply astounding.