October 18, 2006

if you are an atheist

atheism219.jpg
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licen­sing terms here etc.]
[Update:] This car­toon has gene­ra­ted 75 com­ments so far, many from atheists. Heh.

109 Responses to “if you are an atheist”

  1. Mark says:

    god is an atten­tion whore. …like paris hil­ton, but with a big­ger PR department.

  2. GlobocorpHometown says:

    I tend to agree with those who inter­pret the car­toon as a man infu­ria­ted by the stu­pi­dity of the claim. Hard to tell, though, espe­cially given Macleod’s facile res­pon­ses to brian t.
    Regard­less of the cartoon’s “real” POV, though, I just want to explain, as a non-xian and non-atheist, why the sta­te­ment is gra­tingly stu­pid.
    1) The sta­te­ment is pre­ci­sely as per­sua­sive as a “cle­ver” church sign. It sounds tricky/punny/paradoxical, so it must be true. Yawn.
    2) It’s illo­gi­cal, as seve­ral other com­men­ters’ counter-examples show. E.g. “vege­ta­ria­nism is your meat.”
    and most sig­ni­fi­cantly,
    3) The sta­te­ment is mas­si­vely con­des­cen­ding. It’s as if to say, “I know little or nothing about how an atheist thinks, or what atheism actually is, but I feel con­fi­dent that I can sum up your entire sys­tem of thought in one short apho­rism.” I know I am correct about this because I am correct about everything else having anything to do with God.
    It also assu­mes the exis­tence of God, and “rea­sons” from there, assu­ming that something must surely take the place of God in everyone’s life in one way or another. That is pre­ci­sely the pro­po­si­tion that atheism rejects, as far as I unders­tand.
    Think about it for even a few seconds and you rea­lize it makes no sense any­way. In what way *can* “atheism” be a “god?” Do you worship atheism? Pray to it? Believe it crea­ted the known world? Invoke it at cere­mo­nies?
    South Park was more accu­rate last night, when they had the atheists in the future saying “Science help me!” and “Science damn it!”

  3. just saying says:

    i am pretty sure that atheists don’t start wars in the name of atheism, don’t con­demn peo­ple to hell in the name of atheism, and etc … the­re­fore, it’s pretty clear that atheism is not a reli­gion
    i’m just saying

  4. Anonymous says:

    Wars are fought over and in the name of phi­lo­sophies. theology-atheism-all men are crea­ted equal thinking.

  5. Chris says:

    What this comic doesn’t bring up is the dif­fe­rence bet­ween strong and weak atheism.
    Strong atheism is the defi­nite belief that there is no god. Since this is not a pro­ven sta­te­ment, it is a belief sys­tem, by any rea­so­na­ble defi­ni­tion of the term.
    Weak atheism is merely the lack of belief in a god, rather than the cons­cious dis­be­lief. It is not a defi­nite belief that there is no god, but rather accep­tance that belief either way without pro­va­ble evi­dence is not jus­ti­fied.
    Although the two share a name, they are in face enti­rely dif­fe­rent things. The first is a belief sys­tem, requi­ring an ele­ment of faith. The second is simply eva­lua­ting the evi­dence and making a deci­sion accor­dingly.
    It is amu­sing, howe­ver, watching strong atheists get fired up when they first rea­lise the dif­fe­rence bet­ween the two and begin to unders­tand that what they believe really is that — a belief. They will fire off con­vo­lu­ted argu­ments (often invol­ving ‘bur­den of proof’, which is a deci­sion tool, not a logi­cal argu­ment) that their belief is actually the only com­ple­tely ratio­nal way of thin­king, when in fact it too requi­res a leap of faith.
    Of course, strong atheism requi­res LESS assump­tions than any major reli­gion. Howe­ver, it requi­res MORE assump­tions than weak atheism. As such, weak atheism should be the default posi­tion of anyone who claims to be 100% rational.

  6. Anonymous says:

    This con­ver­sa­tion will soon rolloff this page and then become irre­le­vant in this “what’s on my screen now” blog­ging world. This is, of course, why blog­ging sucks to some degree. The con­ver­sa­tion is many times too tem­po­rary.
    I will say it has become more ratio­nal and less ridiculous.

  7. Tim G. says:

    Rar! Reli­gion!
    I have the One True Ans­wer! All other opi­nions are infe­rior to mine! I cer­tainly can’t wait to tell ever­yone how awe­some I am and/or how stu­pid they are!
    But wait! I have seen that someone has an opi­nion that is dif­fe­rent than my own! They are igno­rant and offen­sive! I have been offen­ded by the igno­rance and offen­si­ve­ness of other ideas!
    Rar!

  8. Anonymous says:

    Well I’m prac­ti­cally atheist but I wouldn’t say atheism is my god, the whole con­cept of reli­gion is put out of my mind and I think about things rele­vant to my life (not to say I don’t pon­der it occa­sio­nally). Having to rely on faith means you can always be inco­rrect, why not just wait for an ans­wer rather than hope your belief is right?
    With no evi­dence you can come to neither conc­lu­sion, the­re­fore reli­gion and indeed atheism are belie­ving a mere assump­tion. Howe­ver if society hadn’t of pushed the whole con­cept of belief in a grea­ter entity on me I don’t think, with the edu­ca­tion I have recei­ved explai­ning natu­res pat­terns and pro­ces­ses (which are foun­ded on evi­dence), the con­cept of reli­gion would have ente­red my head at all, and only as a mat­ter of fic­tion if it had.
    you cant prove or dis­prove that god is not a giant sau­sage with supreme inte­llect and magi­cal laser beams of crea­tive force. still no one seems to believe that. howe­ver obviously it must take faith to dis­be­lieve it you say? To be honest why should it mater.
    It’s just a method of autho­rity that in some cases pro­vi­des good morals and some­ti­mes gives power to some unfairly, for ins­tance it is my opi­nion that in the Mus­lim reli­gion men are kept in supe­rio­rity and women are sub­ju­ga­ted. I believe the ori­gin of reli­gion was just to explain what was inex­pli­ca­ble at the time. some peo­ple argue that if so many peo­ple believe a reli­gion it must be true, but reli­gion is taught from parents to chil­dren and in schools from a young age and right through secon­dary edu­ca­tion, if only a few set reli­gions are taught as they crushed the sma­ller reli­gions of course those few will be widely belie­ved. if I were to teach the belief of my sau­sage god to my chil­dren from a young age they would believe it to if it were not cha­llen­ged.
    I think the need for reli­gion is dimi­nished in todays society, at least in more eco­no­mi­cally deve­lo­ped coun­tries. Howe­ver good morals still need to be taught and i can’t deny some reli­gions achieve this, but i don’t think the lite­ral belief in a god is neces­sary at all or sen­si­ble with the afo­re­men­tio­ned lack of evi­dence. you can not stea­dily defend a belief that is intan­gi­ble. and you can­not argue bet­ween reli­gions without solid evi­dence. the whole con­cept of reli­gion is unfoun­ded so the con­cept shouldn’t be argued, the need for faith sug­gests you cant 100% believe your reli­gion any­way. Once again I can’t see why reli­gion is nee­ded and why good morals can’t just be taught, without need for the threat of an eter­nity in hell to scare peo­ple from acting badly and the pro­mise of hea­ven to moti­vate them. any one who needs those moti­va­tions can­not be a purely good per­son any­way.
    Sorry for any offence, and my Sau­sage god was only used for those points, I know reli­gions have more to offer than that. I just don’t see their rele­vance in life and how they can be belied with so many con­flic­ting reli­gions and no, or almost noto evi­dence for any of them. and yes i res­pect the­re­fore there is little evi­dence there is not a god except perhaps the big bang in res­pect of the ori­gin of the uni­verse, but that too i find hard to believe. How can something come from nothing? But that can also be applied to gods, how can they just exist with no point of ori­gin.
    If your reli­gion is purely a set of beliefs to follow life by with no lite­ral belief in a grea­ter entity and mystical/ magi­cal events, a reli­gion that requi­res no faith, then this is not aimed at you.
    Of course I’m here arguing, so obviously reli­gion does mean something to me, it intri­gues me and I love to argue. But then again for everything I just said I’m only a 16 year old kid living a cosy, cushy life with little actual life expe­rience, so what do I know?

  9. sami says:

    rotfl — yes, all atheists *do* look this — fun­dos in their own cute, rebel­llious ways