Deism is a perfectly logical position. Many of the founding fathers were deists. It doesn’t make many claims about god, just that there is one and he doesn’t directly mess with the affairs of men. As you note, it’s when you get into specifics that things start getting ridiculous.

I do like the 7th grade science hypothesis – hard to test, but you’re right, it would explain a lot. I also like the theory that there is a god, but he’s an underachiever, and screws up a lot.

People get into trouble trying to line up the gods of holy books with reality. Apply just a bit of logic and/or science and it becomes obvious that their existence is impossible.

My disbelief in Zeus, Poseidon, unicorns and The Easter bunny is trivial. Likewise, my Atheism is trivial to me, and would be trivial to everyone if the religious would just shut up and mind their own business.

The next episode of The Quick Hitts Podcast will have the same title as this blog post, and will contain advice to fundies on how to protect their children from the influence of us Evil Atheists. It will also touch on just how trivial all this should be.

http://badidea.wordpress.com/

Like yourself, he is a rigorous logician and clear thinking. No, he’s not my brother in law. But I think you might enjoy him.

Smith

This whole God thing caught my eye. I have debated on many Christian and Atheist blogs. It’s fun, unless people get too worked up (and interestingly, the atheists can get every bit as worked up as the Christians). Your own comment, “atheism is trivial” would be enough to start a flame war in some places,although I know what you meant there.

But as you seem like a reasonable chap, I just thought I’d throw my two cents in.

I’m a deist: I believe in the existence of a higher power, but I more or less leave it at that. I have little patience with organized religion.

I suppose the best analogy I can make is with life on other planets. We have no proof whatsoever that there is any life on other planets, but we can’t prove that there isn’t, either. Most reasonable people at least entertain the notion, given the vast numbers of planets in our galaxy alone, let alone other galaxies. In fact, this is pretty much the only rationale for spending billions of taxpayer dollars on SETI, which to this day has turned up not one shred of evidence.

But now, if I were to state that I not only believed in the existence of life on other planets, but I also claim to believe that this other life takes the form of little green men living on Pluto, then that’s a different story altogether. And if I try to say that you can’t prove that little green men DON’T live on Pluto, then you can rightly trot out the flying spaghetti monster and Russel’s Celestial Teapot, and you’ be right.

So I guess that’s just how it is with me and “God”. A higher power strikes me as an acceptable hypothesis, given that no other explanation can be found for how life started in the first place, or even why the universe is here. This is not to say that science should not continue to dig for the truth, obviously it should. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there really is one or two things that science never finds an answer for. For all we know, we might be God’s seventh grade science project. It would explain a lot, actually. ;>)

But again, if I try to move beyond this Deistic concept of God, and try to ascribe human characteristics to him/her/it, this is where the folly begins, as I’m sure you would agree.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

-smith

There is only one thing common among *all* atheists, and it’s simply not believing in gods. But all the atheists I know, and know of, did not come to atheism out of hate or fear, but rather by reason and logic.

And I’m only talking about atheism here, not the real important part of people’s lives. (Atheism is trivial, and only assumes importance because of the reactions of the religious.) They may be hateful or fearful when it comes to other things.

But that’s not quite what they say. They say “there is no proof of God,” which is a subtle and important difference.

I don’t believe in vampires or unicorns, because there is no proof of them. Should one be discovered, I’d have to change my mind.

I never intended to say that you were trying to push your views upon me and agree that I can click away at any given time. I agree with most of what you say, and normally wouldn’t post because I do agree. I just get a little irritated on the hypocrisy of scientists who say there is no God without proof. Just don’t sit here and tell me it is a cop out when I say God started it all when you cannot tell me how it started. That is my belief, and until you can prove it wrong, it is no more of a cop out than your tea pot argument. Lets just see how different these two sound.

Why are were here? God!

Is there a God? No, because we don’t know if huge teapots are floating in space either.

But again, keep up what you are doing, I love coming to the site and seeing what you have to say, and from now on I will comment on the things agree on too, so you don’t see me as an atheist hating bible beater.