Rational Atheism

[stan2reason]

Michael Shermer, author of Why Darwin Matters has written an open letter (http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=423C1809-E7F2-99DF-384721C9252B924A&pageNumber=1&catID=2) to the likes of Harris, Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens. In it he calls for "rational atheism" that includes among other things: respect for believers and standing for positive assertions rather than simply promoting the absence of belief.

I've only read Harris extensively so I can't speak for the others but I think Harris has consistently made the point that he actually fights for reason. He's not about being defined by his non-belief.

Shermer brings up some excellent points each worth serious consideration. Still, I think it's funny that his own publication, Skeptic, is a statement of non-belief.

[stan2reason]

BTW, I changed my belief status here on gnawed from "non-believer" to "scientist". I'm taking my first step. :)

[David]

@S2R ; good for you! The trick with being atheist is to ensure that you are open minded enough to be able to admit you are wrong if there is indeed a god--the scientific method is how one does that.

Let me explain; according to the scientific method, you can never disprove a negative. There may well be in fact a being that can live in all 10 dimensions at once. In my opinion, that's a god (or, at least someone who has godly powers). (As an aside, envisioning all 10 dimensions makes my brain hurt :p .) By saying I'm an atheist, what I'm really saying is that on the whole, it is more likely than not that there is no god. In fact, I'm so far to the atheist end of things that I'm pretty darn confident that I'm right. However, IF god came to earth and showed his godly powers and said, "aha! I told you so!" I would say, "Gee, I was wrong!" Technically, most scientists who would call themselves atheists in a social setting are truely agnostic to the extent that you can't prove a negative (well, not easily).

The difference between a fundamentalist christian and a fundamentalist atheist is that one believes in god without evidence; the other believes in no god without evidence. They both throw the scientific method out the window.

An atheist that is true to science says that he believes there is no god, because there is no evidence to support the god hypothesis. However, if there was evidence in the future, that would support the hypothesis that god exists, a scientist would be happy with that answer too. To a scientist, the truth is what's important. To a fundie christian, the truth isn't important; it's the consistency of information--in spite of the truth.

[Aspirin99]

I saw that Skeptic article on stumble and I even left a comment in the stumble comments for it.

[phrog]

I've read a couple of Shermer's books like How We Believe and Why People Believe Weird Things. I've read both of Harris' and several of Dawkins' and am now reading Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennet. It seems to me that Shermer ought to clean up his own back yard before crying "Shame on you" to the others. It sure seemed to me he had a modicum of bashing of the god botherers.

[phrog]

BTW, I changed my belief status here on gnawed from "non-believer" to "scientist". I'm taking my first step. :)
I changed my status from strong Atheist to Radical Atheist. A term Douglas Adams called himself so no one would have any doubt that he had no doubts.