Thursday, November 11, 2010

The same old argument


The old "atheism is a faith" canard. We can't prove anything with 100% certainly, and certainly not the non-existence of something. But science isn't about proof. It's about evidence.

Skepticism, too. It's not rational to believe in anything without evidence. Atheism just says that there's no good evidence for the existence of a god, or of anything supernatural. Therefore, why believe?

Well, people believe because they want to believe, mainly. And because they've been taught their religious beliefs (different beliefs in different parts of the world) since infancy by other people who really, really wanted to believe. That's not a good way to determine the truth, though. In fact, it's a very poor way.

After all, if you simply believe what you want to believe, how can you ever tell when you're wrong? You can be wrong if you rely on evidence-based thinking, too - no one is infallible - but you'll be a lot likelier to be correct. And you can change your mind if you are shown to be wrong (which is how science advances so rapidly).

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