Well, all this is interesting to me, anyway, and that's what matters here. The Internet is a terrible thing for someone like me, who finds almost everything interesting.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
An atheist's fear
Note that Amy is talking about the fear that she's betrayed her parents and her community because she "doesn't believe it anymore." I'd say that it's guilt, more than fear.
I never had this problem, because my childhood was different. I don't ever remember believing. But I sympathize. I know it's hard for people who did believe everything they were told.
Well, it's also the fear of causing her mother pain. She doesn't want to wrong someone she loves. I can understand that, too. But does that mean she has to live a lie?
This is an excerpt from the Atheist Experience TV show, episode #593, with Matt Dillahunty and Tracie Harris. (Note that, earlier, I posted a different excerpt from this same episode, here.)
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
WCG,
Thanks for showing this. Is this an online show or is it on your local cable? Read about your childhood and saw a lot of similarities to my own life. My awaking came in Jr. High school when I started reading science fiction. The story that effected me most was Childhood's End, if you remember that one. That story started me thinking and I haven't stopped. I understand the callers fear (or anxiety) of telling the parent. I never told my parents for the same reason. Thanks for posting; I appreciate your point of view.
The Atheist Experience is a public access TV show from Austin, Texas. It's streamed live on the web (see their homepage here), so they've started getting calls from across the nation and even the world.
But the videos can be freely copied, subject to their Creative Commons license, so clips are just everywhere on YouTube. I've been posting a few of them here, but I'm barely scratching the surface.
The episodes vary in quality, of course, but they're usually quite interesting. I'm especially fond of those hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Tracie Harris, as in the above clip.
Thanks for commenting! It's a lot different these days than when we were young, don't you think? I always did a lot of reading, too, so I knew that other atheists existed, but I wouldn't have known that in my own life.
I'm a skeptic. I think it makes sense to have reasons for what I believe, so I apportion my belief to the evidence. You're welcome to disagree. Please, tell me I'm wrong. I probably don't agree with anyone about everything. Why should disagreement be a problem? Check the Pages section below for series posts and links to book reviews and game posts, as well as contact info. Unfortunately, I rarely blog at all, anymore. So don't expect new posts. - Bill
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. - Robert Wilensky
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong - Richard Feynman
The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other. - Sir Francis Bacon
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. - Hal Clement
No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase "ultimate truth" becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, "ultimate". - Isaac Asimov
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. - Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams (1797)
I don't doubt the sincerity of dowsers, but even after we've demonstrated that they can't produce results that are any better than chance they'll still go away believing in their abilities... It is like the mother whose son is caught shoplifting on tape. She wonders why someone would want to frame her child by producing a fake video. - James Randi
During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church ... imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. - Mark Twain
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths. - Bertrand Russell
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Friedrich Nietzsche
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.
This is not about proof. Science does not use proof. We favor evidence, and the work consists largely of the slow accumulation of evidence in support of ideas, not magically potent proofs that establish an idea as unassailable. - PZ Myers
No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. - President Barack Obama
The formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat. - Shekhar Gupta
We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs. - Carl Sagan
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. - Sam Harris
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. - Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553
Democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can't take root. - Thomas L. Friedman
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason. - Thomas Macauley, 1830
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men. - Edward R. Murrow
The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic. - Thomas Huxley
There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. ... Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. - President Thomas Jefferson
To be elected in America, no matter from what party, the candidates have no choice but to year after year pledge to lower taxes further and further. We have become the nation of Ken and Barbie, looking good but very poor at the math. - Rack Jite
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them. - Steve Eley
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle. - Molly Ivins
In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. - H. L. Mencken
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill
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2 comments:
WCG,
Thanks for showing this. Is this an online show or is it on your local cable? Read about your childhood and saw a lot of similarities to my own life. My awaking came in Jr. High school when I started reading science fiction. The story that effected me most was Childhood's End, if you remember that one. That story started me thinking and I haven't stopped. I understand the callers fear (or anxiety) of telling the parent. I never told my parents for the same reason.
Thanks for posting; I appreciate your point of view.
Old Dude
Welcome, Old Dude. :)
The Atheist Experience is a public access TV show from Austin, Texas. It's streamed live on the web (see their homepage here), so they've started getting calls from across the nation and even the world.
Past episodes of the show are available in many different formats, including Blip TV. But I usually watch them on YouTube, often on the Atheist Experience fan channel.
But the videos can be freely copied, subject to their Creative Commons license, so clips are just everywhere on YouTube. I've been posting a few of them here, but I'm barely scratching the surface.
The episodes vary in quality, of course, but they're usually quite interesting. I'm especially fond of those hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Tracie Harris, as in the above clip.
Thanks for commenting! It's a lot different these days than when we were young, don't you think? I always did a lot of reading, too, so I knew that other atheists existed, but I wouldn't have known that in my own life.
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