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    The Catholic continues the debate

    http://myzenarcade.com/2008/04/18/the-catholic-continues-the...
    28 days ago in My Zen Arcade · Authority: 8

    (for the record, I stopped talking with him because I honestly believe we weren’t having anything remotely like a conversation…just two people speaking at each other in…ahem…tongues) Well, what he’s decided, of course, is to miss the point of my schitzophrenia remark. He’s decided that I think all religions are the same. Which is not what I said. My point was that they are all equally crazy.  Medicated or not, violent or not, oppressive or not.  They are all people who hear voices from dogs.  The difference in how far you must stretch believability between scientology and christianity is negligible. (Actually, I think scientology is much more believable) I’m not sure how you can deny that. And, of course, he’s made the classic mistake: Because what is atheism, if not a rather odd — and somewhat counter-intuitive — form of religion (in that it is a philosophical conjecture, a belief in a universal negative)? He thinks that, since I don’t believe in god, then thats a religion as well since, of course, it has the word ‘god’ in it. That is similar to saying I have a significant belief that there is not a gorilla in my closet. Now, I am not currently looking in my closet, so I suppose there MIGHT be a gorilla in there. But I have zero reason to believe there is. Thats one of the tragic mistakes most theists make.  They believe that there’s a decision to be made.  Do you believe in god or not, in short. I see that as a logical mistake. I don’t actively think there isn’t a gorilla in my closet.  It would be INSANE to think that I had to make a choice about whether or not there’s a big old beastie in my closet.  The default position is for me to not believe in such a thing in such a place.  Assuming that my bedroom isn’t part of the gorilla migratory pattern. No one would say that one of my characteristics is that I believe my closet to be gorilla-free. Nor, would anyone say, as a another example, that a significant trait I hold is that I don’t believe squirrels talk, or that my mother walks through walls, or that men rise from the dead. These are, I think we can agree, aberrations from the norm.  Without evidence to say that these aberrations are occuring, the default position is that they aren’t happening.  But given that this is the default, the significant aspect is choosing to believe in them. The norm is to not. Of course, you can’t have these conversations with many theists because they believe there is evidence of god.  No one has shown me any. They only thing they ever do is show examples of things we can’t explain…yet. But they don’t like that last word.