Quote of the Week

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Christopher Hitchens

Demanding Irrationality

This imperviousness to reason is, I think, the property that we should most fear in religion. Other institutions or traditions may encourage a certain amount of irrationality - think of the wild abandon that is often appreciated in sports or art - but only religion demands it as a sacred duty. This might not matter if the activities that composed religion were somewhat insulated from the rest of the world the way they are in sports and art. Then we could treat religious allegiances the way we treat differences in taste: if you have a taste for kick boxing or heavy metal bands, that's your business. Knock yourself out, as we say, it's only a game. Not so with religion. Its arena includes not just the participants but all of life on the planet. Given that, it's troubling to note how avidly some people engage in deliberate make-believe in order to execute the prescribed duties.

The better is enemy of the best: religion may make many people better, but it is preventing them from being as good as they could be. If only we could transfer all that respect, loyalty and intense devotion from an imaginary being - God - to something real: the wonderful world of goodness we and our ancestors have made, and of which we are now the stewards.

Daniel Dennet

The full article can be read at The Guardian.

Quote of the Week

Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that whatever religion you are brought up in always turns out to be the right one?

Richard Dawkins

The Atheist Blogroll

Atheist Wisdom has now been added to The Atheist Blogroll, and I've added a link to this on the right. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to add your blog to the list, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

Reasons to Become an Atheist

Top ten reasons here. Number one is great:

1. No Christians after the Rapture! This is assuming that they are right, which is completely unlikely. But even so, could an atheist imagine a better world than one in which all the 'true believers' were suddenly whisked away to free the world of religious division and hatred and allow mankind to put our effort into improving the real world and this life for a change!

This page also offers some pretty convincing arguments. A couple of my favourites:

...you'll save money on funerals because you now know there's no point in getting all dressed up, since there's no place to go!

...you'll get to finally think for yourself, according to a recent scientific journal.

In truth no reasons are necessary to be an atheist (though they do exist!). Atheism is a default position, we are all born as atheists, starting out in life without any belief in deities. The burden of proof lays with the theists, it is they who must persuade us of the existence of their god and the validity of their religion.

Quote of the Week

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Ten Myths About Atheism

TranceDevotee's YouTube video, based on an article by Sam Harris:

Quote of the Week

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

George Bernard Shaw

Dawkins on Darwin

On the 150th anniversary of the theory of evolution by natural selection, here is a video of Richard Dawkins being interviewed about Charles Darwin. The video also features some clips from a new three-part documentary about Darwin, which will be shown on Channel 4 in the UK later this year:

Dawkins on Darwin