An atheist is someone who does not believe in God, an all powerful force, a mighty deity or what have you - in short, an atheist is the polar opposite to a canonist.
A canonist believes without a doubt that there is a God. The rationale for their belief stems from an intangible yet resolute faith.
An atheist believes without a doubt that there is no God. The rationale for the their belief stems from a deficiency of scientific evidence.
Here's my dilemma with atheists: some, if not most, are willing to accept even the very slimmest of possibilities that intelligent extra-terrestrial life may exist. I mean with the millions of galaxies, containing billions of planets, it's a pretty arrogant notion to emphatically state that Earth could be the only one blessed with life. So without empirical data, they are, even on a minuscule level, open to the suggestion, which is fair enough.
However, with all the wonders in our infinite universe, they're not receptive to even the slightest inclination of an all powerful force. It does not have to be a god or God in the way we have made him/her/them out to be, but just "something" out there.
In my mind, an atheist & religionist make equally little sense in that one is sure there is no God or gods, while the other is sure there is. Given that there is no actual data to support the existence of deities does not controvert the possibility that there might be something out there.
Not all the evidence is in. Everything we know now, is not, by any stretch of the imagination, all we will ever know. So, the way I see it, being an atheist requires at least some amount of... faith.
Now I have a feeling someone might bring up Dawkins' "Flying Spaghetti Monster". It's true that it is pretty unlikely that such a beast exists, but no one can say with certainty that it doesn't exist anywhere in the universe.
Or is my reasoning specious?
3 comments:
Hey Shay,
If you're a reader of fiction at all, you should check out this book:
http://mebreathing.blogs.com/me_reading/2005/12/book_review_sec.html#more
It's called Second Eden. I think you might enjoy the premise.
This post has given me a lot to think about. Between the two extremes, I would have said it is better to be an atheist than canonist, but as you point out, both ideologies are flawed because they require a hard line of devotion.
We cannot possibly explain everything entirely in the world with either science or faith. With so much complexity, how can anyone be convinced that one theory covers it all?
Again, you've given me a lot to think about.
Al - Thanks for the tip. You're right, it does sound interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it. Cool review by the way.
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