Midnight linkage
- Elf M. Sternberg – This I Believe: Penn Jillette’s Wisdom » "If there are consequences for not believing, and God dictates who gets sufficient evidence and who doesn’t, then the consequences are arbitrary. We have a word for someone with responsibility who doles out punishment from whim: evil."
One Comment
A
The essay is fantastic. It’s just about exactly my viewpoint – except with the initial assumption swapped – I believe there is a God.
This is cool, since I’ve figured that there is no way to prove conclusively that there is a God/god/gods or not, and simply ignoring the point is foolish. I went through the ‘assume no god then search for evidence’ – then I did the opposite. I truly believe it fails in both directions. (I nearly lost my grip analyzing it.)
So I’m a theist. My belief system is internally and externally consistent with what I think is a shockingly low amount of contrived conclusions. I like talking to others because if I’m wrong, it teaches me something and I find a new way to reevaluate and improve my beliefs.
Sternberg missed that point and lept to the rather popular and annoying conclusion that theists are stupid, or at least silly. Like Jillette said, the atheism part is easy, and I’d contend the same works for theism. It’s easy to fault theists – cuz they’re rather vocal in their inanity, but I don’t see a lot of atheists doing much more than whining about theist’s inane comments; I’ve yet to meet an atheist whose argument was not simply a counterpoint to a theist’s belief. Jillette made an argument for atheism without whining about theists, and that’s meaningful. He’s someone who’s given belief some thought.
Always did like Penn and Teller. They rant eloquently.