Dawkins: Teapot Atheism
15 August 2006 by SeanWe’ve heard this argument many times. Here’s another analogy. Send it to your theist loved ones and smile. We are all mostly atheists/agnostics way more than we are all mostly Xians, Salami-ists, Buddhists or Pastafarians.
Ask your theist relatives: Do you believe in Vishnu? Do you believe in Odin? Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? Do you believe in Rumpelstiltskin? Do you believe in Aphrodite? (I’d like to!) Do you believe in the Great Pumpkin? Neither do I. I also don’t believe in your gawd. That’s six out of seven we just agreed on, which it seems would make you more of an atheist than I am a theist.
Atheism in a Teapot:
(Thanks to Mark for sending this in.)
BTW, I was curious as to whether salami always has pork in it. Not necessarily, it seems. But the bigger question is: who the fuck has the time to be the author of the Wikipedia article on salami??
Mmm…. Salami.
15 August 2006, on 2:28 am
back when i first realized i was an atheist, the whole thing seemed like such a simple idea. i mean, is non belief really that difficult to fathom? ever since i’ve grown up, all these IDists and philosophers have complicated the issue for me.
but simply by saying “…some of us just go one god further.”
it just makes me realize all over again how fucking ridiculously simple the whole argument can be.
15 August 2006, on 3:01 am
I’ll have to remember that analogy for my philosophy and religions of the world classes.
15 August 2006, on 5:33 am
My mantra:
“Believers” (assuming you are sane and knowledgeable) you do NOT simply rely on god in critical situations. WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE ATHEISTS! Plain and simple; a spade being called a spade!
Every excuse you give like “god doesn’t work that way” etc., etc., I say that you are just running from your ATHEISM!!! Your actions speak louder than words! When the chips are down your actions clearly show that you believe in the power of god about as much as I (an HONEST atheist) do!!!!
Get HONEST!!! Admit that you are god invoking god praising ATHEISTS at the core!!!
15 August 2006, on 8:41 am
I’m actually making some Salami this week. Charcuterie is some cool shit if you’re a food obsessed asshole like my self. I wish I had written the wiki on it.
I tried the “you’re more of an atheist that I am a theist” argument with a super right wing catholic brother-in-law of mine. Boy that made a good family get together. I left laughing he left screaming. My sister is still pissed.
15 August 2006, on 9:23 am
Xians do seem to get more upset when their ideas are challenged. I have a friend that we’ve been emailing back and forth about different topics, but when we got on a religious one and I challenged his belief, he hasn’t emailed back in about a month. I wasn’t rude or insulting, I just mentioned that the story of Adam and Eve makes no sense and has to be either a metaphor or complete myth story. Of course, he is a deacon in his church so I guess he has more to lose than just his belief, but his social standing as well.
15 August 2006, on 9:26 am
The analogy here is priceless, and all-too-real…
I wonder if Schulz had any idea what he was doing when he made that shit up…
15 August 2006, on 9:44 am
Charles Schultz described his philosophy as “secular humanist”. It’s a belief that reason, justice, and ethics hold a higher standing than empty religious ceremony or “faith”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism
15 August 2006, on 12:33 pm
That Dawkins documentary was disappointing, and he came across as an arrogant little troll. He may be right, but he’s not a very likeable chap.
15 August 2006, on 1:37 pm
Tebbits: you have to understand who his audience is. They have likely never been introduced to this kind of critical thinking before. He is a popularizer of ideas. And yes, he’s English and looks like a Hobbit. Give him a break.
15 August 2006, on 1:42 pm
PS: Tebbit:
This is why television is such a bad medium for serious learning and for politics. Back during Bill Clinton’s first campaign, my cousin said she wasn’t gonna vote for him because she didn’t like his nose.
Lincoln would be hopeless on television.
15 August 2006, on 1:45 pm
He didn’t seem to come off as an arrogant little troll to me, I’ve met people who are infinitely more confrontational when explaining their viewpoint. I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Besides, he’s not called Darwin’s Rottweiler for being passive.
15 August 2006, on 3:23 pm
I liked that clip quite a bit, thanks for posting it.
15 August 2006, on 3:39 pm
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.” — Bertrand Russell
I believe in Richard Dawkins… but Russell’s original, Is there a God? is brilliant.
15 August 2006, on 5:11 pm
Mark sent me this as well, did a post on it.
It’s actually a great reminder (it references Russell’s Teapot) that burden of proof is on the believer.
15 August 2006, on 7:07 pm
Atheism is simply the next logical step- historically- from monotheism in the evolution of the human intellect. A distillation- or a purification if you like, from a consciousness contaminated by hundreds of individual deities, to one and, then, none. The still religious, at this point, are the stragglers, the weak of mind, and the ones that– if at all possible- should kill one another off as some sort of natural selection.
15 August 2006, on 9:59 pm
This is not new, there’s just more of it. Dawkins must be on drugs after reading this.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,1844328,00.html
I agree about his arrogance and sometimes it bothers me and sometimes it doesn’t. It does when I remember the story Ann Druyan tells about Carl’s behavior with pseudo-science people – he was unfailingly polite to them and one wrote to him before Carl’s death and said that he had been reading about science and evolution and was coming around to Sagan’s position, then added that he was moved to expand his horizons because Carl had been so courteous to him. That’s a hard thing to counter, though I have to say I’m not sure that being decent, honest, and everything else makes much difference to the new breed of creationist/IDiot. What do people think?
BTW, the tenth anniversary of Sagan’s death is this December. Does that suck, or what?
15 August 2006, on 11:35 pm
[...] From God Is For Suckers: Ask your theist relatives: Do you believe in Vishnu? Do you believe in Odin? Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy? Do you believe in Rumpelstiltskin? Do you believe in Aphrodite? (I’d like to!) Do you believe in the Great Pumpkin? Neither do I. I also don’t believe in your gawd. That’s six out of seven we just agreed on, which it seems would make you more of an atheist than I am a theist. [...]
16 August 2006, on 10:03 am
I thought that video was quite good actually. Certainly it matched my thoughts about Christianity “knowing” they’re following the One True God, when the Egyptians “knew” that there were lots of gods.
“This is why television is such a bad medium for serious learning and for politics. Back during Bill Clinton’s first campaign, my cousin said she wasn’t gonna vote for him because she didn’t like his nose.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why America is run by Bush.
16 August 2006, on 12:57 pm
The old saying, “You can catch more flies with honey than with a fly swatcher” seems to apply when dealing with xians sometimes. But when the darn fly is annoying the hell out of you and pooping all over your food the fly swatcher does the job best.
16 August 2006, on 1:02 pm
Reaction to Madonna’s tour illustrates that the religious just won’t give up trying to run our lives. Where’s that fly swatter? (Sorry about the spelling in last comment – too dependent on Spell Check.)
17 August 2006, on 12:33 pm
who the fuck has the time to be the author of the Wikipedia article on salami??
Since there are probably some people in this world whose whole job revolves around salami, probably lots of people. Some of these people might even be in charge of marketing and promoting salami, and Wikipedia is a natural fit for such effort. A producer might even pay someone to do it.
19 August 2006, on 1:39 am
Rev. BigDumbChimp Says:
August 15th, 2006 at 8:41 am EST
I’m actually making some Salami this week.
Dude, can you ship me some homemade salami?
19 August 2006, on 1:42 am
PS: BigDumbChimp… It’s Wikipedia. If you have something to add to the article about salami, you can. Dat’s da beauty of it.
19 August 2006, on 1:45 am
MLE Says:
August 17th, 2006 at 12:33 pm EST
who the fuck has the time to be the author of the Wikipedia article on salami??
Since there are probably some people in this world whose whole job revolves around salami, probably lots of people.
Good point, MLE!
19 August 2006, on 8:54 pm
Hey, get this, from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_%28logical_fallacy%29
“Burden of Proof as a Fallacious Defense
A slightly different fallacy occurs when the challenger accuses the proposer of committing a burden of proof fallacy to direct attention away from the fact that the challenger is in reality proposing a different idea of their own. This situation often occurs as a result of a fallacy of the excluded middle, where the challenger believes that only one of the two proposed ideas can occur.
* For example, in the philosophical debate between Theism and Atheism (to some, Strong atheism), theism posits that the nonexistence of God has not been demonstrated and therefore God must exist. This is a burden of proof fallacy. Atheism in turn points out this fallacy and claims that its position is therefore stronger. This is a fallacious defense. In actuality, both positions have a burden of proof, since the Law of the excluded middle does not apply in this scenario.”
But the answers.com section shows a somewhat different version.
I think someone may have monkeyed w/this, but am unsure.
21 November 2006, on 11:05 am
That article on English students becoming more religious is scary. I have a solution though. There just needs to be an exchange of all the religious nutjobs to the unived states of america (jesus), since they have so many, and all the sensible folk can go live in britan, or australia, if you don’t like the weather up north. TADA!!!