Evolution of Religion

I'm a "Practical atheist"

Let's ruffle some atheist feathers.

For all practical purposes, the statements "I disbelieve god exists" and "I believe God doesn't exist" are basically the same statement & any differences between them are purely semantic and don't change the overall meaning from any practical perspective.  Further to this, "I know God doesn't exist" is, again, for all practical purposes, the same as saying "I believe God doesn't exist". Any differences between the above statements are epistemological mind games that have no practical bearing on our daily lives & from what I've seen in the atheist Twitter community, the main purpose of these games is to avoid the burden of proof.

Now here's the rub, "There's no evidence" is good enough for all practical purposes. "There's no evidence for dragons", is generally accepted as good enough for most to justify saying, "I know dragons don't exist" & it's good enough to keep others from dragging them into an epistemological pissing match over certainty of knowledge. Then you add the fact that there are tons of great arguments for the non existence of gods & suddenly you're well beyond good enough. It's only with the subject of gods that we are we suddenly forced to concern ourselves with tedious epistemological arguments, most of which border on solipsism, around the certainty of our knowledge. 

Most "agnostic atheists" I've spoken with will say they are 99.9% certain no gods exist, but seem irrationally concerned about that 0.1% chance they may be wrong. Well, I'm 99.9% certain the earth will be spinning tomorrow, yet few people would insist I be agnostic about that. It's generally accepted as being ok to say, "I know the earth will be spinning tomorrow"? Yes, technically speaking, there's a chance it won't be (by any number of possible reasons), but is it worth concerning myself over it? Is it worth being agnostic about or lacking belief it will keep spinning? Especially if all I'm doing is trying to avoid any burden of proof that it will?

Many "agnostic atheists" are willing to go further & say they are 100% certain all gods ever worshipped by man to date don't exist, & leave the 99.9% certainty only to the chance some unknown, not yet described god-like figure might exist. To this I reply, the unknown is unknown & there is an infinite number of things we can conceive of that we don't know or can't prove if they exist that has no practical bearing on our knowledge base. This sounds like it should be obvious, but apparently it's not.

I think most atheists would agree there's actually a greater chance of the earth not spinning tomorrow than there is of any god, currently or previously worshipped or an as of yet unknown god-like being ever to be proven. So it boggles my mind as to why so many seem to concern themselves over this infinitesimal chance some god might actually exist. If it turns out some kind of god exists, you admit you were wrong, adjust your knowledge base & carry on. That's practical.

For all practical purposes, 99.9% = 100%.  There's no practical or rational reason we should ever concern ourselves with such a tiny chance we may be wrong. There is no practical or rational reason why anyone should be scared of making a knowledge claim when you are 99.9% certain gods don't exist—because on most subjects, most people easily & willingly claim knowledge, often with less than 99.9% certainty, and this includes scientists.

So, if you want to partake in epistemological mental masturbation games to make yourself feel intellectually superior, be my guest, everyone needs a hobby. I have kids to raise, a job to attend to & life to live. I can no longer be bothered to argue about laughably remote odds that have no practical effect on my life & are primarily used as ways to distract & deflect from the many, many great arguments that no gods exist.

So no, I'm not an agnostic atheist, nor am I a gnostic atheist, I'm a Practical atheist.

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Here's a chart to help people understand what is meant by "gnostic atheist" & "agnostic atheist".

For anyone that wants to try & use Pascal's Wager to argue the odds:

Demonizing atheists

The term "Atheist" describes a diverse group that includes people from all nationalities & skin colours, it includes capitalists, communists, socialists, fascists & libertarians. It also includes many Buddhists, Hindus, & even many that identify culturally as Jewish, Christian, Catholic & Muslim. I guarantee it includes people you know, even if you don't know they are atheists.

To demonize such a vast group of different people as being immoral is nothing but character assassination & it certainly doesn't prove your religion is right & your god is real.  It's just hateful, bigoted stereotyping.

Judging all atheists by the actions of Stalin's Communist Russia or Pol Pot's fascist regime is akin to judging all theists by the actions of Islamic group ISIS or the Catholic Inquisition. Obviously this is ridiculous since the only connection between all theists is a belief in 1 or more gods & the only connection between all atheists is a disbelief in all gods.

If you are unable to win an argument strictly by arguing for your religion & your god on their own merits, you should learn better arguments; better yet, question the validity of your arguments & whether perhaps you might simply be wrong.

Meme Cards

Anyone that follows me on Twitter (@Atheist_Eh) knows I debate theists a lot.  I found I was often typing essentially the same tweets in response to the same arguments from various theists. I started creating what I refer to as "Meme Cards" to capture these standard responses. Since then I've used it to capture some of my counter-apologetic thoughts. Here's all the Meme Cards I've made to date in no particular order.

Feel free to use them anytime you wish, I just ask you leave the credit in take (no cutting off my name, please).

Guest Meme Cards

On a few occasions I have turned other people's tweets into meme cards or worked in collaboration on an idea: