Today, my sister posted this image on her Facebook page:


After seeing it, I felt so inclined to express my thoughts. What follows is the full conversation I had on this topic with one of my cousin’s (by marriage) and one of my sister’s coworkers. I have removed all of the names, except mine (because I’m all egotistical that way) since they did not consent to having their names put up here.


Michael Tice:

it is not so much a lack of belief in god, it is a lack of physical, quantifiable evidence to show the exist of a supreme being. if anyone were to ever find actually proof in the existence of a supreme being, and I mean something more than just “faith,” then I would have to change my belief system, that is how it works.

why don’t we switch it around, though?

Ganesha does not believe in christians, therefore christians do not exist.

What exactly makes your god better than any of the hindu gods?

or the norse gods?

you lack justifiable proof for the existence of them, therefore you do not believe in them.

what is the difference between that and going one god further?

Female Cousin:

Sister, I love this marque, I would think that after your mom almost dying and also myself, I truly believe in God and prayer, I hope Mike figures this out…..

Sister’s co-worker:

Better…worse…Just reading the sign doesn’t state any god is better than any other. In fact it doesn’t have a definition of which god it’s talking about.

As you stated I can find “proof” of atheists so I don’t have to believe in them. They are right in front of me. So while Ganesha may not believe in me he should at least go around my cart in the grocery store or he might bump himself on it by accident for not “believing” it’s there.

I’m not sure the sign was indicating that any god or panthon was “better” than another. As by definition Atheists by definition have no god or panthon.

As to faith…well it’s a little like being a being in love you know it when you got it. If you were looking for a concrect answer that’s not really what religion is about. Hence the term Atheist for people that aren’t interested.

Michael Tice:

a marquee at palm heights baptist church is definitely picking a specific religion.

as for faith, you compare it to being in love? when we are in love with someone, our bodies actually produce dopamine in response to being around and with that person, hence the euphoric feeling we receive from thinking about them and being in their presence. it is something based in science. this is also why love fades over time. we build up a resistance to the dopamine, and therefore our euphoric feeling leaves us over time.

now, let us look at the definition of the word faith: firm belief in something for which there is no proof

have you heard about the teapot? there is a teapot that orbits between the earth and mars, but we do not have instruments strong enough to detect the existence of the teapot. do you have faith in the teapot? what is the difference?

Female Cousin, as for your talk of prayer saving people, that belittles the medical professionals who save people’s lives every single day. if you are EVER going to thank anybody, you should always thank the person who does something for you, not a supreme being, and i don’t care if you are religious or not. thank god you are alive? no, you should start by thanking your parents and work your way up.

Sister’s co-worker:

Wups! I didn’t zoom in on the pic. I just saw the thumb-nail view that really shows off the back-lit part

Female Cousin:

Mike, I never said that prayer saves people, only God can do that, and I thank God for doctors but there are some things that doctors can’t even fix, as for myself, my doctors even said to me that “you should be dead” , we don’t know why you’re still alive. In this case Mike even my doctors acknowledged that something other than themselves “healed” me. In my prayers everyday I always do Thank God for everything he’s given me including my parents, doctors, life and mostly breath. Can you explain to me how you can breathe if you can’t see it, smell it, or feel it, you can maybe see, smell and feel the effects of it, then how does your body breathe in air that really doesn’t exist because if you don’t believe in something you can’t see (faith) then how in the world do we all exist.

Sister’s co-worker:

If one loves their god would it not have the same response?

I think your teapot argument may be flawed in that I COULD possibly go and find said teapot (if it exists in the first place). Most atheists would argue that you can’t ever “find” god as doesn’t exist. For the purposes of this discussion it does not matter as I don’t own a space ship (I wish).

Does this mean that you only believe in things you have seen and done yourself? With this in mind how did you learn anything in school. Almost by definition you would have to believe the things people taught you in the classroom. You would have had to believe someone about the existence of atoms. While I have never seen one I believe they exist. My understanding is that scientists can find evidence of atoms but can’t actually see one just yet. Lots of science is like this. It’s why they call them theories because they are subject to change as new evidence comes along. Different scientists have different theories and they get together and argue about them at conferences. Sounds a bit like religion to me.

Most preachers claim to have evidence of God. They haven’t actually seen him either (at least most claim they haven’t). At what point would you have to be convinced that HE exists. I could make an argument that perhaps preachers/religion shouldn’t be quite so certain that they have the whole God picture yet either.

The point to that long discussion is that one has to make those decisions about what to believe for themselves. I evaluate what I’ve seen, heard and learned from others and make a decision. You speak as if all people that believe in God only have what I would term “blind faith”. That is faith without critical though and adequate reflection.

In the past science and religion weren’t that far apart. It is only in modern times that they are seen as at odds with each other. Gregor Mendel, father of genetics, was an Augustinian priest. Sir Francis Bacon, inventor of the scientific method, Isaac Newton, uh…gravity are all reported to be people that have a believe in a god. Einstein expressed it as: “God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.” While I didn’t meet those people personally I have some faith in the reports that were recorded about their lives and beliefs.

Be nice to other and try not to shove something that you believe on others. Female Cousin can thank whomever she wishes (parents included). You were the person that started this discussion about faith. Try not to hurt others that aren’t hurting you. While you may not have their beliefs it seems like an adult thing to do to respect that others may not have your beliefs. Isn’t that what some of your first post was about?

Female Cousin:

Thanks Sister’s co-worker

Sister:

Well put, I’ve used the things you learn in school with my kid, she turned around and used this against my brother one day, sorry bro. I think the discussion of why do apes still exist “if” we evolved from them came up too…

I have to interject for a moment here, I had a brief conversation with my sister on google talk about this part, she told me she was just stirring up shit, Thanks.

Michael Tice:

learn evolution before you start saying we evolved from apes. we did not evolve from them, we share a common ancestor.

lets look at evolution this way. you have a sibling, your sibling has children and you have children. when your siblings child has kids of their own, they are not going to produce a child like the one that your children will. but, despite all of this, you and your siblings, and all of your children share a common ancestor in your parents. that is how we are related to apes, not because we evolved from them but because we share a common ancestor. now, this common ancestor may have looked more ape like, it may have looked more human like, but more than likely it did not look anything like either modern day humans or apes.

you want proof of evolution in an extremely short period of time? read about this experiment:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

how did i learn anything in school? well, when you take a science class in school you do experiments. through this you learn about the scientific method. from the scientific method we show how our hypothesis become a theory and is therefore proven as true.

i am using the proper scientific definition of a theory, not the one that most christians like to bandy about. that is actually a hypothesis.

as for what we learned in school but did not experiment on, you can still get the research that other scientists have performed, and if you feel so inclined repeat their experiments for yourself.

the concept of the teapot is a thought experiment to show that you cannot say something exists just because you have faith in it.

now, you are probably going to start throwing history out, right? if we didnt experience any of the parts of history, how do we know they are true? Well, it is very true that history is a lie agreed upon by fools. We cannot say for certain that a lot of the specifics of what we call history are true, simply because we have to go by what others have written, BUT, we do know that the world as we know it today would not exist if certain things in history had not happend. if gaius julius had not crossed the rubicon and crowned himself caesar. if william the conqueror had not crossed the english channel and started the norman conquest of england. these had to happen.

jesus, on the other hand, is not a historical necessity. there is no need for a person like that to have existed for the world as we know it to exist.

in fact, lets look at where this whole jesus concpet comes from. the story of jesus was first told by saul of tarsus, who later became the apostle paul. the thing about the stories saul told, they did not include the virgin birth, asking questions of the teachers in the temple during passover as a boy, riding into bethelem on an ass, the betrayal, and most of what christians believe to be the story of jesus. in fact, saul’s stories were about a man who said he was the son of god, died, and was resurrected in 3 days, but was NEVER alive and in the “earthly” realm. saul’s stories all took place in the realm of the gods! why don’t they teach that in church?

what it all boils down to is this: i do not believe in any supreme being because there is no evidence to support the existence of one. you are free to believe all you want, but you have no right to try and push your beliefs on me, in much the same way i have no right to push my lack of belief on you. the above, posted by me, is not my attempt to push my lack of beliefs on you, but my attempt to show you why i do not believe, and nothing more. i do not consider the people who follow religion to be idiots, i consider the existence of religion itself to be utter idiocy.

The Lenski experiment I linked to up there? That thing is awesome. I just learned about it while reading The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. Go get it and read it, it is worth every penny.

Sister’s co-worker:

Why didn’t you just post you last paragraph first and save us a lot of time (and space)?

Michael Tice:

Female Cousin, i missed your post, i never said that i dont believe in anything that i cannot see. i said that i need quantifiable proof that something exists. i can use that air that i cannot see to blow up a balloon, therefore that shows that air has mass and takes up space.

if you try to go by the “what you can see” analogy, then i technically shouldn’t believe in my feet right now. oh, i can feel that they are there, but i can’t see them because of my shoes and desk! science doesn’t work that way, and nor do i.

Michael Tice:

Sister’s co-worker, where is the fun in that?

Sister’s co-worker:

I just had lunch with your sister and she said that you always had to have the last word. Is that true?

Female Cousin:

Mike, If you fill a balloon with air then you see the effects the air produces by filling the balloon, not the air but whatever, feel free to believe or not believe whatever you’d like.

I just don’t understand, and I don’t think I ever will. Maybe I just need to stop trying to make heads or tails (tales?) out of what the christians say and just got on with my life.