Everybody Draw Muhammed Day!

On May 20th, cartoonists and everyday people alike will join together in presenting the world with the likeness of Muhammed. Raise your pens and pencils, crayons and quills, and show these fucktards that we aren't scared of their threats, that we understand that might does not make right, and furthermore that free speech is the most important right anyone can ever have!

GO, now, and join the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Everybody-Draw-Mohammed-Day/121369914543425 and get your paper crisp and ready, for in May, we draw in HELL!

Why is Religion A Bad Thing? Part 2: Belief in a Supernatural Claim

Essential to the understanding of my position on religion is that it is not simply Christianity, or Islam, or any other religions for that matter that I am addressing: these arguments can often apply to any supernatural claim. This includes Astrology, Witchcraft, Dousing, and New Age medicine. Keep that in mind as I define "supernatural".

Any time a claim is made about the universe that is not supported by evidence (This doesn't mean that there is necessarily evidence against it, just that there is no evidence FOR it), that is superfluous to our knowledge and understanding of the universe, that takes advantage of vague terms such as "energy" being used in the wrong manner, or that violates a known law of physics without offering a modification to our understanding of that law, it can be called "supernatural".

The moment a person describes their own claim as supernatural, they have show it is false already. Where "super" means "beyond", and natural means "what occurs in the universe as a normal part of operation", anything which can be said to happen, such as a person's consciousness living on after their bodily death as a ghost, is not beyond the natural, it is natural. If it is possible for a dying person to exert will and prevent their "soul" from leaving the "world of the living", then it must be a natural part of the world order. Babies are born, humans digest food, rocks fall when thrown into the air, and dead people's souls can be ghosts. Just another day at the office.

At the core of most supernatural claims is some superfluous something. The soul is an example: we see that humans operate, we see that people are regularly born and function in very similar ways to each other, and we understand that conscious thought is the result of extremely complex interactions between nerve cells in our brains. When you say that there is also this magic copy of our memories and thoughts and personalities that resides inside ourselves and serves only as a back-up of ourselves for when we die that will be able to allow us to live forever, you haven't done anything to explain the world. (I won't go into more detail about souls here, that's a subject for a different post)

Another superfluous claim is that of a deistic god. Instead of starting at what we know (the universe exists) and working backwards to how it got here by learning more, there are those that assume that because we don't have an explanation for the existence of the universe that the first one that is offered must be correct. Occum's Razor quickly disposes of this.

For those that aren't familiar with this term, I'll fill you in. Occum's Razor is a principle of science and philosophy that states "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the right one". In practice, this means stripping superfluous aspects of an explanation, because that which is superfluous has no explaining power. For example, when we are investigating a murder, and it is shown that the murder weapon was a .44 Caliber pistol, it would not help to also state that your uncle had a wart on his left big toe that planted the idea in there murderer's head to use the pistol. It is normal for a person to use a .44 Caliber pistol at hand to be chosen as a murder weapon, and as such it is normal for a murderer to think of such a weapon. It does not help to state that the idea came from the magic wart on your uncle's left big toe, and going out of their way to arrest this wart would be a serious misallocation of government funds. Is it possible that the wart is magic? Sure, I'd say so. But until we find some reason to assume that this is the case, or that this explanation would help progress the investigation, it does not help, and must be discarded as explanation. Its just not practical to lend credence to every claim someone makes when they offer no evidence and the claim doesn't help to explain anything.

So what about if a person decides to spend their own hard-earned money on investigating the properties of telepathic murder-weapon-expert warts? If that is the case, they do have that right. But is it a good thing? Well obviously investigating something like that can be called a waste of money, but after all, it's their money, right? Well yes, and I would never suggest that this should be illegal. However, if I were to walk into a popular bookstore chain and see that the books on Magic Wart Weaponselectionology outnumber books on Criminal Psychology by a 3 to 1 ratio, I would become concerned.

But this is not just some hypothetical scenario. A visit to a Barnes and Noble revealed exactly this in regards to the ratio of Astrology books against Astronomy. This is because there are more people who actually believe that astrology is a science and who are willing to buy books on it than there are people willing to buy books on astronomy. The laws of supply and demand reveal the beliefs of the region, it seems.


I propose that this sort of thing has a majorly ill effect on people. We have, for thousands of years, been developing a reliable standard for determining what we should spend time investigating. We have come to the point quite recently where we first have to establish the testability of a claim before investigating. This is a way to make sure that we don't waste time on hundreds of thousands of possible untestable hypotheses.

Many people who believe in certain supernatural claims call this closed mindedness. But, it was our open-mindedness that led us to come to the point where we realized that we had to filter our hypotheses.

Carl Sagan described the issue the best:
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas … If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you … On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones."

In short, it's good to be open minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out.

Essay: Why I Am An Atheist

I'm not posting this essay merely for the sake of my readers (Read: both of you) but for the forum on Richard Dawkins.net However, you are obviously free to read it and comment on it, and as always I appreciate comments and will reply to as many of them as I can.

Why I Am an Atheist (or Why I Am Not a Theist)

The title of this paper is meant to bring to light a very big difference between theism and atheist. Atheism, at least based on its roots, does not mean “One who believes that god does not exist”. Instead, it means “one who does not believe any god exists”. It follows, then, that one does not need a reason to be an atheist, since as an atheist you are not actually carrying a belief, and instead one must explain why you are or are not a theist. In order to present to you a better understanding of the distinction between the two claims, and to help relate more of my views on the nature and definition of atheism, I will use an analogy. I shall call it the “god mittens” analogy to make it easier to reference.

The analogy is as follows. Imagine a boy. He is a normal boy, and, as one would expect, has two hands. On his hands, he may wear mittens. These mittens may be one of several colors. He may also decide not to wear any mittens. In my analogy, each color of mitten is a different religion. Red might be Islam, yellow is Christianity, and Judaism is blue, just to stick to the major monotheistic religions, of which I am most familiar, and the primary colors of pigment. Another boy is not wearing any gloves, however. Many opponents of atheism like to entertain the notion that atheism is a religion, when in fact it is merely the absence of a religion. In my analogy, the boy wearing no mittens is a placeholder for an atheist, who believes in no god. The fact that atheism is not a religion can be further demonstrated by citing a rather humorous idiom, whose author I do not know.

“Saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair color. Now excuse me while I return to my hobby of not collecting stamps.”

I will also cite the definition from the American Heritage Dictionary, which shows that religion is the belief in the supernatural or in some specific powers of creation.

Religion (n)

1.

• Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

• A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.

Atheism, in and of itself, cannot be called a religion, simply for the fact that it does not imply or automatically associate itself with any supernatural beliefs, or any beliefs at all. While many atheists do have some belief regarding the origin or government of the universe, this is not a trait of atheism, but of individuals who are interested in such aspects of the universe. Furthermore, I insist that religion must involve faith, or belief in spite of evidence.

Faith is a more difficult issue, and is involved more in the actual reason why I am not a theist. The doctrine of faith is largely religious. It is religion’s glue, the thing that makes religious belief possible. The basic doctrine of faith, from what I understand, is as follows.

• Because one cannot disprove something, it must be considered equal to things that are true, because they cannot be disproven either.

• If something is not provable, but you still believe it, it is a virtue to believe it.

• Faith does not require evidence. If evidence arises to contradict one’s faith, you do not have to change your faith to fit the new evidence.

• Furthermore, it is generally best to attempt to alter facts to fit your faith.

• The spreading of faith to other people is even more virtuous than holding on to one’s own faith.

• If you have faith in something, you can ignore evidence as you see fit.

• On that note, one cannot disprove a faith claim, because one with faith holds onto it no matter what, so as to be a model faith-holder.

• If you attempt to disprove a faith claim, then either the holder is personally offended, or you are met with a refusal to listen.

• In short, faith is simply a combination of “I think this is true, and you can’t make me stop believing it. LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” and “How dare you question my faith!”

This is just a general outline, and not every object on that list will be common to every holder of faith. However, these seem to be the main tenets of religious faith, and I will use that outline when I refer to faith. The main trait of faith that I wish to focus on is that of the lack of requirement of evidence. When the ideal scientist holds an idea, we can trace the idea back to its source: observation. Science continues with a bit of thought, the development of a hypothesis, the design of an experiment, and the carrying out of said experiment. Finally, the results are put in a journal to be reviewed and scrutinized by other scientists, and other evidence is examined to see if it fits the conclusion. In faith, however, evidence is not required. It is the belief without requirement of evidence, and as such we can't use evidence to try to invalidate it. Instead, we have to convince the holder of the faith claim to look at the source of the belief. When one believes in a religion, they do so for one of 5 major reasons.

1. Childhood Indoctrination.

2. Convinced Conversion.

3. Extraordinary Events

4. Emotional/Relationship Reasons

5. Personal Revelation

I'll start by detailing childhood indoctrination. This tends to be the most controversial object on this list, primarily because of how sinister its implications are.

1. Childhood Indoctrination

When a person is young, they have a mind "like a sponge". Anything you tell them will be assumed to be true, and for good reason. In fact, evolution predicts exactly that: when a child is young, there just isn't enough time for them to learn to stay away from wolves through trial and error. It is far more effective to tell a child that they will be eaten if they go too near a wolf and have the child believe exactly that. Religious belief is usually established in the same way. When you tell a child that a god, let’s use Yahweh as our example, exists, or even talk about Yahweh as if he exists, the child will feel that they "know" that he exists. One can make the argument that we do exactly this with Santa Claus, but there is a demonstrable difference: we don't offer a punishment for not believing in Santa. I'd imagine that telling a child to stay away from wolves without explaining that they would be eaten would be less effective at keeping the child away from wolves than if they had such a punishment. Likewise, I'd expect that if you were to tell a child that if they don't believe in Santa they will get no presents, they would be more likely to believe in Santa longer. I don't just mean that they would pretend to believe, either, because if you say that Santa always knows if little girls and boys believe he exists, the child will retain the belief out of a subconscious control over what they believe.

To further my point, I'd like for the reader to join me in a thought experiment. Imagine a person telling their child that if they don't believe in Santa Claus, they will burn in Hell at Christmas. Of course, I don't condone the practical implementation of such an experiment, that's why we're performing a thought experiment. I would expect the child in our thoughts to believe well into their teenage years, but stop around high school age, especially if they meet other children who don't believe in Santa Claus. These children don't burn in hell at Christmas, so why would I? For this reason, we must adjust the experiment. Now the child is told that after it dies, it will be given an abundance of presents in the Christmassy Afterlife as long as they believe in Santa Claus, but if they do not, then they will go to a hellish, coal-filled afterlife filled with pain and torment where they will be in unbearable, inescapable pain for all eternity. We also add that the others who don’t believe are agents of Ogd, a person that was once one of Santa’s elves and then went bad. (“Ogd” is an anagram of “God”, just as “Santa” is an anagram of “Satan”, for humorous value only.) I expect that our thought-child would believe for a very long time. However, there is still one small detail that must be remedied if we want the child to believe for his entire life: we must make sure that we're not the only one telling them all this. We have to isolate the child from exposure to opposing versions of Santa. We can also show him a book that supports our claims. In the end, the child will likely still believe in Santa up until their death.

I hope you see what parallel I am trying to draw. We do exactly this with religious faith. You may say that this is just an extreme example, that no one scares their child like that. But remember that you are still talking about god, even if you don't try to convince the child of it. If the child hears you talking about god in the same way you would talk to anyone else, or if they see you praying, they will put two and two together. Furthermore, if you never talk about hell, the child will likely still learn about it from school, church, or books and television.

The big problem with childhood indoctrination is that if the child goes to church every Sunday, reads their holy book, etc. they will have what they believe to be the "fact” of god drilled so deeply into their heads that they will be unable to believe anything else except in a few instances, when scientific explanations for their existence are at hand, or when they realize that the whole of their belief is the result of their upbringing, and has no bearing on what is actually true.

2. Convinced Conversion

This is a bit simpler to explain, and as such won’t be quite as long-winded as the explanation and critique of childhood indoctrination. Convinced Conversion is when a person is convinced through words or violence to convert to another belief. Instances of such conversion are awfully rare now, because most people can’t be forced to convert to another religion, even if they pretend to believe the new religion. There is one form that is oddly common today, though, and that is marriage arrangement. Some people are so made that when they marry a person of another religion, they will leave their own and join their spouse’s. This is probably the strangest reason for being a part of a religion, because it involves oneself either pretending or really becoming a part of another religion. When I hear stories like this, I can’t help but wonder about the thought process involved.

3. Extraordinary Events

This reason is far less common today than it would presumably have been a few hundred years ago. When the average person sees something that they can’t explain, they will usually accept the first explanation they come across. A person visiting Alaska in 1903 might have seen the northern lights, and if they had a religious slant, would likely assume it was a sign from their god. While we now know that the northern lights, an example of an aurora, are the result of charged particles interacting with the atmosphere, a person without this knowledge would readily embrace a supernatural explanation.

Sadly, even in our modern society, there are people who are too ready to jump the gun and accept a supernatural explanation for extraordinary occurrences. The only people who don’t are the rationalists, who prefer to wait for an explanation that fits snugly in with the evidence. And yet a select few are genuinely convinced that the occurrence (or perceived occurrence) of an incredible event is evidence, or even proof of the existence of their god.

4. Trauma

This reason for religious faith is often the one that garners the most emotional reaction. An emotionally scarring event occurs in a person’s life, and a religious person is there to comfort them, and the comforter encourages the traumatized individual to join in their religious faith. There is little I can say about this, because these individuals are usually the most ardent followers of their religion.

5. Personal Revelation

Once the territory of ancient prophets, personal revelation is a very interesting, but not wholly convincing, reason for religious faith. This is likely responsible for the biggest changes to religious doctrines in the world, especially the tenets of the Catholic Church. Personal Revelation can be summed up in the phrase “I know because it was revealed to me.” While this is rarely a reason for the initiation of faith, it can be a large source of strength in religious conviction.

My list is hardly complete, and is only meant to highlight the few reasons that are most common. There could be some that I missed, and if there are, I apologize for the omission.

Hopefully I have given some idea of how religious faith starts. Now, I will go over why this is important, and how it effects deconversion to atheism. When a person has a religion, since their belief cannot be challenged with evidence, the only way to convince them that their faith is wrong is by getting them to understand why they hold it to begin with. Many people do not know the reason, and those that do often see nothing wrong with it. This realization was very important in my deconversion.

My Deconversion

This is simply an anecdote showing how I became an atheist. It’s a bit long, and fairly in-depth, but is the main point of this paper.

I was born into a Christian family. It is not accurate to say that I was born a Christian, because at birth, I had no religion. I was an atheist at birth, and no baby is different. I know that I went to church every Sunday at least until I was 12. I have a few specific memories of my early life as a Christian. I remember discussing Noah’s Ark with my cousin, Kate, going to Sunday school where the teachers would tell parables with little wooden figures in glass sandboxes, and becoming old enough to take communion. I remember begging to put a quarter in the offering tray that was passed around the sanctuary, going to Vacation Bible School every summer, and even helping out with it one year. I have very specific memory of the Ash Wednesday services, when my family would go to church after school and get a cross drawn on our foreheads. It was very embarrassing to be seen like that, and I avoided people’s gaze afterwards whenever possible. Some Sundays, someone else would be baptized, and I would get jealous, especially when I knew the person. I always wanted to be baptized, and finally, when I was about 11 or 12, I took the class required for baptism. I did awful, because I never did the homework. (Yes, we had to do homework for the class!)

Life as a Christian was fairly comfortable. I was like most young Christians, I didn’t ask many questions, I didn’t always want to go to church, and I subscribed to the notion that an atheist was a person who “hated god”.

When I was about 11 was when I first began to explore the internet. However, it was in 2004 at age 12 that I first posted on a message board. It was the CountingDown.com message board for the Dragon Ball Z film, and I was quick on catching on to the level of discourse involved in discussions about movies with like-aged individuals. Eventually, I discovered a computer program called Game Maker, and that led me to the Game maker Community, a large forum devoted to the program. I spent much of my time in the summer on that board, but grew tired of the lack of variety in discussion. In 2005 I joined the stickpage.com forum, and that was just about the most life-changing event in my entire life. Here was a small animation forum where one could actually know most of the members well. Better than that, however, was the fact that most of its user base was just there for the community, and didn’t animate at all. This became my home that fall. Eventually, I was led to the Debate section. I knew what debate was, or so I thought. It was when two smart guys in suits stood at podiums and argued kindly. Well, debating on stickpage was much different than that. We had lots of members active in a debate at a time, often insulted each other, and caused a lot of internet drama. The first topic I posted was called “For those who have read A Brief History of Time…”, and it detailed a postulate I had presented to a friend involving the travel to another universe where one could control everything, and essentially BE god. It was a really silly proposition, but I took it seriously, and it became the main source of my faith in God for a long time.

My first religion thread was “My Views on the Bible and Christianity, a topic posted by a member named Jevon, who has long since left. Jevon was an atheist, and so were many other members, so I was astonished at some of the things people said. At this point, I began to fervently defend my religion. I worked long and hard, developing quite a reputation as one of the most essential defenders of the bible on the site.

Time flew by, and my knowledge grew. I finally read the bible cover-to-cover in June and July of 2006. As my knowledge of the bible grew, so did my understanding of science. It was inevitable that I would notice the contradiction, but I was able to write it off under the intelligent design explanation.

In all this time, however, I still doubted occasionally. I entertained the notion that god may not exist here and there, but never very seriously; it was mainly just a form of curiosity.

In the later summer of 2006, I caught myself using an argument that I knew was horribly fallacious against another member in a debate, and although I came out on top, I still didn’t feel victorious. I ignored it, however, and quickly resumed my vigorous arguments.

In 2007, on the 11^th of January, the members of the stickpage forums performed a “raid” of a hardcore Christian forum called “Dare2Share”, which is now gone. Many of us made accounts on the site and spammed it with shock images, blasphemous posts, and generally bad stuff as a kind of game. One member of Dare2Share posted a message warning other users of the “invasion of evil atheists” and I responded saying that I was actually a Christian, but I hated blindly-held faith. The user asked me how I was any different, and I realized then that I wasn’t. I held onto my belief as blindly as any other theist might. “Because of an event that affirmed my faith”, I lied.

A week later, I was sitting in my art class and another person in my class named Blaise Salazar (I am reminded of Blaise Pascal) was talking to one of his friends. I overheard him say “Judith”. This rang a very big bell. I had been listening to a band called A Perfect Circle for well over a year, and one song, Judith, was heavily blasphemous. When I first heard the song, I really got into it, but was taken aback when the line “Fuck your God” came up. I had avoided the song from then on, but now Blaise mentions the song, and I ask him if it’s Judith by A Perfect Circle.

He says “Yeah, what, do you like APC?”

“Yeah, it’s one of my favorite bands.” I respond.

“Cool. Well our band’s going to be playing it at the battle of the bands.” He motions to his friend.

“So, are you going to censor it or anything, or what?”

“No, we’re going to just gonna go out and say ‘Fuck your God’ on stage.”

I chuckled and returned to my artwork. Well, it turns out they never did play at the Battle of the Bands, but this event got wheels turning in my head. Later that day, I went home and I listened to Judith again, and I was mortified.

I loved it. A lot. And that scared me. It was blasphemy! How could I actually enjoy a song like that? No matter how much I tried to hate it, I couldn’t help myself. I listened to it again. It was like a drug, I loved it, even though I knew I shouldn’t. But I did, and I kept listening. I finally stopped it, and I froze. What if I go to hell for this?

“But wait”, I thought to myself. “Why the heck would god get mad about that?”

Suddenly, something clicked in my head. All that I had learned in my Ancient World History class, all my debating on stickpage, all these little pieces clicked together.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I suddenly thought “Hey, maybe god doesn’t exist?” At first I was dumbfounded. What’s that got to do with this? Then it hit me.

I didn’t really believe in god. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know what made it visible, but suddenly, right then, I realized that I was actually an atheist.

The world began to dissolve. I was going to hell! There’s no saving me now! I just thought the unthinkable, and now there’s no turning back!

“But wait”, said my internal dialogue. “You aren’t going to hell; you’re rotting in the ground like everyone else, right?”

“Well yeah,” I replied to myself. “But I don’t know that! What if I’m wrong?”

“Well, then you go to hell. But that doesn’t mean it’s right to think it, does it? After all, you can’t MAKE yourself believe.” (This, in case you don’t know, is Pascal’s Wager. If you don’t believe in god and you are wrong, then you go to hell. If you are right, then nothing happens. If you believe in god and are wrong, then nothing happens, and if you’re right, you go to heaven. The obvious choice is belief, right? But this ignores the fact that there are other gods to which this can apply, and the fact that you can’t MAKE yourself believe like that. It also pretends that religious faith will have no ill effects on your life.)

“Hey, that’s right! But wait, how do I not believe in God? What motivation for life do I have? What purpose do I have in life?” I was desperate.

“Who says you need a purpose?” I answered my own question.

“Why don’t you just kill yourself if you have no purpose?” The thought came through, even though I knew it seemed dangerous.

That was a novel idea. “Why DO I keep living? I asked myself. “If god doesn’t exist, then why keep on living?”

This stopped me for a moment. Then I realized that I wanted to finish my book, I Am Legend. And I had a crush on a girl, and if I killed myself, I’d never see the fruits of being with her. And I had friends that would hate it if I killed myself, also. I also wanted to see the Halo film sometime.

I realized that I didn’t need some purpose to keep living. Terrestrial reasons are good enough. Plus, suicide would be a big bother. Going through the process of killing me just wasn’t very convenient.

“So… You don’t believe in god now. You’re an atheist?” I was still testing the waters.

“Yes. I am an atheist. Now let’s go make an argument against religion. That’ll be funny.”

So I did just that.

Someone, I forget who, saw this post and asked me about it. “Hey, aren’t you a Christian?” they asked.

“Not anymore, now I’m an atheist. I realized my stance was bullshit.” I said. And from then on it was so, and I never looked back.

This story is not necessarily unique among atheists, but neither is it prevalent. Other atheists, such as Julia Sweeney, became atheists after a long search for God. Some become atheists after a major tragedy in their life, or witnessing an event or piece of evidence that suggests God doesn’t exist. Still others don’t become atheists, they merely stay atheists from birth onward.

My last statement might need some explaining. I am aware that this might be a controversial thing to say, but to understand the nature of atheism it is important to say. Earlier in this essay we looked at an analogy for religious faith that I called the “God Mittens” analogy. In it, religion is compared to mittens, while atheism is merely the lack of mittens. One obvious aspect of the analogy has to do with birth. A newborn baby has no mittens at birth, and as such is born “amitteny”, that is, without mittens. This logic applies to atheism as well. Babies are born without any belief in god, and therefore are atheists, where atheism is exactly that: “The lack of belief in a deity.” Many argue that a baby is too young to have developed any religious belief, and therefore it is inaccurate to say they are atheists, but does the fact that a baby is too young to have worn mittens make it inaccurate to say that it is mittenless? By this same token, any person who has never seen a mitten is still mittenless.

I choose the analogy of mittens because I know that religion keeps some people warm. Atheism alone doesn’t do anything to help a person survive the bitter iciness of the world. But along with atheism, we have something else: science. Atheism combined with science is like a fingerless glove in my mitten analogy. It may not keep you quite as warm as mittens do, but you are given far more freedom to move your fingers, to grasp oddly-shaped concepts that mittens restrict you from. Anyone who has tried to perform a complex task with mittens will agree that it is difficult, because you are forced to move your fingers in unison with little variation, and little allowance for individual movement. Religion is the same way: individual thought is usually discouraged. People are supposed to accept something as true and not question it, lest they change their mind.

Atheism is bittersweet. It may pain you to know that you will never see a dead relative or friend again. But is it not worse to go to a place of eternal worship and supposed bliss, knowing that others have gone to a place of eternal torment? Islam teaches people this. Many denominations of Christianity teach people this as well. Atheism teaches nothing of the sort, because you cannot directly associate any beliefs with atheism, except the lack of belief in a god.

The idea that there is no afterlife has a massive positive effect though. If you only focus on the life you have right now, the one that you know you really have, then it becomes all the more important.

Noted astronomer and popularize of science Carl Sagan once said

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

Indeed, I wish the same thing Carl does sometimes. That I will not have the chance to continue my pursuit of knowledge after I die is indeed a sad thought, but it gives me the strength to cherish my life while it lasts, and to be more relentless in my consumption of knowledge, that I might help others after me do the same more easily.

Life is a constant effort to give more to the next generation, to prolong their lives, to make thought easier, to provide more freedom. I will die thankful that I was able to attempt to aid the pursuit of such a goal, one that has no end, but may always be worked towards.

I will close this essay with an excerpt from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, a book that has taken the place of devotional literature in my life since I became an atheist. It is a book that explains where our place in the universe is, and is a perfect example of beauty in scientific literature. In this excerpt, Carl is talking about an image known as the “pale blue dot picture”, a photograph of the Earth taken from 6 billion kilometers away, beyond the dwarf planet Pluto.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe:, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

This Essay is dedicated to Carl Sagan, Douglas Adams, and George Carlin

I think you’re all up there, smiling down on us. Or not.