"A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he though God's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about God, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's.
Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence.
The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so." -- Richard Dawkins, following a list of excerpts from hate mail sent to the editor of Freethought Today, after she won a separationist court battle, in "A Challenge To Atheists: Come Out of the Closet" (Free Inquiry, Summer, 2002) paragraph division added
Of Teapots and the Tooth Fairy
by AK - Jeff 8 Replies latest jw friends
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AK - Jeff
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freeflyingfaerie
That makes total sense~ saying you don't believe in something that cannot be proven anyway~ that could be any countless number of ideas out there making 'a-' anythings all over the place, because the human ideas and beliefs are just endless.
But there ARE Faeries
...and Mermaids~
...and Unicorns...
...in my world
~Faerie~
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Ri
Some people are just bitter and hate is in their heart ...hard to change a cold heart
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cofty
Some people are just bitter and hate is in their heart ...hard to change a cold heart - Ri
I agree.
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Satanus
Hehe, that was funny (the dawkins clip). So, atheists live in house, have cats, have nice glowing fireplaces and friends. Imagine that:)
S
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unshackled
If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it.
Yep, or as Ricky put it...
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AK - Jeff
Gervais makes an excellent point.
When I sit in a group of my friends, and I am the only proclaimed atheist in the group, I feel like I am being asked to prove that God is not real. I have very little interest in seeking to convince them of that - particularly since I know that you can only be convinced by personal investigation/thought on the matter. And it SHOULD be the believer's job to prove that god is real. Yet they rarely provide anything more than some anectdotal 'well, I feeeeeel him in my heart'.
Jeff
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Terra Incognita
Freeflyingfaerie: "But there ARE Faeries "
There once was a fictional detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes. He was the kind of fellow who would whip out an oversize magnifying glass, analyze a cat's hair and cry out, "Elementary, my Dear Watson". One would assume that the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels was an intelligent and knowledgeable man himself. After all, how could a writer create a fictional character more intelligent and knowledgeable than he?
The author of the Sherlock Holmes detective novels was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was a man of many interests and actually investigated two real life cases in which he succeeded in exonerating the accused. But we all have our foibles and intelligent people can believe in some very things. Like the invisible return of Jesus in 1914. Well that's another story so let's get back to Conan Doyle.
After the deaths of his dearly beloved wife; his son and brother; two nephews and two brothers in law; Conan Doyle fell into a deep depression. He desperately wanted to find out if there was proof of life after death. He adopted spiritualism as his religion. The spiritualism he adopted had a belief in the existence of practically every being from the N th dimension. They included Divas, nature spirits, elementals (gnomes, ondines, sylphs and salamanders) and last, but not least, faeries.
When Conan Doyle adopted the teachings of Theosophy he bought into the whole schlock. Then one day, he ran into some pictures taken by two teenage girls with an early 20th century vintage camera. These girls, as you shall soon see, must have had a lot of time on their hands. To them it was a lot of fun until their pictures got into the hands of the creator of that astoundingly hyper logical detective.
Soon Conan Doyle wrote another book. This book, unlike his detective novels, would sink into the underworld of books long dead. Why? Just a hint. He was dead serious about proving the existence of those wee, dainty, floating critters who rose from the swamp of theosophy's imagination. And what would you guess his evidence was? Read it and weep.
You can get the book for free from this PDF. Or, if you are in desperate of a gag gift, you can purchase it from Amazon.com real cheap.
Now please show these pictures to people on the street
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and tell them that they have to be agnostic about them.
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freeflyingfaerie
Terra Incognita~ Yes, and there are other books also about people's beliefs in the realness of the fae ...and a llittle movie "Fairy Tale a True Story" based on that very fairy story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
I hope you know I am playful about mermaids, faeries, fantasy...
It makes me happy to have play in life and imagine
