The Atheist Blogger

So The Atheist Jew reckons he can tag me eh? Fair play, fair play. Here are my answers to the 10 questions:

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

Atheism is the philosophical view that there are no gods. Whether you class this view as a belief or disbelief is up to semantics. I personally refer to it as both.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

I was brought up in a Christian family with my father, mother, sister, and grandmother. I went to two Church of England primary schools as a child, although I don’t remember visiting church much at all. One humourous story is that when I was 3 my grandfather died, and I asked my mother why he wasn’t coming back from hospital. She told me “he’s gone up to heaven”. I apparently remarked “Well can’t we just get a really long ladder and visit?”. The first stages of rationalism or a cute response? You decide.

At age 11 I went to a grammar school that is situated outside the tallest cathedral in the country. It was there that I shook free the chains of religion.

Out of the remaining family (my gran died 3 years ago), my mother is still theist and she works at the cathedral in the education centre. My sister could be described as agnostic / apatheist, and my father has only just revealed to me that he is also an atheist / agnostic.

That was a rather long answer wasn’t it.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

I hate to copy people, but there really is only one word for it:

Creationism

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

Artificial Intelligence, especially in robotics. A few years ago science got a robot to teach itself to walk, and there was a great video from last years TED where Hod Lipson shows off his “self aware” robots.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

Make us evolve into a species that have wings so we can (a) have the irony of looking like angels to all the theists, and (b) give them a visual example of “macro-evolution” which they’d have to be completely ignorant to reject.

Plus, we’d have some kickass wings.

In all seriousness, I would prefer it if all the atheists in the world came out and voiced their beliefs. Whilst some people in certain areas feel threatened by theism and do not wish to reveal their true nature, it’s not going to get any better on it’s own. The only way to get people to understand is to get out there, reject gods openly, and prove that atheists are good moral people.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

“Does this mean I have to start celebrating Easter again?”

In short, I’m not sure what I’d say. Hopefully I’d keep an open mind about the entire thing.

Q7. What’s your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

Pascal’s Wager, since it comes up in every single conversation even though it’s so easily refutable. In most cases it works out better to be an atheist anyway. I don’t think I have to tell anyone reading this how to refute it, but if you still think it’s a valid argument watch this video by Atheist Experience.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I got a lot of negative responses to my argument that atheism was both a disbelief of gods and a belief in no gods. I still stand by it since I think it is both correct and logical, however it does depends how you define a number of things. Other than that, I got a few negative comments for my defense of Rob Shermer when he supposedly made racist comments.

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Out of the four, I have books from three of them (Dawkins, Hitchens, & Harris), however I have only read Richard Dawkins’ books and have yet to read the others, so I’m pretty biased in that respect. I do like Harris’ arguments in “The God Who Wasn’t There” though.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Pat Robertson since he is probably one of the most powerful attackers of atheism / secularism out there, although it would be humourous to convince Fred Phelps.

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet:

Kieran Bennett, Drunk in Ontario, and Friendly Atheist (assuming he hasn’t been tagged before…he hasn’t answered the questions on his blog so I assume he wasn’t…)