Success Story
Offline I've been a bit absent from these forums for a little while, much to the misfortune of the rest of you. I am quite charming, after all. My apologies.
Anyway, I thought it valuable to announce that I have more or less embraced atheism as one aspect of my belief system. I do still subscribe to quite a few beliefs that people in these forums would ridicule, but so be it. Overall, I feel that I have no option as a thinking person but to embrace reason and logic. For my conversion I have to thank mostly Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (to whom, btw, I posed a question by email to which he responded in probably less than 15 minutes. I was extremely flattered, impressed, and grateful). I've not had the genuine affection and respect for a straight guy like I have for him in a long time. That's not to say, however, that my discussions on here haven't been immensely influential to my growth and understanding on these matters.
I'm sure no one really cares about this post, but I think it's Right to give credit where credit is due. So there it is.
Ryan
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If it makes you happy, gratz.
I have had similar experiences when someone who is at least locally famous will give me a personal reply to a question. It is always impressive. Even more so when that someone is globally famous. I'm glad you are comfortable where you are today.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Good to have you back. That would be very cool - getting communication from the man himself. It's personally interesting too, because today I have the shits with Hitchens and Dawkins. Not for being who they are or taking the positions they have but for being popular enough to become such easy targets for the godly. What is pissing me off is relentless appeals to denigration of atheism through the popularity of these two. As if their popularity - such as it is - somehow annuls the veracity of their arguments.
Repeatedly, when reading about atheism in the press, these 2 names come up, following by references to militant atheists or sneering secularists. I know these arguments by christian commentators are no more than cognitive shortcuts in feeble human brains designed by evolution to see living things in every inanimate shadow but it's a shame. I fantasise about some mental giant able to put our entire case coherently, based on what facts there are, with an open algorithm to encompass everything we are yet to know and to do so without the foaming emotion of the God Delusion or Why God is Not Great. Just for the record, I own both these books and enjoyed them, for the most part.
As I've said before, I think Dawkins' best work was Ancestor's Tale, but you don't get christians reading a reverse engineering of evolution in 800 sedimentary pages.
P.S. Welcome to phase 2 of godlessness.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Rest assured that your charm is something that can make the sky turn neon pink with love and adoration...
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The interesting thing about atheism is that it simply means "lack of belief in a God". You don't actually have to give up the whole spirituality component of life.
Btw, I lied! I've never actually traveled outside of the US. I simply pretended to so that I could slip out of reach from a particularly ridiculous ad hom.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Congrats, smartypants.
The Hitch responds to email ? Wow, I'm impressed too.
Welcome back, Ryan. Post more.
I count myself among the people who feel a little joy every time someone finds wisdom.
Selfish empathy and altruism no doubt as it makes the world a better place.
OK, I realize that this is personal and you're unlikely to give any details, specially when some other people on this forum might find them amusing. But welcome back!
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Very cool, Mr. Pants... Glad to see you back
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
It isn't a secret. But it also isn't like anything all that important has changed, either. I more or less still believe what I did when I first joined here. I just came to the realization that what I've believed all this time isn't a "god." That is, it isn't something necessarily external to me or any other living creature.
You mind sharing the letter and response with Hitchens' permission of course?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen