By Eddie Miles
I know most of you atheists/baby eaters have heard all about how egotistical you are for just assuming that your "belief" is the correct one. But is there anything to this accusation? Are we really pompous to think that our method of gaining knowledge is the best one?
I ran into a really ironic situation recently. My father-in-law came to visit and brought with him a puppy named Allie (short for hallelujah, so I'm not quite sure of the spelling). Allie spent much of the time playing with Katie, my 6 year old dachshund, and thereby keeping the rest of us entertained. Now I admit that Katie isn't the brightest dog the world has ever seen (she sometimes forgets how to poop) and while playing with Allie on the bed, she exhibited some rather curious behavior. When Allie ran toward her, she looked the other way and buried her head into the bed so that she couldn't see the ferocious little thing coming at her. It was as if she thought, "if I can't see her, she can't see me!" Of course, this was cause for further laughter among the bipeds in the room.
The ironic thing about this situation was that there we stood, an atheist, an agnostic, and a christian, all laughing at the obvious miscalculations of this poor little misinformed canine, neither of us feeling any reservations about "assuming" that our worldview (the worldview that tells us that because I can't see you doesn't necessarily mean that you can't see me) is the correct one. And why shouldn't we have felt like egomaniacs in this situation?
The answer is that we (the humans) were coming to our conclusions based on reason and the philosophy of Foundationalism. In other words, the fact that we could see Katie served as evidence that she was still there and visible and therefore gave a foundation to our worldview, whereas Katie had no such evidence and therefore no such foundation (I realize that I'm over analyzing Katie's beliefs about the situation but it's all for argument's sake anyway. The same kind of situation could occur with young children).
This is very similar to the god debate. On average, atheists are more likely to be well educated, not only in philosophy but also in the scientific method. Theists, on the other hand, tend to believe in god based on their emotional needs for comfort in this world and the promise of life after death. Take, for example, all of the common religious rhetoric. Church signs often read things like "Have problems? Let god take care of them" and "Do you want to live forever? Learn how here." After basing their beliefs on their emotional needs, they then discredit the scientific method as an afterthought because their own conclusion cannot be arrived at through logic and reasoning. If they can't simultaneously believe in science and in religion, they would rather choose the more comfortable position.
In the god debate, atheists can be seen as the humans in the story that I related or as parents in a discussion with their children in the sense that the atheist's position is the one that is arrived at through the proven method of logic and reasoning while the theist's position is the one that is arrived at through a lack of, or even outright rejection of, that proven method. The only conclusion that I can come to, then, is that one would have to either call the humans egotistical because of our collective assumption that Katie was mistaken in her analysis of the workings of the world around her or admit that atheists are justified (and therefore not egotistical) in making similar assumptions in debates about the existence of god.
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Theists find us arrogant because they have no idea how to defend our logical and rational swordmanship in an argument.
It's like they point their sword towards the sky and hold it there , while we use ours to knock theirs out their hands ... then they start to believe we are being 'arrogant'.
No. Crushing someone and making them look silly just means we have the intellectual high ground.
They replay it over in their heads and can't for the life of them figure out how we knocked the sword out of their hand. Thus they come to the conclusion we are just arrogant and we have a large ego. Instead of maybe considering they just don't know how to use their sword.
(Sword = reason)
Smarter doesn't equal better, just smarter.
a) Being an atheïst doesn't equal smarter, just better?
b) Being an atheïst doesn't equal better, just smarter?
c) Being an atheïst doesn't equal better or smarter, just being an atheïst?
what's the true answer? and is it arrogant?
i never claim that i'm right, or that my lack of belief is the right one. I just simply dont have a reason to believe in anything.
not to mention, I have issues with self confidence.
Personally, I think that confidence can be misread as arrogance or egotism.
I am confident in the knowledge that I can back up my claims (evolution for instance) with facts. And facts override opinions.
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