But let's analyze this it-takes-faith-to-be-an-atheist approach, he kept at her. Atheists do not and should not carry the weight of proof. We’re not saying that cars don't exist or trees or planets or crickets or bald eagles or beautiful research assistants. I dare say we have irrefutable proof of the existence of these things. What we are saying is that theists are the ones who should carry the weight of proof for their idea. Our idea is not that there is no god. Your idea is that there is a god. Our argument is just a stand against your lack of proof. I can say that there are little green men who live at the center of our planet cranking handles to keep the planet's magnetic field working but to be believed, I would have the burden of proof.
Little green men?
Yeah, little green men.
I don’t believe you.
Any rational thinking person cannot take the sheer outlandish ideas behind most religions to heart with the same level of faith required to believe that sub-atomic particles exist. Hatchet failed to see that he was pushing it too far. It takes an astronomical amount of faith to believe in bearded old men in the sky and people rising not just from the dead but flying unaided into another dimension.
A bearded old man in the sky? You really hate God, don’t you?
Every single aspect of religion has to be given to its followers by ancient, ambiguous texts and/or oral tradition, translated so many times from one language to the next, it becomes that rumor game you played when you were in kindergarten.
You’re showing your age now, Hatchet.
Science, which supports the majority of atheist refutations against religion, is not just a pile of books. Anyone can conduct experiments that prove boundless things about the world around us, none of it pointing in any way to a creator or an almighty intelligence. Science places a limited amount of faith in the people of science. Religion does the exact opposite; you have to place your fully roused faith in those who claim to know everything about the universe in which we live.
Calm down, cowboy, she told him. What about entropy? You didn’t touch it.
Entropy might be a damning idea. I see that. Hatchet stopped himself from delving into things he had no business discussing with her, things like the entropy gap caused by the expansion of the universe and quantum variables in useful energy. There’s a lecture on quantum states I want you to hear. It broke me from claiming agnosticism. Anyway, how does entropy imply omniscient intelligence?
Now you're asking questions like a true scientist. Is agnosticism supposed to be a step below atheism? What is the difference?
Agnosticism. Atheism. The words are semantic.
What words aren't semantic?
All your magic energy theories and life force stuff is very cute albeit viable and simple. My faith lies in the even simpler idea—Occam’s Razor and all that jazz—that nothing isn’t nothing. There never was only nothing. There never will be only nothing.
What do think the universe is expanding into? what is that?
You know that’s a pointless question, Delilah. Just because it’s expanding doesn’t mean it has to be expanding into anything.
Why can’t you imagine another dimension, where creation began?
I can imagine anything but any attempt to examine creation seems futile due to the never-ending loop of trying to go to the source. There is no source. The atomized contents of this circus has always been here. All of it pushing this way and that way. And I say that without any spiritual connotation. It’s just plain math. We see pairs of opposing forces everywhere. There is always a positive and always a negative. Without a positive there is no negative.
You realize you’re trying to explain Taoism to an Asian.
Hatchet gave her a smile. Neither high nor low entropy can last for long. See, he winked at her, no god. Just you and me and some camping equipment... and some shrooms.
Look how smooth you are. Well, aside from the fact that the idea of cyclical cosmology has taken some pretty hard kicks recently, you have to know that simplicity is the heaviest double-edged sword out there. No matter how simple you break things down, you eventually have to turn around and go the other direction and deal with the limits of definable complexity. Now you are going to say I’ve highjacked your position, stolen your theory for my very own... See how we’re beginning to go in circles?
You knew this would happen.
We both did. Eat your pho. I’ve seen your pictures, by the way, she veered. They’re good.
Within the last fifteen seconds, she had done everything perfectly, rendering his lecture as useful as fish flavored bubblegum. She unpuzzled the cube that he had been and then rescrambled him and set him down in a multicolored disarray. She figured she’d leave him like this for a while; maybe she would want him locked in this confusion. No more effort required. He was a dancing monkey.
They ate. He asked her to drinks. They told dirty jokes over whiskeys. She let him make-out with her in a red shadow stretched across the uncharted parts of a busy downtown martini bar. He put his hand down the back of her jeans. And then she went home.
Little green men?
Yeah, little green men.
I don’t believe you.
Any rational thinking person cannot take the sheer outlandish ideas behind most religions to heart with the same level of faith required to believe that sub-atomic particles exist. Hatchet failed to see that he was pushing it too far. It takes an astronomical amount of faith to believe in bearded old men in the sky and people rising not just from the dead but flying unaided into another dimension.
A bearded old man in the sky? You really hate God, don’t you?
Every single aspect of religion has to be given to its followers by ancient, ambiguous texts and/or oral tradition, translated so many times from one language to the next, it becomes that rumor game you played when you were in kindergarten.
You’re showing your age now, Hatchet.
Science, which supports the majority of atheist refutations against religion, is not just a pile of books. Anyone can conduct experiments that prove boundless things about the world around us, none of it pointing in any way to a creator or an almighty intelligence. Science places a limited amount of faith in the people of science. Religion does the exact opposite; you have to place your fully roused faith in those who claim to know everything about the universe in which we live.
Calm down, cowboy, she told him. What about entropy? You didn’t touch it.
Entropy might be a damning idea. I see that. Hatchet stopped himself from delving into things he had no business discussing with her, things like the entropy gap caused by the expansion of the universe and quantum variables in useful energy. There’s a lecture on quantum states I want you to hear. It broke me from claiming agnosticism. Anyway, how does entropy imply omniscient intelligence?
Now you're asking questions like a true scientist. Is agnosticism supposed to be a step below atheism? What is the difference?
Agnosticism. Atheism. The words are semantic.
What words aren't semantic?
All your magic energy theories and life force stuff is very cute albeit viable and simple. My faith lies in the even simpler idea—Occam’s Razor and all that jazz—that nothing isn’t nothing. There never was only nothing. There never will be only nothing.
What do think the universe is expanding into? what is that?
You know that’s a pointless question, Delilah. Just because it’s expanding doesn’t mean it has to be expanding into anything.
Why can’t you imagine another dimension, where creation began?
I can imagine anything but any attempt to examine creation seems futile due to the never-ending loop of trying to go to the source. There is no source. The atomized contents of this circus has always been here. All of it pushing this way and that way. And I say that without any spiritual connotation. It’s just plain math. We see pairs of opposing forces everywhere. There is always a positive and always a negative. Without a positive there is no negative.
You realize you’re trying to explain Taoism to an Asian.
Hatchet gave her a smile. Neither high nor low entropy can last for long. See, he winked at her, no god. Just you and me and some camping equipment... and some shrooms.
Look how smooth you are. Well, aside from the fact that the idea of cyclical cosmology has taken some pretty hard kicks recently, you have to know that simplicity is the heaviest double-edged sword out there. No matter how simple you break things down, you eventually have to turn around and go the other direction and deal with the limits of definable complexity. Now you are going to say I’ve highjacked your position, stolen your theory for my very own... See how we’re beginning to go in circles?
You knew this would happen.
We both did. Eat your pho. I’ve seen your pictures, by the way, she veered. They’re good.
Within the last fifteen seconds, she had done everything perfectly, rendering his lecture as useful as fish flavored bubblegum. She unpuzzled the cube that he had been and then rescrambled him and set him down in a multicolored disarray. She figured she’d leave him like this for a while; maybe she would want him locked in this confusion. No more effort required. He was a dancing monkey.
They ate. He asked her to drinks. They told dirty jokes over whiskeys. She let him make-out with her in a red shadow stretched across the uncharted parts of a busy downtown martini bar. He put his hand down the back of her jeans. And then she went home.
Edit 11.8.2018