Letters to the Editor
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Religion on the moon?
Bravus: The definition of 'atheism' is 'absence of religion'. (A-theism, right?) One could just as well create the word 'aplogsism', if there were such a thing as a 'plogsist'. But there aren't, so we don't need the word aplogsism in our language. One doesn't need to subsume an opponent's position to negate something that doesn't exist.
If there were no humans on this planet (and there's a greater than zero chance that this may be the case in the future) does religion - theism - still exist? If so, what supports it? Other animals? Inorganic material? Do any of these candidates get to weigh in on the current discussions about faith, religion, belief, etc.? If so, I certainly haven't heard their representation invited to the party.
The Moon is generally acknowledged to be lifeless. Is there religion on the Moon? Is there religion inside a black hole? If there turns out to be other life forms in our known universe, are they religious? Which form of OUR gods do they embrace, or are they allowed to roll their own? Or what if we discover another race of sentient beings who communicate to us with absolutely no ambiguity that they are indeed 'atheists'? How do we redraw our beliefs then?
An atheist can get through life without religion, and finds no self-contradiction in his views (or, dare I say, beliefs). The moment you introduce some ill-defined, evidence-free, subjective belief system you open the door to ALL ill-defined, evidence-free, subjective belief systems, and our energies and resources get used up trying to defend them against each other. An atheist hardly tries to 'subsume these opposing positions' to make it through the day. Simply negating them all with the letter 'A' does the trick nicely, and frees the mind for other matters.