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• Monday, June 23, 2008 04:36 PM

  @Henry Hotspur

  First off everyone who has criticized my posts here has come away with the conclusion that I think "god did it". I've said directly that I do not believe in a god that created the universe. You all are assuming that since I question your stance I, by default, "accept the easy answer that "God did it."" That is simply not true, and if you read me carefully you will see that.

  Second, I would argue that the atheists to which I refer do absolutely exist. I would imagine from your brief post that you probably don't fall into that camp, but plenty who post here at Salon do, and I would suggest that they can be found out by the personal slurs and emotional affront they take to having their beliefs challenged. Surely, nothing could be less scientific than to believe that one's theory is not worth investigating further. Yet, that is exactly what these atheists suggest; their viewpoint is beyond reproach, and everyone else is full of it. That, in a nutshell, is the approach of fundamentalism, and it runs directly against the scientific method we all (myself included) hold dear.

  I'm not saying that "someone who calls himself an atheist is uninterested in those questions and yet claims to have the answer to everything". I'm saying that SOME who call themselves atheists are uninterested, and they tend to be the ones yelling the loudest.

  There is not a single theory or discovery in the history of science that has not ultimately been surpassed or even dismissed as quaint by the passage of time. The materialists that I refer to do not speak as though they understand this. They speak as if they are Right, even Righteous. They very often do not say "I don't know" when confronted with a question of cosmic origin; they very often DO say "you are an idiot" for posing the question.

  I give full due and respect to these people as being better able to navigate reality than a fundamentalist Christian. They certainly are. It is far better for everyone to have people blinded by science rather than blinded by religion. But, blind is blind.

  My complaint is simply that via their pedantry they dismiss that which can't be known. But, as physics shows us, the un-known is every bit as much a part of the universe as is the known.

  —jazztao Read jazztao's other letters
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