Letters to the Editor

Partial score: George Carlin, 71 The comedian, who died Sunday, talked about sports rarely, but he was funny and insightful when he did. King Kaufman [2008-06-23]

• Exactly so

  Lynx wrote:

  Thanks for showing that just because you're a fan of some intelligent comedy it doesn't necessarily mean you yourself are intelligent.

  Framing atheism as a "religion" is one of the oldest tricks employed by religionists, but it shows they understand neither religion or atheism.

  First, the most common and generic form of atheism withholds belief, it dooes not invest it, even as a negative belief. This alone separates atheists from religionists or people of faith.

  Second, atheists make no positive claims for any transcendent existent that requires their worship or obeisance. They simply

  acknowledge no god or entity with which to build a religion in other words.

  Third, atheists maintain no sacred works, scriptures, or ancient artifacts, from which their “truths” are extracted.

  They have no analog to a Bible, Qu’ran, Talmud or anything remotely similar. Instead, atheists pursue objective truth via open inquiry predicated on current science, which may provide fewer certainties or answers than if they merely placed their faith in a book.

  Fourth, atheists convene no regular rituals, services or ceremonies to honor, or propitiate any entity. By contrast, the centerpiece of 99 percent of religions is precisely some social ritual, for the purpose of assembling together like-minded believers toward a common goal. Moreover, their churches, synagogues, temples etc. dot the landscape, taking up room that could be used to house the homeless in each respective area or locale.

  Perhaps most importantly, there is no “acceptance” of atheist principles from any “congregation” since there’s no homogeneous congregation to bestow it. Atheists often disagree on as many things as they agree on, precisely because no

  formal coda exists to fix beliefs within a uniform dogma. This means one is just as likely to encounter a wholly Materialist-Naturalist atheist as a non-material one.

  Despite this, there remain some who insist that if an atheist simply “doesn’t believe in the supernatural or God” he is expressing a belief. If expressing a belief, then he is professing a religion. This is nonsense. It would be akin to asserting that if I decline belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial spacecraft I still have “UFO belief” and therefore am a practicing Ufologist! The error inheres in asserting that

  an absence of belief is the same as a belief.

  This error repeats the canard that the onus is on the atheist to disprove the believer’s claim, instead of acknowledging it

  is impossible to prove a negative.

  Georgie will be missed especially for his often splenetic eviscerations of God belief and religion. My favorite is when he leads in by noting "God is all seeing, all powerful, and ALL loving. He really loves each and every one of our little selves. But.....He won't hesitate to burn us in Hell if we cross Him!"

  Thanks for the memories, George. I am glad I have most of your latter HBO specials (since 1996) on tape.

  -- droogoy
  [Read droogoy's other letters]
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