Dear Atheists/Agnostics....

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I am a very very very big Woody Allen fan. He is obsessed with three things: God, death and sex.


Throughout his work, it becomes semi obvious that though he is an atheist, he very much wants to NOT be an atheist. He simply cant believe in God without more evidence.



I ask you: does this describe you?


That is, IF somehow you were given proof of God's existence, would you be more content? As content? Would it actually bother you?

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First of all, no, it doesn't describe me*. But...

We still have the normal problems of defining god. Which god has been "proven?" Does this god prefer a particular holy book? Does the existence of said deity also imply an afterlife? Who gets to go there? And what about the proof itself? What kind of proof can be so convincing that your average staunch atheist could be convinced? What proof could there be that couldn't be explained by an elaborate hoax or mischievious aliens? Even putting aside the believability of the proof, the answers to the other questions would have a very significant effect on how I felt about it.

For instance:

If god = aliens, then big deal. Interesting, yes, but I wouldn't particularly care. I would ask them what their genesis was.

If god = something resembling the Judeo-Christian god, then I think he has a lot of explaining to do.

Actually, it's hard for me to even write a serious response to this, as I think that the idea of a "god" existing is so ridiculous that it is silly to even entertain the idea.

* I should clarify that this no longer describes me. When I first became an atheist, and for maybe a few years after, I found it to be rather depressing and frightening to contemplate my own eventual non-existence. But, that has worn off. It just doesn't bother me anymore. One could perhaps liken it to withdrawal from a powerful drug, except that the drug no longer has any lure whatsoever, and barring severe brain damage, the likelihood of a relapse is exceedingly remote. I think it is primarily this fear of nonexistence that keeps the god-junkies sucking at the teat of religion. Who wouldn't like to live on after death? Sure, I used to want to believe, but I've matured beyond that. I can no longer seriously entertain such a thing any more than I can seriously entertain wanting to believe in the Tooth Fairy. In the grand scheme of the universe, humans are simply not that important. However, I have come to realize that most people are not as scientifically minded as me, and that humans are genetically predisposed toward religion anyway. So, I generally don't (directly) call them stupid twits anymore. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Even though at times it may be difficult to contain my contempt.

Rather than worry about god-death-religion-whatever, my concerns now are in improving the quality of life for myself and my fellow humans, as well as the rest of life on this planet. I'd rather make life worth living in the here and now.