05 May 2005

The Atheist

This article is worth clicking on for the graphic alone. It made me laugh, and then chortle. And chuckle. I think I'll make it my new desktop wallpaper. Also, it's a good interview of Richard Dawkins:
It's said that the only rational stance is agnosticism because you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the supernatural creator. I find that a weak position. It is true that you can't disprove anything but you can put a probability value on it. There's an infinite number of things that you can't disprove: unicorns, werewolves, and teapots in orbit around Mars. But we don't pay any heed to them unless there is some positive reason to think that they do exist.
"Teapots in orbit around Mars." Heh. I usually use the example "invisible pink elephants dancing on my front lawn," but I like Martian teapots better. (Oh yeah, it's worth sitting through the ad to get the whole article.)
And the fact that my life is finite, and that it's the only life I've got, makes me all the more eager to get up each morning and set about the business of understanding more about the world into which I am so privileged to have been born.

(Link via Bookslut.)

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