Aliens are cool

Let's talk about aliens.

Who hasn't wondered if we are alone or not? With the vastness of space, it is entirely possible that other intelligible life we'd recognize exists. I can't say it does, but I can't say it doesn't.

Question is, do I believe in aliens visiting Earth? And I can say I don't really believe that.

I base that belief in the realization that the accounts I have heard are not terribly convincing. A lot of really poor accounts does not snowball into a solid argument, you just end up with a lot of slush. A stack of baloney never becomes a steak.

I also consider the distances that would have to be traveled to get here, and the scope of such a trip would surely mean that we'd need to face an alien way more advanced than us, and why would they then want to engage us? To eat us? To enslave us? Possibly. But it seems like it would take a lot of resources to send sufficient aliens here to do that, resources better spent on developing their own technology to more cheaply solve the problem they'd need us for.

I think it's really cool to think about aliens out there, and maybe visiting Earth, but it's fantasy. I know it isn't a realistic thing. It's illogical, the personal accounts do not compel me, and there's no reason to believe in it without better proof than the hearsay we get. Not saying it is impossible, just highly improbable.

Do you agree with my viewpoint? I think you probably do, more or less.

The doubt I hold in alien visits is identical to the doubt I hold in supernatural deities. It's fun to imagine in a fictional context, but it's pointless to accept as truth because there is no evidence to elevate it from a neat idea to a serious proposal.

But what if I am wrong, and this god I don't believe in punishes me?

And what if you don't see the aliens coming, and they eat you?

But you are confident the aliens aren't coming, aren't you? You don't really fear that. You can't be bothered. It's science fiction. It's fantasy.

If you can't be bothered to live every day in fear of joining an imminent alien buffet, then why do you bother with the equally pointless concern as to whether you are pleasing the god you've only heard about?

Do Atheists Hate God? Do You Hate Dog?

Here's another claim leveled against atheists - we hate God.

Let's say I am walking through the park and we meet, and we say hi. I ask you what you think of my dog. You tell me you don't see any dog. I counter, no, I am walking my dog. You shake your head and say no, there's no dog here. To that, I assert that the dog is invisible. You then tell me you don't believe I have a dog.

When I then moan, "You hate my dog!", am I making any sense? How can you hate a dog you don't even think exists?

Now, plenty of people hate Barney the Dinosaur or Harry Potter. But you can't actually hate them. They are "real" in the imaginations of a lot of people, but they don't actually exist, like a dog does. What you really hate, or love for that matter, is the idea of Barney or Harry, the fictional universe in which they dwell and their unique place in it, and perhaps in the minds of others who also imagine them to be real. You can't really hate Barney; you can only hate the concept of Barney.

To be fair, the concept of the God of the Bible, as one example, is not very appealing to me. I don't think what's written there about God is particularly flattering. I personally wouldn't like the guy if he was my neighbor. But that's one giant "if".

Because I don't have any motivation or reason to believe this, or any, god is real in any sense outside the imagination of numerous people, I don't have any motivation or reason to hate him or her.

I can't hate your god any more than you can hate the Monster In The Closet your child needs you to check before bed. Closet monsters are a pain in the ass, they are not part of how you wish the growing-up process should be, but there's your kid scared to death of something that you know full well is imaginary, and you have to deal with it.

If you believe your child and agree there might be a monster, you might have reason to hate it. But so long as we do not believe in the imaginary thing which another person is so damn sure exists, we are not capable of hating it.

We can hate that the poor tot can't sleep. We can hate that getting from child to adult has to be so hard. But we cannot hate what we believe is not real.

How Many Beers?

Two old friends are sitting at the bar, and the subject turns to religion.

Tom asks, "So you don't believe in God?"

Rick admits, "No, actually I see no reason to."

"Well, then, who or what created the universe then, if it wasn't God?"

Rick thought for a moment. "I have a cooler in my garage. It's large enough to hold two cases of beer. How many beers are in it?"

"Changing the subject? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just tell me how many beers are in it. I'll bet you $50 you are wrong."

Tom decides to play along. "Ok, sure. There are... 27 beers in the cooler."

"Wrong, there are 41. Pay up!"

"Wait! How am I supposed to just know there are 41 beers in there?"

Rick explains, "I bought 2 cases on Wednesday and stocked the cooler full. I drank 2 on Wednesday night, my brother and I drank 3 on Thursday. And my son stole 2 on Friday afternoon. It's simple math, you can't deny that. 2 + 3 + 2 = 7, 48 - 7 = 41. Pay up!"

Tom is incredulous. "You think I'm a fool? I'm not paying you $50 just because you say I am wrong? That's hardly proof enough for me to pay you! You'd have to show me the cooler before I'd even think of settling up."

Then Rick looked him in the eye. "If you can't part with $50 based on my word, how do you expect me to believe some god created the universe based on yours? I asked you a question with 49 possible specific answers, you asked me one with millions. And you had as much evidence as I did to answer the question. Whatever I say caused the universe that isn't the same your answer, you will say it's wrong.

"The difference is simple - I can actually take you to my garage and prove to you I am right. There is a way to settle this bet. But unless I do, you have to either take my word or reject it. So, really, what's the only answer you can give to my question? How many beers are in the cooler?"

"Well, I can only guess, I can't know for certain!"

"Exactly. And that's the only answer I can give to your question as well."

Defensively, Tom explains, "But I believe in my answer! I have faith that God created the universe!"

"And I believe there are 41 beers in my cooler. But I could be wrong. Maybe someone is drinking one right now. Maybe the cooler was stolen. That doesn't mean I am wrong to believe there are 41, it just means I can't be 100% certain.

"As strongly as people believed that the Earth was circled by the Sun thousands of years ago, it was still wrong. A few thousand years later we found out. But there was simply no way to know back then!"

Tom asks, "So you're saying I'm stupid for believing what I believe?"

"Not at all. In a few thousand years maybe we will know enough about the origin of the universe to be more certain how. In twenty minutes I could be more certain how many beers I have in the cooler. You are no more stupid for believing in an idea about how the universe came about than I am stupid for believing there are 41 beers in my cooler."

"Well, that's fair."

"Now, if I expect you to simply accept that there are 41 beers in my cooler, then I am a little stupid, though."

"Hmm... we could go to your house and check...."

Rick smiles. "We could. The beer here is a little pricey anyway. Let's go."

"Sounds good!"

"Oh, do you have your ATM card with you? You might want to take out $50 on the way there."

Throwing Away Ideas, Not Observations

Why do people believe in a god or gods? Two simple reasons.

1. They cannot explain the world around them (death, disease, natural disaster, etc.) with reason, so they guess that someone is playing a trick on them, or making things happen behind the scenes.
2. They were taught to - sometimes gently, sometimes harshly - at a relatively young age. If they doubt their beliefs, they fear reprisal from family as well as the "man upstairs".

No person is born with an innate knowledge of the existence of any god. I admit this is a bold statement and I probably can't prove it. But I can show why it is extremely likely to be so.

If I said that no one is born with an innate knowledge of the English language, or of juggling balls, or of making a fire, not one person would challenge me, because obviously we needed to learn these things ourselves before we knew them. There are many people alive today who cannot speak English, juggle balls, or make a fire without some sort of special technology. Clearly these are not innate.

However, we can argue that we have the innate ability to communicate, to manipulate objects, to experiment with phenomena we observe. I don't think anyone will argue these. It's those innate skills that led our predecessors to invent formal language, juggling and ignition.

And we also teach these skills with care to not abuse them. We tell our children what sort of language is permissible in certain places and situations, and which words would result in a less than favorable result for them if used. Jugglers are aware that they need a safe distance from others to perform the feat, and that the whimsical nature of it does not blend well with certain more sober situations. And we keep matches and lighters away from children while we let them plan our fire escape plan, and we collectively support the very socialist notion of a local fire department so even those who cannot afford to pay for such property and life rescue can benefit.

I think it is innate that we reason. I think it is innate that we look at things fall and notice that they never fall up. We see that fast things hitting objects perform more spectacularly than slow things. We notice that it is light out for about half a day, then it is dark out. All of these observations make us curious and drive us to understand more about the reality we find ourselves in.

The trouble is what happens when we can't reason it out. A few thousand years ago we did not understand why tides rose and fell. We needed some explanation because reason wasn't cutting it. We didn't understand why life can just stop, and someone becomes dead. We needed some sort of explanation.

Generally, the answers to the above problems was that a god or gods did it. God made the tides go in and out. God cursed a person for their evil, or called him home for his good deeds. And without any evidence to contradict all that, that served us as good as any other explanation.

Now we understand the Moon's gravity with the Earth and how it affects the oceans. We understand infection, disease and the genetics of old age. Yet there still are those who attribute tides and death to divine action, despite all we have learned.

There are many who reject science as against religion, as a sort of sorcery or evil craft that lies to us. They claim evolution is no better a theory than, say, intelligent design, and when shown mountains of strong evidence supporting evolution they simply say it is faulty, it doesn't prove a thing.

Now, having provisional explanations for things we don't understand is fine and normal. Gestalt psychology is criticized,  but most agree that when we see something that is incomplete we fill in the blanks naturally. It's in our nature.

The problem is when we use these provisional explanations even when our reason shows us that there are other, more reasonable explanations. When we dispense with the science of radiometric dating and insist that this book says the Earth is only so many thousands of years old, we are letting provisionality overrule reason. When we insist that a pregnancy initiated through a violent sexual attack is "God's will" we are letting provisionality overrule reason.

Tim Minchin wrote, "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved." In other words, reason means dispensing with an idea when it does not match observation, not dispensing with an observation when it does not match an idea.

If the god idea was innate, why would there be so many contradictory versions of it? If there was one true god or set of gods that we can just know, why aren't we all in agreement? Does this deity want us to kill each other over it?

It's like the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.When repeated observations and man's best ideas do not match up, we must throw away the idea, not the observations.

I have no problem if you want to personally fill in the cracks with God Spackle. I do have a problem when there already is an explanation for what you are spackling over, and you refuse to accept it because it doesn't fit your premise. My problem is that you then teach your children not to think critically. You encourage ignorance of reality over believing tradition. You celebrate the emotional security of a Father in Heaven over the need for stewardship of our Actual Reality.

If you must be religious, please never allow religion to become harmful to others. Take care to juggle a safe distance from me. Use words that are peaceful, not inflammatory.

And please, above all, don't let your children learn to love the flame of religion like a modern-day arsonist, but to respect it, just like our earliest prehistoric chemists did when they invented fire. Religion, like fire, can destroy if left unchecked, or if used without rational thought.