Infusing meaning into mischief, cuddles into curmudgeony stereotypes.
Kate Holden is a skeptic and atheist blogger. She has been featured on Skepticality and plugged on The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. As the vice-president for the Southern Skeptical Society and an adviser for Atheist Nexus, Kate feels strongly about skeptical and atheist activism.
That was a great interview with Derek. Keep up the good work!!!
Thanks, Linda!
Just found this from the mention on SGU and Jay’s interview. Love it, thanks. Think I’ll poke around a bit…
Great site! Just arrived from the mention of Jay’s interview on SGU. Think I’ll have a poke around the place…
A skeptic and atheist. At least these are separated as it is entirely possible to be a Christian skeptic like me.
Well Justin, there is no evidence of god.
A skeptic will not believe something without evidence.
So one can not be a skeptic AND believe in god.
Unless you’re talking about the sort of “christian humanist”, who while not believing in god adheres to christian principles.
Scepticism and Christianity are compatible – selective scepticism that is: sceptical about the lack of evidence for bible stuff, not so sceptical about bible stuff. With a thorough training in cherry picking honed through years of bible study, this selectivity is ingrained in the biblical mind and applied to any topic whatsoever.
Hi there,
I just came across your blog via The Young Australian Skeptics.
You’ve got some nice posts. I look forward to reading more.
Bye :)
I am an Atheist. But I was raised Angelican Christian. I didn’t want to become an Atheist. I wanted to find God, but the only answer I could get from the believers was “Have faith and God will guide you”. I spent my early life searching Christanity and many other religions for an answer, (should I go in my search forward or backwards?) and the answer was always the same. From Paganism to Deism and then Pantheism , there was simply no difference. It always was a credulous answer. I have simply never seen any real, defensible evidence of God.
Not that evidence shown to me would be simply discarded by in the way believers seem to do when things don’t seem to add up . If there was evidence, that could be proven, I would be fasinated and drawn to it like the Holy Grail. But once again, I don’t see that ever coming to pass, without an occurrence of stupendous magnitude.
But at the same time, I don’t find it in my heart to believe that I am therefore given a right or bound to any Crusade to turn people around to my thought. I truly believe that the only people that can become an Atheist, are those people that have approached and accepted the concepts themselves.
We can never win the religious argument, because too many people use the concept of God to defend themselves from the fears, realities, inequities and prejudices of the world. Remember, they are looking for the same answers that we have searched for as well. Don’t simply use stereotypes or paintbrush tactics. They are narrow minded concepts and we should be better that all that. But we can, through reason, slowly win many hearts and minds that are now looking beyond religion. And remember, force only creates resentment. Rationalism and reason will create change.
There’s an old saying that you can’t prove a negative. So a skeptic by no means has to be an atheist – tho (s)he certainly can’t be a religious fundamentalist.
I was raised in the Church of England and would now regard myself as an agnostic. That’s not just a default position. It’s not just a half-way house to coming out as an atheist. No-one in the UK cares if you are atheist or not.
There are atheists who are not skeptics and there are skeptics who are not atheists.
I understand why an atheist in the US can take a different view. You folks are under attack and intimidation in ways that we only really see in the fundamentalist Muslim community. But there is a subtle as well as an overt danger in that. Your religious right see themselves as fighting a cultural war. They want you folks to build yourselves a ghetto. You NEED allies and your natural allies are agnostics and thinking (as opposed to fundamentalist) religious types.
There’s a place for sharp-edged atheism. I love George Hrab’s work and we of course have the estimable Dawkins. But don’t be fundamentalist about this. Skeptics don’t have to be atheists and if you say they do then it serves neither movement very well.