Atheism's Friendly Enemies
I just had to turn down a MySpace friend request from an atheist because he had a bunch of conspiracy theory foolishness on his page. Sorry, I don't link to embarrassing nonsense if I can avoid it.This reminds me of the promo for the apalling video "Zeitgeist", which also mixes atheism with irrational conspiracy theories.
Another bunch of irrational nut jobs who want to bring their lunacy into the atheist camp are the Raelians. Have you heard of these people? They believe that human beings were created by space aliens. But because they also don't believe in any gods, they want a place in the atheism bandwagon.
Atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in a god. So, technically speaking, the Raelians are atheists. And so are any godless conspiracy theorists.
But while it's possible to reject god belief without being rational, rational arguments provide atheism's best justification. That makes it deeply problematic to welcome these kinds of people into the atheist movement.
If you want to be recognized as a supporter of the atheist movement, it's not enough to merely disbelieve in gods. One also has to embrace certain principles of rational thinking - principles which deny Raelianism and conspiracy theories every bit as much as they deny invisible creator-beings in the sky.
Labels: atheism raelian conspiracy
posted by Jeff Dee @ 6:01 PM
28 comments
