Atheist? Materialist?
I Don't Know What I Am!
Gil Gaudia
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 6:09 PM
Subject: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
Dear Cliff:
There is one definite disadvantage to to Positive Atheism. Each time I sit down to spend a "few minutes" catching up on my reading I inevitably tie up the phone line for hours (we only have one).
My latest transgression involved reading several articles on labels; atheist, agnostic, etc. So here I am, happily believing that since I don't believe there is any God; despising fundamentalistic views of the universe; greatly respecting the scientific method for arriving at approximations to truth, but also considering that quantum physics has so confused the Newtonian picture that who knows what challenges to mechanism may emerge; I don't know what I am!
Can you or someone else out there help me?
Boy, do I enjoy your site!
Gil Gaudia
Sixty years in the effort to figure out my disbelief
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: Gil Gaudia
Subject: Re: Positive_Atheism_Letters_Section
Date: Sunday, May 27, 2001 6:47 PM
Even if consciousness itself is a hallucination, of sorts (and that's what it's beginning to look like), we don't have to use that as our day-to-day model. In fact, we do well not to use that as our day-to-day model, and are justified in presupposing, with René Descartes, that "I think, therefore I am." In a working discussion, as with a working "reality," if we cannot "know" anything else, we can at least "know" this: without this, we have nothing at all to talk about.
Meanwhile, although quantum mechanics has turned Newtonian physics on its ear in the realm of sub-atomic particles, Newtonian physics still holds true outside the physics lab. The fourth century B.C.E. discovery that the Earth is not a perfect globe did not abolish the essential globe-ness of the Earth -- neither did render the Earth flat (it took the Bible, later instituted as the official dogma of the state religion, to do that).
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
Material by Cliff Walker (including unsigned editorial commentary) is copyright ©1995-2006 by Cliff Walker. Each submission is copyrighted by its writer, who retains control of the work except that by submitting it to Positive Atheism, permission has been granted to use the material or an edited version: (1) on the Positive Atheism web site; (2) in Positive Atheism Magazine; (3) in subsequent works controlled by Cliff Walker or Positive Atheism Magazine (including published or posted compilations). Excerpts not exceeding 500 words are allowed provided the proper copyright notice is affixed. Other use requires permission; Positive Atheism will work to protect the rights of all who submit their writings to us.