Concerned About Atheisim

[Alex K]

I currently work as a scientist, and not blindly believing everything that science says as dogma is basically part of the job description. It's always, always, always about working with different degrees of belief in various conclusions (led by the data of course), exploring the limitations of existing theories, inventing new models to test, throwing out some. As long as you stay true to the process of science, a fixed dogma should ideally not emerge. It will sometimes because we are humans, and there are fads and other annoying sociological effects, but the scientific principle does not really justify it, and so they are usually overthrown after a while. I like to think I've adopted this line of thought outside of the workplace as well. Atheism is likewise not the highest intellectual good, but rather a conclusion. I only proclaim those gods to be nonexistent with 100% certainty which are inconsistent, to all others I assign degrees of disbelief. This is the way it should be, and it's the way the vast majority of atheists handle it. This also informs my ideas about public policy, namely promoting the ability to think critically, to enable people to cope with varying degrees of belief in things, and definitely not write atheism into the laws. (but also not the opposite, secularism please)

As to the label, I happily identify myself as one because god belief is so pervasive in society that atheism becomes a thing. If god belief were some exotic specialty, I wouldnt bother giving a label to disbelief.