My friend Fred described a weak atheist as a person who simply doesn't believe any sort of God exists, while a strong atheist wants to get in your face and tell you why you're stupid for believing in an invisible man in the sky, or some such nonsense. I liked those helpful definitions, and knowing the distinction. You might believe that, having written a book titled Counterargument for God, I relish every opportunity I get to argue with every atheist who I might happen to encounter. But you would be wrong. In fact, you couldn't be more wrong, and always remember that there are gradations of wrong. There's simply no reason to argue with a weak atheist. He or she isn't spoiling for a fight, and it would be rude to goad them into one by insulting them or calling them names. I have no interest in flaunting my faith, and it most certainly isn't my place to judge somebody else and tell them they're going to Hell for not believing exactly as I do. Isn't that fun to hear! For that reason among others, I'm still quite reluctant to invite strangers to church because I don't want weak atheists to feel like I'm trying to shove my God down their throat. In my opinion, it requires the mutual interest of two people to maintain a dialogue, and my interests are far from limited to theological discussions. Now, if someone is interested in polite conversation about what I personally believe and why I wrote the book, I'm more than capable and happy to accommodate, if returning three times to the same radio show to be interviewed by the same atheist friend serves as … [Read more...]
Really big and very small numbers
During my recent sojourn in Disney World, I began thinking about really big numbers as I tried to calculate the total value of that enterprise as a whole. I knew the Magic Kingdom theme park was built in the early 1970s, at the cost of roughly $331 million dollars. More than two decades later, Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park was added at the cost of a cool $1 billion. Epcot cost about $1.4 billion to construct, more than twice its estimated budget. Golf courses, hotels, shopping malls, Hollywood studios, infrastructure: it was pretty easy to estimate the net worth of the forty-seven square mile intelligently designed world of alternate reality would run into the hundreds of billions, perhaps as much as $1 trillion dollars. Mickey Mouse is worth a considerable amount of money. We're talking about some really big numbers. Given the fact that advocates of evolution seem to frequently argue that I fail to grasp the significance of a really big number, as I rode around on the monorail and pondered the value of Walt Disney World, the idea for writing this article popped into my head while I watched a river of cash flow through the Magic Kingdom. If only that were the case...I almost wish that I couldn't grasp the concept of a really big number. After all, ignorance can be bliss. The sad truth is that I’m constantly worried about big numbers. I'm painfully aware that the amount of outstanding federal debt for the United States is currently well over $16 trillion dollars. Granted, it is more money than I've ever seen, but the numbers do follow a … [Read more...]