by Lloyd Harrison Whitling

Be sure to put this page in your favorites list, if you are an atheist who wants to learn how to defend your beliefs, or if you are someone who wants to understand atheism beyond the slanted and malignant material generally available about us. Check what you read elsewhere and compare it with the information here, and then with what other atheists say. In doing so, you will learn two things (at least). The first is that we are unjustly maligned and lied about by those who represent themselves as "purveyors of the truth". The second is that atheists are commonly unaware of the depth to which the verisimilitude of their own awareness of reality penetrates and lays open to plain view the workings of nature, the place of humanity within it, and the self-chosen place of each person in the general scheme of it all. We are the guardians,  gardeners and caretakers of nature; we have to be that in order for our species to survive, and we have to learn to forcefully portray that against those who see only their own short-range gains as important and so work for the ruination of us all. We can do that by practicing colligion in all aspects of our lives until it becomes a habit to us, of thought and of action, that will make us effective defenders of our own worldview due to the better understanding we will have as a result. These principles will help you to determine what is the nature of each item presented to you as ‘fact’, and to then decide whether to reject it, accept it, or hold it while waiting better information and verification.

Atheism is nothing else than the absence of theism (without theism). However one may self-describe, without belief in the gods and demons of religion, one is an atheist, whether passively or actively so. However one may doubt that nonexistence of gods can be proven, unless one securely believes in them (or, one of them) one remains an atheist. This partial list of secular principles, and the relevant edicts of religious scriptures, supports this statement: Without total, unabashed conviction that a god exists, anyone is an atheist. This website makes clear that statement covers the gamut from doubt or uncertainty, simple absence of belief, to full-blown and active disbelief; and that those who are trying to ascertain what 'kind' of atheist someone is are wasting their efforts on misleading terminology to the point of performing linguicide. Truth of the matter?—we advance into atheism, driven by aggressive theists, as we gain the certainty enabled by increasing knowledge about the subjects they present to us.

Religion is unaccountable to anything but the need for expediency. That in itself is all the explanation needed for why an actual god would require so many unrelated, conflicted and contradictory methods of worship and rules of behavior. Religion offers no principles that do not rise out of natural requirements, except those prompted by emotions, that end up as inhumane and impractical, and counterproductive.

Natural secular philosophies supported by atheists, however, share certain principles in common with law and science, some of which are presented here. You will find many similar principles exposed throughout this and many other secular websites that, altogether, will promote keen insights into the demanding nature of those who become studied atheists. I may have provided inventive names for some of them, but all are valid and describable principles, nevertheless, that you can verify in your own investigations. I will not attempt to lead you in those, to forestall the accusation that I would try to lead you astray.

It gets even more hilarious when the various supernatural powers are ranged against each other. Can the Omnipotent One take an action that surprises the Omniscient One? Does the Omniscient One know where the Ubiquitous One is hiding? And so on. --Thanks to Richard Russell for this contribution, and the large part he played in writing it. http://richardsrussell.livejournal.com/ --

3. The Principle of Authenticity, first and foremost, insists that (God or no gods), nature exists and provides the only materials we can examine. All else is only mankind's words, used to express our fears, wishes and dreams, and as an instrument for manipulation of others into plans of doubtful merit.

4. The Principle of Natural Innocence: Atheism is not a belief system, it is only a condition in which belief gets described as "absent". Atheists do not purposefully "disbelieve", although they may actively do so as endless onslaughts of argumentative proselytizers for the various religious superstitions egg their atheism on to a hardened maturity, and their own studies more fully convince them about their own correctness.  "Who, of all these people, is telling me the truth? Are any of them telling me the truth?" Those are natural questions for anyone facing multiple choices; it also appears natural to finally give in and choose the easy way out, which is to resort to superstition as a guide throughout life.

Natural Innocence is an opposite principle to that upon which the common religions base their dogma: that all are guilty until proven innocent. The secular principle of "innocent until proven guilty" contradicts religious philosophy from its very heart. In ancient Judaism, sacrifices required to purge guilt were supposedly fulfilled by the Christ figure, which (in turn) requires that the Christ figure be "believed in" so the indoctrinated can escape Hell. Muslims ceremoniously flagellate themselves to accomplish the same end in a more dramatic demonstration of purging their guilt by the drawing of blood.  [return]

5. The Principle of Essential Rectitude: People become atheists because they refused to give in to intellectual lethargy's temptation, and because no one offered the demanded convincing evidence. Innocent absence of belief slowly evolves into active disbelief. Even then, there will be no such philosophy as one that goes by the name, "atheism", and disbelief is about the story tellers more than the content of their stories. Philosophies may result from it, while other philosophies support it, but (however atheistic they may be) none of them are "atheism". Lacking another name, such philosophies may become known as 'atheism' even though no two of them may be alike.

Atheism prescribes the absence of such a philosophy in its own origins. Reducing the word to its root meaning, "without theism" (or, in other words, "without theology"), emphasizes that atheism did not arrive with a built-in agenda. Although that seems contrary to superstitious claims, that does not make it untrue (but then, if superstitious claims were true, they would not have to be 'religious'). Atheism is a derogatory creation of religious superstitions that gets used to define a certain kind of heretic. Without the presence of religious superstitions, atheism could not exist as there'd be no reason to inspire it.

That atheism, a term of disparagement that promotes an unfair view of thoughtful and progressive people, is about what people do not believe in is plain to see, but only after due consideration removes the clouds and fog. The term usually describes someone who does not believe in the Arabic (Persian) god of Abraham, Heaven, Hell, angels and such. A ‘panatheist’ is one who holds no beliefs in the entirety of the alleged supernatural realm, including ghosts, demons, ghouls, and all else attributed to scary other-worldly concoctions, and ¹who is at least ambivalent or skeptical about space visitors, flying saucers and such and would rather meet them than be told about them.

It is that, it's plain to see, that makes atheists respond differently to information than their theistical counterparts. Anomalies bother atheists no end, and the fretting won't stop until such puzzles get solved; whereas the faithful feel satisfied with "God works in mysterious ways." Atheists cannot have our busy minds buzzing with hundreds or thousands of such unrequited paradoxes, and soon learn the only solution is to abandon belief, or to choose a life steeped in irreconcilable phantasmagoria. Where the superstitious want to be 'right', the atheist seeks to be 'correct'.

Although it most likely originated as a way for the superstitious to belittle us, most atheists eventually adopt the name in reference to their own world views, and seek ways to defend themselves and their right to not accept whole cloth in preference to what atheist principles show them to be true. Even so, a term originated as unfair treatment has its own built in self-limitations: Referencing people by what they do not believe avoids acknowledgment of their actual beliefs and so serves as a strawman for religious superstitions to post against a whole gamut of those who doubt religious superstitions' honesty, to lure everybody–including members of other sects and cults–away from dealing with the truth that all their presences renders otherwise plain and obvious.

6. Principle of the Argument from Silence: If a writer is a contemporary of a time of events of unusual, uncommon or common interest, and makes no mention about them even though a: (s)he were in circumstances where (s)he surely would have known about them and, b: were of a nature that would have incited interest in them, such silence casts high doubt about all claims made about such an event, series of events, or the individuals said to have been involved in such events. To demonstrate insufficient evidence exists to support belief about a claim, and sufficient evidence can show it to be reasonable to disbelieve a claim, and/or the claim is of an unnatural, inexplicable or doubtful event or condition, the claim should be considered invalid because it meets the principles that drive the Argument from Silence.

Examples: No writers contemporary to the time of Jesus' purported existence make mention of him at all, not even in civil records of the times, nor of the various miracles he purportedly performed, so his existence is cast in high doubt. Writers contemporary to the times of Buddha and Muhammad, however, did make mention of them, and so we can accept their existence as factual on that basis (even though it still remains for their claims to be verified according to other principles). Ref: http://www.rationalresponders.com/

7. The Principle of Cohesiveness: While anomalies bother atheists no end, the faithful feel satisfied and happy with "God works in mysterious ways." Atheists cannot have our busy minds buzzing with hundreds or thousands of such unrequited paradoxes, and soon learn the only solution is to abandon belief, or to choose a life steeped in irreconcilable phantasmagoria. Where the religious want to be 'right', the atheist seeks to be 'correct'. It is that, it's plain to see, that makes atheists respond differently to information than their theistical counterparts.

Cohesiveness is a universal aim of religious and secular philosophies, most of which attempt to accomplish it within their circle of logic. Atheism aims to develop a cohesive worldview by the application of science to discoverable principles of material nature; whereas superstition-based religions attempt cohesion through magical and ritual derivations claimed to be "revealed" to persons who claim or claimed special dispensations of the required talents.

A yearning for cohesiveness among all the disparate sources proclaiming themselves to be the operant "truths" for humanity leads many soon-to-be apostates to begin a search that may occupy them for the rest of their lives, if they do not abandon one religion only to become mired in another. That both religions may condemn the only source of real cohesiveness, and the fact that science is still in what are likely early stages of development, and so cohesiveness among the many philosophies derived from it is far from complete, leads apostates to avoid it as a source of knowledge and, from that, to loss of all hope for finding it.

The universal yearning for cohesiveness (the condition wherein all formulations of logic will fit together like the pieces of a solved jigsaw puzzle) is for solutions to all the mysteries of life that would end the questioning for all time, and join all of humanity together for common support and aims, render all religions as one so that others’ motives are no longer questionable in at least that respect, and eliminate the potential embarrassment of misunderstanding those from other cultures who may now condemn us for unintentional gaffes.

Cohesiveness of thought and action appears to be the unspoken aim that drives humans to originate moral precepts and develop the principles used to support them. For this reason, the principle of cohesiveness may be one of the more important unspoken driving forces behind mankind’s apparent affinity for religion and religious expression, misunderstood and so badly misapplied that it ends up making the opposite from the desired effect.

If that be so, then science should take a hand in it, work to discover what natural factors would provide the most advantageous form of cohesiveness among all the wide ranging kinds of folks there are, and promulgate its findings in some way that puts them beyond question. If and when that may occur, I would expect verification to come from it in support of the presentation made in the page about Practical Hedonism.

Which takes us to The Principle of Consequence: Cause and effect describes the nature of processes wherein an action begets an equal and opposite reaction. Actions beget predictable results, and those results are learned through teaching from our forebears, and experience. Pain versus comfort or pleasure are also teachers, and experience is the method they utilize for our edification. We learn to avoid pain and discomfort as undesirable consequences, and to perform actions the consequences of which are comfort and pleasure, and to regard them as our natural rewards for good behavior.

Religion plays with the Principle of Consequence by portraying the consequences of a religion-approved life as being rewarded only after death, while the religious are expected to endure pain and discomfort as part of their testing, to prove they deserve whatever rewards await them. Right or wrong in their approach, that only serves to show that religion also recognizes the Principle of Consequence if only in a perverted fashion.

8. The Principle of  Self Worth: Among atheists, ²beliefs are as varied as among any other group, and give rise to as many kinds of argumentation and conflict (including whether or not atheists have beliefs at all). That the only statement upon which we all agree, "There are no gods", demonstrates that as factual, even though we don't agree about how we know that, or even whether we know that. Religionists believe atheism is as much based on ‘faith’ as their own beliefs. That may be somewhat true, if one would consider that primary self-confidence gets juxtaposed against confidence in others, so that atheists can be said to exhibit a form of "self faith" that dominates their skepticism of others who arrived bearing unverifiable tales. It amounts to the pitting of self-confidence against confidence in tales others have told and insisted to be true, even though they show no distinguishment between why we should believe in Paul Bunyon or Rumplestiltskin and whichever main character serves as the protagonist in their own tales.

9. The Principle of  Skeptical Evaluation: What religiously superstitious people do not understand is that absence of belief is derived from common mathematical, scientific and legal principles, all of which work together to provide legitimate support for atheists' world views. Atheism arises from philosophies known as materialism or naturalism. Naturalism is actually an evolved form of ancient materialism that makes use of modern concepts to offer a fuller explanation about which many atheists remain skeptical. Even so, atheists will maintain a reluctance to allow themselves to become perceived as gullible, and so demand hard evidence as support for their convictions.

10. The Principle of Parsimony also gets expression as Okham’s (Occam’s) Razor. Found also in Newton’s Rules of Reason (in his Principia), it says, in essence, the simplest of many potential explanations must be adopted until testing can show it to be wrong, and that nothing not in evidence can be added to a description if what is present is sufficient to show it to be true. To apply the parsimony principle to atheists’ godless view of existence shows it, in the absence of contrary verifiable evidence, to be the preferred view. Rather than the religious view being preeminent in rectitude, religious superstition stands without legs, and survives only by the application of force, the arousal of trepidation, and the constant need for peer approval among weak-willed, emotional people.

Fanaticism, in the Secular Glossary, is the maintenance of belief in the face of a complete absence of supporting evidence.  Still weak when stood up on its own spindly legs, the parsimony principle leaves a lot to be desired. By cherry-picking exceptions they claim prove it to be in error, rather than offering incontrovertible evidence of their own, religionists love to argue against its lack of a forceful and positive statement. Other principles, however, act to explain it, and enable a powerful defense that favors atheism above all other conditions of belief.

11. The Principle of Defeasibility, the first of those, implements a similar, but more substantial statement. The usual example offered, in an attempt to make defeasibility understandable, is that of a youth who must show proof of age to qualify for a position requiring him to be age 21. He can imagine himself capable to take the position, and perhaps show other qualifications, but the lack of evidence regarding the required qualification renders his claims invalid. It would be unfeasible to act upon his claims as though they were true for so long as that is the case.

A religionist's claims to support the existence of a god cannot meet the qualifications imposed by a standard dictionary definition of existence, that whichever god must be shown to factually exist by demonstrating a specific presence. It can be imagined to exist, and perhaps show other qualifications, but the lack of evidence regarding the required qualification renders their claims invalid. It would be unfeasible to act upon such claims as though they were true for so long as that is the case.

To apply the defeasibility principle, it is correct to proceed as though the atheists' premise is true until actual evidence can destroy it (make it unfeasible), since the alternative is to act as though those making unsupportable claims are true. Atheism remains the most feasible in light of the available evidence (something must first be feasible before it can become defeasible). Atheism is therefore defeasible because a potential existence of a god is inherent to it. Religion's opposing view is not defeasible because a negative statement cannot be supported by tangible evidence that gods do not exist (expressed as, "You cannot prove nonexistence").

In other words, in the example of the youth, he could possibly prove his claims and, if they were true, he would. The complete absence of verifiable validation that gods do exist, or that an Intelligent Designer created the universe, since all evidence in support of that belief is anecdotal, shows the religionists' claims to be untrue. Since religion's claims are neither feasible nor defeasible, to insist that any gods exist is unfeasible and, therefore, also invalid. All that remains in this case is atheism, the absence of any claims, wherein one would most sensibly and justifiably act as though no gods exist.

12. The Principle of Jurisprudence is the common principle that a nation's laws will be accepted as correct for application within that nation. In other words, what is right for common practice will be reflected by what is regarded as fair and legal, especially when referring to the logical processes by which things get done and by which we decide what is right or wrong. Accordingly, in ³secular nations, if the claimant in a case cannot offer substantiation, the case cannot be tried and must be dismissed. Anecdotal evidence is generally not admissible. It is always the claimant’s onus to prove an event occurred and that the accused was present at it. It is not up to the accused to prove his innocence, nor to atheists to prove any gods exist to create and rule over the universe or any part of it. This goes back to our starting principle about natural innocence.

13. The energy principle, that matter nor energy are created nor destroyed, but only their forms are changed, officially known as the First Law of Thermodynamics,  tells the atheist the universe originated as energy and material and that efforts to detect any other realm "above" that will forever fail as it is absent from the mix and, therefore, irrelevant.  While both may originate in Nature (they had to come from somewhere), what the principle expresses is that energy and material are different forms of each other, and so must be capable to exist in either role in ways that can be accessed and measured. Energies that cannot be accessed, and which do not appear in any useful form, that must be imagined to become "known", remain irrelevant to any human concerns for so long as they remain, for all practical purposes, nonexistent because they are immaterial.

14. The principle of natural propinquity informs the atheist that all life originated from the same ancestor and so we share the same basic natures, traits and pool of components and are, in the main, related. Natural propinquity, a child of evolution, can be traced back through history through what fossils remain of our forebears. The atheist recognizes that, although there may be gaps in that historical record, none of them are as vast as the elements missing from any alternative view of objective existence, and that it is the only explanation for life's processes that does not impose unverifiable phantasmagoria as a resource.

As a principle, natural propinquity also informs us that all of existence grew from a single source in a system not describable as creation, but as accretion, and does so without violating the energy principle, but of accretion that must still be an ongoing process. That this is a speculative endeavor means little, when it is less so than any alternative stories about origins that attempt to explain how material came to be (something that neither "God made it" nor "It has always existed" satisfactorily answer). M-Theory attempts to offer a mathematical model that seems fairly complete, but that induces strange conceptions that have little bearing on demonstrable reality, appear to be unnecessary, and that waste the efforts of all those who worked to develop the theory. A much simpler explanation is offered at this link, (in Evolution: The Mad Poet Does Science).

15. The Principle of Theodicy proclaims that if an all powerful God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. (From http://tinyurl.com/8x5ls). Bill Tammeus, in the North Jersey Record, asks on Jan. 9, 2005: "Theologians refer to this as the problem of theodicy, and many acknowledge it's the best argument atheists have for denying God's existence. Scholars outline it this way: An all-powerful God could prevent evil. An all-loving God would want to do that. But evil and suffering exist. So, should we conclude that God is weak, not loving or simply nonexistent?"

"The Tsunami has us wondering about evil," said Tom Schaefer in the Lexington Herald-Leader on Jan. 1, 2005. "Tens of thousands of men, women and children died in Asia's devastating tsunami. How do people of faith make sense of the senseless? We can't. The problem of evil in this world has never been fully understood and cannot be completely explained. ... As one theologian put it, evil and suffering are evidence for the atheist." Christian theology has tackled this question —often referred to as theodicy or the justice of God in the face of evil— in various ways. Theodicy is the branch of theology that attempts to explain the existence of pain and evil, mainly by the use of logical fallacies such as the Appeal to Emotions, or the aptly named Argument from Evil, neither of which use tangible facts to make their cases.

Pain and evil are, to the atheist, tools to teach us about the laws inherent to interactive cause and effect/events and processes, wherein pain teaches us which processes to regard with wariness and pleasure teaches us which processes may be desirable to experience, in the much demonized philosophy of practical hedonism that goes unheralded as religion's toughest competitor.

16. The principle of accretion works with the principle of propinquity to describe evolution as a process of growth through the processes and events in which cause and effect worked together to yield the current state of all existence. Material grew from the first particle to spring into existence, through accretion, to yield the entire mass of the universe. Life grew from the first bit of protein to replicate, through millions of billions of trillions  of years of evolutionary accretion, to yield the current catalog of flora and fauna in Earth's waters and upon her lands.

Nathaniel Branden wrote in The Divine right of Stagnation (Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness), "Every achievement of man is a value in itself, but it is also a stepping stone to greater achievements and values. Life is growth; to not move forward is to fall backward; life remains life, only so long as it advances. Every step upward opens to man a wider range of action and achievement—and creates the need for that action and achievement. There is no final, permanent 'plateau'. The problem of survival is never 'solved' once and for all, with no further thought or motion required. More precisely, the problem of survival is solved, by recognizing that survival demands constant growth and creativeness."

The continued psychological growth of individuals within a society yields the accretion necessary for societal advancement. Once individual initiative gets stifled, such as by the imposition of theocratic laws, advancement slows, stops, and accretion reverses into regressive decrease and reduction. Generally a new order will work a coup and devise a new formulation for such a society, after much blood has been shed and much property has been destroyed.

Historically, religious superstition has been the antipathy of societal accretion and the perpetrator of regressive reductionism. Even today, religionists work to forestall acceptance of evolution, however much a social boon it has proved itself to be. All kinds of technological advances get condemned, even as hypocritical religionists use them to their own advantage. Science and individual enterprise foster growth and social evolution in a free society. Oligarchical religious superstition struggles and resorts to force and chicanery to prevent new growth from usurping the false security inherent to the old. Throughout history, repeated dark ages prevailed when mankind was most subdued by the forces of religious superstition. Science and technology yielded the accretion of technical knowledge that allows most of us to survive in the present times, a fact religionists seem to wish to avoid, its lack most apparent in those areas of our world where religious superstition dominates. From the very beginning of material existence, the unacclaimed principle of accretion only supports the premise of atheism.

17. The Pleasure Principle of Practical Hedonism: Evolution has developed tools that animals depend on for survival, as senses attuned to their environments to warn them about benefits and dangers, input as signals about pleasures versus pain. If wisdom equates with morality, the pursuit of happiness, a hedonistic pursuit that was an expressed founding principle of the U.S.A. can best be described as a pursuit of wisdom. Those who would have us avoid the principles from which humans derive pleasure and avoid pain are teaching us to be immoral in the worst sense of the word; they are teaching us to be unwise and would keep us away from all through which we might discover their devious intentions, and that would enable those made wiser by their mishaps to explain to youths more than just real reasons for avoiding certain situations, but also how and why to care for their own development into a constructive maturity.

18. The principle of focus requires opponents to maintain the same point of view concerning the subject under discussion. Many argument could be settled if those on opposing sides would realize their only real differences would be in the way they were considering the subject of the discussion. The rocketship in many explanations of the theory of relativity comes to mind, that changes in apparent length according to whether it is seen from inside the ship at speed, or being observed by someone outside of it. That also applies to the apparent pitch of a train horn, that sounds higher during approach than when it is leaving, and most of the time different than what the passengers may hear inside the engine compartments. Ascertaining and maintaining the same point of view will yield the same results for all parties to an argument; awareness of points of view will often explain their differences and make the whole story more accurate.

The hokey religious story about the blind scientists trying to describe an elephant according to the part of it to which they had access also serves as a fine example of why arguers need to agree on exactly what the parameters of their perceptions are before they even begin a discussion. Often, the discussion will end right there when they realize that was all that stood between them and a harmonious agreement.

A logical fallacy that expands on this principle to include all cases where parameters get changed during a disagreement is known as equivocation fallacy, usually in reference to changing the meaning of a word important to the argument. The bifurcation fallacy, known also as false dilemma fallacy or black/white fallacy often gets involved. Changing parameters in order to support one's statements only confuses the issues but does not change whatever are the facts, all of which must be understood only according to the manner in which they apply, and not just as sweeping generalizations (another fallacy to look for on your favorite search engine). Fallacies of technique, such as these examples, are most often lurking behind arguments that secular people get involved with among themselves. The only way to end that kind of problem is to learn about logic and how to recognize the presence of such misconceptions when they occur. They stand on the way of group harmony wherever they lurk to bite chunks out of human advancement.

19. The Principle of Mutual Authority, may be one of the most important in the ongoing defense against the religious. This natural basis for moral actions between individuals (as persons, groups, communities and so forth up the scale) can be offered as one reason to explain the elevation of behavior we so often experience when exchanges are being made. In the same way that to take upon oneself the authority to offer a hug grants the offer's  recipient the authority to return the hug, it is true that an attack invites a rejoinder.

Our aim, overall, must be to assert our right to respond with factual information to things that are offensive, wrong, and lies, or to assert a right to offend someone in exchange for his right to offend. It is up to him to take from that whatever authority he will, including that if he refrains from offending oneself to begin with, he has taken away our right to offend him. To make the initial offense, then, he granted himself autonomous authority, whatever may have been anyone else's opinion, and willingly risked repercussions by therein granting that same authority to his targets.

Alternatively, since the first party has taken an autonomous authority to act in some fashion, that action also carries autonomous authority forward to its recipient. Autonomous authority to act in refusal, for example, if one so chooses. Action is required in any case, for good reasons.

As expressed in the previous paragraph, we ought to not be lax about this principle: If others grant us (*)'authority' by their actions toward us to respond in a relevant manner, any absence of response asserts a willingness to receive such actions all through the future by silently granting them 'authority' to continue. Moreover, it soon removes any 'authority' to respond to them.

Before you offhandedly disagree with that, stop to ponder first how things actually work. Somewhere in the depths of consciousness we are aware of how true it is, and from that awareness arises such concepts as "nip this in the bud" and "put a stop to this before it's too late," or "If you don't tell him right now, he'll just keep on doin' it." We all know, in our heart of hearts, that such sayings are true, and can use this principle to explain why.

(*) The concept does not work where there are laws to limit its scope. Don't, for instance, break into someone's apartment to steal back baseball paraphernalia they may have stolen from you. You'll be the one who gets into trouble, and nobody will believe you.

20. The Principle of Falsifiability, a precept promoted by Karl Popper, as defined by John David Garcia in his introduction to Creative Transformation, "means that alleged scientific statements must be objectively testable to see whether they are in fact false. Untestable statements about nature are at best trivial, at worst meaningless…" The philosophy of science is inherent to an idea called 'falsifiability', which requires that ideas be testable before they can be considered 'scientific'. Anything that happened before Planck time (the instant the Big Bang began), for an example, cannot be known with any certainty, and therefore remains untestable. Intelligent Design offers another example. Untestable ideas cannot be considered scientific and so, lo and behold, scientists must consider them as simple speculation.

From <http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/debate.html> "An approach I have found very helpful is to use Popperian epistemology [as in Karl Popper, the logical positivist] as a set of ground rules for argument. In brief, the idea is that in order for an idea to be taken seriously as a statement of fact (rather than belief), the conditions of its falsifiability must be laid out. In other words, you must say 'Tell me what I have to do to win this argument'. If the other person says 'You can never convince me that I am wrong because I have faith', there is absolutely no point arguing with them, and you should let them know this."

From <http://www.non-religious.com/evolution.html>"Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. It fails the criteria for a real scientific theory laid out in the 1982 Supreme Court decision, McLean vs. Arkansas Board of Education, namely that real science is: (1) guided by natural - physical or biological - law; (2) explanatory by reference to natural law; (3) testable against the empirical world; (4) tentative in its conclusions; and (5) falsifiable, i.e., makes predictions that can be tested by observation." I think that, by now, you get the idea that something 'falsifiable' means that it is testable, and that it stands as great a chance of being proven wrong as well as right.

Take all those principles into the superstitious arena: To apply them to the claims made about the existence of all gods, the paranormal, the supernatural and all the denizens said to dwell therein, requires that sufficient direct and tangible evidence be presented before the religionists' case will be considered. Atheists, whom religionists enjoy accusing of all sorts of evil, unprincipled intentions and immorality, must be regarded as innocent until proved guilty, for even the existence of the principles presented here presents sufficient evidence to show such claims to be false (and, in fact, outright lies). Only the superstitious claims about existence can be regarded as unprincipled in nature, simply for their lack of veracity, as few of them were founded in any demonstrable kind of reality. Slanderous and libelous statements made about atheists as individuals or as a group render those who gave them expression liable to trial and penalties, especially when made against private citizens acting as such. In the United States, the law ought to be a powerful deterrent against what are becoming common crimes and immoral practices against us.

Growing a realization that actual powerful principles, of which these are only a few, exist upon which atheism rests its case may serve to inspire such an attitude that will respond in a forceful manner to harassment and other unjust treatment atheists suffer at the hands of belligerent antisecularists. Too many of us feel alone in an intolerant world, where defending ourselves gets twisted into aggressiveness by those inclined to betray their followers' trust. A growing awareness in our own ranks that our numbers may exceed those of the fanatical myth-makers, and that we are working to spread the kind of information supporters of natural truths need, and that those truths can be made understandable, may go a long ways to getting us into the same boat and paddling in some effective way toward the future.

ONWARD! Let the games begin: It's reality versus phantasmagoria!

"We believe Reality 101 is one of the best independently published books on the market." Rec'd 3/4/06 in a letter from Airleaf Publishing and Bookselling. Buy it, read it, and see for yourself.
 

Standalone companion book for the Complete Universe of Memes

1: While it appears that many calamities through the ages have beaten and battered planet Earth, and that they promoted the evolutionary process from which humanity developed, we know it could have as easily gone the other way, and that humanoids could have evolved on some distant place millions of years earlier than here. Considering the booming development of technology over the past few decades, to ponder a million years into the future seems thrilling but also worrisome about how to get past the constant dangerous barricades superstitious religions attempt to impose. Return

2: A continuum exists here that most people cannot realize. That atheism is, in itself, an absence of belief, does not presuppose that atheists have stopped thinking. The continuum ranges between the skeptical disbelief inherent to atheism and the philosophies atheists develop in support of their own needs. The differences between philosophy and theosophy are inherent to the skeptical approach atheists use versus the gullibility inherent to the anecdotal approach of theism. Return

3: I hold that it is this secular principle, more than anything else, that is behind the fanatical push to promote the United States as a "Christian" nation founded upon "Christian" principles. That secularity's root principles are so seldom given expression, especially to the point where they become commonly known, is what allows the radical Dominionists and Reconstructionists to get away with their scam. (That they have to call themselves REconstructionists tells the tale that even they realize their claims are not true).  Return

"To deny a right to the experience of pleasure is immoral unless that denial can be justified by a valid presentation of how pain will result from that experience in an amount that would render the expected pleasure regrettable; or, if it can be shown that pain will be induced in others innocent of any involvement. The role of science in moral issues should be to test that, predict that, and find harmless ways to demonstrate that."

— L. H. Whitling in the eBook, Secular Morality, soon to be released —