I've decided to make it Quotations Week on the Atheist Meme of the Day. Here's today's Atheist Meme of the Day, from my Facebook page. Pass this on; or don't; or make up your own. Enjoy!
"The world behaves exactly as you would expect it would, if there were no Supreme Being, no Supreme Consciousness, and no supernatural." -Julia Sweeney
This claim is actually false in an important way: A lot of believers think that a world without gods would behave in a particular way and that particular way does not match reality.
This mismatch of course arises from a misunderstanding of what how a godless world would work, but that a different failing than being a believer despite godlessness being a more parsimonious explanation.
Posted by: Dan M. | March 24, 2010 at 11:47 PM
Dan, that does not make this meme false, it simply means that other people will not understand it. A subtle but very important difference.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | March 25, 2010 at 02:33 AM
Well, it makes it wrong for certain values of "you" in her phrase "as you would expect", if you actually try spreading this as a meme.
If on the other hand you're already talking to somebody who thinks the natural world is sufficient, you're not really using the meme as a way to spread understanding, which is exactly what Greta suggests in her prologue to these memes.
My point was that as true as this meme is, its expression needs to be modified in the cases where it might do the most good.
Posted by: Dan M. | March 25, 2010 at 10:22 AM
Well, like I always say in the Memes: Pass this on; or don't; or make up your own. I usually encourage people to edit the Memes if they want before passing them on as well (I suppose you could argue that it would be more accurate to say "The world behaves exactly as one would expect it would") ... but since this is a quotation, that doesn't seem right. But if you don't like it, don't pass it on. We don't all have to agree with all of these.
Heretic. :-)
Posted by: Greta Christina | March 25, 2010 at 10:40 AM