Today's Atheist Meme of the Day. Pass this on; or don't; or edit it as you see fit; or make up your own. Enjoy!
Atheists care about emotion, passion, intuition, and irrational impulse. We're not Vulcans, and we don't think logic and evidence are the only things that matter. We simply think that logic and evidence are the best tools we have for figuring out the real, non-subjective world. Including whether or not God exists. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get across.
Whilst I agree with your sentiment Greta, I feel compelled to point out once again... within well accepted Star Trek canon (most notably Diane Duane's excellent "Spock's World"), Vulcan's are NOT atheists themselves. Quite the contrary. All Vulcan's have a profound awareness of existence of the creator of the universe. Part of their psionic abilities i believe.
Diane Duane also sums up the philosophy of Surak more succinctly than just logic. "See the Universe as it is, not as you wish it to be." which is pretty good advice.
I'll slink away into my nerd cave now ;)....
Posted by: Lou Doench | August 26, 2010 at 12:06 PM
Hmm… That doesn’t sound canonical to me, esp. given Roddenberry’s atheism. Memory Alpha doesn’t mention it either. But there is Kiri-kin-tha's First Law of Metaphysics: "Nothing unreal exists."
Posted by: Ant | August 26, 2010 at 02:12 PM
I covered this in rather extreme detail here, and also here.
In brief, not only are skeptics not Vulcans, Vulcans aren't skeptics. They're religious fanatics. Vulcans are much, much more like Christian penitents than atheists.
Posted by: Seth Manapio | August 26, 2010 at 07:35 PM
I can't believe that no one has mentioned yet the Vulcan irrationality towards sex.
Posted by: ckitching | August 27, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Ckitching, gives me an idea for a t-shirt: "Vulcans do it with cognitive dissonance"
Posted by: DSimon | August 27, 2010 at 02:19 PM