Russell's teapot
October 31st 2006 06:55
This is a straight rip-off from Wikipedia. But too amusing not to share.
Russell's teapot was an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, to refute the idea that the onus lies somehow upon the sceptic to disprove the unfalsifiable claims of religion. In an article entitled "Is There a God?", commissioned (but never published) by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell said the following:
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
In his book A Devil's Chaplain, Richard Dawkins developed the teapot theme a little further:
"The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first."
Similar concepts to Russell's teapot are the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Images from Wikipedia articles on Russell, Dawkins, the IPU, and the FSM.
***
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
"The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first."
Similar concepts to Russell's teapot are the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
***
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Images from Wikipedia articles on Russell, Dawkins, the IPU, and the FSM.
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Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Comment by Shani
I'd like to propose the existance of a microscopic toothbruch under my bed!
Comment by Ronald Green
nothing
For us, it's a matter of live and let live. But for believers - especially those whose beliefs come from a higher being - the very fact that people are not believs is an affront. There is no "let live" in that case.
Ron
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Also, I highly recommend Bad Boy Bubby, if you haven't seen it.
Maybe one thing that might stop atheists from going militant... I was told (I haven't read the book) that Dawkins doesn't speak of "believer" vs "non-believer", but of degrees of belief. In God Delusion, he defines 7 bands -- from band 1 (certain that deity exists) to band 7 (certainty that he/she/it doesn't) -- and he himself takes a band 6 position. Why doesn't he go all the way to 7? Well, being a good scientist, he can't dismiss the theory completely. And perhaps this sort of humility about certainty is what stops a lot of atheists from going militant (although it hasn't stopped Dawkins).
Comment by Ronald
nothing
My teapot-believers are not atheists; they are believers, and as such will stone non teapot-believers.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Well, you're probably right that that's a big factor. For instance, if you don't have a deity saying "Go forth and evangelize", or "Burn the heretics", then you might not feel a particular need to do either.
There are also various factors to do with power that could explain the lack of atheistic militancy.
And (though I'm probably being overly optimistic), there may be factors to do with rational discussion as an ideal. Perhaps atheists are more inclined to talk to you about it, then point a gun at you and say "Believe me, or else."
But of course, an atheist could care, and want to proselytize, and what could motivate you are all the evils of religion (like Dawkins, Onfray, Hitchens, Pataki, et al -- the books on god delusion are piling up).
Perhaps some of the revolutionary anarchist and communist groups are an example of militant atheism.
Comment by Ronald
nothing
Comment by Anonymous
I am pretty sure none of those entities exist not only because of the absence of evidences (this by itself would only justify agnosticism) but also because there are incredibly strong reasons militating against their existence.
Take for example the celestial teapot: teapots are products of an human mind, contrarily to biological systems, there are no conceivable natural pathways by which they could have evolved, and no human being has ever been at the surface or even in the vicinity of Mars (and even if some secrete mission has done that, it is extremely unlikely they would have brought one teapot with them and let it fall in the space) , therefore one can conclude with almost certainty that there is no teapot orbiting around Mars.
Let us now consider other scenarios for which we have no evidence at all: somewhere in the multiverse, there is an intelligent species looking like bears, there exists a parasitic species capable of possessing their host’s brain like the Goaulds (Stargates) or hives (dark skies).
I am “agnostic” but not atheist about these possibilities, because while there exist clearly no evidence, there is also nothing which speaks against that.
Similarly, I am atheist about any kind of invisible animals or visible or invisible unicorns existing on the earth, but I am agnostic about the possibilities that such creature may live on an unknown planet of an unknown remote paralell universe.
I therefore think that the principle (No evidences => non-existence) is deeply flawed, for affirming that something does not exist, we ought to provide reasons for not believing that.
So, I believe that atheist have to give solid grounds for believing with almost certainty there exist no god(s). These may be the evidence of meaningless evils, the widespread religious confusion, the numerous examples of bad design in nature and so on and so forth.