Here's a fun factoid that's archaic but for some reason still valid: Atheists shouldn't have to disprove the existence of a god. And yet theists still think that we need to prove to them that there are no gods or benevolent beings. It would make more sense to require people who believe in an omnipotent, invisible and immortal being that bends time, space and fate to their will to explain in elaborate detail why this belief isn't a preposterous waste of time. But you can't because there's no way of proving it, or disproving it for that matter. There's where that belief word comes in. You have to just feel it. It's a clever ruse that works like an intellectual net to capture the more gullible, insecure or otherwise philosophically handicapped.
This is an archaic way of dealing with the religion debate because it was presented in 1952 by Bertrand Russell in an article "Is there a God?". That said, it's still a valid statement and religious scholars are crying in the corners of libraries or wetting their pants because they've been burdened with the intellectually impossible task of proving the existence of something that rejects science.
Betrand Russel writes:
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.
Russell makes a good point and it's the reason his writing is referenced later by many other atheists and theists alike. Basically what can be presented today as flying spaghetti monster theory: it would be reasonable to say that the existence of a God is as logical as the existence of a giant invisible flying spaghetti monster. This is of course preposterous, but both make fun stories.
Now, why is this argument even important? May theists get frustrated and angry at the questioning of their religion and honestly I don't mind too much what people want to believe but consider this. Suppose this floating teapot around the sun has some tea in it. Now, everyone in Europe thinks that the teapot has earl gray in it, and this is the best earl gray tea. Everyone in the middle east thinks the teapot has jasmine. Who cares? nobody can see the teapot so maybe it's both. You can't prove that wrong. Let's go on to say that if you live in Europe, and you know the teapot has earl gray and anyone that thinks it has anything else in it is wrong, and does not deserve to see the vast expanse of black tea goodness that is in this teapot and that you need to kill everyone who thinks the teapot has anything else. All the people that think the teapot is full of Jasmine, Ooling, White Tea, Green Tea, Mate, or Herbal Tea all need to die. Now, the middle east is angry because they know you're wrong, and there's Jasmine Tea. They'll get to taste a good cupful of that infinite tea if they sacrifice their lives to the cause of the war against the English. It sounds like a downward spiral, right?
When planes are flown into towers, when people and children detonate in crowds, when a genuinely upstart man can casually say in a conversation that another man is going to be punished and tortured eternally, it's about time the human race began to question the need for religion, or at the very least, took it much less literally. If you are religious but don't think this applies because you have not personally detonated in a crowd or done something outwardly appalling like mutilate a child's genitals, jeer at someone about eternal suffering and torture, dehumanized others for differing thoughts, don't you think it's at least odd to feel associated? Don't you think that now might be a good time to admit that it may be out of hand? How many people have to suffer and die because a silent, unquestioning crowd is too comfortable to question the "utopia"?
Let's put this behind us, humanity. Rebuild our economy without things that don't make sense, make peace with each other and stop thoughtlessly killing each other and ourselves and start treating humans like the fragile, beautifully ephemeral things they actually are.
