Atheism Is A Lack Of Belief

As William Lane Craig puts it "the definition that will not die!"

Because it should.. because it's wrong!

Mr Tree offers the extremely common misconception:

There's a reason that this is on our list of Atheist Clichés That Need To Stop Being Said. It's so plainly dumb it shouldn't need explaining.

Answering an Australian (or Spanish I'm not sure) Atheist

It's a bit of a long one, but it's not that heavy. Almost all aspects of Christian apologetics is touched on.

Most Atheists Are Actually Agnostics

This rough conversation (or parts of it) happens far too often...

Believer: What would you call yourself?
Non-believer: I'm an atheist.
Believer: A strong atheist or weak atheist?
Non-believer: What's the difference?
Believer: A strong atheist says they know that there is no god with 100% certainty. A weak atheist believes there is no god but there's room for doubt.
Non-believer: I'm a strong atheist.
Believer: Really? How do you know for certain there's no god?
Non-believer: There's no evidence for it.
Believer: You mean you haven't seen any evidence. There could be some hidden under a rock on Pluto. Have you checked there?
Non-believer: No.

The Atheist Lead In 'Orange Is The New Black'

'Orange is the New Black' may sound like some sort of 'Sex and the City' in prison type of show, but it's actually really good!


It's great to see a show where men are the minority, dealing with real issues and things anybody can relate to - not just stuff that's 'by women, for women'. It's not a chick flick. It's a normal show that just happens to mainly star women, just like every normal show where most of the cast are men.

Religion plays a part in the show and for the most part is handled well. There's a chapel in the prison that has to be shared between the various faiths and denominations, so time allowed for its use is split up evenly. There's a preacher who seems to be a rock of compassion for those who need her, the Spanish community pray at mealtimes and it's left at that, there's a Buddhist yoga instructor, and there are a couple of extremist nuts that give faith a bad name.

That's all fine. It reflects reality. It's OK to show the messed up side of religion. It's good even. This stuff needs to be highlighted so it can be dealt with. All the while the moderate and compassionate normal people of faith are also on screen to show that they aren't all nutcases, there should be no reason for viewers to complain.

I don't know the beliefs of the shows writers and producers, although episode 12 seemed to be an example of the main character Piper acting as a voice for their views.
As I say, for the bulk of the series, they've been respectful and handled faith well. The cast includes Kate Mulgrew, who is well known to be a devout Catholic, and also Laura Prepon who is a Scientologist, as well as a number of other people of various faiths, so the producers probably are sympathetic to the belief systems of other people.

So I don't want to come down too hard on the show for the things that were said in Episode 12. It might have been the writers speaking through Piper, or it might have been just another character expressing a poorly thought out world-view. Piper is hardly the beacon of reason and morality anyway - being involved with drug dealers and cheating on her fiancé.

Whichever it is, I'm just a little concerned that what she said might be taken by viewers as good rational sense. So I'm gonna go over it and try to clear up the mess. WARNING: MINOR EPISODE SPOILERS

What Label Do You Fit Under?

It's a mixture of frustrating, tiresome, and embarrassing that a lot of people don't seem to know what to call themselves when they're talking about the subject of God's existence.

Use this simple flowchart to clear it up for yourself!

You'll probably notice that each result has two parts to it. To keep it simple, you can stick to the lower part when you refer to yourself. The upper part is basically a clarifier to make it absolutely obvious what you think and can be helpful in some situations.

There's some tricky words in there for newbies, so I'll tell you what they mean here.