Published in the New Statesman online!
April 10, 2007A few weeks ago, I was approached by the New Statesman Online team after they found my blog and decided they wanted me to write a few articles for them about atheism for their Faith Column. Of course, it's a little ironic to be asked to write about a lack of Faith in a "Faith Column", but it's been a real pleasure to write again on this topic. I've just gotten on with my life, really, and haven't really been thinking actively about my atheism recently. Off I went and dusted off some of my old books and got on with writing the posts. It's been refreshing! The first post went up today, called: I believe in one less god than monotheists…. They'll be serialising another three, and all four will be available here. I'll also archive them on my own site, here.
On a frivolous note: Zeus is just Thor with a fake nose stuck on.
On a more serious note: do you distinguish between atheism and agnosticism, and if so, why do you prefer atheism over agnosticism?
Ciaran, these rock. Glad there’s at least one fellow atheist in Harrow!
So just under TWO PERCENT of the email that arrives every day is genuine. The rest is rubbish. I’ve got some spam filtering in there, but it isn’t great. It sometimes junks genuine emails and I’ve lost some good opportunities through this (I almost missed the New Statesman gig after my spam filter killed it).
Hi Simon,
Thanks for your comment. I think this explains my position on atheism/ agnosticism. I’ll be putting up a page later on with some clever videos including Douglas Adams’ views on the two.
http://www.hanway.co.uk/atheism-introduction/atheism-faq
Short answer: I think agnosticism’s a bit of a cop-out.
I found your blog through the New Statesman, and my only complaint is that you don’t update it quite enough. As an American Atheist, I enjoy reading blogs of atheists across the sea.
Agnosticism, I am not so hard on it. I have often said that I am willing to allow a .03% level of probability that a supreme being exists although I have no idea what form it would take. On the larger part that would make me an agnostic, while I am a functional atheist. For good measure, I call myself an atheist, because as Richard Dawkins has said “Unlikely is unlikely is unlikely. How far are we expected to go with this?”
Loved the cult video. I shall embed it in my own blog.