Colbert on "Pulpit-Freedom Sunday"

Stephen Colbert takes his satire to a whole new level here. He can hardly keep his contempt for Jim Garlow and his anti-church-and-state-separation mentality.

Ken Ham Sandwich

Atheist Morality: Ratcheting Forward

By Kristopher Hite 

As a person with no religion and no belief in any gods, it may come as a surprise that I spend considerable time thinking about the best source of moral guidance. Throughout history there have been people who maintain a good reputation, a high quality of life, and provide constant intellectual stimulation to their peers while actively questioning what is right and wrong. Who are these people in present day and what do they have to say?

Dr. Ken Miller is a cell biologist and professor at Brown University. He is famous for defending evolution as a fundamental subject in biology classrooms and has given testimony in several important court cases. The most recent being Kitzmiller v. Dover, PA.  By doing so he has elevated the quality of public education in the United States and helped ensure evolution be taught as a matter of fact.  Through his work he has upheld the establishment clause fo the US constitution and for this I applaud him.

As for moral thought, Dr. Miller has gone on record saying that "science can only take us so far." I was able to ask him to elaborate on this thought last week as part of a Google Hangout On Air moderated by the HuffPostLive host Josh Zepps. I asked him where atheists ought to get their morals and where he gets his. Here was his response.

If, in science, we found an absolute, testable, empirical source of morality then scientists everywhere would agree on all moral questions. The reality is I think our discussions of morality, in other words, what is right and wrong, have to be informed by science. I think we have to be literate in science, even people who are not scientists. But ultimately moral questions require a philosophical point of view in terms of what is the good life? How should we treat each other? What is the value of human life?  Now as a Catholic, I have to confess, I draw a lot of my moral sense from the religious teachings of my faith. But I also would argue that there is a moral sense that is present in everybody. Whether they are a person of faith, whether they are an agnostic, or whether they are an atheist. I completely agree with the idea that one can have an atheistic world-view. And informed by science, and by using logic, and by having a philosophical view on life, you can in fact, develop a moral code which is consistent and which provides the greatest good for the greatest number.

His answers only lead me to more questions. Which philosophical views help provide the greatest good? And what time-scale for good should we choose? If not from science then where do these ideas originate? And how are contemporary atheists doing on developing a moral code?

Fellow blogger, Cara Santa Maria chimed in via the Huffpost discussion informing me that she had recently recorded a pertinent episode of "the Point" a spin-off of the the Young Turks Network. The episode was essentially a panel discussion of exclusively atheists trying to answer the question "where does atheist morality come from?"

As part of the panel discussion, video comments were aired as food-for-thought. To me, the most striking guest was AJ Johnson, Development Director for the American Atheists organization. Here is her comment.

 

Physicist and blogger Sean Carroll responded to her comment with a plea to  atheists to heed her words and to try harder to actively participate in the process of developing an atheist morality. Here is Sean.

AJ Johnson brings up a really important point when she says secularists should "own" their superior morality. I think that we have been on the defensive for a very long time because traditionally the reason why things were "right and wrong" ultimately flowed from God. God was helping us explain what is good, and what is bad. Of course God does not exist. But we haven't, as secularists, really given a good explanation of where our morality comes from. And partly, it's because we don't know. Figuring out how to act in the world without guidance from outside anywhere is a very difficult problem. We say nice things about equality and liberty and things like that. But we don't agree on the underlying philosophy. We don't have the cheap out of saying "well, here's the holy book where its all been written down." We have to think about things. And I think we need to do a better job.

At this point you may say "we can look to evolution and neurobiology for our moral origins. We can see how justice plays out in animals. We can look to cognitive neuroscientists like Josh Greene who can tell us the average response to moral dilemmas in the fMRI scans of human brains. We can use this scientific data to rationalize a fair system for human society. Right?"  Wrong says Sean Carroll.

You do not want to commit the naturalistic fallacy. You do not want to say that because things happen in nature that they are the right things to have happen. We need explain the fundamental reason for saying that some behavior is good, some behavior is bad. I think that evolution helps us explain why we have the predilections we do. And evolution is certainly going to play a crucial role in an ultimate understanding of morality, but it does not GIVE it to us in any simple way. We should be able to do better than that.

If science can not tell us where morality comes from, then what can? As atheists shouldn't we be skeptical of any idea that can not be explained with the scientific method?  I'll give you my answer.  Yes we should be skeptical of pure moral philosophy but that does not mean we should shut our ears to it.  Much can be learned from living people as they have the highest probability of experiencing the same existential questions you have.  The very term "humanist" implies that we ought embrace our peers and draw our ethics from them.  There are currently very powerful  leaders in the atheist community, like it or not.  Though we do not hold these leaders as infallible vessels of an invisible sky-father there is a large collective of minds tuned-in to their thoughts via the internet. 

PZ Myers is one of these leaders. A professor of biology at the University of Minnesota at Morris PZ writes one of the most widely read blogs on the planet.  Being in the right place at the right time, PZ has the unique position of wielding a mighty horde or electronic followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands. When he asks them to do something, they do it en masse. This can be seen any time he asks them to crash some bogus internet poll which they do in throngs.  This kind of klout is not to be taken lightly. Though PZ has been dogged as being odious and even a "shepherd of internet trolls" by thinkers like Sam Harris, in my opinion PZ has made some excellent points lately. I think he has some moral guidance to offer in explaining secular morality more precisely as Sean Carroll has challenged us to do. The following passage penned by PZ  appears in the latest issue of Free Inquiry, titled Atheism’s Third Wave.

Professor and blogger PZ Myer

Science is neutral on moral concerns; it only describes what is, not how it ought to be. And this is true; science is a tool that can be used equally well for curing diseases or building bombs. But scientists are not and should not be morally neutral, nor should scientific organizations or culture be excluded from defining the appropriate uses of science. Science without humanist moral standards leads to Mengele or the Hiroshima bombing or the Tuskegee syphilis experiments.

Similarly, atheism may be value-neutral, but atheists and atheist organizations should not be. Atheism sensu stricto may be a specific assertion about a fact of the universe, but atheism as practiced is a defining idea in a mind and a powerful foundation for a human community. It has meanings and implications that we must heed and use for achieving our goals.

And what should those goals be? Because I’m an atheist and share common cause with every other human being on the planet in desiring to live my one life with equal opportunity, I suggest that atheists ought to fight for equality for all, economic security for all, and universally available health and education services. Peace is the only answer; extinguishing a precious human life ought to be unthinkable in all but the most dire situations of self-defense. Ours should be a movement that welcomes all sexes, races, ages, and abilities and encourages an appreciation of human richness. Atheism ought to be a progressive social movement in addition to being a philosophical and scientific position, because living in a godless universe means something to humanity.

I went to see President Obama speak in Colorado last week. During his speech he echoed this sentiment of equality and inclusiveness. He pointed out that the history of the United States has seen protection under the law and participation in government become more and more inclusive. He described that process as a ratchet in which progress only goes forward. It is my sincere hope that unprecedented personal connectivity can couple to decentralized information and push the ratchet of progress even further. Maybe even so far as to see an open-atheist as a viable candidate for major political office one day.

Thank you for reading. I hope that as a peer you will leave a comment below and tell me where you get your sense of right and wrong so I might share your wisdom.

Lessons from the fall of Thunderf00t

Once upon a time there was a young man named Phil Mason. Using  the pseudonym Thunderf00t, Phil became famous on the interwebs by making a series of  youtube videos he dubbed "Why people laugh at creationists." Over and over he pleased his audience, pointing out the absurdly backward logic adopted by young-earth creationists. His audience watched in awe as he pwned one crazy zealot after another. One of the my favorites was his  refutation of Ray Comfort and his assertion that the banana is proof that god designed all living things in their current form and plopped them on earth's surface around six thousand years ago. Thunderf00t made many a video where he was the hero and his vanquished enemies were exposed as utter slime-balls. The Westerboro baptists, Ray Comfort, and VenomFangX being some of the most egregious creationists he refuted over the years.

But making yourself look good when pitted against idiots is an easy task I suppose. It is much more difficult to convince someone who you mostly agree with about some subtle point you happen to differ in opinion over.  As Thunderf00t and his droves of fans made their way to a new internet venue, Free Thought Blogs (FtB), things got a bit hairy. Phil Mason decided to test his boundaries in this new internet-hood right off the bat. Keep in mind, he was invited to this forum in an attempt to include more video participation at the FtB network.  He came in at the same time as other famous free-thinking rationalist video-bloggers like Cristina Rad.

Phil decided to make his debut on FtB by taking serious swings at some prominent feminist bloggers, namely the founder of the Skepchick network - Rebecca Watson. Phil accused Rebecca of causing unnecessary rifts in the skeptical community by shouting "Rape" at conferences without warrant in his opinion (Google 'elevatorgate'). Less than a week after publishing his first few blog posts at FtB Thunderf00t was stripped of his blogging privileges there and banned from the network.

Edit: Ian Watson kindly points out in the comments that Phil is not banned from commenting at FtB just writing a blog there.

I understand why the FtB leaders (namely PZ Myers) gave Phil the axe almost immediately. FtB is turning out to be a Juggernaut in the identity-politics coalescing around the freethinking, humanist, atheism+ community. Thunderf00t is free to keep on making you-tube videos and writing at whatever internet venue he creates, but the leaders at FtB decided they did not want him as a front-man on their network. I get it, and I do not see this as a violation of his freedom of speech or press or whatever. We are all allowed to choose our associates especially on the internet. We can choose to ignore whoever we want. The bigger your tribe the harsher the effects of a public shunning. 

Now, I’d like to explain why I see the demise of T-f00t on FtB as a good thing even though I am a staunch advocate of free speech. What are we (free-thinkers) fighting for? The big issues for me are the anti-vaccination movement, any kind of faith healers, homeopathic quackery, religiously induced bigotry and a slew of other social justice and environmental issues. I have witnessed self-proclaimed hardcore feminists also argue against vaccination and talk about how western medicine is "patriarchal" and how they need to fight it tooth-and-nail. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying all feminists do this, just a vocal sub-group. As a white, able-bodied male in my late twenties it is nearly impossible to even start a conversation with a person in this camp because I am written-off before I open my mouth. So, rather than having a front-man on FtB loudly defending his rights to be a bit sleezy at skeptic conferences I’d much rather have strong feminists like Rebecca Watson and Jen McCreight who also speak out against anti-vaxers and other charlatans front and center on the most prominent free-thinking forum in the English speaking world. 

The biggest lesson I take from the fall of Thunderf00t is “Choose your battles wisely.”

AJ Johnson A+ Atheist

I was introduced to AJ Johnson recently by fellow blogger Cara Santa Maria. When I asked where contemporary atheists draw their moral code Cara directed me to a panel recorded for the Point (a spin-off of the Young Turks network). After watching the entire discussion I came away floored by the clarity and resonance of one of the invited presenters - AJ Johnson - Director of Development for American Atheists. Her advocacy of secular morals is passionate and logical. See for yourself! 

My point is that secular morality is fundamentally superior to religious morality — and it's time we owned that. I'm an African-American bisexual woman. As such, I've experienced firsthand the intolerance perpetrated against these and other identity groups under the auspice of "religious morality." So let me be clear: Religious morality has supported slavery, misogyny, and homophobia throughout the ages. And "religious morality" continues to be the number one source of opposition against equality for women and the LGBT community right now. Secular morality, on the other hand, tells us that this is wrong. The secular values of equality, diversity, and tolerance — while found nowhere in the Bible — thrive in America today. "Why?" you ask? Because secular morality is superior. So chin-up, secular America. And don't be afraid to embrace the moral high-ground. Be proud when you stand against the hate and bigotry of so-called "religious morality." Because our modern morality demands that all Americans promote with vigour the freedom and fairness of our Constitution, including the right for all people to participate equally in the "American dream."

Center for Inquiry - VIDEO

The use of video in the free-thought community is growing rapidly and I love it. Seeing video of bloggers I regularly read makes them more real. In the following video Chris Mooney hosts the Center for Inquiry's radio show Point of Inquiry. The video was recorded in Amherst, New York and focuses on maintaining a separation of church and state.

Christopher Hitchens - a giant of a man

Here is an absolutely exquisite tribute to the late Christopher Hitchens. This was presented last weekend at the 2012 Global Atheist Convention. Thank you Margaret Morgan for pointing this out as a highlight of the convention.

Scared Science: belief and bias

~Tom Paine's Ghost is happy to present a guest post by Mieka Jensen.

Scared Science: belief and bias

One version of a famous story goes, Darwin recanted on his deathbed. Refuting his own theory of evolution and asking God for a pardon. For many this comes as a slap in the face, like telling Harvard you’re going to get your masters degree online instead. While that account is hotly debated, denied by his own children, if anyone were going to recant it probably would have been Darwin. Just for the irony. He was surrounded by a scientific community, his father and grandfather were doctors, and was raised as a Unitarian, which is what cause many to think Elizabeht Ried (aka Lady Hope) made the whole thing up.  

Should he have recanted on his deathbed, it was almost as if he knew that someday his name would be a flashpoint for the divide between secularism and Christianity and he wanted to complicate the issue. Needless to say, even a whisper of a rumor that it happened was enough for scientists who followed him to follow his supposed suit.

The trend continues even among scientists today. Professor and scientist Antony Flew, a lifelong proponent of atheism, announced he had switched to deism in 2004, six short years before his death. Other examples tell similar stories. Apparently old age brings its own doubts – or faiths – to the forefront, even within the scientific community.

Science has long been the bastion of factual evidence and practical atheism, at least in the minds of nonprofessionals. Actually, scientists lean slightly more toward deism than atheism, with studies showing that as many as 66 percent of scientists admit in believing in some sort of god. Doctors and other higher education professionals follow suit.

Similar studies have shown that, far from stepping away from their faith as long supposed, college students tend to stick with their religious affiliations in greater numbers than their unschooled peers. This may be the result of the confirmation theory, which suggests that the knowledge education gives deists also provides them with more tools to ignore evidence against god or create an even greater number of excuses for god and the afterlife.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, larger numbers of natural scientists working in biology, chemistry, and physics, tend to stick to their atheist guns, while social scientists tend to favor a master-design theory in greater numbers. This leads to several disturbing questions for the scientific community. If so many scientists are believers in a god, how does this influence their work? Are they tempted to fudge details or slant findings to support their own worldview? What avenues of study may be ignored?

Peer pressure also plays a role. Naturally opened-minded, perhaps scientists are swayed into agreeing with beliefs their colleagues hold while reserving private doubts themselves, making it difficult to count on the accuracy of any study. Politics and government laws may also encourage one point of view over another, especially when it comes to handing out grants.

In a worst-case scenario this leads to an arms race, where two divergent groups of scientists run toward evidence (or theories) that support their own worldview rather than favoring the truth. But in the best cases, scientists put their personal beliefs on hold when it comes to examining the evidence and considering alternative theories. After all, for every Darwin and Flew, there is a Stephen Hawking who states, "Science makes God unnecessary."

Meika Jensen is a west coast freelance writer who is currently beleaguered by the prospect of applying to Berkeley graduate school in the next few years to study the development of communications. With a diverse array of interests and an insatiable appetite for magazines, she is always happy to write a post or just talk one over. Follow her on Twitter: @MeikaJensen."

Telling Turing's Story

If you hit play on this embedded radiolab widget you will hear Robert Krulwich, Janna Levin, and David Leavitt unravel an incredible story about the man who invented the digital computer - Alan Turing. The 1950s was an incredibly cruel era for gay atheists.

Faith No Maher

Bill Maher on atheism as religion.

Fighting the Good Fight - Hitchens Remains

Pope Blames Atheists for Holocaust!

Did you see this news? As soon as the Pope stepped off the plane on his recent visit to Scotland he immediately attacked atheists blaming them for the holocaust! In so doing Joseph Ratzinger denies factual history.

Posting this may make me look like an insensitive jerk but I will not stand by while FLAT OUT LIES are pontificated by a human being who has been elevated by a splinter of humanity (the clergy) to  a position "above" the rest of us. I hold high the enlightenment ideal that EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD ever to draw breath on this earth is born with the SAME freedom.

Vampirephilia

Why do so many people love to read about vampires? Is it the juxtaposition? Dead yet not dead, evil yet sexy, powerful yet fragile? Why is this fictional creature so captivating to so many and in a myriad incarnations? Today vampires have taken over CNN. With all the real world stuff unfolding and being explained each day why do people still gravitate to fantasy land? I am guilty of filching some fame by hitching my blog to the vampire bandwagon but when you are screaming at the top of your lungs next to the old tree falling in the forest what else are you left to do? The scientists -  P.Z. Myers and Richard Dawkins -  make their names by talking about God, yet do not believe in this idea. They are  hitching a ride on the oldest conversation  known to civilization to further their goal of expanding scientific literacy - and more power to them. Perhaps the vampire conversation is less prestigious but maybe it takes the edge off an otherwise awkward conversation between a scientist a fundamentalist opening a door to conversation.

The Four Horseman

OK, which one of these guys came up with that name? Next they'll be "the four horsemen - men in tights"

Anyway, I couldn't help posting this mainly because of two new YouTube features - one - the colored border and - two - the HD button - you can watch it in high definition! Vimeo is cool but I knew YouTube wouldn't be that far behind.

Within the first two minutes of this video I was reminded that the UN is considering a resolution banning blasphemy. Talk about the religious folks playing the "hurt feelings card." Now it will be illegal in the eyes of the UN to question any religion's authority anywhere in the world.

Religion is stale and rigid, life is not.

Cheerio my brethren! It is I, Dr. Reverend Lucius Chewbuculus, descendant of an ancient lineage of hairy creatures, who seeks peaceful progression by way of the warrior spirit of pre-colonial American antiquity. I hath come across an atheist blog post listing 101 quotes with regard to atheism or religion in general. Here I list and expand upon several quotes that stand out to me. Check out the link above to view all 101 quotes should this sort of thing suit your fancy.

First I would like to point to a few quotes that made me laugh. While I don’t necessarily believe in the magic of fairies, I certainly believe in the magic of laughter. What magic is this? It is impossible to say at this time, however reliable sources in my head say laughter amplifies and reverberates ones Chi, thus realigning the liquid crystalline structure of water in our cells thereby reducing the stress associated with stale rigidity. Laughter is clearly a complicated matter, so you’ll have to just trust me on this. I’ve seen mystical occurrences in the desert, so I am practically a prophet.

“The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” - Penn and Teller

“Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family.” - Steven Colbert

“It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image.” - Ludwig Feuerbach

“Gods don’t kill people. People with Gods kill people.” - David Viaene

Perhaps some or none of these quotes strike you as funny. No problem, I actually laughed at some and then cried a little. While I don’t necessarily believe in challenging all elves I should encounter at a crossroads to a dueling of swords, I do believe in the power of tears! Nothing in the physical universal is stable or static, this is especially true of life. Actually these conditions exhibit robust inhibitory effects on life. Our cells terminate at lipid structures that crash upon other cells and extracellular matrix and then recede, continually, much like the waves of the ocean. Just as the gravitational force of the moon impacts ocean swells, prophetic insight tells me that the cohesive forces of our tears induce dynamic fluidity of our cell membranes counteracting the stress associated with stale rigidity.

“Properly read, the bible is the most potent force for Atheism ever conceived.” - Isaac Asimov

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” - Richard Dawkins

Many aspects of “religion” are stale, rigid and detrimental to inhabitants of earth. Laughter and tears can attest. The division of people into distinctly characterized sects, the installation of fear and manipulation by it, the intolerance of differences… just to name a few. These stale and rigid aspects of religion stand against life and unity! Religion as we know it is obsolete! I will however concede that many elements of “religion” are conducive to life and unity, such as the elements of “open” community gatherings that encourage interaction and celebration. While I would warn the “religious” to be wary of passing though life without questioning their beliefs and perspectives, I would warn atheists against the same. Perhaps “religion” doesn’t need to be abandoned altogether, just transfomed in a massive evolution towards a new age of enlightenment on earth. A progression that seeks to cultivate and harness free thought, to respect reason and diversity and to unite rather than divide.

VIVA LA TOM PAINE’S GHOST!

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” - Frank Lloyd Wright

Art Church

The Church of Beethoven in Albuquerque, New Mexico is described by NPR here.

"I have struggled so long in the arts. It's like you're crying in the wilderness. You're saying, 'Look at all this incredible music that really isn't getting out there to the extent that it should.'"
-Felix Wurman

He says he wants this idea to spread with Churches of Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Schubert, and Rachmaninoff. But why limit the idea to music and why call it a church. Gatherings celebrating music, writing, and visual arts of secular content could be the next step in the interconnectedness of the web manifesting in the real world.

This story reminded me of an article I read in Time magazine entitled "Sunday school for atheists." My favorite tidbit from this story was the description of the children singing songs like "I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians." Though I don't think organizations like these should be advertised as "for atheists only." Thomas Paine believed in one God just not any of the stories written about God over human history. A forum for people who want to socialize their children without having to sign up and take oaths to a code of beliefs should be more widely available in our United States under its metaphorical banner of FREEDOM.

I don't know... you don't know... and no man or woman who is, was, or ever will be knows.

President George W. Bush has said that the United States is engaged in a battle between good and evil. Many faithful people have agreed. My question is; how can the battle end without massive bloodshed? Only when we collectively realize that the real battle is not between good and evil, but between reason and irrationality. The end to this battle starts in United States by having reasonable discussions with our fellow Americans. The only sustainable manner in which to secure and defend the United States is to raise generations of rational citizens who value logic above emotion in the face of adversity.

When enemies in a conflict are painted as inhuman evil doers it lets a warrior feel less about killing them. In order to acquire more resources and therefore more power, empires need warriors that won't have psychological qualms with killing people. Portraying enemies as pure evil helps deal with these qualms. Terrorists attacks and retaliatory military responses are the violent manifestation of the "battle between god and evil." The men that committed both suicide and mass homicide on September 11th 2001 were poisoned by the delusion that they would be rewarded in the afterlife with their scriptural promises of virgins in heaven because, in their eyes, their deaths were honorable as they were carrying out jihad against the infidel. A Christian warrior in the Middle East in 2008 filled with the idea that his or her actions there will be rewarded in the afterlife is affected by the same delusion.

Thomas Paine was mocked by his contemporaries and later called a “dirty little atheist” by Theodore Roosevelt (I tend to like Teddy in general, but I think he got this one wrong). The fact is that Thomas Paine was not an atheist. None of the founding fathers were. They like many Renaissance people before them knew that certainty marks the beginning of the end of empires. They were deists who derive the existence and nature of God from reason, and refuted claims of supernatural events such as those described in the scripture of all holy books. They did not set out to found an American Empire, but rather a new order of the ages. "Novus Ordo Seclorum" as is enunciated in the great seal of the United States. A new world order in which freedom and equality are the foundation of a government empowered by the people, not nobility and not theocracy. Certainty comes from dogma and many churches survive and thrive among generations of other dying cultural trends because of the ease and comfort it gives the faithful. There is no need to think about issues if what is right and wrong has already been decided for you by a church. Certainty is what blinds fanatics. Certainty let the middle ages hinder centuries of scientific progress. Certainty put Galileo in house arrest. Certainty burned nearly all of Gregor Mendel's scientific works. Certainty caused the Holocaust.

In 2008 Americans need to choose knowledge over certainty more than ever. As we watch our sea levels rise, our population outpace our food production, and our children go on 21st century holy wars, we stand at a tipping point between a sustainable future and a self-fulfilling prophecy of anthropogenic end-times.

As a American who has watched the debate set aflame between atheists and the faithful during the past decade I have to agree with Bill Maher more than I do Richard Dawkins (as much as that pains me as a scientist). When the idea of "God" can have as many different meanings as there are sentient beings on earth then it is pointless to go on a secular crusade against that amorphous blob, that continuum of changing perceptions. It is much more effective to attack the root of self righteousness. It is more effective to tackle certainty. To introduce skepticism. The most glistening example I can think of from recoded history is the story of Johannes Kepler. From faithful follower of the gospels of Christ to someone who saw the imperfections in the heavens and was able to explain them with a scientific theory. These should be the bedtime stories we read our children. The stories of discovery. Certainty precludes hope from earthly life, while the unknown provides an infinity of potential discoveries. Skepticism and doubt are prerequisites for freedom, without these tools freedom is just another word.