A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he thought God's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about god, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's.
Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence.
The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so.
RICHARD DAWKINS

Neuroscience shows that the attachment bonds between men and women, especially in the early stages of a relationship, are chemical in nature and stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain in a manner resembling addictive drugs.
MICHAEL SHERMER

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be married too.
H.L. MENCKEN

It is easy to be conspicuously "compassionate" if others are being forced to pay the cost.
MURRAY ROTHBARD

I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care.
DAVE BARRY

Posted in: