Question time with atheists

I’ve been tagged as a godless blaspheming wench! So, now to the inquisition:

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?
Lack of belief in gods/deities/’supernatural’ beings.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?
My recent ancestors were Hindu, and I remember my maternal grandmother pottering about in her village house in India conducting her early morning prayers (a nice memory, which probably feeds in to my current love of ritual – you can have ritual without religion, by the way. Any complex task, even cooking, requires ritual to some degree), but my parents weren’t strictly religious. We went to a temple when we lived in Singapore, and there was some lip service to religion, but it never stuck with me. I remember one moment, when I was four years old, and my dad came home from work with a headache. My mum told me I should pray to make the headache go away, so I muttered the one prayer I knew, and my dad told me he was feeling better. That is the one and only time I ever believed there was a god.

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?
Unintelligent.

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?
I have to admit a soft spot for SETI. Also, teaching kids science is always an uplifting experience – I miss it

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?
I really don’t know. This nebulous thing called the ‘atheist community’ is so diverse, it’s difficult to pinpoint something to change.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?
This is why I’m not having children.

Q7. What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?
Religious person/new age nut, earnestly: “But there are some things we can’t explain”
Me: “There are things we haven’t yet explained. It doesn’t mean that we won’t explain them in the future. The existence of a great big vindictive assholic guy up in the sky is a pretty big leap to make, no?”

In most cases, I will proceed to buy another beer and find someone more interesting to talk to, or hit the dance floor.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?
That there is actually a god – I know this because that god is ME.

If I have to be serious, though, I don’t think I have any ‘controversial’ viewpoints. Maybe I indulge in a little low-level cultural relativism every now and then, but it’s usually as a response to glib racism, rather than to a well-thought out atheistic or skeptical viewpoint.

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?
I really don’t like the “Four Horsemen’ phrase. A bunch of old white guys sitting around a table, pontificating with posh accents? Gimme a break. That being said, I think Dawkins’ arguments are the most elegant, and it was his work that caused an ‘aha’ moment in me, when I realised there was a name for the way I thought about the world, a justification for thinking that way, and that there were other people who thought like me. But Sam Harris is the cutest of the lot.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?
Awwwh, just ONE? I’ll have to go with the Pope, as he is probably the single most influential (and visible) religious person in the world.

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the tag meme:
Podblack Blog
The Masala Skeptic
and I would say The Blue Collar Scientist, but Jeff found out recently that he has liver cancer, so just go over there and read what he’s written in the past, and send him your love (but don’t pray, whatever you do).