Atheist Memes on Facebook: The "100% Certain" Mistake

Scarlet letter

I’m starting a project on my Facebook page: The Atheist Meme of the Day. (BTW, if you’re on Facebook, friend me!) I’m getting a little tired of making the same arguments for atheism over and over again… and I’m hoping to get the general public more familiar with the basic concepts of Atheism 101, so we don’t always have to start at Ground Zero with every single argument.

So every weekday, I’m going post a short, pithy, Facebook-ready atheist meme… in the hopes that people will spread them, and that eventually, the ideas will get through. (I may make the same point in different ways on different days: partly because different people find different angles on an idea easier to understand, and partly because repetition is itself useful in getting ideas across.)

I’ll keep doing this until I get bored or run out of ideas.

If you want to play, please feel free to pass these on through your own Facebook page, or whatever forum or social networking site you like. Or if you don’t like mine, make some of your own.

Today’s Atheist Meme of the Day:

Atheism doesn’t mean being 100% certain that God doesn’t exist. It means being certain enough. It means thinking God is hypothetically possible, but unless we see some better evidence for him, we’re going to assume he doesn’t exist. Pass it on: if we say it enough times to enough people, it may get through.

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Atheist Memes on Facebook: The "100% Certain" Mistake
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10 thoughts on “Atheist Memes on Facebook: The "100% Certain" Mistake

  1. 1

    God is hypothetically possible, but unless we see some better evidence for him, we’re going to assume he doesn’t exist.

    God can be defined coherently so that it is hypothetically possible that he exists, but there is insufficient evidence to believe him. According to some of us, there is sufficient evidence to believe in his non-existence.

  2. 3

    I’m sure if you asked us, you could go on for pratically forever. I’ve already got a couple of the nature of quantum phsysics, the belief that things can only be understood through experience/reading the doctrine’s to a absurd degree. That Dawkins Quote ‘There are no cultural relativists at 30,000 feet’ would also make an awesome one.

  3. 4

    Greta — I’m still learning how FB works but are you planning to somewhere collect the memes? Like an ongoing, updated Notes page or something. Having a central repository would be nice to refer folks to.

  4. 7

    I’ve been lurking here for months, but I just wanted to speak up and say that this is a brilliant idea. I’m not on Facebook, but I’m going to post this to the journalling services I am on.

  5. 8

    For tomorrow, if you can figure out a better way of putting it.
    Atheism has no authority figures.
    So kindly take this into regard when telling me Darwin said X, or great scientist said Y, that I don’t actually care any more than if you said it yourself.
    If it is wrong it doesn’t matter who said it, it is still wrong.
    I will argue with you if you are mistaken, quote mining or lying, but that is more because I am a stickler for truth, than that I actually care that a “Great mind” said something.

  6. 9

    I like the idea of spreading memes to teach people about Atheism, but I do not like that particular meme. I am an Agnostic Atheist who is not certain or certain-enough. I do not assume (or, I try my best not to assume) anything about the origin of the universe or even the coherency of the concept of the universe having an origin. In a nutshell, my position is: I have not been persuaded to believe, so I don’t believe. The meme you have chosen clarifies your position but misleads people about other forms of Atheism.

  7. 10

    What Jesse said.
    In fairness, though, I must assume that all the points people bring up here are part of the multitude of memes that you find you need to repeat, hence the decision to start this meme collection. The point of this first meme is not to define atheism, but rather to refute the common accusation that atheists are certain the Christian god doesn’t exist. Perhaps if it didn’t read like a definition it would be clearer.
    I am sorely tempted to form my own list of “favorite” misconceptions about atheism, and I may, but I won’t do that here.

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