I'm finally coming out of the closet, atheism I mean.

[Jack21222]

Could you list the advantages of having your very religious parents know you are an atheist when you are 14?

There's something to be said for being open and honest about who you are with your closest family members, instead of living a lie.

 

[Proton Soup]

How can you POSSIBLY know that it's likely he's not being honest with himself? You know practically nothing about this kid, and you've stated that the reason he thinks he's an atheist is because he "doesn't enjoy church" and you've stated that it's likely he's not being honest with himself. What makes you think you can make such judgments on so little information?

Just because you don't know yourself well doesn't mean nobody else does. I knew I was an atheist when I was 12. Peer pressure caused me to try to go back to the church when I was about 17, but that was very brief, and I've been a solid atheist ever since.

he's not making a judgement, he's suggesting that he keep an open mind and consider his own motivations. just because you realize you're not a republican doesn't automatically mean you're a democrat.

 

[bp_psy]

There's something to be said for being open and honest about who you are with your closest family members, instead of living a lie.

There is also something to be said about causing a lot damage to a relationship with a person that you love and respect because you have to mention something that isn't really that important.

My parents were not religious so my coming out as an atheist was not really an issue.On the other hand my grandparents are really religious.I have a very good relationship with them. I know that if I would tell them that I am an atheist their attitude towards me would change.Because I love and respect my grandparents I do not tell them I am an atheist.That does not bother me at all because there is nothing to gain by telling them.I also don't feel a need to tell them because my "atheism" is not really what defines me as a person.I was born that way.I am certainly not living a lie.

 

[Jack21222]

he's not making a judgement, he's suggesting that he keep an open mind and consider his own motivations. just because you realize you're not a republican doesn't automatically mean you're a democrat.

The opposite of Republican is "not a Republican." The opposite of a theist is "not a theist" which is the exact definition of "atheist."

What rootX did was the equivalent, in your analogy, of saying somebody isn't a Democrat when they profess "I'm a Democrat." That's especially dumb to do when you know practically nothing about the person you're talking about.

 

[Proton Soup]

The opposite of Republican is "not a Republican." The opposite of a theist is "not a theist" which is the exact definition of "atheist."

What rootX did was the equivalent, in your analogy, of saying somebody isn't a Democrat when they profess "I'm a Democrat." That's especially dumb to do when you know practically nothing about the person you're talking about.

no, you're being presumptive and reactionary in what rootX wrote. go read it again. think about it. see if it makes more sense tomorrow. it's got nothing to do with what the definition of atheism is. it's got everything to do with realizing that you don't fit in. once he gets away from his current situation, the way he thinks about himself and the world may change.

 

[rootX]

How can you POSSIBLY know that it's likely he's not being honest with himself? You know practically nothing about this kid, and you've stated that the reason he thinks he's an atheist is because he "doesn't enjoy church" and you've stated that it's likely he's not being honest with himself. What makes you think you can make such judgments on so little information?

Just because you don't know yourself well doesn't mean nobody else does. I knew I was an atheist when I was 12. Peer pressure caused me to try to go back to the church when I was about 17, but that was very brief, and I've been a solid atheist ever since.

I am not willing to argue with you. I responded to OP not to you thus it is best to leave this to OP to decide whether he finds something useful in it or not.

It's good to know that you discovered yourself at the age of 12. I guess I am bit slow

 

[Kevin_Axion]

In the words of Richard Dawkins, "Each person is an atheist to every other religion, the only difference is that atheists go one God further."

 

[Jack21222]

no, you're being presumptive and reactionary in what rootX wrote. go read it again. think about it. see if it makes more sense tomorrow. it's got nothing to do with what the definition of atheism is. it's got everything to do with realizing that you don't fit in. once he gets away from his current situation, the way he thinks about himself and the world may change.

So your big insight is that he might change his mind later? If that was the point of rootX's post, it's so elementary I don't see the point in posting it at all. Of COURSE he might change his mind later and go back to theism. I tried to briefly, too.

I still say rootX was being judgmental in assuming that the OP is *likely* not being honest with himself. Calling somebody dishonest with absolutely nothing to back it up with is a fairly serious thing to say.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Your parent's response could be anything from "We support any decision you make", to "You're out of the house".
You know them best, so you probably know best what to expect.

 

[LogicalAcid]

So your big insight is that he might change his mind later? If that was the point of rootX's post, it's so elementary I don't see the point in posting it at all. Of COURSE he might change his mind later and go back to theism. I tried to briefly, too.

I still say rootX was being judgmental in assuming that the OP is *likely* not being honest with himself. Calling somebody dishonest with absolutely nothing to back it up with is a fairly serious thing to say.

I have faced religion for a long while, it was shoved down my throat by my relatives. Only one of which was even close to agnostic. I am tired of it, I have tried to make exceptions to stay with religion. No more, I have no problem abiding by their values. I agree that we should all treat each other the way we want to be treated. Not because of God, but because we are fellow human beings.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

A great quote by Steven Weinberg is this (of course this is paraphrased): "Many people pick and choose from religion, for instance many don't follow the rules of the sabbath which involve killing those whom work on Sunday or stoning those whom commit adultery. Why is this? Over time, society has changed and many people have realized these things are wrong. So I ask, if one can have the innate moral capability of choosing what is good and bad, then what is that point of religion?" Here is the talk: . The man is, put lightly, a genius.

 

[rootX]

A great quote by Steven Weinberg is this (of course this is paraphrased): "Many people pick and choose from religion, for instance many don't follow the rules of the sabbath which involve killing those whom work on Sunday or stoning those whom commit adultery. Why is this? Over time, society has changed and many people have realized these things are wrong. So I ask, if one can have the innate moral capability of choosing what is good and bad, then what is that point of religion?" Here is the talk: . The man is, put lightly, a genius.

We do have the innate moral capability of choosing what is good and bad. However, few positive points of religions I see are providing peace of mind for people who find it peaceful when they remember god or practice faith. In addition, faith can offer comfort similar to what you would get from close friends when things go out of your hands or when you are simply looking for some comfort. I have personally seen people using religions to find comfort. I have also seen some using it as guide to stay away from immoral decisions when they face dilemma.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

That is fine, but my point still stands, humans are innately moral. So those who argue religion is the only guide to moral decision making are "completely" incorrect.

 

[VeryEvilDude]

I'm not sure I agree. He can at least start the process now, like Evo said, by a series of small discussions.

Well and in my above post I even suggested bringing it up slowly with his mom since I think he said she was agnostic.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

I’m totally and utterly stunned... I was sure OP was living in Saudi Arabia or Iran...

The United States of America in 2011??


@LogicalAcid: I can’t give any good advice, I live in a "different world" in a highly secularized society, but to me the best argument for "coming out of the closet" is your own fathers "behavior" and to make sure that your own future kids never has to deal with the problems you have right now.

But take it easy, it’s not fun to be in a "major-parent-conflict" at 14...

I don’t know, but maybe you should ask your father on his view on the second of the two greatest commandments:

One should love one's neighbour as one would love oneself​

?

 

[mathematicsma]

I didn't read the entire thread, so I apologize if I'm repeating something, or whatever. That said...

The OP's situation is not simple. I'd say to shut up, and live a lie for a few years. Is that pleasant? No, it's sucks. But it's probably better than the alternative. Religious people can be very difficult at times, and hard to anticipate. At 14 years old, coming out like this can cause a lot of difficulty. First of all, assuming the parents don't kick the OP out (which I suspect will be the case. The mom will likely convince the dad to go soft), the relationship will be strained.

When your 14, there isn't that much you can do on your own. I assume the OP still lives at home, and will continue to live at home for a while. No, the OP probably does not want to go to child services and end up in an orphanage, or foster care. That sucks more than living with religious fanatics. How do you deal with a father who is constantly trying to save you? It's hard, trust me. Even if the father accepts the child, and agrees not to bother the OP, he will still be pained by the fact that his own child is going to be damned. And that pain will show. Every time the kid skips church, the father will be upset. And so on.

Relationships between teens and parents are rough to begin with. Religion is probably the most dangerous thing we've ever had. (Think of all the wars fought over religion, etc. These passions can be really powerful.) The two together are downright explosive.

The best plan of action? Keep quiet for a few years, till you get to college. And even then, no reason to make some big announcement. Just let it come out, over time. Once you've moved out of the house, you can live your own life. And when you visit your parents, no reason you have to put it in their face. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When at religious homes, just go through the motions. Simple respect.

Until you get out of your parents home, it will be difficult pretending. I agree. What's your alternative?
BTW, would your parents even allow you to go to a public school? Suppose you get kicked out of the religious school, then what?

I'm not sure if my thoughts are coherent. This is just how I think about this topic.And I've thought about it a hell of a lot over the last few years.

 

[mugaliens]

I used to be an atheist...

 

[DevilsAvocado]

I used to believe in Santa...

 

[xxChrisxx]

You mean Santas not real?

 

[Borek]

No, you are jumping to conclusions. All he stated is he no longer believes.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Thanks Borek.

 

[xxChrisxx]

No, you are jumping to conclusions. All he stated is he no longer believes.

Ah good, becuase he's clearly wrong as Santa brought me a toy helicopter for Christmas it said so on the gift label.


OP: If I were you i'd just keep quiet for a bit, maybe drop a few feelers out there. I'm (relatively) risk averse so I'd tend to play something like this close to my chest until I knew the outcome wouldn't be a disaster.

 

[Bararontok]

Explain the following scientific facts to your parents:

All of the phenomena discovered by scientific progress are impersonal, inanimate, reproducible, materialistic, and infinitely repetitive. The biochemicals, curved space-time continuum, stress-energy metric tensor, force fields, super strings, and elementary particles that have been uncovered and analyzed all exhibit the properties mentioned above and because of the conservation of matter and energy laws which state that matter and energy are not created or destroyed but merely change form, there is no known instant of creation since the matter was simply bundled in a singularity that preceded the Big Bang and expanded from that central point of origin. Now, the elementary particles that are the basic building blocks of the universe are definitely not thinking beings or alive, they are mindless and dead and everything uncovered by scientific progress fits this system when broken down to the fundamental level, even the human mind. So religion cannot fit into such a system because it espouses the existence of spirits and deities whose bodily and mental functions cannot be broken down to basic materialistic processes but can still achieve more complex functions. This is completely unrealistic from a mathematical, scientific, and logical perspective because every complex system must be reducible to its functioning component parts and without these basic constant, repetitive and partially indeterminate functions, a more complex operational system cannot be assembled. This is also true with mathematics and logic because more complex formulas and propositions cannot be established without first assembling simpler functions such as using the repetitive addition of like values to achieve multiplication and repetitive multiplication of like values to get exponentiation. A simpler function on its own cannot process thoughts or even be considered alive for that matter because living and thinking are the product of a combination of plenty of simple physical processes to achieve a higher more complex process.

Therefore, the constitution of the universe as described by the advance of science is a purely materialistic one. The universe is made up entirely of elementary particles which give rise to all of the phenomena occurring in it. The elementary particles are indivisible and immutable since according to the law of the conservation of matter they cannot be created or destroyed but can be used to assemble more complex forms of matter which can change form according to various physical processes. Furthermore, the characteristics of all of the forces discovered by science throughout history have remained unchanged and these characteristics are:

1.) Inanimate - the forces are not alive.

2.) Unconscious - the forces are not self-aware or aware of the environment.

3.) Impersonal - the forces are not capable of free thought since they are too fundamental to be capable of such complex behavior.

4.) Infinitely Repetitive - the phenomena can occur an infinite number of times in indefinite frequencies because the energy used to power the phenomena which are mediated by elementary particles are always conserved.

Aside from the law of conservation of matter which proves that there is no instant of creation, compelling evidence that the universe arose from materialistic processes and not out of a complete vacuum comes from experiments done recently in Brookhaven New York for generating black holes from gold nuclei which have shown that the universe originally came from a singularity of compressed matter which evaporated due to Hawking Radiation and caused the elementary particles trapped within to expand outwards and assemble the other entities in the universe. Scientific principles about the behavior of the universe point out that there are only two possible ways the singularity state that the universe was previously in was formed and it could be that the singularity came either from the matter of a previous universe that experienced a Big Crunch due to collapse from its own total gravity or that the matter came from the cosmic collision of two other universes which caused the matter from both universes to combine, form into a singularity due to the tremendous force of the impact and then expand outwards to form the present universe. If the law of matter conservation is to be upheld, the matter cannot expand into infinity but must eventually end up in the domain of another universe and be reused causing the matter to be exchanged from place to place in endless cycles throughout an infinite multi-verse. Based on the overwhelming evidence provided by the advance of science, everything that exists are the product of mindless materialistic processes and is never done deliberately or with good reason, it is because of this that the answer to the question regarding the meaning of life is that life has no meaning but is instead just another set of materialistic processes which have occurred entirely by accident. It is not the universe but the flaws in the reasoning of intelligent life which are again the fault of quantum indeterminacy errors in materialistic processes that cause intelligences such as humans to construct imaginary reasons to provide a purpose for existence.

The quotes below show some of the views held by the famous scientists who have made major contributions to science and have provided evidence disproving the possibility of existence possessing any meaning or the existence of supernatural phenomena.

"The universe is governed by the uncaring laws of matter which don't give a damn about us and will not make miracles happen on our behalf." –Thomas Alva Edison

"The belief in the Word of God is a sign of human weakness." –Albert Einstein

“This present-day version of God of the gaps goes by a fresh name: ‘intelligent design.’ The term suggests that some entity, endowed with a mental capacity far greater than the human mind can muster, created or enabled all the things in the physical world that we cannot explain through scientific methods. An interesting hypothesis. But why confine ourselves to things too wondrous or intricate for us to understand, whose existence and attributes we then credit to a super-intelligence? Instead, why not tally all those things whose design is so clunky, goofy, impractical, or unworkable that they reflect the absence of intelligence? And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs-an entertainment complex built around a sewage system? Stupid design could fuel a movement unto itself. It may not be nature's default, but it's ubiquitous. Yet people seem to enjoy thinking that our bodies, our minds, and even our universe represent pinnacles of form and reason. Maybe it's a good antidepressant to think so. But it's not science-not now, not in the past, not ever.” -Neil de Grasse Tyson

Show them this video as well:

 

[nismaratwork]

Personal beliefs, or lack of them, are just that: personal. You have no obligation to share, and I really wish that more people got that. I'm an atheist, and I'm tired of the jesus freaks, and whatever you call someone who posts what Bararontok posted above. Great, someone thinks that they go to a magical castle when they die, and I don't... snooooore... can we get on with fixing the world economy now? I'll worry about death when I'm dead, or not... we'll see!... or not.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." -- Albert Einstein

 

[nismaratwork]

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." -- Albert Einstein

He was a clever man, but I'm sure he was taken by thanatophobia on occasion... I suspect everyone is.

"All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing." (Maurice Maeterlinck)

"In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight...
Not people die but worlds die in them."
(Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko)

and of course:

"Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life." (Albert Einstein)

 

[DevilsAvocado]

He was a clever man, but I'm sure he was taken by thanatophobia on occasion... I suspect everyone is.

Nice quotes/poetry nismar, of course I have no idea what Einstein really felt, but I guess he was as any normal human that appreciate life – just because you don’t fear "eternal damnation" or any other medieval mumbo-jumbo, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to jump out of any other cliff:

– Hey guys look at me! I’m not afraid to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!​

What is somewhat baffling to me is the fact that the real hardcore religious doesn’t seem to appreciate and understand the "lottery of life". Every human that have ever lived and are living today has won the top prize in this lottery, despite the incredible bad odds. Just think about it; if your grandmother's grandmother’s grandmother, and so on and so forth, had a cold and fever on that very "special day" very long ago, you wouldn’t be here. Not talking about the sperm race...

I can’t calculate the odds, but I guess it’s much higher than the number of stars in the observable universe, 9 billion trillion stars; worse that one chance in 9 × 10²¹ ...

And this is NOT ENOUGH?? They want ETERNAL PARADISE on top??

I don’t get it...

 

[mathematicsma]

OP: whatever you decide, don't bother with quoting bararantok to your parents. It's a complete waste of time. Do NOT try to convince your parents that you are right. The only thing that'll cause is more of a confrontation. You'll be a threat to them. Besides, it's a complete waste of time to have theological conversations with religious people. You won't convince them, and they won't convince you. Especially when those people are your parents and they're concerned you'll be damned in hell for all of eternity. They'll get emotionally involved, etc.

If you do decide to tell your parents (which I discourage, see my previous post), just state the facts. You don't believe, you're not interesting in arguing with them. You respect the fact that they want to believe (say that even if you don't respect their belief), but it's not for you, and it's your life. That's all.

Good Luck!

BTW, who said we won the lottery of life? Maybe we lost it? I've heard Hawking quoted as saying that we "won the cosmic lottery." I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps we lost the cosmic lottery. Of all the universes that could have happened, of all the gazillion possibilities, I should think that ours is far from optimal. Okay, it could be worse. But it could be better. If you play a game where the payout can be anything between $0 and $5 billion, and you win $1 million, you didn't fare too well. But if you were unaware of the potential winnings, and the house just told you, "you won $1 million," you'd be pretty happy.

Did we win or lose? Are we unaware of how much more there could have been? Perhaps a world without all the diseases we have, all the criminals we have, etc.? All of those are evolutionary problems. And the fact that there are no unicorns, that's also a failure of evolution.

But when you're playing a game of chance, you can't expect that much. It's random, after all.

 

[Evo]

OP: whatever you decide, don't bother with quoting bararantok to your parents. It's a complete waste of time. Do NOT try to convince your parents that you are right. The only thing that'll cause is more of a confrontation. You'll be a threat to them. Besides, it's a complete waste of time to have theological conversations with religious people. You won't convince them, and they won't convince you. Especially when those people are your parents and they're concerned you'll be damned in hell for all of eternity. They'll get emotionally involved, etc.

If you do decide to tell your parents (which I discourage, see my previous post), just state the facts. You don't believe, you're not interesting in arguing with them. You respect the fact that they want to believe (say that even if you don't respect their belief), but it's not for you, and it's your life. That's all.

Good Luck!

BTW, who said we won the lottery of life? Maybe we lost it? I've heard Hawking quoted as saying that we "won the cosmic lottery." I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps we lost the cosmic lottery. Of all the universes that could have happened, of all the gazillion possibilities, I should think that ours is far from optimal. Okay, it could be worse. But it could be better. If you play a game where the payout can be anything between $0 and $5 billion, and you win $1 million, you didn't fare too well. But if you were unaware of the potential winnings, and the house just told you, "you won $1 million," you'd be pretty happy.

Did we win or lose? Are we unaware of how much more there could have been? Perhaps a world without all the diseases we have, all the criminals we have, etc.? All of those are evolutionary problems. And the fact that there are no unicorns, that's also a failure of evolution.

But when you're playing a game of chance, you can't expect that much. It's random, after all.

I love your post!

 

[rootX]

I agree with mathematicsma. I have also gone through that and it was not pleasant. In addition, I was more closed minded those days than I am now. Looking back I should not have argued that much with my parents.

 

[lisab]

Nice quotes/poetry nismar, of course I have no idea what Einstein really felt, but I guess he was as any normal human that appreciate life – just because you don’t fear "eternal damnation" or any other medieval mumbo-jumbo, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to jump out of any other cliff:

– Hey guys look at me! I’m not afraid to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!​

What is somewhat baffling to me is the fact that the real hardcore religious doesn’t seem to appreciate and understand the "lottery of life". Every human that have ever lived and are living today has won the top prize in this lottery, despite the incredible bad odds. Just think about it; if your grandmother's grandmother’s grandmother, and so on and so forth, had a cold and fever on that very "special day" very long ago, you wouldn’t be here. Not talking about the sperm race...

I can’t calculate the odds, but I guess it’s much higher than the number of stars in the observable universe, 9 billion trillion stars; worse that one chance in 9 × 10²¹ ...

And this is NOT ENOUGH?? They want ETERNAL PARADISE on top??

I don’t get it...

That makes me want to sing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SY

 

[DevilsAvocado]

BTW, who said we won the lottery of life? Maybe we lost it?

I’m not saying that everything is perfect, but you are alive? Aren’t you?? Pick up a stone and experience the difference...

Earlier I was only referring to grandmas and sperms, but the story can be made much much longer, from the formation of every chemical element in your body in supernova explosions, to the decision of the first amoeba to go left or right. I.e. if you don’t believe that the Earth was created 3.000 years ago...

If you contemplate all this, and the fact that you are you, then it doesn’t matter that much that there are no unicorns. Let’s save the animals we do have!

In 1990 Carl Sagan requested NASA to turn the camera around on Voyager 1, before leaving the Solar System, to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, on a distance of 6 billion kilometers. The photograph is known as the Pale Blue Dot:

Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately
halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness
of deep space.


Carl Sagan’s thoughts on a deeper meaning of the photograph:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Sure, it could be real fun to have $1 million or $5 billion, but if you look at the Pale Blue Dot and think one step further, you’ll realize that you already are a "cosmic gazillionaire"... enjoy!

 

[chiro]

Personal beliefs, or lack of them, are just that: personal. You have no obligation to share, and I really wish that more people got that. I'm an atheist, and I'm tired of the jesus freaks, and whatever you call someone who posts what Bararontok posted above. Great, someone thinks that they go to a magical castle when they die, and I don't... snooooore... can we get on with fixing the world economy now? I'll worry about death when I'm dead, or not... we'll see!... or not.

This is probably the best post on the subject of belief systems especially religious ones and I commend you for your post. Its funny how some people who are scientific ram their case down other peoples throats as if to be superior when they are actually no different than the religious nuts telling everyone through a megaphone that the world will end in 2012. I'm glad you made this post because it sums up my view on the subject better than I could have done myself.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

that makes me want to sing!

I LOVE IT! MY FAVORITE SONG! Thanks lisab!

 

[mathematicsma]

I’m not saying that everything is perfect, but you are alive? Aren’t you?? Pick up a stone and experience the difference...

Earlier I was only referring to grandmas and sperms, but the story can be made much much longer, from the formation of every chemical element in your body in supernova explosions, to the decision of the first amoeba to go left or right. I.e. if you don’t believe that the Earth was created 3.000 years ago...

If you contemplate all this, and the fact that you are you, then it doesn’t matter that much that there are no unicorns. Let’s save the animals we do have!

In 1990 Carl Sagan requested NASA to turn the camera around on Voyager 1, before leaving the Solar System, to take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, on a distance of 6 billion kilometers. The photograph is known as the Pale Blue Dot:

Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately
halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness
of deep space.Carl Sagan’s thoughts on a deeper meaning of the photograph:

Sure, it could be real fun to have $1 million or $5 billion, but if you look at the Pale Blue Dot and think one step further, you’ll realize that you already are a "cosmic gazillionaire"... enjoy!

That's a beautiful quote from Carl Sagan. I enjoyed it, and I think it's a powerful thought.

That said, I'm not sure what it has to do with winning or losing the cosmic lottery. I'm not trying to say that we should all be depressed, or think that life is terrible because it could be so much better. That's a completely different issue, one of optimism vs. pessimism. What I am saying is that there is no reason to think of what happened to us as remarkable.

Let me explain this further with an analogy (I heard this somewhere, but I can't remember who said it first): Suppose I deal you five cards out of a deck. You take one look at them, and say, "Remarkable! Look what I got! Two kings, a three, an eight, and a six! Now, the odds of this specific hand being dealt was just one out of 52!/(5!*47!). That's tiny!"

Of course, that's silly. I dealt you a hand, so you had to get something, Whatever you get, you can say that it's a miracle.

Often, religious people buttress their arguments by saying that the odds of the world evolving the way it did are infinitesimal. So the must have been divine intervention. That's like saying that there had to be divine intervention in the hand I dealt you-- how else could you have gotten such a rare hand?

My understanding is that when Hawking said that we won the cosmic lottery, he was trying to answer that religious argument. In other words, yes, it's rare, it's remarkable that the world evolved the way it did, but hey, we won the lottery of evolution! Good for us, sucks for anyone who would have lived on Venus! Those guys lost!

That's where I disagree. Yes, we won relative to potential people on Venus, but we lost relative to what could have been, and perhaps what exists elsewhere. We know of but a tiny bit of our universe. So yes, we can look at the planets around us, and say, "We won $1 million, they all lost." But that's myopic. We have no idea what the potential winnings were.