Theme: atheism

Showing 1 - 10 of 272 essays

There Is No God Penn Jillette - Las Vegas, Nevada http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thisibelieve/Penn_Jillette_Podcast.mp3 As half of the magic act Penn and Teller, Penn Jillette enjoys challenging his audiences with the unconventional. In stating his personal credo, Jillette finds liberation in believing there is no God. Read the essay...

Untold Stories of Kindness Ernesto Haibi - Ft. Lewis, Washington https://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB_Haibi.mp3 As an Army medic in Iraq, Sgt. Ernesto Haibi has seen his share of violence and death. But despite his wartime experiences, Haibi believes mankind’s goodness can foster a positive, more peaceful future. Read the essay...

The Sum of Its Parts Olive - Putney, Vermont When I was four, I remember someone told me something about how God’s enduring wisdom would provide for everyone in the end, or something cliché like that, which even then I didn’t think they believed with doubtless conviction. I don’t remember who it was, or exactly what they said, but I remember nodding, complacent and […] Read the essay...

I Believe in Chaos Elise - Los Angeles, California A professor once explained the Chaos Theory like this: “Imagine your bedroom. It can be messy a million different ways, but it can only be clean one way. The reason life is so messy is because statistically speaking, it’s just more likely.” When our daughter Addie was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and then a seizure […] Read the essay...

The Roots of Our Progress Herbert Hoover - New York, New York https://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB1950_Hoover.mp3 My professional training was in science and engineering. That is a training in the search for truth and its application to the use of mankind. With the growth of science, we have a continuous contention for a tribe of atheistic and agnostic philosophers that there is an implacable conflict between science and religion, in which […] Read the essay...

I Wish I Could Believe C. Day Lewis - United Kingdom https://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB1950_LewisC.mp3 “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Those two lines of Yeats for me sum up the matter as it stands today when the very currency of belief seems debased. I was brought up in the Christian church. Later I believed for a while that communism offered the best […] Read the essay...

Scholar from Childhood Norbert Wiener - USA https://thisibelieve.org/audio/TIB1950_Wiener.mp3 I am by profession a working mathematician and natural scientist. I was destined to the career of scholar from childhood by my father. He was a scholar in the very different field of philological-historical research, and he imbued me-rather by example than by precept-with the duties and responsibilities of the scholar. These are an unswerving […] Read the essay...

This I Believe Souheil - Bloomington, Indiana I believe To listen to NPR’s “I Believe” series one wonders if there are any open quote bad people close quotes. All the expounded beliefs are lofty, ethical, and altruistic. No racist beliefs, no antihomosexual beliefs, no antipoor antilazy beliefs, no antirich antiselfserving antiopportunistic beliefs. Nowhere to be found also were the anti-Semitic and antipalestinian […] Read the essay...