Possibly my most unpopular post ever

Today we went to see PZ speak at the Minnesota Atheist's society meeting. He was fantastic, and I managed to follow most of what he was saying, which is pretty good for me, since my ability to understand science pretty much stopped at my high school physics class teacher's explanation of how cosmically nothing ever really touches. My mother the math teacher desperately wanted me to be an astronaut when I grew up. Instead, I got a C in college biology.

My problem was that I find Atheism to be as much a religion as any theology out there. It takes the same step of faith to say that there is no God because there is no need for one as it does to say God does exist and it does not require any act of proof.

PZ used a great example of the various bits of scientific knowledge being like pieces of the most complex puzzle ever made, and that slowly the scientists are able to find out the places that the pieces fit together to begin to make the actual picture that is the orgin of life.

But a puzzle is created out of a whole picture that is cut into pieces. Otherwise, you can't create a finished product. If you take out the idea of a greater power, you have a bunch of scientists putting the pieces together while no one is addressing where the actual puzzle came from and how it got cut into pieces in the first place.

I don't know if I got out of it what the rest of the audience did, but I've now spent the last 3 hours thinking about both science and my own theological beliefs. So I guess that makes him a damn good speaker.