Thought or Two

I watched a lecture a few months back by Sam Harris in which he argued against adopting the lable 'atheist'. The argument can be summarized something like this:

• 'Atheism' is not a worldview it is simply the statement that there is insufficient evidence to warrant belief in god(s). Nothing more.
• We do not generally make a habit of defining ourselves by things we don't believe in. I don't call myself an a-ghostists or a-astrologists; it would be a collosal waste of time to adopt labels for all the phenomena we don't subscribe to.

There has been some work done in this area; Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennet have promoted a re-branding campaign for atheists under the label "brights". I personally find the idea of calling myself a 'bright' a little too nauseating to handle even though I can appreciate the conotations.

Maybe its because I like the study of philosophy that my bias lies towards the term 'rationalist'. Not in the Cartesian anti-empiricist sense, but in the common-language use: one who employs reason and skepticism in their life.

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In other news, there is a new trail being built on Galbraith that is going to be super long and fun. It is tying together parts of three other trails with a bunch of new stuff in-between to link everything together, removing the need to use fire roads to commute around. It certainley lies on the 'free-ride' side of the spectrum so it will present fun challenges. I must say I was impressed with Trillium, the owners of Galbraith, they paid for and installed a 400 foot long, nice and wide bridge through a swamp on the new trail. How cool is that? I rode the bridge back and forth a couple times and it is completely stable, a proffesional quality job to be certain. Its also not skinny at all so you can carry pretty good speed.