No God button

Goddammit! Here we go. It didn't take long for the "No God" button to get me in trouble! Some background: Lono gave me the "No God" button he got from The Amazing Meeting (TAM). The button itself is a miracle of graphic design, with the word GOD in one of those red circle/slash things. Like the no smoking signs, except smokes actually exist. Anyhow, I'd like to point out that such a button would be very easy to steal, but Lono acquired it legally and ethically, despite the fact that he doesn't use the Bible to define the points on his moral compass. In any case, after a long road, the button is on my backpack. It offended a friend, who called it, "not funny," and today it aggravated a friend of mine, who, for the sake of his anonymity, we will call Icky. Why Icky? His nickname rhymes with icky, and I have been calling him by his nickname for so long, I can't remember his real name. It's not Bob, that's all I can tell you.

Anyhow, Icky, a devout Christstain (that is an intentional typo), saw the "No God" button today and blew a fuse...well, he is a very mild and restrained person, so lets say he flipped a breaker switch. Eventually, I told him where it came from, and a bit of the background of TAM. Somehow, he has the idea that a meeting of a group of skeptics proved the existence of god. I didn't understand that, and followed up by emailing him the agenda for the next TAM. For your reading pleasure, I paste in his response, which you may consider the opening salvo in a debate that will likely end a friendship...which, of course, will be published here for your reading displeasure.

It is probably a group huddle of people who desperately don't want to believe in anything, telling each other that is is all okay. Seriously!

One has to believe in something, otherwise, there is no purpose or meaning in life. This does not include belief in Macs - belief in sub-standard computers (Macs) because of their presumed symbols of social status, does not make for productive use of computing power, or for substantiating the purpose or meaning in life.

Do you know that humans have the same genes as animals, now that all genomes have been sequenced. There is nothing in the human genome that accounts for why we have the cognitive, rational, emotional and creative capacity that separates human life from animal life. Do the TAM people talk about such things, or do they just hold hands and go, "Ohhhhhhh, life is good!"

Icky