I have recently had an experience that I would like to share. I have drawn some conclusions that I would also like to share and get feedback on. As you all know I am an Atheist. In fact, I am what you might refer to as an "Out and Proud" Atheist. In the spirit of that I have a Bumper Sticker on my car that says "Proud To Be An Atheist."

A few days ago I went shopping with my sister. Now you must understand that she is a very religious person. She subscribes to some kind of New Age Christian-esk spiritualism as peddled by the "psychic medium" Sylvia Browne. Note that I do intend to devout an entire post to that vindictive old harpie in the future. Sylvia Browne is by far one of the most despicable people alive and I will elaborate further at a later time. However, the point is that my sister is a devout follower of this woman and believes everything she says.

Now my sister refuses to ride in my car because of the Atheist bumper sticker. Not on principle or in a display of disapproval, but because she will be, and I quote, "struck down". To me this sounds like she is making a prediction or hypothesis based in her analysis of the situation. So therefore I treated it as such. Here was my argument.

First, I restated and clarified her hypothesis. She believes that if she were to ride in my car with the Atheist bumper sticker that some negative repercussion would likely result. Therefore, I assumed that she felt the odds of the repercussion occurring as being greater than 50%. She concurred that the odds would be 50% or more. I also assumed that she believed that the repercussion would be the direct result of retaliation from a supernatural entity. She also agreed with that.

Now if her risk is as least equal to 50% simply riding in the car then it stands to reason that my risk should be even greater. After all I am the one who purchased the sticker, placed it in the window and drove the car. Also, I spent much more time in the car with the sticker. If we assume that there is at least a 50/50 chance of "supernatural retaliation" based simply on riding in the car then my risk should well exceeded 100%. Therefore, her hypothesis should have been verified several times over given my risk factor and the amount of time I spend in the car. I have yet to be "struck down" therefore her hypothesis has been falsified. Correct?

No such luck. Now confronted with these new results she went on to fiddle the original hypothesis. Now she changed it to 'she might be struck down sometime in the future'. She also, said that my case does not apply because I don't believe in the god and therefore am exempt from retaliation. (Don't even ask me where that logic comes from!) I tried to explain to her that she cannot go back and twiddle the hypothesis to avoid falsification after the fact. All I get is a blank stare.

This brings me to my point. How are people so dense to the concept of rational, orderly, logical thought. How is this concept that I find so straightforward unimaginable to some? I can understand some people might not go right through all the steps I have just outlined intuitively, but after I walk them through it how can they not "get it"? This is truly a puzzler to me!

I went on to giver her an example of what I was trying to say. I said it was the equivalent of hypothesizing the existence of land mines in a hallway. She says their are land mines down the length of the hallway and it is impassable. I tell her there are not because I walked down the hallway many times in the past week. I then demonstrate this by walking down the hallway and back, proving there are no obstacles, explosive or otherwise. She still refuses to accept the fact that the hallway is not mined and invents new terms and conditions to explain why her hypothesis failed. The mines are on a delayed reaction and I will now spontaneously combust at some time in the future. I didn't expect the mines to detonate so I was immune to them. All of these new predictions are based on nothing, except the need to abstract the original prediction out of falsification.

How can anyone, especially someone who is of a perfectly respectable intelligence, hoodwink themselves into this kind or ridiculous, irrational and circular thought. I have spent a great deal of time in contemplation of this. I can honestly say that I haven't a clue.