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Spokane
Friday, March 29, 2024

Jim Downard

Jim Downard is a Spokane native (with a sojourn in Southern California back in the early 1960s) who was raised in a secular family, so says had no personal faith to lose. He's always been a history and science buff (getting a bachelor's in the former area at what was then Eastern Washington University in the early 1970s).

BRIEF: Humanists, skeptics and Ask an Atheist to gather at Tacoma summit

This month humanists and skeptics from around the Pacific Northwest will gather in Tacoma to discuss evolution and climate change, activism, the unconscious mind and much more. Jim Downard, author of Spokane Faith & Values' Ask an Atheist, will be attending the Center For Inquiry Summit and wants to know what information you want him to bring back.

Ask An Atheist: Does it take faith to be an atheist?

I heard several religious visitors to the booth our Inland Northwest Freethought Society and Spokane Secular Society hosted at the recent Spokane Country Fair toss off a similar trope: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," they would say, and then walk off without engaging any further.

Ask An Atheist: Is there an afterlife?

Is there an afterlife?

As someone who is a practical materialist, who does not believe we possess any supernatural spirit apart from the self-awareness generated in our brains, and who furthermore does not believe in any supernatural deities, my answer is a general no.

Ask An Atheist: What is the meaning of life?

First, if the question assuming that "ultimate meaning" can only exist in a context of some kind of afterlife (eternal or otherwise), then the deck is stacked, and no answer apart from that would be conceivable. The issue ultimately relates not to the afterlife at all, but to what meaning and purpose people come to think about their own lives and the lives of others.

Ask An Atheist: Is it contradictory for an atheist to attempt to prove God doesn’t exist?

I cannot see how it is even slightly "inconsistent" for an atheist to argue that a particular god doesn't exist, though it would seem the questioner is trying to beg the question with the phrase "work against his existence" thereby embedding the reality of the god as an assumption.

Musings on Chaco Canyon

On the way home from a trip with my niece to visit her mom (my sister) down in Louisiana in July, we routed back through New Mexico to see the celebrated Anasazi ruins of Chaco Canyon, which has been on my bucket list for some time. Punctuated by wandering cows and bugs languid in the summer heat, the road into the park is a long unpaved bumpy washboard, the result of litigious private landowners unable to reach an agreement with the Park Service on paving. Perhaps this is a blessing, for it keeps visitors to a trickle, limited to those whose curiosity to see the place overcomes worries about the resilience of their vehicle’s suspension.

Ask An Atheist: What motivates you to be a contributor with Spokane Faith & Values?

Q. What motivates you to be a contributor with Spokane Faith & Values? As an atheist, has interfaith dialogue been a valuable experience in your life? What is your experience with other atheists including themselves in this endeavor?

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