This ties into a dispute I had on youtube concerning the moon landing. I sided with the people who thought it was faked. The point is, I don't necessarily believe it was fake but I wanted to make a point that even people who think of themselves as scientifically minded are prone to accept things on faith. I asked why we should believe in the moon landing since it is the govt that makes the claim and why should I believe a govt that lies to us over and over again?

One guy insisted the rocks were older than any found on earth. I found two sites that claimed the rocks were dated at 4.417 billion years which is within the range of earth's oldest rocks. Another said the rocks had micrometeorite pits and such that could only have resulted from prolonged exposure on the moon. I never read this on any website so I asked him for a source but never received one. I told him that since I am not a geologist and admittedly don't know squat about the subject, how could I know his statement was true even if the samples did have all this pits? If I accept it because some geologist or other said so, aren't I just accepting it on faith? I mean, the guy could be wrong, couldn't he?

He resorted to the kind of retort we commonly see here at Mudcat--"Obviously, you're not very bright." This, of course, was not an answer so I asked him outright: "If geologists who examined the rocks are lying, how would YOU know? Are you qualified to know anything about the moon rocks without being told." He said the Russians examined them and didn't have any objections. Well, of course they wouldn't since nothing about them can be proven one way or another.

I tried another tack: what if we sent an unmanned robotic craft to the moon secretly and it brought back samples of rocks which were then hidden until the highly publicized moonshots had taken place and then the rocks were paraded out and said to have been collected by the astronauts. "Could that have happened?" I asked. "Can that possibility be eliminated?" It took some effort but he finally admitted it was possible but highly unlikely. I agreed that it was highly unlikely but the point is, isn't his belief that the moon landings took place ultimately based on faith? Isn't his accepting the word of people who have a vested interest in maintaining the illusion--if we assume for a moment that it is an illusion--no different than someone who accepts the pope's word?

Another guy wrote me and said people gave their lives for those missions so "have a little respect." So, I should be cowed into silence the way Bush & Cheney cowed people into not criticizing the Iraq War because our brave soldiers have died there and I would be spitting on their graves to question the righteous of a war these assholes lied to get us into?

So maybe the true test of an atheist is: What does he accept as fact that he truly knows to be a fact instead of assuming it so because others he considers to be better informed have told him it is a fact? Because if he accepts their word on it, he's buying on faith. Or is he?