I’m currently in LA.

I’m staying in the home of my friend Anthony. One of the features of this house is a kitchen that is to die for. It’s pretty sweet. Actually, it’s pretty and sweet. One of the best designed and equipped kitchens I’ve ever seen.

One thing that this kitchen doesn’t have is a microwave oven. I suspected that Anthony just didn’t like them, but because everything in this kitchen is built into the walls, there was a slim chance that I simply hadn’t seen it (the first time I was in this kitchen, I couldn’t find the fridge). So today I asked Anthony if I was right that there was no microwave, or was I simply missing it. He confirmed that there was no microwave and then he said, “I don’t believe in microwaves.”

This suddenly struck me as interesting. It is not that if I took Anthony to a department store and showed him the microwave ovens and guided his hand to touch the surface, and showed him how they worked, his disbelief would be dispelled. Clearly this is not what he was saying.

What interested me was realizing that when someone says that they don’t believe in god, or evolution, or anthropogenic climate change we assume that they are questioning the very existence of these things. When in fact what they may be saying is that they simply don’t care. That they simply place no faith in these things. That they want nothing to do with them.

Ok. I’m no idiot. I know that that’s not usually what’s going on, but it does seem interesting to think about these arguments from that angle.

hmmm….