Welcome to Holy Cyclops
war
the moon all misty white—cold;
the sky all dark, the stars dull shadows.
holy cyclops licks white bones,
belly full, marches off content,
crimson footprints staining the ground—
and the silent shiver of the trees;
the silent shiver of the trees.
(copyright 1977)
This is the source of the name “holy cyclops.” In the poem, it was supposed to symbolize the military-industrial complex, with its monstrous, single-minded pursuit of war, apparently heedless of the carnage thereof; but I’m using it for my Web site (www.holycyclops.com) and for this blog just because I needed a name and “holy cyclops” seemed as though it might stand out more than would “the rational nontheist.”
If I am in single-minded pursuit of anything, it is the truth. Whatever is known to be true should be believed; whatever is thought to be true, with justification reaching or surpassing some threshold level, should be believed; whatever is false should not be believed. And whatever is not known to be true and is not known to be false but lacks sufficient justification to compel rational belief should not be believed. One should simply withhold belief from that which is insufficiently well justified. Since I see insufficiently good reason to compel rational belief in God, I do not believe in God—and unless you possess better reason than I have, I think you shouldn’t believe in God, either. (Or in ghosts, or in telepathy, or in astrology, or in reiki, or in tarot reading, or in crystal power, or in any of a number of other things, for that matter.) It is simply an epistemic mistake–or perhaps a doxastic one–to believe in that which is rationally unsupported or poorly supported.