Blake's Law
About
Blake's Law is an aphorism which suggests that anyone who states or implies that vocal atheists are similar to religious fundamentalists should be considered to have lost the argument, as this claim and its entire family – including any claim that atheism is a religion (or is like a religion, or is no better than religion) – has been soundly refuted every time it has been thoroughly discussed.
The original phrasing is in two parts:
(1) In any discussion of atheism (skepticism, etc.), the probability that someone will compare a vocal atheist to religious fundamentalists increases to one. (2) The person who makes this comparison will be considered to have lost the argument.
Related
- Invocation of "atheist dogma" (and related phrases) automatically loses the argument.
History
It was first proposed (namelessly) by Blake Stacey in a blog post on 2007-04-07, partly inspired by Godwin's Law which imposes the same penalty for comparisons to Hitler; biologist PZ Myers named it "Blake's Law" in a post on his well-known blog Pharyngula on 2007-07-16.