🚀 go-pugleaf

<snip>
> >> >Atheists don't address the matter very well at all. An atheistic dogma
is
> >> >still a dogma; an atheistic belief is still a belief.
> >>
> >> Actually, no. Atheism isn't a belief, it's a non-belief.
> >>
> >Actually, it is a belief and it is faith.  Faith is the acceptance of
> >something in the absence of proof.  An athiest can no more prove that
there
> >is no deity than a theist can prove there is one.  The only non-believers
> >are those who don't really know one way or the other.
>
> We are getting into hair splitting territory here. I do not believe
> that there is a god, but I don't KNOW for certain. Unfortunately, the
> bulk of believers I have met talk with absolute certainty of the
> existence of god.
>

Its an important distinction.  Many atheists are pretty nasty to those
"narrow-minded theists" as theists can be to dissenters from their faith.
Only those who aren't really sure couldn't really care what your beliefs
are.  I am a non-believer; not because I can say for can't say for certain
one what or the other, but because I also am not sure one way or the other.
One the one hand, it would be easy to believe there is no God.  However, too
much of the world around us defies explanation to have been by 'accident'.
But, on the other hand, too many of the so-called miracles of faith are
perfectly explainable.

> >In addition, from a logical perspective, it is has much more risk than an
> >theistic belief.  If a theist is wrong, they don't really lose; that's
all
> >there is.  But if they are right, they win.  For an athiest, if they are
> >right they don't really win; again, that is all there is.  But if they
are
> >wrong, they lose.  Consequently, a theist cannot lose, and an atheist
cannot
> >win.
>
> Pascal's Wager has one inherent problem, what if the believer believes
> in the wrong god? In other words, what will Allah do with Christians
> and Jews in the hereafter?
>
I don't imagine He will care.  But even if He does, a theist has MUCH better
odds of winning; ie. better than zero

> >An atheist, nevertheless, holds as firm a belief, in the absence of any
> >proof, that there is no deity, as a theist holds the belief, again in the
> >absence of proof, that there is.
>
> I, quite honestly, have never met an atheist who firmly believes that
> there is no god, only that they don't believe that there is one.
>
Then you should read Skeptic.  You'll see many.

> -- 
> jbuchy@hotmail.com
> (Jim, single dad to Lesleigh [Autistic] 04/20/94)
>
> "What, Me Worry?" A. E. Newman
>
> Please note: All unsolicited e-mail sent to me may, at
> my discretion, be posted in this newsgroup verbatim.