🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:03:45 GMT, "FNO" <Me@home.ca> spake thusly:

>
>"Opus-" <jbuchy@telus.net> wrote in message
>news:aa4rp0pjpl5q7ttqs20n7sdebr7c77n0na@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:45:05 GMT, Norman Miller <spamthis@die.invalid>
>> spake thusly:
>>
>> >In article <858bd3a9.0411171050.7c8514d0@posting.google.com>, Michael
>> >Yardley says...
>> >
><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.

>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?

>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.

-- 
jbuchy@hotmail.com 
(Jim, single dad to Lesleigh [Autistic] 04/20/94)

"What, Me Worry?" A. E. Newman

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