From: Travas Gunnell (travasg@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Apr 12 2001 - 17:54:00 MDT
--- J Corbally <icorb@indigo.ie> wrote:
> > >From: "Brian Phillips"
> >In my definition an agnostic is someone who largely
> holds the idea
> >of God to be currently unknowable. As I stated
> previously, I
> >believe that we do not know enough about the
> universe to say with
> >certainty that a God does not exist. (an error of
> atheists IMMHO)
>
> Not so. Most atheists I've met would not say "god
> doesn't exist", they
> would say they don't believe it exists. They're
> well aware of the problem
> of making such sweeping claims. By default, atheism
> is merely a lack of
> god belief. It can also be a form of "assertion of
> nonexistence", but this
> in my experience is much less common, and atheism
> tends to be described
> that way in order to strawman it.
Atheists can indeed say "god doesn't exist". For a
nice, and somewhat lengthy, article on the subject, go
here:
Modeling God: Deferred Abusrdity
http://www.americanatheist.org/aut97/T2/modelinggod.html
> >I realize religions have pat (unacceptable) answers
> to these
> >questions.
> >Of course a wise person would simply take Pascal's
> wager (Blaise,
> >look it up) and say they believe. Come to think of
> it, I repent!!
>
> Well, I don't know whether the "wise" person would:)
> Then again, a lottery
> ticket is about the level of my betting.
Pascal's Wager is rather silly, not to mention
hypocritical. Does someone employing Pascal's Wager
think that he can trick an omniscient being by
believing in something "just in case"? And which
religion is it that such a person is to believe in?
With the thousands of choices available how are you
going to be sure you've chosen the right one? You
can't believe in all of them, as many of them are
diametrically opposed, and some explicitly condemn
others.
Additionally, for most religions one just can't
say "I believe" and leave it at that. One must also
agree to a certain set of dictates that one must live
thier lives by. So, if the Wagerist does decide on
one particular religious denomination, he risks
wasting his entire life in servitude to a lie. Not my
cup of tea. :-)
-Travas
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