Re: Popular Athiest Misconception : 'Atheism isnt a faith-based (secular) religion'

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 19:23:04 +0100, "John Brockbank"
<wagley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"PG" <pgk9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:ft04tk$ru8$1@xxxxxxxxxxx

< That does not equate to a statement that there is/are no
g(G)od(s).


I am afraid I cut out rather too much of your message but I hope you will
remember your general thesis. If I may say so without being rude, I think
you are making a slight mistake in logic, which in fact is shared with
Dawkins, though you changed a word.

You 'admit' the teeniest smallest however slight, 'possibility' of God, and
so does Dawkins, but he uses the word 'probability'. I hope you don't mind
if I lump you together and assume that you could equally well have used the
word probability.

It is commonly accepted that a probability of zero means that a thing is
impossible, and that if it is possible it 'must' have a probability greater
than zero however small.

That is incorrect in fact and is a layman's mistake which only a person who
both understands probability (which I at least almost do) and is pedantic
(which I certainly am) would bother about.

What is the probability that Lady Di is in fact alive and has married Elvis
and is living on the other side of the moon in a dome? You have to admit
the possibility however small. I am fairly sure that if you went along to
William Hill's you could only get odds of about a million to one against its
discovery by 2012 but they are biased on the side of their own safety. <g>
However I can assure you that it has a probability of zero.

You will not want to accept this because it goes against the mistake made
all the time by nearly everyone and even la Dawkins, but they and he are in
fact wrong. A thing has a probability of zero if that is what results from
the calculation.

Anyhing which can be imagined is possible, but most are baloney and have
zero probability. If you can think of a sillier example than the Lady Di
and Elvis in the moon dome, please do so and satisfy yourself of its zero
probability. You won't be able to think of anything less probable than a
god.

It's not just that.

The problem is that believers who can't see beyond the ends of their
noses, imagine that their religion's foundational tenets apply to the
real world.

When in reality nobody else would give them a thought. And when they
do it's as "what they believe as part of their religion".

Believers have difficulty grasping this, and imagine "there's no God"
is the belief that something real doesn't exist.

It's actually the frustrated response to people who keep introducing
the subject talking about it as though it were real, where it is
inappropriate.

No different from the equivalent statements about ghosts, bigfoot, the
Loch Ness monster, the fairies at the bottom of the garden, etc.

I really don't understand why an atheist should call this "faith"
especially in the context of the theist's faith.

There is no symmetry, and it's certainly not an equivalent but
opposite faith.
.

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