The Atheist Who Thought He Was God

Can we ever be sure about anything in life?

Is a feeling of 99% certainty enough to say you “know” something? Or do you need to feel 99.9999999999% certain before you’re willing to commit?

If you say you need to be 100% certain, you don’t understand how human brains work. It’s common for the human brain to be certain about things that later turn out to be completely false. It happens all the time, to everyone. If it has ever happened to you, then you know you can’t trust your own powers of certainty.

This brings me to atheists. In order to be certain that God doesn’t exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity – the ability to be 100% certain. A human can’t be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren’t that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn’t exist: God.

Perhaps you will argue that being 99.999999% certain God doesn’t exist is just as good as being 100% sure. That strikes me as bad math. As other philosotainers have famously noted, a small chance of spending eternity in Hell has to be taken seriously. Eternity is a long time.

Let me put this in perspective. You might be willing to accept a 10% risk of going skiing and getting hurt, but you wouldn’t accept a 10% risk of a nuclear war. The larger the potential problem, the less risk you are willing to tolerate.

An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be. So while you might not worry about a .00000000001% chance of ending up in Hell, you can’t deny the math. .00000000001% of eternity is a lot longer than your entire mortal life. Infinitely longer.

I sometimes call myself an atheist because it’s too hard to explain Spinoza’s version of god. And it’s too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position.

Are there any atheists out there?

[Update Bonus Question: What's the difference between a "weak atheist" and an agnostic? Don't both subscribe to uncertainty?]

Comments

[davidmabus]

http://www.rock-explosion.com/images/finger.jpg

the *MODEL* of mental health:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zBEbfiaZTfc

"Look at the ANGLE OF THE KEY....see that, see that...."

what an idiot this Randi is.....a REAL CRITICAL THINKER.....

for all the victims of Randi's monstrous idea.......

Visit:

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/3283/P0/

to see how we stopped James Randi's fraudulent MILLION DOLLAR PARANORMAL challenge.....

watch carefully the consequences of Randi's *idea*…..

For over 40 years James Randi Zwigert (is this even a REAL NAME?) has had total control over who and how the testing was conducted, yet despite all this he has terminated the challenge.

The ONLY REASON why the challenge was stopped is because he lost and refused to pay.

Apparently, Randi likes to break the rules when it serves him:

"14. This prize will continue to be offered until it is awarded. Upon the death of James Randi, the administration of the prize will pass into other hands, and it is intended that it continue in force. "

Great force.....it's over......

where is my MILLION DOLLARS, you LITTLE *NO-NAME* FRAUD

PS: Almost Forgot: Love the IRONY of the *BULLSHIT* sign over Randi's ugly head....

[Matt]

I am an atheist, and I very readily admit that I can not know if there is a God. I would say that it usually the people who believe in God who are the ones who are unable to admit to this same uncertainty.

[DJ]

Some semi-random simplistic thoughts of mine that probably aren't original:

What percentage of the world's population practices the same religion as their parents?

How would religious practices change if children were prohibited from practicing or choosing any religion until they became adults, and then had the freedom in their culture to choose among any of the religions of the world, or none at all?

Did religions simply come about because people long ago could not explain the science behind the world around them? We can't explain why water is falling from the sky, so God must be doing that. We can't explain why molten rock is spewing out of that mountain, so God must be doing that. We can't grasp that we're standing on a very large spherical object, so God must have made the earth flat. Ok, so God made the Earth round.

We don't feel the Earth spinning, so it must be stationary and God made the sun go around it. Ok, so the Earth is spinning and it goes around the sun. Maybe I'll take your word for it if it's cool with the Church. I don't understand astronomical gravitational forces, so God must have designed it that way.

I don't know what those small lights in the night sky are, so God must have put them there. I don't know about my ancestors more than a few generations back, but they all had to have been humans just like me, right? Someone had to put the first humans here on earth, and God is a likely choice since he did all that other cool stuff. Since I can't see evolution during my lifetime I don't understand it, so God must have put all other forms of life on Earth around the same time as he put the first humans here, give or take a week.

I can't explain how our planet, solar system, galaxy, or universe came to be, so God must have created it all.

There will always be things we don't yet know about our world, but future generations will know these things and find our current theories amusing.

[Steve]

You are all Godless heathens and you WILL burn in Hell if you don't change that. Athiests are nothing more than cynical assholes who think they're the happiest people on earth but are really miserable. And for that, they have to make everyone else miserable. You believe that just because the world's imperfect that God doesn't exist. I used to be an Athiest, I admit that. God was kind enough to change my ways. I don't believe God exists, I KNOW God exists. I could spend all day telling you my experiences, but knowing what Athiests are like, you'd all probably try to explain it away with your "scientific theories". Athiesism isn't a religion or belief, it's a DISEASE. You're reading this for your amusement, thinking I'm stupid or dull, but try something called BELIEVING and believe me when I tell you that if you don't find your faith, you will be damned. Honestly, what is this world coming to when parents allow their children to grow up to become heathens. And by the way, how do you not see the pattern that you're athiests and your life sucks?

A word from the much wiser than you
-Steve, CATHOLIC

[Harry]

Hi,

Belief by definition does not require or need certainty.

I dont "know" whether God exists, and for that matter nor does anybody else.

I do know what I believe, and I believe that God does not exist, so I am an atheist.

Other people are perfectly entitled to have a different view and say they do believe that God exists..but in both cases it is just a belief it is not "knowing".

Those who describe themselves as agnostic are in my view simply saying they don't know what they believe. Which logically is not a defendable position.

Harry

[John]

There is a first principle of creation, something does not come from nothing, which makes the big bang theory flawed, and so flawed that it makes science seem almost foolish, but its to be expected, as science is nothing more than describing things based on visual evidence and habit. No matter what God is, as a prime mover or inherent state of being, it does not condemn to hell, it does not have the means or the programming to condemn or act in any way that would be human. To evolve is to create, something does not evolve from nothing.

[vincent]

Well done!
You really got people going.
Obviously you can't know anything for certain.
It follows logically that if there is a creation, there must be a creator.

[Ernie Zelinski]

Here are three quotes from my quote collection that relate to atheists:

It is an insult to God to believe in God. For on the one hand it is to suppose that he has perpetrated acts of incalculable cruelty. On the other hand, it is to suppose that he has perversely given his human creatures an instrument- their intellect- which must inevitably lead them, if they are dispassionate and honest, to deny his existence. It is tempting to conclude that if he exists, it is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among those with any pretensions to education. For they are the ones who have taken him most seriously.
— Galen Strawson (b. 1952), British philosopher, literary critic. Quoted in: Independent (London, 24 June 1990).

He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him).
— George Orwell (1903-50), British author. Down and Out in Paris and London, ch. 30 (1933).

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
— Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic. Quoted in: W. H. Auden, A Certain World, "God" (1970).

Ernie J. Zelinski
Author of The Joy of Not Working
http://www.thejoyofnotworking.com/rights.htm

[Mike]

Surely the idea of God being able to think, nevermind being 100% certain about something, is human constructed?

Even if there is a God or higher being, which i am not denying, who would condemn us to "hell" for not following a conduct of behaviour defined by people who were alive over 2000 years prior to ourselves (and therefore lacking 2000 years worth of knowledge and learning derrived from experience), I would prefer to live my life to the full, and conduct actions purely on rational thought and the values and morals that I hold, and have come to realise myself, through experience, and not through a book whose teachings are enforced by fear (if you disagree re-read the post). Leading a life this way, I will happily walk away from the gates of heavan knowing that i wouldn't be accepted as a person there anyway, as if a life led by my own values, without causing harm to, belittling, or constricting a person, is not good enough to "get me in", i doubt i would enjoy spending the rest of eternity there anyway.

I apologise for the long sentences and lack of proof reading

[Epistaxis]

It's silly to say I'm "agnostic" about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or weapons of mass destruction just because I can't mathematically prove, with 100% confidence, they don't exist, the same way I can prove 2+2=4. I'm as certain of those things as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow. It's simpler just to call myself an "atheist" (or even "Athiest" as some commenters have), rather than play a stupid game of semantics where words stop meaning anything and there's no way to express the concept of belief beyond reasonable doubt.

There are lots of interesting arguments about the (non)existence of god(s). This isn't one. It's just deliberate confusion over the meaning of perfectly straightforward words. You're telling people what they believe and then telling them it's wrong. Come on.

[Mark]

Ahhh..the wisdom of man.

[Szkeptik]

Actually you can be 100% sure in some things.

If your statement is : "purple monkeys do not exist" than you indeed would have to inspect every single sqare inch of the whole universe in the search for the purple monkey before you could say with 100% certainity that "purple monkeys do not exist". But if you say "round sqares do not exist" you don't have to be all knowing to be 100% sure that you are correct, because the strict rules and mathematical laws that define the square make it impossible for a round sqare to exist.

It's exactly the same thing with the God question.
God is:
1) All knowing
2) All powerful
3) All loving

Defining God like this would grant Him the power and the willingness to stop all suffering in the world. So the mere existance of suffering proves the non-existance of our defined God 100% and that is not a bad chance even for eternity.

[Chris]

So, I should believe, just in case? Isn't that just intellectually dishonest? Does God REALLY want a bunch of fearful sheep, instead of intelligent and enlightened individuals?

If deciding to believe is such an easy thing, they you should decide to follow Odin. If you don't follow Odin when Ragnarok comes around, you're gonna be in some deep doo-doo.

Sorry, this rehashing of Pascal's Wager is still the thinly veiled threat that it always was.

[DK]

You forgot something: just believing in god doesn't quite cut it. You need to believe in the RIGHT god. So if I'm 99.999...% sure that there is no god, but don't want to take a chance on an eternity in hell, which god should I believe in?

Here's an idea: I should do a comparative study of the concept of posthumous punishment for heretics and/or sinners in all religions, and choose the religion with the crappiest afterlife for non-believers. That would be my religion. Alternatively, I could calculate the delta between the rewards in the afterlife of the righteous to the above punishment, and choose the best religion according to that.

Or, of course, I could assume that if there's a god out there that expects me to believe and worship him just because I don't want to spend eternity in hell even though he hasn't lifted a finger for any good cause in the last couple millenia - well, sod him.

[Jack]

"What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." ~ Christopher Hitchens

[DrJon]

I always find the religious fervour in Atheists attempting to convince you that Atheism isn't a faith, but an absence of faith, very very amusing.

[Slappy White]

Time for a theology exam!

3. You are a product tester and frequently bring your work home. Yesterday, while dressed in a flame resistant suit (up to 3,000 degrees) and carrying the latest model fire extinguisher, you discover your neighbor's house is on fire. As the flames quickly spread, you stand and watch your neighbor's new born baby burn to death. Which of the following best describes your behavior?
A. All-powerful
B. All-knowing
C. All-loving
D. Mysterious

5. You are the incarnated Son of the all-powerful and all-loving Creator of the universe. What would be a good way to demonstrate your compassion and power?
A. Cure cancer forever
B. Cause all the earth's deserts to bloom with food crops
C. Unite the world with a common language and an end to poverty
D. Conjure up a jug of wine and follow it up by walking on water

6. Since we can never "know" whether or not a God exists - it is fundamentally a matter of "faith" - it's best to be a believer since you have nothing to lose, but everything to lose if your disbelief is incorrect. Keeping in mind that the fate of your soul depends on the right choice, in which God should you place your belief? For extra credit, include a brief essay justifying your choice, along with the reasons why you reject the other three.
A. Zeus
B. Quetzalcoatl
C. Vishnu
D. The Holy Trinity
(*Note: Choice D assumes you were born around 400 A.D. or later, after the invention of the Trinity)

21. Jesus was God, and God knows all things, including all the medical knowledge that will ever be known. Why did Jesus blame demons for the case of epilepsy he cured?
A. He was suffering from a temporary case of "brain freeze"
B. The Aramaic word for "demon" is the same as the word for "cranial malfunction"
C. Neurology was not his specialty
D. In first-century Palestine, demons really did cause epilepsy. This affliction only began to be caused by electrochemical brain activity after about 1850 A.D.

25. A great sadness has come into your life which you feel you cannot bear. A friend informs you of a free counseling service which has never failed to aid and comfort many others. You call the counselor; the phone rings and rings with no answer; you finally hang up. What is the most likely explanation?
A. The counselor is sitting by the phone but not answering in order to test your faith in him
B. The counselor always stands ready to hear your pleas for help, but sometimes the answer is "no"
C. The counselor will not answer because he wants you to profit by the spiritual strength that only comes through suffering
D. The counselor is not home

[csm]

This is such a frustrating blog posting Mr. Adams, because you are doing what you usually so successfully lampoon -- that is speaking as an expert on something about which you have little knowledge. Atheism is the lack of belief in a god, or indeed any gods. That is all it is. The question of whether there is a god is ancillary. And, in my experience, the only folks who've taken the time to truly examine that question are the atheists. Reading the bible is what turns most atheists into atheists (at least in the USA where christianity is the predominant religion).

As an atheist, I can state that I am not 100% sure there is no god. I am 100% sure that the god of the christian bible does not exist as he is described in that book. There are too many contradictions that cannot be true. Could it be a flawed book that talks about some god "out there" that did not do everything in that book? Possibly, but I find no credible evidence that even that is true. I'm open to it - as are most atheists. The problem is that there is no credible evidence.

[at]

If you have ever read Dawkins,Nica Lalli or heck most of the comments on this page, it is amusing how the augments of atheists are almost always dripping with a "there just CAN'T be a God....right????" tone.
I have friends who are Atheists and Agnostics and I know they are always highly intelligent and logical people. And that’s the problem. You can't prove God (or disprove him). You just can’t. You can debate and argue till we are all blue in the face without a resolution. Psst- that the point. Its called faith.
Religion, all religions are inherently flawed because they mostly rituals and rules created by HUMANS. Which, we all know are far from perfect. To pick apart the Catholic mass or Muslim credo is silly because God didn’t come down and decree that you must not eat meat of Friday and you must obey the five pillars of Islam or you are going to hell. PEOPLE did.
But I know this much,Love exists and you cant see or prove that either. God is love and I don’t anyone who would want to live in world without that.

[Daniel Lucraft]

In theory, whenever you/your mother/your wife/etc. looked at your genitals, you could have all just got it wrong. Brains can do funny things. There's the slightest of chances.

Scott, you could be a woman.

I'd like you to open yourself to that possibility, and in the meantime, stop calling yourself a Man. From now on, you're an agnostic when it comes to your gender, OK?

[Paras Chopra]

Can you be 100% *certain* about your argument that one cannot be 100% certain?

[BillyBadass]

Hi Scott,

Long time reader, first time caller.

I read a little bit of the comments, and felt I should call to order some points.

A)In Christianity, one must only accept Jesus as the begotten Son of God, and the only way out of Hell. The other things spring from this. That is, it is not required to go to church, just that your newfound faith will arise to make you want to go.

B)Your argument on atheism is a good one. But the opposite must be true. If you can't be certain that God exists, then you can't be certain that He doesn't either. The flaw in your argument is that atheists care if He exists or not. I had a friend tell me he couldn't believe in a God that endorsed genocide. Not that he didn't think He existed.

C)To the atheists in the thread, I understand what you're saying. God doesn't seem to be very nice in the Old Testament and the rules seem to be harsh. And in a lot of ways, they probably are. But the point of christianity is not to impose a will on yours, but to freely move your will aside to a better plan. Every person who accepts Christ as their savior is saying "I need you in my life. Enter in, and create a new me". as a result only those who need (or think they need) intervention is ever Christian. Despite a lot of people to the contrary, you can't hurt or badger into the faith. it simply doesn't work like that.

In closing, it is not the threat of hell that motivates the average Christian (though there are souls that believe that implicitly) but the promise of something better.

Best of luck to everyone in their spiritual journey.

[Rob]

Mr. Adams,

Another thing about certainty. I know this is an old argument, but can you be 100% certain I don't have an elephant in my pocket? If I believe that I do, and you believe that I don't, can you be 100% certain that he doesn't exist as I believe? You could be in serious trouble if we met and that highly improbably elephant liked to stomp the $hit out of people named Scott.

An atheist is someone who finds that there is no credible evidence that any gods exist. It has nothing to do with certainty.

[speedwell]

I'm an atheist. That means I don't believe in God. Whether or not God exists is a different question.

Actually, it wouldn't matter if I was 100% sure there isn't a God, or 99% sure, or 75% sure, or 35%, or 10%, or 0%. My personal lack of belief, just like anyone else's belief or lack thereof, has nothing to do with whether or not there is, factually, a God.

[Roberto Alsina]

Actually, maths say you should not believe. What happens if a religion doesn't doom unbelievers but dooms followers of false gods? For example, it could very well be that the one true religion has not been revealed yet. If that's the case and god is fair, believing in any of the current or past religions would be bad, and not believing would be correct and rewarded. For example, if the one true religion is cristianity, it has only been available for about one third of written history. If god is fair, those who could not be christians are not in hell. But those who followed Baal are. Since the number of religions that posit god's fairness is a vast majority and the odds of all religions in the universe being known or available to us at the current moment is probably low, it's "bad math" to believe.

[catsandbeer]

Hey Dilbert - stick to jokes about the printer not working - thanks.

[Warren]

If you poke an athiest on this point, as you find out, you'll see they're agnostics, actually. They don't know for certain there isn't a god. They are reasonably certain that it's improbable. The same way that they are reasonably certain that something sprang out of nothing, for no forseeable reason. Such gaps in their own logic and rationality are to be ignored. They aren't there. Try not to see them, will you please kindly?

Warren

[Matt Hardy]

Who are the Athiests of which you speak who have 100% certainty. Certainly not me. I call myself an atheist because I don't actively believe in God and that's what the word means. 100% certainty is a trait of faith and is not something that I proclaim to have. In my understanding of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers it is a position I share with many well known athiests. My knowledge of the existance of God is provisional. Since there is no evidence I don't believe. Should someone demonstrate that prayer is effective or demonstrate that contact with the dead is possible that I'm prepared to follow the evidence.

Your formulation of Pascals Wager the risk that a vengeful God will ignore my humanitatrian efforts, charity work and general nice demeanor and judge me solely on my ability to believe in a particular ancient mythology above all others is rather saddening. The accuracy with which you present such a probabilty is bemusing and to ignore the surely equal posibility that Allah, Thor, Hades or Anubis will offer equally arbitary conditions on our eternal reward is a rather elementary error.

Should I spend my life hopping on one leg to appease the possibility that there is a hop monster that holds the key to eternal pardise? I can't be 100% certain that there isn't.

[David]

Scott,

Aptly filed under 'General Nonsense'.

Recommended reading for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance.

There *must* be part of your brain saying "there's no evidence for this god stuff - it's gotta be shite!", but the indoctrination you received as a child is making your adult brain twist and turn to deny the obvious conclusion. Keep working it through!

Cheers.

[hapbt]

Heh, that's the most retarded thing I've heard in a long time Scott, were you also swayed by the elementary school science projects?

If lack of absolute knowledge means we can't prove god dosen't exist, it also means we can't prove he DOES exist. If we apply LOGIC, we find that there is no logical basis for a hell of eternal punishment, it would serve no purpose, and would basically invalidate all known laws of science. So, although our knowledge of science is probably 0.001%, our actual documented, proofed, knowledge of god is even less than that. Therefore the probability of there being a god is less than that of there not being a god.

Furthermore, it is quite clearly stated in the bible that if you do not sincerely believe in god and jesus christ, if you do not accept that he was the son of god, live by his teachings your entire life, goto church, etc, you will goto hell. So, Scott, if you really think that God is going to let you into heaven just because you gave him lip service your whole life, you're wrong there too.

And in any case, what kind of a person does that make you? One who lives in fear of even the tiniest chance of any threat made over 1000+ years ago? Go grow a pair of balls, and think about what an illogical, cowardly, unscientific perspective you have chosen for your life because of your overwhelming fear of death and the afterlife.

[Samus_]

ha! well hello, nice to have fun over some fearful minds over there huh? I do agree with the agnosticism in fact I see atheism as a way of faith because you can't prove one thing or the other, in order to be certain you must believe, either belive the existance or the in-existance. whatever c'ya! (and beware of the mobs ;))

[Rigel Kent]

The word athiest is a neologism based on Latin. It literally means no-god person. If you self-identify as an athiest you are saying categorically that there is no god. If you aren't certain of this then no matter what you call yourself you're not actually an athiest. It's funny watching people get into a big tiff just because they don't understand what a word means.

[John B. Hodges]

1 And the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Say to the people of Israel, If any one sins unwittingly in any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and does any one of them, 3 if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer for the sin which he has committed a young bull without blemish to the LORD for a sin offering. 4 He shall bring the bull to the door of the tent of meeting before the LORD, and lay his hand on the head of the bull, and kill the bull before the LORD. 5 And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it to the tent of meeting; 6 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the LORD in front of the veil of the sanctuary. 7 And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the LORD which is in the tent of meeting, and the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering which is at the door of the tent of meeting. 8 And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall take from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, 9 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver which he shall take away with the kidneys 10 (just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offerings), and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of burnt offering. 11 But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, 12 the whole bull he shall carry forth outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and shall burn it on a fire of wood; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.

Leviticus Chapter 4. Proof positive that there is no God; if there were any, he would not tolerate such bull.... being published in His name.

[John B. Hodges]

1 And the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Say to the people of Israel, If any one sins unwittingly in any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and does any one of them, 3 if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then let him offer for the sin which he has committed a young bull without blemish to the LORD for a sin offering. 4 He shall bring the bull to the door of the tent of meeting before the LORD, and lay his hand on the head of the bull, and kill the bull before the LORD. 5 And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it to the tent of meeting; 6 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the LORD in front of the veil of the sanctuary. 7 And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the LORD which is in the tent of meeting, and the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering which is at the door of the tent of meeting. 8 And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering he shall take from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, 9 and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver which he shall take away with the kidneys 10 (just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offerings), and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of burnt offering. 11 But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, 12 the whole bull he shall carry forth outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and shall burn it on a fire of wood; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned.

Leviticus Chapter 4. Proof positive that there is no God; if there were any, he would not tolerate such bull.... being published in His name.

[GodlessHeathen]

100% certainty is always a problem. It halts continued learning and the required constant reevaluation of conclusions.

Which is why I get a giggle out of the idea an agnostic who's 100% certain that there's no way to know.

[mike]

I use the same brain constructs to surmise that dilbert doesn't exist as I do "god", leprechauns, the fsm and the boogie man. I'm 100% certain dilbert doesn't "exist." The question is, can you prove that dilbert exists?

[Seemant Kulleen]

I must say, this is a rather disappointing post from you, Scott. In addition to the complete misconception you seem to have about atheism, you also seem to believe that belief in God is purely the property of religions that believe in this thing you call Hell (Christianity and Islam, mainly, I believe). There are religions which don't believe in Hell at all. So, if a Hindu believes in God, it's not the fear of Hell that compels him/her to.

I really do think that Christians might better re-evaluate their ideas about loving Gods and free choice.

[Lois]

I could just as easily say that in order to believe in God, you have to possess a god-like ability to know EVERYTHING in order to know God exists. Since you don't possess this ability, then your belief is probably unfounded.

"An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be." Occam's Razor works both ways--what if Christians are worshiping the WRONG god? All their faith could be a waste of time if Amen-Ra proves to be the real, one-and-only, omni-everything deity, and Yahweh is just a figment of their imagination. Is it worth risking an eternity in hell for not worshiping Amen-Ra? Oh, wait, maybe Odin is the god you should be worshiping, not Amen-Ra or Yahweh! Or what about Zeus or Venus or Quetzalcoatl? How do you know which god is the real deal and which of the thousands of others are not?

Hey, you know what? How about everyone just quit worshiping all these make-believe genies and fables and scary hoodoo-men in the sky, and just try and live a good life by being excellent to each other? Since nobody can agree on which god is real and which ones aren't, maybe NOBODY has it right and this god--if it exists--simply doesn't give a hill of dung about whether or not we worship it. Doesn't that make the most sense?

[Brent]

Scott Adams:
Great at cubicle related comics.
Awful at probabilities and science.

Why does anyone read this?

[Merikari]

No one can be 100% sure about anything no matter what they say they believe or have observed with their limited senses. We can, however, be fairly certain that there is no Santa Claus.

[Alri]

Atheism is the only logically defensible position because there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of god. It all comes from whether you believe being certain is also being obstinate. I am certain god does not exist based on the (lack) of evidence but if a proof for god or evidence was presented I would not be obstinate enough to ignore the evidence and continue being an atheist.

An agnostic gives the existence of god a plausible chance, and atheist an implausible chance, knowing that everything has a chance.

See its all clear when the terms are not used in the absolute.

Now please could you do more Six Sigma jokes? :)

Cheers!

[Knight_of_BAAWA]

Of course we can be 100% certain *of certain things*. They are a priori truths/apodictic. That 1 + 1 = 2 is 100% certain. That a square circle cannot exist is 100% certain.

And it from that latter we can see that it is 100% certain that there cannot be a god: it is definitionally impossible to exist. Just as a square circle cannot because of inherent contradictions, so too with god.

Also: agnosticism is orthogonal to atheism and theism. Just as a woman cannot be sorta pregnant, a person cannot be "agnostic" in this sense. You either have the belief that there is a god, or do you not have it. There's no "maybe I have this belief".

[Q the Enchanter]

There is an infinity of possible gods and respective hells, so the probability that you have bet on the wrong one is no higher or lower than the probability there is no hell at all. A priori, then, your risk of going to the "right" hell is the same as mine.

[Rob]

Mr. Adams,

We are all atheists, you, me, and even the Pope. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of distinct religions throughout history. The difference between the Pope and me is that I have rejected exactly one more religion than he does: I reject all, and the pope rejects every one but Roman Catholicism.

If there are n religions, with n being a large positive integer, an atheist rejects all n religions, a Christian or Jew or Muslim rejects n-1 religions. For some reason, we never seem to realize that a Christian believes there is no evidence that Zeus is Lord, and thus he rejects this premise.

[Inoculated Mind]

This brings me to atheists. In order to be certain that God doesn’t exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity – the ability to be 100% certain. A human can’t be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren’t that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn’t exist: God.

Scott, a little introspection will really spin your argument on its head: How certain are you that an atheist needs to be 100% certain, and therefore possess god-like powers? Don't you therefore have to possess godlike powers yourself in order to be certain that atheists must possess them? Please don't waste our time. By the way, if you run the numbers with Pascal's Wager, you fall into it anyhow - believing in it for fear of hell is not believing in it.

A weak atheist is someone who lacks a belief in a god, but does not claim that there can be no god, which is the strong atheist position. An agnostic is someone who believes that either:
1. Strong Agnostic - Knowledge about the presence, absence, or possibly nature of the supernatural is impossible, or
2. Weak Agnostic - The individual does not currently possess knowledge about the supernatural, but that it may be possible to possess it.

As you can imagine, you can be a weak agnostic at the same time as being a weak atheist. You simply do not have any knowledge of the supernatural, and therefore have no belief in god. You can also be a weak atheist and a strong agnostic, so you would have no belief in gods, and also hold that it would be impossible to know anything about the supernatural.

The key thing to remember is that atheism is an ontological claim, that is, what there is, and agnosticism is an epistemological claim, as in, what can be known.

A basic course in philosophy would cover all these things. Please consider taking one, because your logic is unsound.

(Weak Agnostic about the know-ability of the supernatural, weak atheist about deities in general, and strong atheist about a few deities that make absolutely no logical sense, including the one that you say rewards people who gamble with truth and eternity.)

[denise]

Mr Adams,

I disagree. A human can be 100% certain of many things. For instance, I am 100% certain that my computer is on as I type this. I am also 100% certain that I am a woman, it is raining here today and at some point in my life, I will die. These are just a few little things that, as a human, I can say I am 100% certain of.

I consider Pascal's wager ridiculous and cowardly. The idea of the Christian Hell is absurd and cruel. I have an easier time believing in Valhalla.

I am not an Atheist, Mr Adams. I am also not a monotheist. The way I see it, you can not acknowledge the existence of one invisible sky man without acknowledging the possibility of all the others. This is "Neicie's wager": Since you can not prove or disprove the existence of any God or Goddess. You might as well pick none, one or a few you like, treat the planet kindly and try not to be an asshole to your fellow man.

I think this is far better wager than Pascal's.

Denise

[factician]

I maintain that there is a giant laser out in space that current technology is not able to detect (it has a cloaking device on it). It was revealed to me in a dream. It is pointed at earth and the spacemonkey Zarkol is getting ready to fire it. It is powerful enough to sterilize the planet. But it has a weakness. All you have to do is wear a tinfoil hat to stay safe. I'm wearing one. Are you?

[Joe Fulgham]

Bringing math into the argument is only part of it. The problem is that it's just as likely that the EXACT OPPOSITE of what is believed is true: That there is a God but he's testing you all to see if you're foolish sheep who believe in things without proof and all of those people will be damned for eternity while the skeptics will be raised upon high for eternal bliss.

And there are an infinite amount of other possibilities -- Zeus, Odin, Grabthar, and countless things we haven't even dreamed of.

When confronted with these infinite possibilities, the only logical decision is to keep an open mind but only accept that which is the most likely based on the evidence. There is no evidence for "God" in any form, so that idea can be relegated to the same pile as faeries in the garden, vampires and dinosaur-driven flying monster trucks from the far future.

[oldcola]

Hi, this is the RED Flying Spaghetti Monster's (carrots in the pasta, that's it) prophet.

Could you please keep your probabilities calculations for Las Vegas' WE and leave us alone? Proselytism is serious business, for SF writers and such.

What are you expecting now, some philosopher/mathematician (hey, that sounds like Dembski) starting somme cartoon series ? (hey did something like that, didn't he? Some Flash with farting and so...)

OK, keep going on that stuff, you have competition from the DI to struggle with.
And don't forget references, Pascal did it first ;-)

[plunge]

Sigh. Scott: give us a break here. Very few atheists claim 100% certainty that there is no god, so your argument is poorly aimed and confused. Atheists are atheists by and large because they don't think there is any reason to believe. Attacking all atheists in the way you do is just a silly straw man, not to mention that it involves you either attacking nearly nobody at all, or changing the definition of atheism midstream (first it includes everyone who does not believe in god, but then it changes to mean only "believe for certain that there is no god").

I do not believe in god in exactly the same way I do not believe in leprechauns. If you show me convincing evidence of either, I'd be happy to re-evaluate things. But I need a reason to believe, otherwise, I can't take that step. Talking about the probability of god existing is, I think, mostly meaningless. Probability is best limited to dice, and gets really goofy when used in metaphysics.

"And it’s too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position."

That's because you don't understand what agnosticism is. I'm an agnostic and an atheist. Knowledge and not knowing is not the same thing as belief and not believing. Lots of people believe in god without knowing whether or not one exists. You can say you are an agnostic all you want. That still doesn't answer the question of whether or not you believe in a god or not. It's just an evasion of the question, not an answer to it. Either you believe or you don't: the only other option is that you don't know your own thoughts, which is sort of crazypants.

[EnzoAntonius]

Why do we even have to label ourselves as atheists? I don't believe in astrology and feel no need to call myself an a-astrologist. The idea of god, especially, the iron-age hand-me-down version now worshiped by monotheistic fundies in the U.S. and the Middle East is as meaningful to be as whether Venus is crossing the constellation of Orion next month. Well, I might be slightly wrong about this. The astrologers aren't organizing politically to force a right-wing medieval belief system down my throat, the theists are.

[EnzoAntonius]

Why do we even have to label ourselves as atheists? I don't believe in astrology and feel no need to call myself an a-astrologist. The idea of god, especially, the iron-age hand-me-down version now worshiped by monotheistic fundies in the U.S. and the Middle East is as meaningful to be as whether Venus is crossing the constellation of Orion next month. Well, I might be slightly wrong about this. The astrologers aren't organizing politically to force a right-wing medieval belief system down my throat, the Scott Adams theists are.

[Calladus]

Scott Said:
"And it’s too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position."

In other words, you're too lazy to do any thinking on the subject, so you'll trot out Pascal's wager in a poor attempt at justification.

To quote Dogbert - "Out! Demons of Stupidity!"

[CP]

Atheist and proud.

The argument about the number of decimal places on certainty misses an important point. Atheism (which I define as the rejection of faith-based approaches to life, and please no one pull out a dictionary unless they're willing to go toe to toe over words like "liberal" in dictionaries vs. current usage) is not a strictly epistemological position, but also a decision about how to approach life.

And how is it that the rationalist, atheist person approaches life? I like this passage from Ayn Rand's "For the New Intellectual"). I am not a subscriber to everything the woman wrote, but I think this is germane and cogent:

"Do not say that you're afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little you do know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hock-shops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience--that your mind is fallible but becoming mindless will not make you infallible--that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error."

[grendelkhan]

To answer the question "What's the difference between a "weak atheist" and an agnostic?", the former states "I do not believe in god", while the latter states, "I don't know whether or not a god exists". While these may seem very close--I've had long, pointless arguments over whether a friend of mine is an agnostic or a weak atheist--the former tends to act as though god didn't exist any more than the FSM does, while the latter frequently goes around making asinine arguments which pretend to have just discovered this nifty idea about expected values, and to have coincidentally never heard of Pascal's Wager.

[grendelkhan]

MaryMactavish, please note that, as others on this thread have pointed out, Richard Dawkins isn't 100% sure of the nonexistence of god. (If you want an example of someone who is, check out Penn Jillette's "This I Believe" segment on NPR.)

He's also not 100% sure of the nonexistence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Pink Unicorns, or a tiny teapot floating through space, all of which have previously been mentioned on this thread.

Here's a similar question. Let's say that a deposed Nigerian prince sends you an email, explaining that he needs five bucks from you, and if you send it, you'll get five million dollars. Now, of course it's likely to be a scam. There's a million-to-one chance against it being a legitimate offer. So, if the prince offers you five billion dollars, does that change your outlook on the situation? A hundred billion, and you only need to send him a single penny?

This thread of argument is ridiculous; even presupposing that god is heavily predisposed to cold, calculating gamblers, it just declares as the One True Religion whichever one can dream up the worst hell.

Anyway, you can read about how infinite payoffs distort one's intuitive notion of expected value in, for instance, the St. Petersburg paradox, which hasn't been mentioned yet. So at least that's educational. (My links get stripped, but just look it up on Wikipedia.)

[Reginald Selkirk]

And it's too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position.

It sure is. It's also too hard to explain that 2 + 2 = 5.

[slim]

I don't/can't believe in (a) god. It's not about certainty, it's about an overall sense that this beautiful, fucked up world got this way along its own tortured path; and, that no omnipotent would present the varied peoples of the world with such different versions of itself that those varied peoples would kill each other mercilessly from day 1 through the present on its behalf. Because if there is being that did such a thing, creating people of such limited vision that the fight to preserve their ONE TRUE RELIGION is all, that entity is not a god: it's a run of the mill asshole (in the same vein as Cheney and Bush).

Q.E.D.

[Albatrossity]

By this logic, if I don't believe in Zeus, I risk his wrath as well. And Zeus sounds like a pretty bad-ass deity, zapping people with thunderbolts, turning them into stone, etc! Yet I presume that Scott Adams doesn't believe in (i.e. is atheistic about) Zeus. Why is his atheism on that deity any different from my atheism about his deity? Why is he so certain that Zeus doesn't exist, and thus so comfortable that he will not be punished by a Zeusian thunderbolt?

[factician]

Mr. Adams,

I hope you picked the right god. Good luck.

[MaryMactavish]

Saying that atheists are 100% sure of the non-existence of God is a lot like saying that Christians believe the earth is 6000 years old.

That's a very narrow definition of atheism. Richard Dawkins isn't the only one who gets to decide what it means.

I'm not a theist. I'm an atheist. I'm not positive there are no gods, but I don't believe in them. I'm also not positive there's no Santa Claus (though I enjoy the game).

[Simon]

You've provided a great example of how people will invent absurd rationalizations to support the positions in which they want to believe, in the face of evidence or lack of evidence.

Do you think it likely that every little conceivable idea created in our minds exist, just because we can't prove that it doesn't? Perhaps God wants us to eat oranges every second Tuesday, how can you be sure he doesn't? Thinking like that is a sure path to a room at the nuthouse. Why not free yourself of all that paranoid nonsense and accept that these religious ideas are nothing more than fiction.

[John Frelk]

Are you completely certain you're believing in the correct god? And in the right version of Christianity? If you believe in the wrong god or follow the wrong teachings, you might burn in hell for all eternity, you know. Better re-calculate those odds, even if you are a theist through and through.

And how do you know that it isn't exactly your belief in a god (or your profession of a belief in a god, or your calculated pretense of a belief in a god) that will actually condemn you to eternal suffering? After all, theists don't have a monopoly on heaven and hell.

In the end, people adopt atheism and agnosticism for the same reasons people adopt Christianity or other religions: as a matter of faith; no proof is needed, and no utilitarian calculus is going to alter that faith.

To thine own self be true.

[Mike]

Any deity I'd want to believe in would kick your sorry ass straight to hell for trying to make such transparent bargains.

[Conrad]

Dear Scott,

Please send me a signed original copy of any Dilbert comic strip. If you do, I promise you eternity on a lovely Carribean cruise with everything you could ever ask for. If you don't, I condemn you to spend eternity in small cubicle being whipped by a pitch-fork carrying PHB.

Sure, you might not believe that I can carry through with these promises, but think about the magnitude of what's at stake here - can you really afford to take that chance?

[elaygee]

Your arguement for believing in an imaginary friend with temper tantrums is weak at best. Weak minds require the threat of punishment to lead a decent life in the now. People without gods know that here and now is it and how to get along with others without being threatened by a vengeful jealous middle eastern deity.

Believe whatever you want. the elephant headed god that holds up the world, the Arabian who molested children or the young jewish guy who couln't hold his temper and make his point without pissing everyone else off. Just don't inflict your beliefs on my life.

[Alex]

Sorry, this is the most interesting post in the last few weeks. Need to comment.

Athiest - From the Latin - Without (not) God
Agnos - From the Greek - Without (not) God

The words mean the same thing. They have different conotations, probably becuse of the Roman empire (stroger meaning given to A Theos), but the root meanings are the same.

I would be really interested in the thoughts of a Cat and a Dog. Cats are not truly domesticated, Dogs, they chose a different path. Both animals are self-aware, as are we. Humans ask the question about the God thing.

Personally, I believe in a "prime mover", something that started the Universe off. The big bang is just one concept, it's still up in the air. As far as that entity being interested in the completely insignificant existence that is mine, not likely.

There isn't anything after this corporial existence. When we die, there is nothing. Get over it, and make the most of the time you have in this life.

Just my $.02 US.

[Dave]

Wow, lot's of non-believers here. I read all of them. Would be interesting if you asked the reverse question and see how many Christians responded.

My wish is that all these folks posting here would join/start a new political movement to take the power away from the religious fanatics. See, I don't have a problem with my friends being Christians until they force me to conform to their dogma by passing laws that directly affect my choices.

For example: I do art for a hobby. I posted a (rendered) picture of a 6 year old girl sitting in a stream, surrounded by natures animals, drawn by her innocence. The owners of the gallery deleted my art because someone (A Christian) complained that the 6 year old girls nipples could be seen. They felt this bordered on kiddy porn. Everyone (100's) loved the image, except one radical person. That's all it took. One complaint.

Actually, the whole gallery is undergoing deletions because of pressure from credit card companies. The gallery is free and supported by marketing supplies they also sell, mostly though credit cards. The Lola's (Little Old Ladies Asc) found that a few letters to credit card companies, complaining that they are helping to support the Porn industry, has caused a ripple of playing it safe and thus leads to pandering to these few simple minded zealots.

An erotic dance club in town is constantly fighting court battles and spending incredible amounts of money to survive and stay open. It's located in a business district surround by high class hotels. Business men stay in these Hotels because of easy walking access to the dance place. The club is very classy and very expensive. No drugs, no alcohol, no problems, no scum. But the Lola's in town can't stand the very idea that it exists. They have applied pressure on the city to spend Millions in court fee's trying to shut down the club legally or otherwise. Including entrapment by law enforcement agencies. One undercover officer spent $1000's of city money dollars, on lap dancers, trying to get the girls to step over the line.

There isn't a single legal public nude beach on U.S. soil. Most of Europe has long accepted public nude beaches with no problems.

I could go on and on.. Pot is illegal (but safe) and alcohol is legal (and dangerous). Not that I'm complaining about the War on Drugs.. But these folks are so simple minded and see everything in Black and White.

Prostitution should be made legal and taxed like any other business. Safer for the ladies and the public too. (Why is Sex legal if given away, and against the law, if it's charged for?)

So much irrational thinking. Our own President, with his finger poised over the big red button, believes he's going to get raptured away soon. That's so scary, how can anyone sleep at night?

Atheists are at least secure types and believe "live and let live" while the religious fanatics seem to be frightened insecure types, that feel better if they can force everyone to their way of thinking. Misery loves company I guess. And they love to use the law or any other means, to get their way.

I have my own God (not the Biblical one). He/it/God didn't create this place and can't affect it. He's outside of it and can only see what it produces.

So, I'm a bit off track here Scott, but thanks for allowing me to rant.. Best to ya from Dave :^)

[Robert Furber]

Both agnostic and weak atheist are terms that are unfortunately given inconsistent definitions by different people.

I don't call myself agnostic because some people define that as someone who believes that the question of the existence of deities is impossible to prove either way. This is itself a proposition which requires either a priori proof or evidence (a priori proofs of impossibility do exist, e.g. Goedel's incompleteness theorem, Turing's proof of the undecidability of the Halting Problem and the proof of the impossibility of squaring the circle, trisecting the angle and doubling the cube with an unmarked straight edge and compasses). Since no-one has presented to me adequate evidence that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of deities, I do not accept it (and do not reject it) and do not classify myself as an agnostic for this reason. Naturally, I find taking any proposition on the basis of faith is to the highest degree odious.

For ordinary purposes I call myself an atheist for similar reasons to Bertrand Russell (explained in Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic http://www.luminary.us/russell/atheist_agnostic.html). In interviews Richard Dawkins says he calls himself an atheist for the same reasons.

[revaaron]

don't worry, if I'm wrong, I'll re-cant on my death bed.

[Arthur Delaney]

Hullo, weak atheist here. In my opinion weak atheism and weak agnosticism are different and have different names for a reason. A weak agnostic says, "I don't know if there's a god." A weak atheist says, "I have no belief in god." These are, in my opinion, the two defensible positions. And they are different. A weak agnostic seems to express some doubt and wondering about the possibility of a god. A weak atheist does not. Therefore while I consider weak agnosticism perfectly defensible as a philosophy, I also find it a bewildering waste of time.

I don't wonder whether there is a god anymore than a wonder whether there is a pink unicorn. The very question is absurd. Why ask such a question? Hypotheses are useful but if they do not yet submit to experimentation they lose their usefulness. Wondering if there is a god in the universe is like wondering if there is a purple vegetarian mountain lion named Gary who has a powerful crush on a bamboo shoot that he calls Terwilliger Hornbreath. In an infinite universe...yeah maybe. But I don't think it's a very promising line of inquiry for now. If we see some purple mountain lions then it would be a good idea to investigate their behavior which would probably include seeing if they spend inordinate amounts of time nuzzling bamboo shoots. But until we see a purple mountain lion I think our time would be better spent exploring the ocean, space, microorganisms, the fronteirs of math and science etc. than sitting around contemplating the existence of Gary and whether or not Terwilliger likes his name.

[Bill Tkach]

I can be certain that 1 + 1 = 2, by definition.

I can be 100% certain that at this point in time, The average human, living on the surface of planet we call Earth, that is visible to the naked eye has 10 fingers.

I can be 100% certain that a spinster, has never been married, by definition.

I don't think that makes me a god.

[andre breitman]

I don't believe in God.
I remember that, as a child (before my barmitzvah, so pre 13) I thought it was "ovious" that he didn't exist- all the reasons/dogmas were so easily refutable.

Today, I still don't, for the same reasons BUT i REALLY ENVY people who believe!

Like all adults and parents some bad things happened to me and my family. At those times, it would really help to believe in something...

So- to answer your question-
1. I am jewish (My reasoning is: if a Nazi skinhead decided to go on a Jew killing rampage I'd be on the list, therefore I might as well admit I'm one)
2. I don't believe in god
3. A part of me wish I did

I am sure someone up there will be able to do the % math for me on this...

[Jack]

Religious chicks look nicer than atheist ones...maybe that's significant.

Because they're religious, you can't shag them. Maybe that proves that god has a sense of humour?

[Mark]

Also, scott - I know you don't believe, but just to make the idea of the Christian god seem even more improbable, I'm going to post this comment -

1) Original Sin - Christians love using this, the idea that even if you live a perfect life, no matter how nice you are, you're damn for hell unless you believe and start donating, all because a man is said to have bitten an apple thousands of years ago. Why should I have to pay for the crimes of another man? I certainly bit no apple. The bible also says that the sins of the father should not be borne on the son - but then again, the Bible loves contradicting itself. If god is ALL POWERFUL, and he can do ANYTHING, why not just erase original sin? Original sin is an odious, indefensible idea. And if Christians claim that god can't get rid of original sin - then god isn't omnipotent anymore eh? Some christians might make the claim that my idea of justice (i.e, you should suffer for something your ancestor did) does not fit in with god's idea of justice, so I should abandon my own - so let me get this straight - god makes human beings to have a sense of justice that is not in accordance of his own. For that matter, if god made adam and eve, surely he would have KNOWN that they would have eaten the apple - so why did he put the damn tree there? Isn't god all knowing? Evidently not (if you believe the bible)

2) Why did Jesus have to go through all that pain to forgive people? From what I understand of the Jesus story - Jesus came down to earth to save us, by teaching us, and then he had to die on a cross before coming back to life. How the act of being whipped and nailed to a wooden frame and then springing back to life is supposed to "save" mankind, I don't understand. Christians always say that Jesus died on the cross for people - but how did the act of dying save people? Why didn't god just forgive everyone? Why go through this enormously difficult, long term plan? God is supposed to be OMNIPOTENT. If god exists, and he truly is all powerful - he obviously likes being inefficient, circuitous and doing things for no reason. In short, if god exists, he's illogical. And if jesus's resurrection was supposed to convince people of the divine power of god - I thought the supposed raising of lazarus would have done the trick.

3) What sacrifice did Jesus make? He KNEW he was going to die - and he KNEW that he would come back alive - in short, although christians say he died on the cross - he really didn't (if you can believe the bible that is). In short, the fact that Jesus knew he couldn't truly be killed, diminishes his "sacrifice" so much as to make it meaningless. He wasn't going to die and he KNEW it. Sure, he suffered quite a bit - but what he went through was nothing compared to how much people suffered in the GULAG or the concentration camps of nazi germany. In short - it was an empty gesture.

There - those are just some of the reasons why, scott, you should not believe, even though I already know you don't. So I'm illogical - but I'm human, so that's okay.

[Mark]

I don't believe in god because I have no reason to believe in god - there's just no proof. Plenty of philosophers and logicians have tried, all have failed - there is just no reasonable, actual, physical proof of the existence of a specific god. Some say there is no proof that god doesn't exist - but why should be believe in something just because we can't prove it doesn't exist? You can't prove that the invisible, ethereal unicorn in my backyard doesn't exist - should you start believing in it? Faith is based on emotion - and although emotions are nice, you can't justify existence based on emotion alone, because emotions are not proof, personal experience is not proof - and I need proof before I'm going to start believing.

I've lived in many, many countries, I've experienced many, many different kinds of beliefs - which one do I choose? Why should I be a Christian instead of a Muslim? Why be Muslim and not a Hindu? Why be Jewish instead of Catholic? People generally stick to the major religion they are taught to believe in from child hood - religion is just primitive man trying to create a social order and explain things - it's a cultural artifact which served a purpose in the past, but is no longer necessary - anyone who has lived with other religions, anyone who has studied the history of the planet extensively will come to the same conclusion - humans wrote the bible/koran/torah - humans build churches, humans make the myths of religion.

I'm not saying that a god does not exist - but if I don't have proof why should I believe? And why should I believe in your god and not someone else's god? No one has ever been able to answer those two questions to my satisfaction - and no, "faith" doesn't cut it - why should faith be considered the prime virtue? Shouldn't "non-violence" be considered the ultimate virtue?

[Dave]

Obviously, one can't state that God exists or doesn't until one defines exactly what God is. If God is the ultimate in intellectual capacity, then You would be God, if everything with intellectual properties ceased to exist except you. I can state 100% that a limitless God does NOT and can not exist.

For example: in decimal format: 22 divided by 7 is 3.142857143...etc. God does not have the power to change any of those digits. Thus; God does NOT have infinite powers. God can't be physically infinite unless God is everything. The answer to 22 divided by 7 would still EXIST whether God existed or not. Therefore that answer and thus ALL mathematical answers are NOT part of the physical God. Thus God is not everything that CAN exist.

I have written game programs. I create small universes. A greater programmer could produce a greater universe than myself. It's entirely possible for an intellect to be of sufficient power to create this universe and many more. Perhaps it is Childs play for God to do so. So a God creating this universe can't be ruled as impossible.

It can be easily demonstrated that there is sufficient complexity in the realm of mathematics that an equation can produce a universe. There is no limit to the complexity of an equation and thus there is no limit to the complexity of the answer. For any real equation an answer it produces does EXIST. For any equation that produces a universe, that universe also EXISTS. An infinite number of universes exist because there is no limit on the complexity of equations. God can't know all these universes because there are an infinite number of them. None of them fall into the domain of being created by God.

If .00001 percent of these universes can sustain life and if .00001 percent of those can produce intelligent life then even that minute fraction would have an infinite number of intelligent life forms. Any percent of infinity is still infinity.

So the answer falls on the shoulders of probability:

We know that this universe, or one just like it, would exist without a divine creator. We know that an infinite number of them would be populated by beings just like you and I, wondering if this universe was created on purpose or for a purpose. We know that this universe is much larger than any of you can possibly conceive of and is also very, very, old by our standards. We know that this planet has undergone over a billion years of life forms before we appear on the scene. We know this universe follows very strict mathematical laws and rules.

I would have to say that the probability of owing my existence to a divine creator is extremely extremely slim at best. Now, when I read the Bible and see the creator defined as a paranoid murderous childish tyrant (judging by his actions, plagues, floods etc). I can only conclude that the Bible is the ultimate piece of pure fiction. So, if God is defined as "The God of the Bible", then I will say that I'm 100% sure he doesn't exist.

Does that mean I'm not spiritual? Not by a long shot! There is still plenty of wiggle room to cover after life existence, ascension and ultimately conjoining with a superior intellect that I would call God.

Great Blog ol Scott! Best to ya from Dave :^)

[Ryan McLeod]

This, I believe, is the formula.

Let A represent the magnitude of the consequences of believing in God and being right.
Let B represent the magnitude of the consequences of believing in God and being wrong.
Let C represent the magnitude of the consequences of not believing in God and being right.
Let D represent the magnitude of the consequences of not believing in God and being wrong.
Let P1 and P2 represent the probability of there being a God and there not being a God, respectively. (P1 + P2 = 1)

X = (A + D) * P1 - (B + C) * P2
If X > 0, it's better to be religious. If X < 0, it's better to be an atheist. If X ~ 0, be agnostic.

Being an atheist, I consider P1 low enough that I'm not worrying about A and D, even though D is so high. Not that I think I could choose to believe in God even if I wanted to.

[Reece R]

clay h....you are a silly bugger...obviously you don't understand how hell works...if hell was eternal i doubt you'd be able to think about much...only about how much you screwed up and should've belevied in god and how much pain your in....and if hell isnt eternal then all you'll get time to think about is the greatest guilt in the world...but hey...at least you get to think ;)

[Clay H.]

Scott, I'm an atheist and I'd rather spend eternity in hell than have no afterlife at all. At least in hell you still exist, and can think about things (or it wouldn't really be "you" who was there).

So the .0000000000001% doesn't worry me a bit.

[Steve Bush]

You cant prove anything doesnt exist since it could always surprise you by turning up. You can only prove that things DO exist.

[DF]

Did anyone else watch Big Brother 8 last night, where Jameka was supposed to compete in the Veto competetion. She believed that God chose her to compete, and since Jen pulled her name, she must win for Jen. Even though she didn't like Jen, Jameka told her that she would try her best, and would take her off the block if she won. That is some kind of faith, and you have to admire her convictions, even if you don't follow them yourself. One of the loudmouths of the group, Dick, attempted to dissuade her by attacking her faith, but he went about it the wrong way, and did not succeed. In the end, Jameka won the veto, and even though she felt that Jen threw the competetion to ensure that Jameka would win, she still used the Veto to save her. Now, this miracle might convince Jen in God, but I doubt it. Is Jameka using God as a crutch, saying that it was not her that won, but God that made her win, will this keep her safe. She also believes that the winner of the competetion has already been chosen by God, and that they just have to wait out their time in the house to find out who that is. It all sounds nutty to me, but I have a motto that I follow: Don't tell me how great your religion is, and I won't tell you how great my lack of religion is. It also works well when people want to tell you how great homosexuality is.

[Langtooth]

Vox

Don't know whether you will check back but I had no idea that Henotheism was prevalent in the Christian tradition, I had never come across it in any church or RE class I have attended.

I have heard that the early books in the bible suggest that the God of Abraham was one of many tribal Gods but later on settles into there is only one God, anyone/anything else proclaming to be a God or speak for one is a false God or false prophet. This coupled with the opening to the Nicene creed 'We believe in one God...' tended to suggest (to me) the there is only one God interpretation of Monotheism rather than the believing in many worshiping one henotheism.

Ho hum you live and learn

[Tony]

I believe in god, I spoke to him on the phone today and discussed with him about a surgery he is about to perform on me! His office is white, and there were a few people wearing angel gowns. :0

[Tony]

If I were to buy the 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% is not 100%viewpoint.I should be buying the " you can't be 100% sure heaven is good " viewpoint too? Or you can't be 100% sure hell is a bad place to be? And suppose there is a god or there are gods,and the result of believing and/ or worshipping this god / these gods is going to heaven. Then one is still not 100% sure one shall have have a good time after death, right? On the contrary, how can one be 100% sure that those who do not believe in or worship this( these) god(s) will have a bad time after death?
That is also the not so certain ( I mean 100% not 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% ) situation that if one believes in god / gods that one is believing in or worshipping the right one( ones). So the odds of one backing the right one( ones), if there is ( are) god ( gods), AND end up having a good time after death is very very very very very very very (shall I go on?) slim indeed.
On the contrary, the chance of one not believing in any god( gods) AND end up having a good time after death is equally slim. But, there is no " holy" book to read, there is no " praying" to do, there is no " god(s)" to fear. So, no effort but achieving the same result, why bother with believing in any god(s). :)

[Paul]

William Dembski, of intelligent design notoriety, has what he calls a "universal probability boundary". If a specified event with a probability of less than 1 in 10 to the power of -150 occurs (NB not just any event of low probability - those happen all the time - typing 150 characters at random is a low probability event, typing 150 characters at random and coming up with Hamlet's soliloquy is a specified low probability event), then we can be pretty sure that it's not random - that design is a better explanation than chance. So that's one certainty threshold from scientific literature.

Richard Dawkins is less conservative - he reckons one in a billion billion is a probability boundary (The God Delusion).

[JesterXXV]

Scott - maybe the difference between a weak atheist and an agnostic is the amount of anxiety the subject experiences when they think about God.

[tord]

Scott and others,

Prove to me that I am not god. It seems self evident to me. What I don't understand is why I choose not to believe in myself because of lack of evidence.

[Rick]

It is not the definition of atheist which is the problem - it is the definition of God.

You can not get a 100% agreement of the definition of God therefore you cannot say you believe in God - since it is undefined - what are you believing in???

An atheist is correct since one cannot say they believe in something which is not 100% defined. No believe can be absolute on a premise which in itself is not absolute.

A true athiest should also not believe in time, since that also is not 100% defined.

The fact is that until a single absolute is found in this universe, anyone stating a belief in anything is at best guessing, at worst delusional.

[sonimathe]

Well it depends on how many 9s you are suggesting; 99.999...% does equal 100% [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.99] but I assume your hypothetical atheist is somewhere between 99.999999% and 99.9999999999% sure? Otherwise it would in fact be "good math" to declare that 99.999...% is 100%.

[admiral krunch]

By that logic (not that it can be called logic) if the christians are right then EVERYONE is going to hell, since you can't have 100% faith in the existence of god and even claiming to have such faith is to claim that you are akin to god which would be blasphemy.

[danbert]

Is this anything like the Dyslexic Agnostic Insomniac who stayed awake all night wondering if there was really a dog?

[proscriptus]

I don't feel it's practical to go around believing in a whole lot of really, really, unlikely things. As several people already said, elves and fairies are a whole lot more likely than hell, as there are a lot more first-person reports. But it's inconvenient to hop backwards on one foot anytime I sneeze twice to placate Dremel, Minor God of Spinning, who might choose to inflict the Dread Plague of Being Eternally Attractive to Dogs on me. It's also inconvenient to keep Kosher because God might do whatever it is he does to pork eaters.

Religious people seem to have latched onto a particular unlikely thing, and give it a lot of time and effort, but that doesn't make it any more likely than Sasquatch eating my young. Now Nessie, that's a different story.

[Peri Young]

Scott,
No matter what trumped up and provocative argument you are purportedly presenting in your post, I am absolutely 100% certain that you are far too intelligent to believe it.
Burn in eternal hell! Pshaw!!
Nice touch, though, throwing in the math to distract and confuse the average reader.
Halleluia and praise be that there are this many atheists/agnostics out there. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Let's all get together and go out for cocktails.

[Mathew]

I think that your question about strong agnosticism and weak atheism is erroneous because it seemed as though your were trying to imply a continuum of belief based on the probability of non-existence accepted by the agnostic or atheist in question.

A strong agnostic is in the middle of the spectrum of agnosticism, simply because he is firm in his belief that there is not enough information to come to a conclusion.

Both do subscribe to uncertainty, but the atheist believes that although they can never be certain that there is not a god (just as a strong atheist can never be certain that there are no faeries in the garden), the probability is sufficiently low so that he can live his life as though there is no god.

I suppose a true agnostic would not be able to make decisions which would have to be based on data atheists and the religious disagreed upon. From that assumption, in order to be able to function, an agnostic would have to have a concept of god whose mandates would not conflict with an atheistic view-point of life. Spinoza's god seems very optimum for that choice.

In practice then, the difference would either be non-existent or between a functional human being and a nervous wreck.

[Mathew]

I think that your question about strong agnosticism and weak atheism is erroneous because it seemed as though your were trying to imply a continuum of belief based on the personal probability of non-existence accepted by the atheist or agnostic in question.

A strong agnostic is in the middle of the spectrum of agnosticism, simply because he is firm in his belief that there is not enough information to come to a conclusion.

Both do subscribe to uncertainty, but the atheist believes that although they can never be certain that there is not a god (just as a strong atheist can never be certain that there are no faeries in the garden), the probability is sufficiently low so that he can live his life as though there is no god.

I suppose a true agnostic would not be able to make decisions which would have to be based on data atheists and the religious disagreed upon. From that assumption, in order to be able to function, an agnostic would have to have a concept of god whose mandates would not conflict with an atheistic view-point of life. Spinoza's god seems very optimum for that choice.

In practice then, the difference would either be non-existent or between a functional human being and a nervous wreck.

[Stomper]

Jeff: You have just re-defined "atheist" to mean "agnostic." What term shall we use, then, for those who affirmatively deny the existence of God?

We should stick with the current definitions. For the many who are unclear, try dictionary.com

--Stomper.

[ranon]

Scott,

1. The downside to being an atheist is not a eternity in hell. There is no proof of it. Let there be even a breath of a credible proof (0.0001%) of it and you would suspect that a lot of atheists would turn believers. I am not holding my breath. There are also a lot of disadvantages of being a believer. They come in this life in terms of the loss of logical reasoning and thinking capacity.

2. Atheists and agnostics both do not believe in a god. However and atheist says that there is no proof of the existence of a god, hence god does not exist. An agnostic says that has not been a proof of of either god's existence or non existence. Hence he can say nothing on whether god exists or not.

[Jeff]

My comment on this would be that an atheist is simply someone who does not accept the assertion that there is a God. The theists are the ones who are making the assertion. It is a logical fallacy to ask someone to prove that something does not exist, but it is reasonable to ask someone to provide evidence for their claim that something _does_ exist. This is where the true a/theist dispute comes in. Atheists are not "100% certain that God does not exist" in the way you've phrased it: they simply say that, given the complete lack of evidence for the existence of God provided by theists, they do not accept that God exists.
Having said that, I still really enjoyed reading the post :-)

[Dalebert]

Even presuming a god exists and presuming that the god punishes you for all eternity in the afterlife for something or other, picking the right religion is still a crap shoot. You can't believe in a god and secure your eternal soul. It takes more than that. Also, you can't CHOOSE to believe if you don't. You can say you believe. You can go through the motions. But if there an omniscient god, he'll know you're faking it and send you to Hell anyway. Damned if you do; damned if you don't... literally.