From: bjorn@Minsk.docs.uu.se (Bjorn Knutsson)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Organization: CS, Uppsala University, Sweden
	<rdippold.711935644@cancun> <1992Jul24.075717.104265@zeus.calpoly.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 02:37:09 GMT

First of all, I'd like to point out that much of this discussion is covered in
the alt.atheism FAQ (which is crossposted to news.answers and FTP:able from
pit-manager.mit.edu). But since this message is crossposted to just about every
group EXCEPT alt.atheism and news.answers...

In article <1992Jul24.075717.104265@zeus.calpoly.edu> rcasey@zeus.calpoly.edu (Rosalie J Casey) writes:
> >>My perspective here is that atheist seems to be derogatory and agnostic more
> >>positive in the sense that I find in my experience atheists out to prove that
> >>God doesn't exist while agnostics don't think there is a God, but they don't

To quote from the FAQ:

 4. "Agnostics are people who 'can't make up their minds'."

     Most agnostics are of the opinion that determination of the existence or
     non-existence of supernatural entities is not possible.  They may go
     through the world under the assumption that such things don't exist, but
     that is because they have no evidence that such things do.

     They have no reason to believe that there is a supernatural entity
     watching over them.  However, that is no reason to assume that such an
     entity isn't doing so.

> >Let's not forget the Apatheists.  We don't know and we don't really care.
> >-- 
> >Even paranoids have enemies. -- Jim Pastore
>
>	   If you had a bet to take, either for a god and go to 
> 'eternal bliss', or that there is no god and take your chances...
>
> where would your money be?

Another quote from the FAQ ought to clear this one up:

 8. "If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing
     -- but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will
     go to hell.  Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist."

     This is known as Pascal's Wager.  It has several flaws.

     Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow.  Indeed, there
     are many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there.  This
     is often described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem.  If a person
     is a follower of religion X, he may end up in religion Y's version of
     hell.

     Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be
     incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true.  Suppose you're believing
     in the wrong God -- the true God might punish you for your foolishness.
     Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting
     medicine in favour of prayer.

     Many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on
     evidence, with some amount of intuition.  It is not a matter of will or
     cost-benefit analysis.

     Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:

       1. One does not know whether God exists.
       2. Not believing in God is bad for one's eternal soul if God does
          exist.
       3. Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
       4. Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in God.

     One problem with this argument, in the abstract, is that it creates
     information from no information.  This is considered invalid in
     information theory.  Statement 1 indicates one has no information about
     God -- but statements 2 and 3 indicate that beneficial information can be
     gained from the absolute lack of information about God.  This violates
     information entropy -- information has been extracted from no
     information, at no "cost".

     The biggest reason why Pascal's wager is a failure is that if God is
     omniscient he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as
     a wager.  He will spurn the latter... assuming he actually cares at all
     whether people believe in him.

> ------
> no sig , to cheep
> rcasey@iris.calpoly.edu
--
Bjrn Knutsson <bjorn@bern.docs.uu.se>
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The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
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