From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Do Atheists Have Their Own "Faith"?
Date: 14 Apr 92 19:01:25 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <1992Apr14.154356.9455@apollo.hp.com> perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry) writes:
> [...]
> Whatever term you care to use, "people who believe, not think, that
> God does not exist" (as you define the terms) are not the people who
> call themselves atheists in this newsgroup.  Sorry, but that's life.
> [...]


Well, far be it from me to prolong a debate about semantics to the bog-down
point, BUT....:-)

I *am* one of those folks who is prepared to stick the ol' neck out
and believe that no gods exist ("strong" atheism if you will).

Before I'm reminded, perfectly correctly, that there can be no proof for this
contention, and at the risk of disappearing up myself in a puff of gratuitous
self-reference, let me just quote a bit from a recent article of mine
explaining my position:

(article <1992Apr13.110222.7196@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>,
thread title "All Hail Huge Blue Banana" or some such crap)

> Most atheists do not, I think, utterly deny the *possibility* that some
> god/s exist/s, in a philosophical sense.  Most folks on this group would
> probably agree (sorry if I'm wrong, dudes...) that it's a moot question.
> However, there comes a point (there did for me, anyway) where one simply
> *does* decide that, if I might use the analogy again, the
> 
>    "huge blue banana hiding in a higher dimension
>     inaccessible to us and thus untestable"
> 
> is assigned a probability of existence of z where z is so close to zero
> as makes no difference except in a very rarified philosophical atmosphere.
> 
> If you're familiar with probability theory, it's kind of similar to
> saying that the banana doesn't exist "with probability 1", or about
> the same probability as getting at least one head from tossing a
> fair coin an arbitrarily large number of times. It isn't *philosophically*
> the same thing as ruling out the existence of the banana, but *practically*
> it is.
> 
> That's how I rationalise *my* "jump" from a-theism to athe-ism, or from
> not(believe(god)) to believe(not(god)) as somebody expressed it recently.
> Others will doubtless differ, but I hope it helps.


And I hope you're still awake.

To take this a bit further and piss everybody off before the "n" key falls
(the dirty bit comes soon, honest), the implication is that whether one [who
sees the question in these terms] is an a-theist ("weak") or an athe-ist
("strong") depends on two subjective factors:

(i)  one's estimate of the probability z, and
(ii) at what value of z one draws one's personal boundary between
     the two positions(*).

The curious conclusion is that it is possible under this construct for a
"strong" atheist to consider the existence of god/s *more* likely (higher z)
than does a "weak" atheist if their respective personal boundaries are so
drawn.

Where you draw the line induces the philosophical act of making the "jump";
it doesn't change your value of z.

This specifically does *not* permit the conclusion that the "strong"
atheist position is dogmatic and less likely to be swayed by evidence
which might cause z to be revised upward.

Compare and contrast with certain other belief systems we all know and love.


Cheers

Simon

(*) I realise that one's "estimate of z" is actually likely to be stated
in terms of (ii) anyway, and this may screw the argument up a bit....:-)

-- 
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"Every morning when you wake up and look in the mirror, check yourself
for signs of collective identity" - Consolidated on "This Is Fascism"
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