--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > For me,when I adopt a belief, I don't need a proof. Its therefore > > okay, if I'm 'wrong'. > ... > > > > It seems that the main point of a rationalist atheist is, that he will > > not believe what cannot be proven. So his rationale is that he will > > only adopt a belief, if there is a proof. > > There is quite a bit of territory in between these two views. Its > called Probabalistically Qualified Belief (PQB). The extremes of the > two views above (and I think you are not at extreme) is that one will > believe anything with no proof (close to a walking ru ?) aka BA > (believe anything), and a RA (Rational Atheist). Conditions for either > are rarely met. > > A strict RA, if needing 100% proof, will never believe in much of > anything. Science is never proved -- theories are confirmed with some > degree of probabilistic accuracy. And since Godel, logic has its > limits to absolutely prove things. > > And a BA (or TB), has some degree of evidence or logic for most > beliefs. It just may they believe things with 3% confirmation (and > sometimes 80% counter confirmation). That is not something I do (but > perhaps did to a degree in TMO years) > > A PQB doesn't know or believe or disbelieve anything with certainty. > But the belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is assessed with a far > higher probability than space aliens landing on the White House lawn > tomorrow. Or a RU flying to Ottumwa. > > I/a PQG believes and disbelieves absolutely nothing. Anything is > possible, nothing is certain. But there is a huge vast sliding scale > of probabilistic hierarchy and ranking of beliefs and disbeliefs.
What's a PQG? While I agree like most here about a sliding scale, I don't like your dichotomy of BA (Believe Anything) to RA (Rationalistic Atheist). Nobody would identify as BA. One question I would have to Curtis would be: Would he want to be a Rational Atheist? Is this sort of an ideal, or rather as what kind of atheist would he describe himself? I guess that everybody describing himself as atheist here on this board, would probably regard himself as 'weak atheist' See the very good WP article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Theoretical_atheism 'Philosophers such as Antony Flew[32] and Michael Martin[21] have contrasted strong (positive) atheism with weak (negative) atheism. Strong atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Weak atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a weak or a strong atheist.[33] The terms weak and strong are relatively recent; however, the equivalent terms negative and positive atheism have been used in the philosophical literature[32] and (in a slightly different sense) in Catholic apologetics.[34] Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as weak atheists. While agnosticism can be seen as a form of weak atheism,[35] most agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism, which they may consider no more justified than theism, or requires an equal conviction.[36] The supposed unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of God is sometimes seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.[37] Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,[38] and that the unprovability of God's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibility.[39] Scottish philosopher J. J. C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalised philosophical scepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."[40] Consequently, some popular atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions by the probability assigned to the statement "God exists".[41]'
