Quantum redactiones paginae "Disputatio:Atheismus" differant
Content deleted Content added
Linea 50:
: It is (probably) impossible to disprove existential claims except when they are logical impossibilities and when the claims are specific about time and place. In the case of Russell's teapot, ateapotism is a practical and common sense position; we can not know for certain (can we know anything for certain? That is an argument for the scepticism page) that the teapot does not exist, but there is no reason to say it does and the chances of it existing (how would it get there?) are so slim that we can live our lives as if we were certain; we "know" that it does not exist in the same way that we "know" that elves do not exist. Of course, the teapot is not a perfect analogy here, as it was designed to make another point: that is up to theists, not atheists, to support their claims.
:: I agree that there is no obvious (commonsensical or non-religious) reason to hold that Russell's teapot exists. It doesn't affect our lives or impinge on our theories so as to make itself "felt" in any empirical way. So, ateapotism is indeed a practical and common sense position -- which can also be construed as meaning that the teapot doesn't exist to us, from which it doesn't follow that it couldn't exist as a Kantian noumenon. In any case, I think we agree that R's teapot doesn't exist as an object of experience. --[[Usor:Neander|Neander]] 21:58, 25 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
:As for "not believe that" and "believe that not", the first is a negative claim about existence and the second a positive one about non-existence. "Not believe that" is often used to mean "believe that not" in English, but when they are contrasted like this there is a definite difference. Someone who is a pure agnostic does not believe that god exists but does not believe that god does not exist; for him/her the two propositions are equally likely and s/he does not believe either. My dog does not believe that and does not believe that not. "Not believe that" would be a 4, 5, 6, 7 or possibly 3 on Dawkins' spectrum of probability (which is very useful for making these distinctions) whilst "believe that not" would only be a 6 or 7. And knowing is different from believing here; someone who knows is a 7 and probably believes that there is a logical impossibility in the idea of god. I would put myself between 6 and 6.5; I believe that the probability of the statement "god does not exist" is significantly greater that 50%: I ''believe'' the statement in the common English sense of the word "believe". Since I do not believe that the probability of the statement being true is 100%, I do not claim to ''know'' (for me the word "know" implies certainty, for some it does not).
| |||