RE: what is atheism
December 26, 2012 at 5:17 am
(This post was last modified: December 26, 2012 at 5:27 am by Ryantology.)
Quote:given that either case is equally probable?
What nudged me from straight-up agnosticism to atheism was understanding that either case is not equally probable. There's no evidence of a God. That doesn't mean atheists are strictly correct, but it does mean that the evidence strongly argues against any theist claims. No claim of theism has ever withstood scrutiny, and simply making a claim does not confer credibility. Theistic claims can never be disproved, and no matter what we end up learning, the theist will simply move the goalposts.
There's also the fact that most atheists have a grain of agnosticism, while theists are usually forbidden from doubting the claims of their dogma.
This is why strict, treat-all-sides-evenly agnosticism is invalid, because theism is an intellectually vacant -ism while atheism probably correctly describes the universe as we know it. The chance that any theist claim will prove correct is asymptotically close to zero. If you state that a tree a thousand miles away has either blue or green leaves, I can confidently say that the leaves are likely to be green, even if I don't see it.
