(May 7, 2015 at 11:23 pm)Stimbo Wrote:(May 7, 2015 at 10:48 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Santa, though, is the more common comparison that you are likely to hear from people, but it does not matter, as they are all imaginary things.
... what?
Are you making a joke, or are you seriously confused and did not realize I was referring to Santa and two things from the previous sentence, God and the Tooth Fairy?
Here are the two sentences again:
"Many exChristians report being happier as atheists than they were as Christians, and many of us regard God as being the equivalent of other nonexistent things, like the Tooth Fairy. Santa, though, is the more common comparison that you are likely to hear from people, but it does not matter, as they are all imaginary things."
God is more often compared with Santa than with the Tooth Fairy. But all three are imaginary things, so it does not matter which imaginary thing one compares with God. They all have exactly the same impact on the world: none.
(Of course, the people who believe in each of them do not have the same impact on the world, but that is quite different from the imaginary things themselves having an impact.)
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
