I like the post about how Christians are 99.9 percent atheist. Atheists are just 100 percent atheist.

actually if you were to take into account that every believer in god believes at least slightly differently than every other believer... then if you take the limit as n (the number of gods you don't believe in) goes to infinity (since there is an infinite amount of gods available) then every one is atheist. yay. maybe there is hope after all.

Whether one believes in God or not does not change life. There is life or so we are led to believe. Or are we in fact players in the dream of one very large person out there in the cosmos and the earth is their dream, and bit by bit the dream changes as they go through their life. The Matrix on a new level.

I was raised as a strict catholic which means I was told to go to church, do things a certain way, when I didn't go into a phonebooth tell some guy dressed in black who would give me some kind of detention and tell me that this older guy in the clouds forgave me for everything.

Then one day I had a death experience, went away and came back. That was cool, was I dead? who knows, but the lights were really dim and there were physical things about the place. Do we really die? Probably not because I got to see myself in this place and I was much the same person at the time and I had just been in a wreck, but there was not a scratch on me, so go figure. No white light, but no burning sensations either.

I believe that keeping an open mind to possibilities is a good thing and that knowing the universe has many things to offer us if we are open to receiving them is another good thing. I also know that by asking for them, being open to receiving them, knowing you deserve them, and then not questioning when they show up for you all do work and this law of attraction does function as described.

The problem is getting people to know constantly that they deserve these great things and not to judge themselves so that the abundance has a way to flow to them vs. away from them...

But that's something else for the days of pondering ahead.

Great blog, keep it going!

Michael Murdock
@docmurdock on twitter - but don't follow me because I am channeling a group of people with a universal perspective and you might actually get sucked up into giving me money at some point.

I'm glad you feel that way about Pascal's Wager (Consider this: would an all-knowing god reward you with eternity in heaven if you spent your life believing in him just in case?). The reality is that it is not us that would do the choosing any way. The christian bible clearly states throught itself that it is the christian god that chose who would and would not beleive in him before anything was created. It has nothing to do with what evidence we find, because our secondary choice is based on his primary choice.

I was talking about everything you mentioned for the second argument. More or less: Even if eventually through science and research we have everything under control something would inevitably arise that we do not have control over. We cannot control everything yet it still seems to exist and continue in a controlled fashion. There must be something directing it?

Consider this: would an all-knowing god reward you with eternity in heaven if you spent your life believing in him just in case? I would think that God would only reward people who believe in him sincerely, not because they were hedging their bets! And if you believe in him sincerely, you wouldn't need Pascal's Wager as the basis of your belief. Therefore the Wager is entirely useless as an argument for believing in any god.

Besides, what if the Christian god turns out to be the wrong god to believe in? What if the god that actually exists turns out to be Zeus? And boy, is he pissed at you for believing in Yahweh!

Regarding your second argument (which I'm not sure I completely understand), can you give an example of something that seems so well-orchestrated to you? Are you referring to natural disasters? Hurricanes, tsunamis, plagues? Terrorist attacks? These are all things that are out of our control. However, with enough education, enough research, and enough science, we can eventually overcome them all.

Regarding indefinite life, this is something that we may never achieve, even with unlimited research. Life is finite! We can either deny this, or we can understand it and embrace it. Life is the most important thing we have. Pretending that we can "survive death" cheapens the short span of time we have here and now to do something useful!

With China’s space program and North Korea launching rockets how can you be certain that there is no teapot in orbit between Earth and Mars? (Not expecting an answer on that…) But seriously, if you cannot be 100% sure would it not be wise “statistically speaking” to believe in the christian god since you will lose nothing if you are wrong and gain eternity if you are right? This is by no means a reason to believe in the christian god it is just a thought. Science cannot prolong your life indefinitely, we would like to think it will be possible in the future but it cannot right now. Is it strictly that you think it is logically impossible or are there other reasons?

In respect to human psychology, are all situations in our control now that we do not need a god to turn to? Is this a psychological reality that we are creating here? That man is in control of everything well enough to handle it on his own, or are we admitting that we have control of nothing and that everything is under the control of nothing? If that is the case, how is everything orchestrated so well?

I don't like to differentiate between "weak" and "strong" atheism. I am quite certain that there is no god. Just as I am certain that there is no teapot in orbit between Earth and Mars. Again, my certainty is never 100%, but it's pretty damn close. If that makes me a weak atheist, so be it.

Let's put it this way: You are an atheist with respect to 99.9% of all gods invented throughout history, except the one god you now believe in. I, on the other hand, am an atheist with respect to 100% of all gods! That's just one god more than you.

Regarding human psychology, there are perfectly good evolutionary explanations for god-belief. Human psychology is very fragile. When a person is in a situation that's out of her control, she needs to feel that "everything will be alright". What better way to attain that feeling than by inventing a powerful father-figure that looks over you, and will destroy your enemies if you pray hard enough?

Human psychology is not evolving to "believe in itself". It's simply evolving to grow out of the need to invent a comforting caretaker, just like a child grows out of believing in Santa Claus. It's no longer necessary. The child becomes too mature to believe in an old man who visits the home of every child on earth. Humanity, likewise, is in the process of maturing beyond the belief in an old man who answers prayers and grants eternal life and/or damnation. It's no longer necessary!

So you consider yourself to be what the site you pointed me to calls a weak atheist as in you do not believe that it is impossible for god to exist. So it is not correct for you to say what you said at the end of the story "God: How am I supposed to do anything when I don’t exist?", because you cannot be certain.

You say that the human psychology has evolved to beleive in god? Is it now evolving to beleive in only itself, or not to need god? Does that infer that there is something in existence that tends naturally toward the existence of god outside of human control and that is why we evolved to acknowledge it?

Like I said before, I don't believe in the Christian god with the same degree of confidence that you don't believe in my imaginary friend Billy-bob. Of course neither of us can completely rule out the existence of Billy-Bob (he is, after all, invisible), but in practice we simply don't believe that he exists. The exact same reasoning is used by atheists toward God.

There's no specific reason why I don't believe in a god. It's simply because all the arguments for his existence are plagued by logical fallacies, naivete, and ignorance. It's also because I understand the human psychology behind belief, and why humans are compelled to reach out to a "higher power" when they are in a situation that is out of their control. It's not because the higher power exists; it's because human psychology evolved to react this way!

Technically, there are no direct arguments "against" the existence of God, because, once again, it's not up to atheists to disprove the existence of Christianity's imaginary friend. All we have are refutations of the arguments that Christians have dreamed up over the centuries. For a wonderfully-written summary of all the classical arguments, and their refutations, read here.

For a broader discussion of what atheism is, and why atheists don't believe in a god, read here.

Biblical "predictions" are a different topic altogether. You kind of dropped the ball there; I didn't think you were that far out. Doesn't it concern you that these predictions are invariably found after the actual event has taken place (vaticinium ex eventu)?