southernhybrid

I have *no* doubts that Xianity is just another myth which tries to explain a reason for human existence, attempts to set up a moral system for humanity and ultimately uses this myth and moral system to control and manipulate those who buy into the whole thing.

Perchance

I also had a question for Helen (don't know if she'll have some time to answer it for a while, but...)

I'm assuming here that Helen thinks it's better to be 99% than 100% sure of a belief. If someone has that 'saving grace' (pun deliberate, I assure you) of being 99% sure of something, but this remains entirely intellectual, then how does this affect his or her life?

For example, I think quite a bit about the claims of religion, at least when I'm posting on this board, and at the request of Christians have considered that Christianity might be true. But I don't spend 1% of my time in church, or praying, or giving thanks to God when something good happens, or any of the other things that many believers do, as opposed to think.

I've been 'living like an atheist' for years, even though I called myself agnostic. Before, God was just a big indifferent question mark to me, because I was living around people who for the most part didn't talk about God much. Now I consider myself an atheist, since I've looked into some of the actual properties of the Christian God and found them self-contradictory. But the style of my life has not really changed. I still read and work and sleep without praying, for example.

If someone is an intellectual agnostic but a practical atheist, what does the believer consider her?

-Perchance.

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]</p>

GeoTheo

If you click on her profile you can reach her website. In it she has an article she wrote about her "agnosticism". I think it relates to her view of epistimology. I assume she doesn't have a problem with people reading it since she links it to her profile here.

abe smith

Yes.

HelenM

As a matter of fact, I am having trouble finding time to respond to much on here.

One brief comment on what you said, Perchance - someone 99% certain is convinced enough that I'd expect them to act in accordance with what they are 99% certain of, 100% of the time. I think that's the way humans are. They don't usually act in accordance with something they only think is 1% likely to be true...they go with their own majority vote, as it were.

take care
Helen

Not Prince Hamlet

HelenM,

Not necessarily. If I handed you a gun and told you that it was 99% likely that the gun was unloaded, would you disengage the safety, put the muzzle of the gun in your mouth, and pull the trigger?

Possibly, but I think it unlikely. 99% is not equal to 100%.

Jeff

galiel

All I know is that 99% of theist topics give all the rest a bad name.

Arrowman

I'm 100% certain that John Edward is a fake.
I'm 100% certain that clairvoyants and psychics are fake.
I'm 100% certain that Christianity is not "true".
I'm 100% certain that I am real, and not part of a Matrix.

I could be wrong about any of these. But not enough to change the way I act. So drag it down to 99.99999%. "100% sure" is a rhetorical statement unless you're a religious fanatic.

agapeo

Not a bad analogy of acting on what one believes. That is if someone had the incentive to kill themselves.

agapeo

They're good enough for you to post to.