Am 23.01.2014 05:03, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/21/2014 4:53 PM, clipka wrote:
>> Note that theism and atheism aren't black-and-white; there's quite a
>> wide spectrum between the two, and it's full of people.
>>
> Umm. I think I am with others in that there "is" a wide gap between.
> Gods exist, or they provisionally don't. There isn't much wiggle room in
> there. Its literally the difference between, "Did someone eat the last
> donut, or is it still in the box?" You can have, to some extent, varied
> opinions on how likely one or the other position may be, or even about
> which one "is" real, but you kind of have to be fairly well on one side
> of the line or the other, in terms of "existence".

I'm not talking about the spectrum of /what/ people believe, but how 
/strongly/ they believe in it. There is no gap anywhere between "it's 
undeniable truth" and "it's utter nonsense", just endless shades of grey.

In science there is the same thing going on: A theory either holds or it 
doesn't; but when scientists conduct experiments, the answer is /never/ 
actually "yes" or "no", but "yes/no with a /confidence/ of X%". Even if 
the confidence level isn't statet explicitly, it just means that it is 
(by typical convention) 95% or higher.

Post a reply to this message