[ExI] "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

samantha sjatkins at mac.com
Fri Oct 31 17:35:32 UTC 2008


Emlyn wrote:
> I've had some faithful types that I know see this, and comment on
> "probably", like it's a big flaw, and say "isn't that just
> agnosticism"? I think probably here means the same as it would in
> "Santa Claus probably doesn't exist"; the probability is really really
> close to 1.
>
> But I do agree with them to some extent. I'm happy to say "God does
> not exist", when I mean it as a placeholder for "it is extraordinarily
> unlikely that God exists". When talking about real world things, there
> is always an implicit "probably", because the universe is messy and
> reserves the right to surprise us. For instance, I would say "The sun
> will rise tomorrow", when strictly you could only say "The sun will
> very probably rise tomorrow".
>
> No one would have been worried about "There is no Santa Claus. Now
> stop worrying and enjoy your life.", except that the kiddies might
> discover the ruse (which we cover up, Santa being a kind of
> training-god). It's too bad they couldn't have gone with "There is no
> God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
>
>   
That there is no God both is and is not a reason to not worry depending 
on one's model of what such a being might me and its implications for 
us.  That there is no God and thus no afterlife etc. can be quite 
worrisome as it is the end of the cosmic "re-do" or "another chance".    
I think that the day when there being no God really sinks in is the day 
life-extension and other human+ technology gains major support.   Those 
who believe that this human life is not all there is can't be bothered 
to care too much about extending it or even to fully consider death as 
much of a tragedy.   This has implications across the moral/ethical 
spectrum. 

- samantha



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