[ExI] atheism

[David]

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:29:33 +0100
Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:

> Il 13/12/2009 18.44, John Clark ha scritto:
> >
> > Then obviously you are not checking in the right place. Richard
> > Dawkins is certainly an Atheist and yet he said that on a scale of
> > 1 to 10, 1 being certain God exists and 10 being certain he does
> > not, would place himself at about 9.99. An Atheist is someone who
> > thinks the existence of God is such a remote possibility that it's
> > silly for the idea to play any part in your life.
> 
> Interesting.
> So do the fact that an asteroid collision with Earth is "such a
> remote possibility" make it silly to think that this could play any
> part in our life?
> 
> Ths existance of God (any god) would make an important part of our 
> existance (call it a "black swan" if you like) that maybe a bit of
> play could be useful.
> 
> Then, no one have replied to me about the fact that an "improbable"
> god given enough time will become a "sure" god.
> Maybe someone of this list could be the entity that will change an 
> "improbable" possibility to a "realized" possibility. Who know?
> 
> Mirco

You are conflating two different probabilities here. There is a low
probability of an asteroid impact per time unit.  This probability
increases as the time considered gets longer.  
The probability that God exists (one in a thousand in Dawkin's
argument) is not time dependent. Either he exists or he does not, and
the duration of the observing period makes no difference.

-David