The point I'm making is that they can't all be right, but the can all be wrong. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not saying they are all wrong. Just that they can be.
Oh yes, I wholly agree.
Atheism, it's not a belief system. It's a single position on a single claim. Or would you say you have multiple belief systems? One belief system in Christianity, one in Islam, one in Hinduism, one for every religion you don't believe in? Because you are an atheist with respect to every religion but your own. That doesn't mean you have thousands of belief systems. But I don't want to get bogged down in semantics so let's move on.
I don't think it's a point of semantics, but a substantial point. What I mean as a "belief system" is how one's beliefs affect how one lives their lives. That's why I chose the use the word "system", rather than simply "beliefs". Okay, maybe the right word isn't "system"...
But if one's starting point is that there is no god, how one lives one's life will be vastly different to that of someone else who believes that there is a god/gods. For me a belief system isn't just simply the sort of statements that one believes to be true, but how those statements affect one's life.
That's how I'm comparing atheism with different religions. So I guess the point of contention between us right now, as is often the case, is one of definition...or semantics...lol...
No, I have to strongly disagree here. First of all, atheism isn't a truth statement. Because it's not a claim, it's the rejection of a claim. The claim is: (a specific) god exists.
Of course atheism is a claim! It's the claim that no god exists. Your argue against a claim with a counter-claim. Just because your opinion is the negative of a claim doesn't mean that your opinion isn't a claim. Both the statements, "I believe that there is an apple on the table" and "I believe there are no apples on the table" are claims. Both claims are counter-claims of each other.
But again, our point of contention here is one of language...so I'm happy to move on.
Second of all. What does it matter how people make religious choices. That has no impact on the probability of them being true.
Would you say the probability of there being a Vishnu is the same as the probability of there not being a Vishnu? I'm gonna guess that you'd say there's less chance of Vishnu existing otherwise you'd be a Hindu and not a christian.
In fact when it came to 99% of all religion you saw that belief wasn't justified. Why not?, if they all have the same chance of being right according to you.
Well, you guessed wrong. I
do believe that the mathematical chance of Vishnu being a god (or that the Hindu pantheon is true) is one out of whatever the number of religions there are - the same as the probability of the existence of the Judeo-Christian God and the same as the probability of there being no god at all etc.
As I said in an earlier post, I became Christian not because I became convinced that the Christian religion was mathematically more likely to be true, but because I became convinced that the Christian religion was good - better than believing that there is no god, or believing in other gods. The goodness of what I experienced matched up with what was promised - the goods delivered were as what was described, and I found those goods to be good. That's how I can say Christianity is true. Christianity is first of all true to itself, and its results are good. And then if Christianity claims that it is the sole truth, then based on what I have experienced so far, I am persuaded that it is.
Of course, you're going to say, "Well, Islam thinks its religion is the sole truth too." - and so do every believer of every religion. That's fine. We can all point fingers at each other and say the other side is wrong. As long as we are civilised, honest, and loving about it, I don't see why we can't agree to disagree.
I say none of them are. You say one of them is. Such a small difference.
You'd be surprised at how big the difference is.