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"Pre-determined area of the screen."
Sorry, but I don't agree that this type of 'uncertainty of existence' is fundamental to QM. It's no different from classical physics -- if you send a ball off into space and don't look at it for 100 years, you don't REALLY know it's there. Similarly, there's nothing fundamental about QM that suggests a particle you send off will not continue to propagate.
You're building an argument based on the philosophical claim that we can't know anything until we measure it. Your conclusions are based on this assumption, not on anything related to quatum mechanics.
Either way, it seems the 'problem' is just as much a problem for Christianity as atheism. If you can't prove that God exists, why believe in God? That question has exactly the same bases as what you're asking: "if you can't know everything, how can you know God doesn't exist."
Of course, most atheists are weak atheists anyway and don't claim God CAN'T exist, but just that there's no REASON to posit a God without evidence.
It necessarily means he has to admit that QM has to be explained away by means of faith--faith in the unobservable, ethereal mechanics of uncertainty. Faith that this uncertainty will bring about a certain, cause-and-effect outcome to phenomena in physical reality.
I contend that if Atheists reject G-d based on lack-of-evidence, then Atheists must, by default, reject any and all concepts that inherently have uncertainty-of-existence at their core.
I contend that if Atheists reject G-d based on lack-of-certainty, then Atheists must, by default, reject any and all concepts that inherently have lack-of-certainty at their core.
Regardless of the amount of faith you have, the photon will hit the screen, and it can be predicted what the probability of it hitting the screen at any point will be. The exact location it will hit cannot be known, but that has nothing to do with one's faith
Except you misrepresent what the photon will do here...I contend that if Atheists reject G-d based on lack-of-certainty, then Atheists must, by default, reject any and all concepts that inherently have lack-of-certainty at their core.
What part of quantum mechanics requires one to take on faith that the photon will hit a predetermined part on the screen? It seems to me, from reading this thread that all one has to accept is the well-evidenced belief that it will hit the screen somewhere, but not any particular part.
That said, as an atheist, I've no problem with uncertainty. I view everything in a probalistic light, so there's never any absolute certainty about anything. Holy Roller appears to subscribe to a definition of atheism that I don't think anyone else does, which might explain the lack of mutual understanding in this thread.
Peter
Holy Roller fancies himself the "Atheist Hunter" and appears to be hunting something other than atheists. As if I were to call myself a lion hunter and then only go out and shoot pictures of anteaters claiming they are lions.
Ooohhh! Obscure Monty Python reference! Yays!
I contend that if Atheists reject G-d based on lack-of-certainty, then Atheists must, by default, reject any and all concepts that inherently have lack-of-certainty at their core.
Contend it all you want. You have conflated lack-of-certainty (why the dashes?) with lack of evidence. You then go on to tell me because I reject one uncertain claim I must reject anything that has uncertainty in it. Then you conflate statistical likelihood with uncertainty. What are you going to tell me next, that I can't believe in poker? Your argument contains several fallacies and, as is plainly evident, it causes you to reach an incorrect conclusion.
Because then we'd have unyielding, unholy, unloving, inconsiderate, incredulous, unkind, impatient, unjust and just plain ol' unsavory individuals worshiping a holy, kind, loving, yielding, considerate, and just G-d without taking heed to G-d's message.I think this is core to the debate. Indeed, a weak atheist, such as myself, uses statistical hypothesis testing formalisms to arrive at my atheism. It is never incumbent to disprove something but rather to prove it positively.
To that end I (and everyone on the planet) use statistically based assessment of "risk". We hold beliefs or fail to believe in something based on what we know is limited information. We are, after all, merely humans and can only take in so much information.
I choose not to believe that the "too-good-to-be-true" advertisement on TV selling me super-success with no effort. Sure there's a vanishingly small chance that I can make CEO-level cash by merely sitting in my skivvies at the computer all day...but it is statistically unlikely that I will. So I choose not to believe that I will be making millions of dollars a year and instead go off to my regular job to toil away for a livable wage.
We all do this. As an atheist I can do no other. It is not that I can't believe in anything with a level of "uncertainty" but rather that I can't not believe in anything that doesn't have a built-in level of uncertainty. I could easily be making a Type I or a Type II error. In trying to avoid one, I tend to increase the chance of making the other.
As an aside:
This is also one of my personal incredulities with a "loving God" hypothesis. God surely knows we are limited in our ability to ascertain all data. Why would the single most important "fact" of the universe (God's existence) be so hard to find unless relying simply on "blind faith"? Why must belief in God be "blind"?
Because then we'd have unyielding, unholy, unloving, inconsiderate, incredulous, unkind, impatient, unjust and just plain ol' unsavory individuals worshiping a holy, kind, loving, yielding, considerate, and just G-d without taking heed to G-d's message.
But before any of this will happen to a significant degree, large numbers of people will have to die. A nuclear war is the most likely scenario; biological warfare is the second probability.
It'll likely happen during this Century, and occur between China and the United States.
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