Honest question. Is this site a religious site?

[follderol]

It seems to me there's a large amount of Christian posts. I've also noticed a fair amount of disapproval for other religions.

I am an atheist. I don't really want to be part of a christian site posing as a parenting site.

So is this actually a Christian place?

dice theory, cote. Don't get it. Was it one of Pascal's wagers?

I know a dice exists. I have seen enough evidence with my own eyes to strongly suspect that if I roll it in a dark room it will act in the same way as it does in a lit room.

So I don't see how it correlates to teh existence of God

I just asked DH (who's a statistician) whether you could come up with a probability for God, and he said you'd have to be a Bayesian.....

Objectivist or subjectivist school, Mr Rusty?

Isn't the atheist position "I believe there is no God", as opposed to "There is no God", and the agnostics just don't say what they believe, but only say what they know? So atheism is a position of belief, rather than knowledge.

Yes that makes perfect sense, habbibu. In fact I can't think why it seemed so complicated before.

pointydog - If you read that post again, you will see that "rolling a die in a dark room" was an example that illustrates that evidence of outcome (seeing if you rolled a 6 or not) does not affect probability of that outcome (which is still 1/6)

In a similar vein, lack of evidence for the existence of God does not mean the probability of God's existence is low.

It just means that we don't have any evidence either way. For now.

I started out as an atheist, btw, until I realized atheism is just as indefensible a position as belief in God, because there is no proof either way.

Yes, it is rather silly to believe in a deity without any real evidence, but they might still be right.

justa are you willing to share your biscuit preferences with us?

Well, I don't believe there is a God. I believe that global warming is caused, at least in part, by C02 released by human activity. I believe that evolution got us to where we are. There's more evidence for the latter two than the first, but they are all statements of faith.

The only things you can actually prove are mathematical.

I guess I don't feel the need to defend my atheism, Cote, so I'm happy to call myself one, while accepting that my actual knowledge of the existence of God, or evolution, is, of necessity, agnostic.

yes, I had misunderstood clightly, cote. However, knowing there is a tangible dice involved allows the probability to exist in teh first place. According to me.

You know, for a moment there, when I read that you prefer gingernuts to bourbons, I genuinely believed that I had gained a new insight into your theology, and mentally placed you a little further out of high church anglicanism and a little further into non-conformism.

Must...get...off...mumsnet....

You still misunderstand. The outcome in question is not whether or not there is a die.

The outcome whose probability doesn't depend on our evidence (or lack thereof) is the '6'.

You roll the die. You don't have any evidence that says you have a 6. And lack of this evidence does not change the probability of having rolled a 6, which is still 1/6, with or without evidence.

Subjectivist, iorek

Right, thanks, rustybear

Why such hilarity, justabout? Did the ginger nuts not speak truth?

But I think whether there is a die or not is important. The die contains the 6. What is taking the place of the dice - which contains the 6 - in the God scenario?