It’s also worth a mention that there’s ‘probably’ no flying spaghetti monster, tooth fairy, Santa, etc… etc… but we can’t disprove any of them either since it’s not possible to do so. That doesn’t make them any more likely and so atheists are just as ‘agnostic atheist’ about them, though you wouldn’t expect them to have to say it :-)

(“New Atheism” remains in quotes because it alternatively refers to people who feel some sort of moral obligation to eliminate religion…. and people who dare to voice an atheist opinion in the public sphere. The question is…. which one do YOU think applies?)

If you roll a dice, you wouldn’t factually say “I’ve probably rolled a six,” but you could factually say “I’ve probably rolled greater than a one.”

Where are you getting this from?

On a scale of ‘no god’ – ‘uncertain’ – ‘is a god’, or 0% – ’0-100′% and 100% (or the inverse), if you reject the absolute certain opinions of 0% and 100%, you’re left with a scale of:
0.0[recurring]1% to 99.9[recurring]9% (or however you’d write down a near infinite scale) for the uncertain option. Ie: pretty much all of the percentage scale.

Where did you get the 50% number from?

Given that religious belief is the default I think that “being about the absence” of that default is actually about something — about a change from the default.  I think this is a good thing.  It makes more room for esoteric belief and opens up previously sacrosanct people and institutions to criticism.  Maybe you find something distasteful about taking the piss out of new agers but I think there’s something distasteful about encouraging people not to have their children vaccinated, so maybe a wash?

In fact, that’s pretty much my position.  I don’t know for sure that there isn’t a God but based on my experiences in this world I do not believe there is one.

Part of the problem is that the term “God” is so nebulous and poorly defined.  I take the statement “God exists” to mean roughly “the universe is a person” and I do not believe this is the case.

If the available options are “there is a god” and “there is no god”, and the probability of “there is no god” is less than 50%, that means the probability of “there is a god” is greater than 50%. I don’t think that’s what the advert was supposed to imply. :o)

I don’t agree that “it is possible that god does not exist” is equivalent to “there probably is no god”; the former suggests there is a non-zero probability, whilst the latter implies there is a high probability. Using your dice analogy, you wouldn’t say that “it is possible that I’ve rolled a six” is equivalent to “I’ve probably rolled a six”, would you?

“There probably is no god” is absolutely a statement of fact. It means “the probability is less than 50% that there is no god.” Likewise, if I roll a dice in a cup but don’t look at it, I can say the factual statement “it probably isn’t a 6.”

Ignoring the word “probably” which involves a specific percentage, the statement is equivalent to “it is possible that god does not exist,” which in modal logic is denoted as ◊(God does not exist). This statement is true if in any possible universe, god does not exist.

As you can see, this statement is far more likely than “God does not exist”, since the latter always implies the former but not visa versa, and so you could assign it a higher probability of being true. The only way it can be false is if in all universes, god is required to exist (i.e.  □(God exists), or “it is necessary that god exists”).

So for the statement to be false, the Church (or whoever) would need to prove that it is necessary for god to exist in all possible universes, which is a much harder proposition (though one that many religious people would still agree with).

So the third statement is indeed a fully-fledged statement. However, it’s also the one with the lowest burden of proof, so your general point is still valid.

…that said, do English religious ads say “There is a God,” though? If not, then this statement is indeed the only statement of fact being made, so Dawkins may still be required to go before the Modal Logic court and prove that !□(God exists), i.e. that it is not necessary that God exists….

What makes one more likely than another? (S)He hasn’t personally revealed anything to me.

So not only is his argument utterly wrong, he’s effectively saying that religious adverts should be banned…
*facepalm*

Of course then they wouldn’t be a-thiests would they… They’d be physicists or doctors or any of the other myriad professions that are about something…

Most those I’ve met who self identify as athiests (as in I didn’t have to ask, because they made it apparent) are about trolling christians and new agers. Secular Humanists I had hope for. But they seem caught in the same old trap, and their manifesto reads like a godless reaffirmation of the morality of the ten commandments, and the rights of the declaration of independence. Nothing new there.

Whats there big idea? Play baseball, study hard, and avoid promiscuous sex. Fuck that.