Am I agnostic, atheist or something else?

[jackvance]

I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)

[Lukie]

I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)

I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

(adding nothing of value to the religion angle)

[jackvance]

I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

(adding nothing of value to the religion angle)

Not really catching your drift. There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either. So we use Occam's Razor and take the simplest explanation to be true. There is also some theory (I forgot the name, something french like Genie Méchant) that there is a mind-altering being living amongst us, that warps our perception in such a way that we can never perceive him. Can't disprove it. But no need to take heed of it either.

Oh and on the subject of parallel universes (sorry to go off on a tangent), I read something interesting recently. Neil Degrasse Tyson said that his favorite theory for dark matter (dark matter is the placeholder name for the fact that there is way more gravity in the universe than can be accounted for by all known matter) is that there ARE parallel universes and that their gravity is leaking through to ours somehow.

[MadMojoMonkey]

There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either.

Who do you mean by "we"?
An article from Scientific American in 2003 that talks about the existence of parallel universes.

Neil Degrasse Tyson said that his favorite theory for dark matter (dark matter is the placeholder name for the fact that there is way more gravity in the universe than can be accounted for by all known matter) is that there ARE parallel universes and that their gravity is leaking through to ours somehow.

Having a favorite theory is a long way from believing something that is unobservable.

[a500lbgorilla]

Who do you mean by "we"?
An article from Scientific American in 2003 that talks about the existence of parallel universes.

We means us. You included.

Show me the peer-reviewed Nature article that proves the existence of a multiverse.

That proves it right in the same sense that Newton was right when his explanation of gravity was not disproved by disagreeing observations of the moons of saturn, but itself proved someone else's determination of the finite speed of light. (Romer)

Show me the robust and predictive understanding of the multiverse, and then 'we' can agree jackvance is wrong when he says

There could an infinite number of parallel universes. But we can't (atm) verify that. We can't disprove it either.

[a500lbgorilla]

I always couldn't help but think that this Occam guy just didn't have a very good grasp of probability. 100*100 = 10*10*10*10, if you catch my draft.

(adding nothing of value to the religion angle)

Occam had the right of it. It's more about the path of least resistance than it is the chance of catching a lucky path through a maze of equally likely paths.

The simplest path usually takes the least energy to occur.

Someone won some award proving that was true of quatum jibberjabber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram

[Pascal]

I say agnost if it ever comes up in conversation, I have one friend who is religious and it's the best thing to say to avoid a nonsensical discussion and offending them. Once he tried me with the "if you say you don't know, why take a chance - if it's true then you're screwed in the afterlife" and I explained the principle of Occam's razor to him and that ended that discussion. (that pretty much makes me atheist though if I think about it)

Pascal's wager > Occam's razor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

[a500lbgorilla]

Pascal's wager > Occam's razor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager

Pascal was a father of probability, too.

But really, Fermat was the father of probability. Pascal helped by keeping the problem in the front of his mind.