Well, what Nancarrow said but also I take exception with the assertion that B is equally unsupported in either case. B(~G) is the only default rational assumption which can be made from the observable evidence. B(G) introduces unnecessary entia for no demonstrable reason and actually contradicts the observable evidence.
A belief that it will rain does not require “just as much faith” as a belief that it will rain Starburst fruit chews. The former is a rational expectation based on observable evidence, the latter is an unsupported faith belief based on nothing and which is in contradiction to observable evidence.
Not from what I’ve observed. Did you fancy yourself to be the only observer?
It sounds like you’re mixing up belief and knowledge. You seem to believe you know something to which I am not privvy.
Belief is belief whether you believe the truth or a lie. Knowledge may entail truth, but belief need not. Your criteria for what constitutes observation and reason seems arbitrary to me, and in fact downright wrong.
I just showed that they are. To counter the dictionary, we need something more than a pedantic declaration.
Could you explain the link between Maimonides’ 13 articles and circumcision? If you’ve time could you elaborate a little on what is meant by ‘Retribution’?
Here’s the 13, spelling presentation edited:
(1) The existence of God;
(2) His unity;
(3) His spirituality;
(4) His eternity;
(5) God alone the object of worship;
(6) Revelation through His prophets;
(7) The pre-eminence of Moses among the Prophets;
(8) God’s law given on Mount Sinai;
(9) The immutability of the Torah as God’s Law;
(10) God’s foreknowledge of men’s actions;
(11) Retribution;
(12) The coming of the Messiah; and
(13) Resurrection.
Maimonides placed an obligation to circumcice under the rubrick of article 2 (unity through the Abrahamic covenant) as well as obedience to the Torah, the Law and the prophets (articles 6-9).
Article 11 refers to ultimate judgement, reward and punishment. Substitute “karma” for “retribution” and you’ll get the idea.
The whole argument appears to my eyes to be awfully “Christian” in intellectual flavour - it is based on the unspoken assumption that theology is the essence of religion, and faith the essence of theology.
Thus, the formal logic of the argument hinges on the approach to only one question - the existence or non-existence of the supernatural, and in particular, the existence or non-existance of a transendental God (and proof thereof). A necessarily binary decision.
It is in this respect, rather than in the mechanics of formal logic, that many Athiest thinkers and Christians most resemble each other.
The point is that these assumptions aren’t necessarily transferable to other religious traditions, which, in some cases, put a much lower value on faith and theology. Many a Jew, in spite of Maimonedes, isn’t all that concerned with the existence or non-existence of God (see “Reconstructionism”), which in any event is a more remote figure than the personal saviour aspect of the Trinity in Christianity. Some religions have multiple levels of religious truth, often with the notion of god as an abstract immanent sort of “small-d” diety – essentially encompassing all of creation (the Hindu conception of “atman = brahman”; philosophical Taoism) or even total indifference to the existence or non-existence of gods and the supernatural (in some forms of Buddhism, gods may exist and too bad for them - they are “bound to the wheel” even more than people!).
The most exacting athiest could easily belong to any of these religious/philosophical systems without believing in the existance of anything supernatural; the dismissal of all religions on the basis of a refusal of “faith” is misplaced (though of course there may be other, better reasons to reject one or all religious traditions).
In short, the debate is somewhat parochial. It is really a debate more within the Christian tradition of attempting to blend theology with logic.