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BMaker11 said:
dsgrue3 said:

No, an atheist evaluates all claims separately. As opposed to what theists do - know their position is true, THEN find arguments against other ones. That being said, the likelyhood of either belief, while arguably different, is rather close to 0. Pascal's Wager dictates no one pay either claim any mind. 

@bold

Actually, Pascal's Wager states, in a nutshell: believe in God "just in case". If you believe and you're wrong, well...you lose nothing. If you believe and are right, you get everything. If you don't believe and and your right, again, you lose nothing. But if you don't believe and are wrong, you get punished. So you should just believe to cover your own behind.

As if an omniscient being can't see through that thin veil. I think you're thinking of Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest answer is best, and "gods" and "forces" or overly complicated answers, so we shouldn't pay attention to them when more simple answers can answer the question at hand.

My mistake, it is a derivation of Pascal's Wager. 

  • If the probability for the existence of god is > 0.5, then one should live their life that way.                                                                                                        
  • If the probability for the existence of god is < 0.5, then one should not live their life that way.
EDIT: I see you mentioned Occam's Razor, it could be that in conjunction with Pascal's.