Last edited Wed Feb 29, 2012, 05:01 PM - Edit history (2)
A person could think, "I don't believe in gods, but I'm always wrong
Somebody who is permitted to use "I am always wrong" to come to a conclusion gets the following results:
One is larger than zero, so one isn't equal to zero. I believe that one isn't equal to zero.
However, I am always wrong, so I was wrong to believe that one isn't equal to zero. Thus, one is equal to zero.
If the monotheists are right, then there is exactly one god, but the number one is equal to the number zero, so if the monotheists are right, then the number of gods is equal to zero. Therefore, monotheists are actually atheists, but unfortunately they don't recognize that they are atheists.
Similarly, a person could think, "I believe in gods, but the likelihood for their existence seems incredibly small,"
Do you mean that the person is trying to think about the topic from the point of view of other people, and imagines that, from their point of view, the likelihood seems incredibly small?
If not, then it seems that the theist has an internal conflict between, on the one hand, the theist's overall mental picture of reality, and on the other hand the theist's practical expectations.
Your theist could be CEO of some corporation, announce that the probability is extremely low that there will be any drop in share price, on the same day sell short a huge number of shares, and later that day again repeat that a drop in share price is incredibly unlikely. When the share price undergoes a steep decline the next day, and the CEO profits handsomely from the short selling maneuver, the CEO can say, "I believed that I would make a lot of money by selling short, and nobody has any right to accuse me of lying when I said that it was very unlikely that the share price would drop."
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