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Re:A Manual for Creating Atheists: A Critical Review (2014) by lotsofpulp on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:18AM (#26001892)
What is the difference between not believing in a higher power and claiming no higher power exists?
Re:A Manual for Creating Atheists: A Critical Review (2014) by barrucadu on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:33AM (#26002120)
I lack a belief that there is a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson, as that is a ridiculous name and I have no reason to believe that they exist. But I'm not going to claim with certainty that they don't.
Re:A Manual for Creating Atheists: A Critical Review (2014) by lotsofpulp on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:42AM (#26002259)
I think the word believe is unnecessarily complicating this. As I stated above in another comment, assumption is a better word to use than believe, so substituting that gives:

“I do not assume that there is a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson, as that is a ridiculous name. But I am not going to claim with certainty that they do not exist”.

Which is more concisely re-written as:

“I assume there is a very low probability of the existence of a person in Argentina called Smergold Abrahamson”.

Which going back to the original comment, I see the difference now:

“not believing (assuming) in a higher power”

is different than

“claiming (assuming) no higher power exists”