Bussed-Ad

UPDATE:  For those of you who have already read this post, you may have noticed I changed the title.  I decided the Tool lyric I originally used was a bit... daunting.  This one is much more inviting and happy... like me.  Also, I saw Fleet Foxes perform tonight.  They were astounding.  

A few weeks ago, I came across this news story.  I have to admit it made me laugh.  "There is probably no God."  Then there is the claim "now stop worrying and enjoy your life."  Whew! That's a relief to theists everywhere, because I'm sure every believer hates every second of their wretched faith filled lives.  My favorite however, is the ambitious use of the word "probably."  Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't all the bold declarations in the history of human thought have been prefaced with... "probably?"  Let's take Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."  Newton is without a doubt on the shortest imaginable list of the greatest thinkers of all time, but wouldn't this specific law be much more robust had Newton written it thusly: "For every action there is probably an equal and opposite reaction?"  If Newton was actually convinced of his position, he surely would have included the "probably."  Let's look at what he wrote about gravity.  

Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

This is a pretty profound discovery, which we can no doubt strengthen as follows:

Every particle of matter in the universe probably attracts every other particle with a probable force that is probably directly proportional to the probable product of the masses of the particles and probably inversely proportional to the probable square of the distance between them.  

With this amelioration of Newton's law, we've come to a conclusion that leaves nothing to doubt.  How can you argue with probably?  

Smugness aside, let me give credit where credit is due.  The advertisement which will be cropping up on buses around here I think is a good thing - for two reasons.  First, the declaration certainly appears fatuous given the world "probably," yet it is not inaccurate.  Given the mountain of empirical evidence, it's arduous not to hold, "God probably doesn't exist."  Secondly, these pseudo-atheist buses will stroll the streets of London propagating a memorandum of thought and reexamination more than merely advocating atheism.  

This is healthy.  In this light, the word "probably" plays an important and genuine role.  Religion should be examined, and then reexamined.  We can't prove or disprove the existence of God.  In other words, the dialogue will persevere, and will likely persist for the duration.  We should therefore carefully and perpetually examine our personal convictions, for no one has all the answers.  Faith in any sense is a process with no foreseeable end.  People of religion have a tendency to forget this.  They think they have all the answers, and no further examination is necessary.  Further, they forget that faith implies doubt.  We could not have faith, if we did not have doubt.  We cannot have absolute knowledge of anything really (another discussion entirely).  If we could, faith would evaporate.  Like the blind believer however, the atheist can easily fall victim to the same constipated thinking.  So now that I've berated the bus ad, setting it up for ridicule for its gratuitous use of "probably," through a further examination, I think we can applaud the ad for encouraging thought from all sides.  

Before I post this mental saunter through the implications of a bus poster, I feel it necessary to circumambulate back to my earlier point that the empirical evidence against the believer is not something to be sneezed at (not sure how I managed both walking and sneezing in that sentence, but let's go with it). There is something we must understand about the nature of belief.  We must admit that faith is absurd (a point the atheists are well aware of, the believers less so).  The absurdity of faith however is not exclusive to a belief in God.  There are other absurdities we deal with as human beings.  The following concepts in philosophy have proven to be just as absurd as the concept of God: the self, free will, and to a lesser extent love.  Despite a lack of knowledge of these things, we have reason to believe in them.  In other words, even though belief is not rational, we are not insane to believe in such things.  At this point, I will resist the urge to delve into a full argument for and against belief.  We'll save that for another day... probably.