99.9% certain?

So, recently I attended a debate between a minister, a rabbi, and an atheist. One thing that the atheist said struck me as odd. He seemed to allude (elude?) to the fact that he was 99.9% sure of himself. But in science, there’s always a 0.01% chance for error. I couldn’t help but think….really? I never would have expected the percentage to be so high. Some background about me. I’m a software engineer (soon to be a software consultant, but that’s another post). I grew up christian, became atheist for about 3 years during / preceeding college. Maybe a little longer. Then after lots of thinking and seaching, have settled on Judaism. I don’t ask anyone to believe anything that I say at this point, because with all these changes, I must seem wishy-washy. I wouldn’t believe me.

But, understand this. When I was an atheist, I never would’ve considered myself more than 60% certain. Honestly, I don’t rate anything that I think I know that highly. Here’s an adage from the software world, You can only prove the existence of bugs in software, not the absence of them. No matter how hard we test, we can’t prove that software is bug free. Ever. Why? Because bugs are an unknown. You can’t come up with evidence. Religion is similar. You can’t come up with evidence to prove there is a God. You can’t come up with evidence to prove there isn’t one either though. We have things that SUGGEST an existence or nonexistence, but nothing that proves. When you don’t have sufficient evidence, I can’t say I understand being able to claim 99.9% accuracy.

Basically, after that statement, he lost all credibility with me. I was, in fact, interested in his ideas and beliefs. Not because I’m looking to become atheist, but I’m interested in how they may shape and reform some of my own beliefs.

Until next time.

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