And further, I have never ever ever met an "athiest" in the world that would even think about questioning their own beliefs, why would they? Wouldnt it be irrational for them too? What could ever make an atheist change their mind? God could come down and tell everyone in the world she is real, and I bet atheists would pick it apart, going over the footage, proving how it wasn't really God. How could they not, it would mean throwing away so much of their work and existential commitments (I would be like this I think).
It is you that are not telling me how these beliefs are different, im not trying to ambiguate, I'm being serious each time I say "belief."
Edit: Also think about the math one a little more. That is a good one! The belief in "1+1=2" involves understanding things like cardinality or summation, or you can just remember from school. But either way what you believe about it is that it is self-evident insofar as there is a shared understanding of the rules for those symbols. That "1" is a certain kind of thing, and so is "+" and "=". But in reality there is nothing about this situation that precludes that someone else could understand "1+1=2" differently. They could have been taught for some terrible reason that there is an exception in the rule of addition which means whenever you add 768 to 406, you get "potato". And yet, you wholly agree that 1+1=2. How could we verify our shared understanding without going through all the rules and making sure we are the same. But there is nothing in experience or in science that can justify that we are on the same page, so to speak, as those we communicate with. Its a belief because we always find ourselves among people and we strive for agreement, or already find ourselves in agreement.
Kripke does a better job of explaining this than me :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein_on_Rules_and_Pr...
