Wednesday, June 27, 2012

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Richard Dawkins, one of the most prominent of the "new atheists," helpfully provides a scale we can use to determine exactly how theistic we are. The Shadow To Light blog provides it as described at Wikipedia:
  1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: “I do not believe, I know.”
  2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. “I don’t know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.”
  3. Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. “I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.”
  4. Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. “God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.”
  5. Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. “I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.”
  6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. “I don’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”
  7. Strong atheist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one.”
Wiki also adds: “Dawkins self-identified as a ’6′, though when interviewed by Bill Maher and later by Anthony Kenny, he suggested ’6.9′ to be more accurate.”
Does that make Dawkins an agnostic?

Where would you place yourself on his scale? I'm somewhere below 2.0.

Dawkins 7 Point Scale « Shadow To Light

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