Spectrum of theistic probability

[War Horse]

Where are you on Dawkins' scale? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability#Dawkins.27s_formulation

I guess on average I'm a 5. I might also come closer to a 3.5 or 6 on some days.

[Grey]

1. ..6..

[hifiguy]

2. About a 6.8

Just finished "The God Delusion." What a marvelous, eloquent and beautifully reasoned work. One of my two or three favorite non-fiction books from fifty years of reading.

[patrice]

16. Netflix (which I get on Roku) has a series called The Atheism Tapes that I enjoyed

a great deal, because they are conducted as conversations between atheists in leading fields.

Very rich stuff, worth watching several times.

[ThomWV]

3. Straight up 7

[JanMichael]

4. 6.5. nt.

[patrice]

5. I have serious problems with a DEFINITION of whatever a "God" would be, with that caveat, I'm a 4-5+

[BiggJawn]

6. 6.9

And the only reason I'm not all the way at 7 is because that's pretty absolute. I thing Carl Jung was an ass for saying he "knew".

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. seven... but I am willing to consider the "god particle"

to be an indication of something that does NOT intervene in human events... so it really does not matter... unless of course you are in the business of creating universes...

[patrice]

9. That at least makes sense.

[marions ghost]

8. I'm a 4

Always have been, always will be. Attend no church or religious org. but feel that it is possible for there to be a universal intelligence in all matter. I do believe that death is a positive "place."

So a 50-50 chance is where I put it.

Atheism seems too confident, too all knowing, too human-centric to me. I'm a skeptic about everything. It would be just as hard for me to say "I know there is no God," as it would be to say "I know there is a God."

(Not criticizing atheists--whatever works re beliefs is OK as long as it doesn't hurt anybody...)

[patrice]

10. I like that tension between yes:no. It keeps me honest, or at least as honest as I am capable of bei

ng.

[skepticscott]

45. How confident are you that there is

no Santa Claus? There's a lot more evidence for his existence then for god's.

[Aerows]

11. I'm a 4

I don't believe in God per se, but there is something magical in the order of the universe that compels me to believe that it may not all be random.

[Riftaxe]

12. I notice his presumption that there is only one god...

:P

[hifiguy]

15. In "The God Delusion"

Dawkins notes that we are all atheists as to the numberless gods that humanity has worshipped over the centuries. He "just goes one god further." As do I. :)

[Riftaxe]

27. I'm definitely rate myself a 4 on his scale of theistic beliefs

Either way to me, religions are fascinating especially their origins and practices, even just as a reflection of humanity in and of itself.

although monotheists tend to have fewer interesting religious stories and rituals.

[saras]

13. -1.7

0 Have had the "absolutely know" experience in such a way as to clearly separate the feeling of knowing from the content. Oliver Wendell Holmes' "A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout" story is a good example.

-1 Have the ability to create the "absolutely know" experience relatively consistently, using ritual, prayer, drugs, or other techniques.

-2 Have experienced enough contradictory "absolutely know" experiences to no longer take "absolutely know" seriously, and have this state of mind filed away along with other mental oddities like deja vu or that strange clarity that sometimes comes with a massive dose of adrenalin

-3 I'm not sure what happens here...

[GliderGuider]

20. I like it. Thanks. nt

[originalpckelly]

14. I'm red on the scale.

I don't know what that means, as the scale is in numbers. However, I'm red.

[patrice]

17. Should I be scared?

he, he, . . . :hi:

[Odin2005]

18. I'm around 6.

[GliderGuider]

19. I'm either a 1 or a 7 depending on the definition of "God" that's in play.

I'm a 7 if "god" refers to the Abrahamic (Xian, Islamic, Judaic) theory of god.
I'm a 1 if "god" means the totality of a completely interconnected, fully interactive, conscious universe.

[laconicsax]

43. You raise a good point.

While I happen to think that the notion of the universe as completely interconnected, fully interactive, and conscious is bunkum, the differentiation of god concepts is important.

It's interesting too, that even within the Abrahamic religions, the concept of what the Abrahamic god is ranges from a bearded man in the sky to your conscious universe to a metaphor for the indescribable.

[Meshuga]

73. I know I am kicking an old thread

But I am kicking it in agreement to this post.

In Judaism for example you can have from the Mordecai Kaplan god to a personal god (well, definitely not the "man in the sky" since that would be incompatible with Judaism).

I tend to subscribe to the Kaplanian notion so I would also fall in the non-believer when it comes to a personal god but a theist in the vague spectrum of Judaism.

[lonestarnot]

21. 1

[whathehell]

22. 3.

[alfredo]

23. 6.9. There are as many gods as their are people because

they are constructs of our own mind. They are all created in our own image.

[WCGreen]

24. Yep!

6.9 here as well...

[alfredo]

26. When you believe without evidence you become prey.

[whathehell]

28. When you disbelieve in personal experience,

you are vulnerable as well.

[alfredo]

32. The interpretation of the experiences are vulnerable to the

influence of religious/cultural training.

[whathehell]

38. My "experience" wasn't related to my cultural or religious training.n/t

[alfredo]

41. How can one escape the influences around them? I remember wanting

To believe in the myths of our culture because I wanted to fit in. I couldn't shake the doubt. I also knew it was risky to voice my doubts. I avoided the subject, for the most part.

My drill Sgt found that I was Atheist and he made my life a living hell. All atheist ran the risk of being labelled a Communist. Basic would have been a whole lot easier if I pretended to be a believer.

Luckily I live in a place that allows for a diversity of beliefs. The pressure to conform to a standard of thought and action is nearly nonexistent.

[whathehell]

44. "How can one escape the influences around them"?...Well, you tell me.

You apparently escaped them.

[alfredo]

46. I found it physically impossible. My body rejected it like an incompatible Liver.

How does a person without such a visceral response resist peer pressure?

[whathehell]

47. I guess I have that "visceral response" too.

[alfredo]

51. But was the interpretation within societal and biological norms? Near death

experiences follow the normal shutting down of body and mind. Alien abductions paralysis are misinterpretation of the normal paralysis one had during dreams. Our images of gods are informed by artists and peers. How we see events around us is filtered by our environment.


Cow in the US


Cow in India

[whathehell]

53. No, actually, it wasn't. n/t

[alfredo]

57. Elaborate.

[whathehell]

58. Sounds like an "order"

I don't do those, alfredo.;)

[alfredo]

60. Ha! There's no "Pretty Please" smiley.

[whathehell]

62. Is that what you read it as?

Try again.:evilgrin:

[alfredo]

63. With a cherry on top?

[whathehell]

64. and a couple of nuts.

[alfredo]

65. I'm not going there

;)

[whathehell]

66. That's good....As long as I get the "smiley face pretty please".

;)

[alfredo]

67. We'd never make it in politics

[alfredo]

68. Oh alright.

:) pretty please

[Edweird]

25. 6.9

[Lyric]

29. I'm a 6 on the idea of a personal God who "knows" us.

I believe that there probably IS some kind of higher being, maybe outside of our universe. He/she/it surely doesn't give a shit about us, though. He/she/it cares as much about the details of OUR lives as we care about the lives of the bacteria who live under our fingernails. Do any of you spend time wondering and worrying about the sex lives of those bacteria? Do you care which day of the week they might "rest" on? Does it upset you that they don't recognize your supreme existence?

"God", to me, is that. Just some enormous thing outside of the universe that probably doesn't know that we're here...and even if he knows, doesn't CARE. We are less than bacteria to him.

[rug]

30. +1 this will be moved to R/T.

[rug]

37. I'm going to Vegas!

[frogmarch]

31. 6

[immoderate]

33. lim (x --> 7)

--imm

[demwing]

34. 1.5

because there are only 2 kinds of people at the "1" stage - the certified saints, and the certifiably insane

As far as I can tell, I'm only a little crazy, and I don't think certified saints spend much time on DU arguing about whether Anthony Weiner should have resigned.

[grantcart]

35. How ironic it is that the strongest argument for a deity is not archaic mythologies

but the fact that the next major step for humankind's evolution will be to terraform and occupy another planet and against all numerical probabilities we have an excellent candidate next door.

You could go a hundered million miles before you would find a better candidate than Mars so the fact that it is within a workable distance of our planet and a likely second home for homo sapiens within the next 3-400 years makes the best argument that our long term evolution had some kind of trans existential logic to it rather than a complete roll of the dice.

[Odin2005]

75. Mars is an "excellent candidate"? I'll have what you are smoking.

Yes, Mars is very terraformable, but it's not even close to an ideal case. It lacks a magnetic field, and so it's atmosphere has been mostly stripped away by the solar wind, so once it is terraformed it would need to be actively maintained on the scale of millions of years.

[struggle4progress]

36. Other: "Scientific thinking never involves supernatural ideas"

[rrneck]

39. Depends on the time of day.

First thing in the morning I'm a 7. By evening a 1 if I'm lucky.

But what I might call God would not satisfy any definition of any deity I have ever seen. In fact, even if I'm a 1, it's not because I think there's a deity out there somewhere.

[NMMNG]

40. 6

[ZombieHorde]

42. 666. nt

[dmallind]

48. 6 is pretty much perfect fit for me. nt.

[LeftishBrit]

49. 6, I suppose.

[Iggo]

50. 6 of course.

[deacon_sephiroth]

52. 6 I suppose...

I WANT to say 7, but I try not to deal in absolutes lest I become that which I hate, also I've long adopted the motto that "nothing is impossible, only mathematically improbable."

[laconicsax]

54. While I'm somewhere between 6 and 7...

...I think it's interesting that if I were to say, "I'm a 7. There are no gods, I know this for certain." I would likely be pounced on by so-called liberal and progressive Christians demanding that I prove that belief.

The irony of that is too profound for words.

Edit: typo

[dmallind]

55. Well technically you would deserve it

7 is as much an article of faith as 1. We can dismiss some internally contradictory claims about specific god ideas, or those proven false by irreconcilable data (for example the famed triple-omni idea), but we cannot say with any evidence that there are no deities of any kind anywhere (not least because defining one is so difficult).

For me the idea that they are exceptionally improbable, and there is no reason beyond thought exercises to even consider the possibility that any gods exist, is both logically supportable and sufficiently dismissive of the whole silly idea, without a leap of faith..

[laconicsax]

56. Yes I would, and that's part of the irony. n/t

[dmallind]

59. You double ironied me damn you. nt

[Taverner]

61. Oops didn't read the numbers: 6.9

:evilgrin:

[MikeH]

69. I consider myself to be at 3 on the scale

I.e. I would consider myself to be technically agnostic but leaning toward believing in some kind of Intelligence higher and greater than ourselves. I consider the reality of a God or higher Intelligence to be an open question, and definitely not an absurdity.

I used to be a Christian; however I found that my supposedly having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and with God through Jesus Christ, had not ever been of help to me in enabling me to better deal with any distressing circumstance in my life, or with anything that was a source of pain, frustration, or unhappiness in my life. I also, like many other people, have some very serious problems with regarding this one particular book, the Bible, as being the “inspired” and “authoritative” “Word of God”. At the very best I would regard the Bible as exhibiting human fallibility and human prejudice just like anything else that has ever been written, and certainly no more “infallible” or “inerrant” than any other book on the planet.

One of my favorite authors when I was a Christian was the noted apologist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis">C. S. Lewis. While I no longer accept his arguments regarding the person of Jesus Christ or tenets of the Christian faith (there has been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma#Influence_and_criticism">criticism of his famous trilemma argument, for instance), I still very much like and still accept his philosophical arguments that our reason and our reasoning ability, and our sense of beauty, truth, goodness, and especially our sense of right and wrong, must be rooted in some reality, particularly some Intelligent reality, that is higher and greater than ourselves or the natural universe.

Actually I would consider myself to be closer to being a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism">Deist than to anything else, and I feel I have arrived at being such by a process of elimination as much as anything. I find I cannot be a Christian any more, and I am certain I could not adhere to any other “revealed” religion, such as Islam. I also find that, with all due respect to people who are atheists, I have reasons that I cannot finally be an atheist myself (for instance I have a hard time fully believing that our reasoning abilities and our moral sense do not come from some higher or greater Intelligence than our own). Deists advocate the use of reason, and feel that it is reasonable to suppose that the universe might have been created and have a creator. However Deists reject any alleged revelation from God, such as the Bible or the Koran, as actually being such, and I very strongly agree with them about this. I have serious problems with regarding either book as being a revelation from God. (And I especially have a problem with the idea that one’s estate in a future life is dependent on correctly identifying, or guessing, which among more than one alleged revelation from God is the true revelation from God, such as for example the Bible as opposed to the Koran.)

Some Deists (including myself) accept as at least a theoretical if not actual possibility that an individual person might experience having a revelation from God; however such a revelation would be only for that person, and would be hearsay for anybody else. This would thus rule out a book like the Bible or the Koran as being an infallible revelation from God.

Incidentally I myself am very open to the possibility that the near-death experiences we hear about might just possibly be manifestations of a real life that goes beyond this present life. However I cannot speak with any authority about such experiences; I myself have never had such an experience (and I don’t think it would be wise to wish for such an experience!) or any other experience that might be considered “supernatural” or “paranormal”, nor do I know of anybody I know personally having had any such experience.

Realizing as I do the fallibility of human reasoning, I would have to consider myself to be a 3 on the scale of belief in some kind of God or higher Intelligence. I lean toward belief, but realize I could be wrong or mistaken in my leaning or my reasoning. I cannot claim any certainty based on philosophical arguments, and I myself only know by hearsay about any possible evidence for the reality of anything that might be considered “supernatural” or “paranormal” (such as for instance near-death experiences).

[ButterflyBlood]

70. I sort of drift between 1.5 and 2.5 roughly

Sitting closer to 1.5 now.

[LAGC]

71. Wow, that's pretty low, you must have had some strong spiritual experiences?

I went through various stages where I thought God did things for me, answered prayers, etc.

But I eventually realized that given enough chances, sometimes coincidences just happen.

[Ninjaneer]

72. 6.9 n/t

[NMMNG]

74. 6

[pokerfan]

76. 6

thereabouts...

[amyrose2712]

77. 6.5ish