unTheist

This is a modified reposting of my very first post as a guest blogger on otherwhirled. That site has not moved to un:enslaved.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins presents us with a scale from 1 to 7 on which we can rank our certainty [or lack there-of] of god’s existence. At some point in the future I may create a scale that makes more sense and is truer to the terms being used that this, but this one has in the past spurred very interesting conversations and debates. I have my disagreements on how this scale is structured, the Misused Terms: Atheist post should makes that clear; however I think this represents more or less the way most people view the options in a simplified way.

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1. Strong Theist. 100% probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, – ‘I do not believe, I know.’
2. Very High probability but short of 100%. De facto theist. – ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.’
3. Higher than 50% but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning toward theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’
4. Exactly 50% but not very high. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’
5. Lower than 50% but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning toward atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’
6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot 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.’

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I personally have moved up and down this scale thought my life shifting between 4 to 7, back and forth various times. I wonder how the majority of Atheists/Agnostics/Theists/Diests, rank themselves on this scale, so I’d like you to respond and let us know your views. Please also point out if you’ve read the book (or any other books on the subject, in particular books by what become known as the “New Atheists”) and if it changed how you think of yourself in this regard.

You’ll notice that the A in “atheist” is in parentasis, I did that because I also would like theists to respond, the sale does go from 1 to 7 after all. The last time I posted this question on otherwhirled.com,  almost every single one of the over 30 comments were from atheists or agnostics. So if you could forward this on to some theist friend of your that would be great.