On a Scale of 1 to 7

Originally posted by wittywonka
Until some physicist can prove that the Big Bang was simply some spectacular quantum event that needed not a prior precipitating event, how could you really answer anything besides 4.0?

I'm more receptive to the idea that certain accounts of God's existence may be presumably more or less (im)probable, but not with regards to the idea of some sort of "higher being."

It doesn't work like that.

Even if we had absolutely no idea at all how our reality came into existence
or how it functioned you would still have absolutely no justification for belief
that a god exists unless there is evidence FOR the existence of such a god.

Invoking god does not explain how the universe came into being.
All [valid] explanations explain things in terms of other things we already understand.
In 'explaining' the beginning of the universe [assuming it has a beginning] by invoking
a god you are simply replacing one mystery with a bigger one.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people ...[text shortened]... t and Believe it or Reject it and Believe He doesn't exist. Dawkins Doubt Scale Revised: 0 or 1.

Sam Harris is quite correct in that we shouldn't have to have the term.
We do have to have it because of the prevalence of people who both
believe in gods, follow religions, and the importance they ascribe to such
beliefs.

And no, nobody is tossing the labels, your god doesn't exist, and believing
it does is crazy.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Sam Harris is quite correct in that we shouldn't have to have the term.
We do have to have it because of the prevalence of people who both
believe in gods, follow religions, and the importance they ascribe to such
beliefs.

And no, nobody is tossing the labels, your god doesn't exist, and believing
it does is crazy.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.” Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

Toss the labels. God Is: Accept and Believe it or Reject it and Believe He doesn't exist. Dawkins Doubt Scale Revised: 0 or 1.

* googlefudge: 1

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is noth ...[text shortened]... Reject it and Believe He doesn't exist. Dawkins Doubt Scale Revised: 0 or 1.

* googlefudge: 1

Googlefudge knows what Googlefudge believes and Googlefudge says, on page 1:

7-e as e tends to zero.

Penguin.

Originally posted by Penguin
Googlefudge knows what Googlefudge believes and Googlefudge says, on page 1:

7-e as e tends to zero.

Penguin.

Personally I prefer to use pure probability rather than Dawkins 7 point scale if I
am talking about the likelihood of gods existence.

In which case my position would be expressed as 1-e as e tends to zero.

But as we are discussing Dawkins scale that's not really relevant.


GB is demonstrating Theists natural tendency to want to simplify absolutely
everything, and indeed oversimplify in this case.

Peoples belief positions are not binary, thus our language cannot be binary either.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Personally I prefer to use pure probability rather than Dawkins 7 point scale if I
am talking about the likelihood of gods existence.

In which case my position would be expressed as 1-e as e tends to zero.

But as we are discussing Dawkins scale that's not really relevant.


GB is demonstrating Theists natural tendency to want to simplify absolute ...[text shortened]... in this case.

Peoples belief positions are not binary, thus our language cannot be binary either.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Personally I prefer to use pure probability rather than Dawkins 7 point scale if I
am talking about the likelihood of gods existence.

In which case my position would be expressed as 1-e as e tends to zero.

But as we are discussing Dawkins scale that's not really relevant.


GB is demonstrating Theists natural tendency to want to simplify absolutely
everything, and indeed oversimplify in this case.

Peoples belief positions are not binary, thus our language cannot be binary either.

“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.” Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

Scale has conversationally morphed to Dawkins/Harris, neither a theist. Volition says "Yes" or "No"; Emotions say "maybe".

Originally posted by Penguin
Googlefudge knows what Googlefudge believes and Googlefudge says, on page 1:

7-e as e tends to zero.

Penguin.

* Grampy Bobby: 0

* googlefudge: 1

* Penguin: 1

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
* Grampy Bobby: 0

* googlefudge: 1

* Penguin: 1

No. Your new scale doesn't work.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No. Your new scale doesn't work.

See? You rejected a concept because you don't believe it makes sense or 'works' for you. Sam Harris rests his case.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
See? You rejected a concept because you don't believe it makes sense or 'works' for you. Sam Harris rests his case.

When you have no clue what it is you are talking about, how is anyone else
meant to understand you?

Originally posted by LemonJello

By all means, please: name some of these issues.

Well, they would be such things as consideration of instances of belief regarding propositions that are either self-evident, evident to the senses, or "incorrigible" to the intellect, as examples. Self-evident propositions would be those for which merely understanding the proposition is p ...[text shortened]... o be consistent an atheist needs to answer 7? I see nothing more coming from you on that front.

Self-evident propositions would be those for which merely understanding the proposition is putatively sufficient for apprehending its truth.
Interesting.
I'd like to remind the readers of this how the word atheist came into being in the first place.
The ancients believed the gods were one of the cornerstone of reality, one of the few self-evident truths available to man.
They were half right, in a sense: all of creation came from a divine source; it just wasn't a phalanx of gods, but rather from the Living God.
The ancients were so beholden to the idea of gods as the final authority, they couldn't make the transfer from their notion of the divine to the actual true Living God.
So they concocted a name--- atheist--- to describe what they considered unthinkable: a person who rejected their gods.

From the ancients all the way up until just a few hundred years ago, the notion of the divine has been so self-evident, so logically necessary, there was no need for the term.

A voice here, a voice there, eventually the term was brought back into use by the French and then later into English vernacular.
Yet the more modern meaning was a direct correlation to the ancient one: so common was the acceptance of a divine designer to the universe, only a person who rejects the divine would say otherwise.

The rest I will address later.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]Self-evident propositions would be those for which merely understanding the proposition is putatively sufficient for apprehending its truth.
Interesting.
I'd like to remind the readers of this how the word atheist came into being in the first place.
The ancients believed the gods were one of the cornerstone of reality, one of the few self- ...[text shortened]... rse, only a person who rejects the divine would say otherwise.

The rest I will address later.[/b]

Please read the definition of 'self-evident proposition' that I provided again. It has nothing to do with how popular a belief may be or with what some ancient persons putatively thought about some belief. It has to do with the proposition itself, that to understand its content is also to apprehend its truth. It would be preposterous for you to claim that a proposition like "God exists" is of this sort. For, to understand the content of this claim would be to understand the content of the God conception at issue and to understand the assertorial content, which is that this conception is instantiated. But is that also in any way just what it is to apprehend that this proposition is true? Of course not: it is obviously a further question whether or not such a concept is actually instantiated. The "self-evident" proposition here would be of a different sort, like the examples I gave, such as an analytic truth. In that case, it makes more sense to say that to understand the proposition is also to understand its truth because its truth is definitional, simply in virtue of the meaning of the words being employed. Don't you see how these are quite different?

Originally posted by LemonJello
Please read the definition of 'self-evident proposition' that I provided again. It has nothing to do with how popular a belief may be or with what some ancient persons putatively thought about some belief. It has to do with the proposition itself, that to understand its content is also to apprehend its truth. It would be preposterous for you to claim t ...[text shortened]... virtue of the meaning of the words being employed. Don't you see how these are quite different?

It has nothing to do with how popular a belief may be or with what some ancient persons putatively thought about some belief.
I didn't say a single thing about the truth of the proposition hinging on the popularity of it.
I did mention that it was common knowledge, but you're kinda resting on that same fulcrum.
You assume a rational mind capable of ascertaining the proposition.
So do I.
You assume the proposition itself is sufficient for apprehending the truth.
So do I.
The ancients--- and most people--- consider the world, and consider where it came from.
Most people who can consider these two things conclude on the basis of the evidence before them that the world was created by a supernatural being.
That's what is known as a self-evident proposition.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]It has nothing to do with how popular a belief may be or with what some ancient persons putatively thought about some belief.
I didn't say a single thing about the truth of the proposition hinging on the popularity of it.
I did mention that it was common knowledge, but you're kinda resting on that same fulcrum.
You assume a rational mind capable ...[text shortened]... world was created by a supernatural being.
That's what is known as a self-evident proposition.[/b]

Even if you were right in your assertion that most persons capable of considering the proposition "God exists" come to the conclusion that it is true, what does that have to do with showing that this is a self-evident proposition in the way I defined it? Seriously, are you hard of reading?
I've already shown that it is absurd to think such a proposition is "self-evident".

Originally posted by googlefudge
Invoking god does not explain how the universe came into being.
All [valid] explanations explain things in terms of other things we already understand.
In 'explaining' the beginning of the universe [assuming it has a beginning] by invoking
a god you are simply replacing one mystery with a bigger one.

So how do we explain the "non-beginning" of the universe in terms of a universal physical order in which everything, as far as we understand it, does have a beginning?

I'm not saying we necessarily have to attribute this "mystery" to God's work, but precisely because it appears not to conform to any prior explanation in terms of things we already understand, it doesn't make sense to me how we would deviate from a level of confidence of 4 on a 1-7 scale (of there being some sort of "higher" power or being, outside of our physical, mechanistic understanding of reality, to which we can attribute our existence).