Re: Religious thread: Richard Dawkins’ Belief Scale

[Actor]

I had to shorten options 2 and 6 to fit poll limitations. Uncensored they are


2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.

[TJDave]

Why didn't you make it public? ;)

[Actor]

Why didn't you make it public? ;)Probably because I don't know what you mean. :confused:

[TJDave]

The poll

Where everyone can see your selection.

[Actor]

The poll

Where everyone can see your selection.I had a hard time figuring out how to put the poll up at all. Sorry if you don't like the way I did it.

If there's a way to make a poll where everyone can see everyone else's vote I don't t think that's a good idea. It would discourage some from participating in the poll.

[hcap]

I thought I had done that in the poll I posted.

Confusing. When you first create the poll, on the bottom of the page there is check box to choose a public poll--or so I thought. The first response was that everyone could see who voted what. 'and you didn't even make this a private poll..
I wonder if the moderators changed it?

[hcap]

What if your a pantheist and have a hard time separating a non-personal god from the universe itself? :lol:

[therussmeister]

This is why I don't like the poll, and didn't participate: You didn't define God. I would have preferred that you limited the poll to the belief in an interventionist, answers prayers, dictated a holy book God, and not allowed one to ponder the existence of a non-interventionist deist God, because I think these are two very different things and for clarity, should not be intertwined in one poll.

[Marshall Bennett]

He went with the basic definition that probably 80% or more go by. To go deeper sort of spreads the basis for his poll in all different directions.
For all practical purposes, I think for this forum at least it works.

[Dave Schwartz]

Not very surprising results thus far. It resembles an inverted parabola: valley in the middle and the two extremes about equal.

[mountainman]

Much depends on how "god" is defined. I suspect that on the deepest level of knowing, the question of his (her) existence becomes invalid, unanswerable gibberish. As stated to address a similar question in "the mothman prophecies"...could you explain calculus to a cockroach?.....since the cockroach could never pose the correct question, true understanding can never be possible.

We, my friends, are the cockroach.

[Actor]

Much depends on how "god" is defined. I suspect that on the deepest level of knowing, the question of his (her) existence becomes invalid, unanswerable gibberish. As stated to address a similar question in "the mothman prophecies"...could you explain calculus to a cockroach?.....since the cockroach could never pose the correct question, true understanding can never be possible.

We, my friends, are the cockroach.And God just might be the Orkin man.

[mountainman]

And God just might be the Orkin man.

Planet earth needs no help from any creator (real or imaginary) in shrugging us off. We will be gone SO fast and leave SO little mark, it will be like we never even existed.

[therussmeister]

He went with the basic definition that probably 80% or more go by. To go deeper sort of spreads the basis for his poll in all different directions.
For all practical purposes, I think for this forum at least it works.
The problem is he didn't go with any definition, without a definition stated in the poll, we can't know how each respondent is defining God.

[TJDave]

The problem is he didn't go with any definition, without a definition stated in the poll, we can't know how each respondent is defining God.

Why would it matter?

The question is whether one believes there is or isn't.

[therussmeister]

Much depends on how "god" is defined. I suspect that on the deepest level of knowing, the question of his (her) existence becomes invalid, unanswerable gibberish. As stated to address a similar question in "the mothman prophecies"...could you explain calculus to a cockroach?.....since the cockroach could never pose the correct question, true understanding can never be possible.

We, my friends, are the cockroach.
Wrong thread to post this in but:
Somewhere in this world are there cockroaches telling other cockroaches there is this thing called calculus? Are there cockroaches claiming to be able to tell the difference between differential equations and nonsensical scribbling?

If we are the cockroaches, we wouldn't even be able to conceive a god concept.

[mountainman]

Wrong thread to post this in but:
Somewhere in this world are there cockroaches telling other cockroaches there is this thing called calculus? Are there cockroaches claiming to be able to tell the difference between differential equations and nonsensical scribbling?

If we are the cockroaches, we wouldn't even be able to conceive a god concept.

God is "all knowing" and "all seeing," correct? If so, you're saying we're NOT cockroaches in comparison???? That the intelligence gap between us and any CONCEIVABLE god is NOT wider than between us and insects???????? If so, you're giving man plenty of credit-which, after all, is the REAL agenda of religion. How arrogant of us to assume that any cosmic question we can frame might be coherent, relevant or relatable to a god figure. So typical of religion:man honoring man.

[Actor]

Now that the poll is closed what surprises me is how balanced it is. No one identified themselves as a pure agnostic but 7 identified themselves as theistic (1,2 or 3) and 7 identified as atheistic (5,6, or 7). An even split, although more theists than atheists declared they were absolutely certain of their beliefs.

This does not match any published polls at all, at least none that I'm aware of. Most polls say the atheists make up 2% to 10% of the population.

[thaskalos]

What do you mean by "God"? That angry, white old man with the beard...who sits up high on a throne and torments us?

He only exists in some scared people's imagination.