The Richard Dawkins Atheism Scale

The Richard Dawkins Atheism Scale

Hemant Mehta (http://www.friendlyatheist.com, http://www.patreon.com/Hemant , https://www.facebook.com/friendlyatheist)

I received a request to talk about Richard Dawkins' Atheism Scale. I hadn't done a video on it, and it's something I've seen referenced a lot of times, so let's talk about it.

In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins talks about how we can place our belief in God on a spectrum, ranging from 1 to 7.

1 means you don't just believe in God. You know with 100% certainty that God exists. 

That sounds kind of silly. I mean, even religious people refer to their beliefs as "faith." They have faith that God exists, even if they can't prove it. They believe in God's existence.

And yet I'm sure we all know religious people who would easily say they're a 1 on the Dawkins Scale. They can't prove God's existence to you, but they're totally sure He's real.

If you think being a 1 makes no sense, then I hope you say the same thing about a 7. That means you know for sure that God doesn't exist.

And yes, that's a ridiculous thing to say, too. It requires this sort of absolute knowledge that none of us possesses. 

We don't know for sure God doesn't exist. All we can say is we've looked at all the evidence available to us, and there's no reason to believe in one. I can't prove to you God doesn't exist.

Also, saying you're a 7 basically means no amount of evidence could ever convince you that you're wrong. That sort of dogmatism seems to go against everything atheists claim to stand for.

There are religious apologists who wrongly assume all atheists are at a 7. We're not. 

It's worth noting that Richard Dawkins himself said he's not a 7. He said he was more like a 6. That is, he felt there was a really low probability of God's existence and he chose to live his life on the assumption that God's not there.

When pressed on it, he later admitted, okay, fine, I'm probably more like a 6.9.

So here's a question for you. What does it mean if you're right in the middle? What if you're a 4?

Well, it means you're smack dab in the middle. You think there's a 50/50 chance of God existing. Which makes it sound like God's existence is as likely as getting tails in a coin flip. 

That would be silly, of course, because I also can't prove the existence or non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but it's not like the chance that he's real is the same as calling heads. So I don't really understand people who say they're a 4.

Here's what a 4 doesn't mean: It doesn't mean you're "agnostic." Agnosticism isn't on the spectrum. It's wrong to think Agnosticism means you're halfway between belief and atheism.

Agnosticism refers to a different question entirely: Could you ever know that God exists? Not do you believe He does, but is it even possible to answer that question? 

If you don't think it's possible, then you're an agnostic. Maybe you're an Agnostic believer or an Agnostic atheist. 

The point is, Agnostic isn't on that scale, and anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand it. It's a separate issue.

All the other numbers? Varying degrees of belief ranging from strongly believing in God's existence to strongly doubting it.

Personally, I'm with Dawkins here. I'm as close as you can get to a 7 without, of course, going that far. I'd love to know in the comments where you would place yourself.

And then think about this: Where would the religious people in your life place themselves? Because while it would make sense for them use a low number, I suspect a lot of them would go all the way down to 1. 

And if they do that, they're lying to you and they're lying to themselves.
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Видео The Richard Dawkins Atheism Scale канала The Atheist Voice