My dog just barfed up voluminuous amounts of halloween candy supplies that we’d just stocked up on, an amount that I would have previously argued as logically impossible based on the evidence presented. She has demonstrated that she has some sort of Tardis bigger-on-the-inside field at work defying traditional topological laws, and I’ve had to adapt my preconceived assumptions.
So…6.9
I wanted to ask similar things, but didn’t bring it up because this isn’t GD. Another thing I want to ask **2ManyTacos **is if *his *God is a God who would want 2ManyTacos to believe in him/her/it, just because it benefits 2ManyTacos life?
I was going to ask
Belief is a very weird word. Sometimes taken as ‘do you believe that God exists’, but I think it is more scriptural accurate to use it in the context do you believe in God’s saving power in your life - which fits in the condition of salvation.
So to believe in God one has to already know God.
No, but I know what my own beliefs are. Faith is emotional, not just a reasoned-out logical position, and I’m certain that I don’t feel that emotion.
Depends on which god you’re talking about. Abrahamic god, not to mention Greek/Roman/Norse/whatever gods? Put me down as a 7; I no more believe in those than I do characters from a novel.
Nevertheless, I can describe a being which has god-like properties and isn’t obviously impossible. There’s no real reason for a being like this to exist, but I can’t confidently say it’s impossible. So put me down as a 6.9 on the general scale.
I picked 7 because I’m as certain about the non-existence of God as I am about ANY statement about the real world. I’d be less surprised to discover that I’m a brain in a vat than I would be to discover God is real.
Right, but who would be the ones that put our brains in a vat? “God(s)”?
Using this statement as a jumping off point…I went with a 7 because even if such a being were to show up, I’d have no particular reason to respect, adore, worship or otherwise care about him/her/it/they/other which is kind of implied in “godhood”. Religion is still not something I’d care for.
5, I don’t know,
I can definately not rule out there being someone, somewhere smarter and more powerful than myself. 
Vampires are much, much more likely than the absurd, psycho-douchebag God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And I don’t believe vampires exist… so 7.
Of course, I’m open to evidence.
Close to this.
I live my life on the assumption that if he is there, I will one day kick his ASS for being such a fucking jerk.
7 for me. While I admit that one cannot know anything with 100% certitude, I rate the possibility of there being any kind of supreme being a lot lower than the possibility that I am a computer simulation or the dream of a butterfly or any number of other incredibly unlikely situations.
I’m a 6.999 recurring, but at some point you just have to say “Enough hair splitting: there are no gods and I am an atheist.”
I’m going to get a couple of extra Rosaries. Praying for all these guys is going to wear them off in no time-
I voted 7, but I would rephrase it as “I don’t see any reason to believe in a God, not even a low-probability reason.”
I can definitely relate to the Possibilian argument; I lean toward it regularly.
Maybe your argument would work better if you used the phrase “Abrahamic theists” instead of assuming we’re all from the same framework.
I consider myself an animistic theist (with apparent Possibilian tendencies), so I put myself in the “3” position. Through my experiences of the world, my ideas about “the divine” would be much more heavily connected to, if there is definite supernatural/god-like beings, that the energy and qualities that make them god-like reside in everything. Humans, rocks, trees, animals… all living, non-manmade things. It could be as simple as the idea of the will to exist on through a supernatural being whose sole existence is built around the object or living thing that it represents-- malevolent, benevolent, or a mixture of the two, it is within the realm of possibility that they are there as an element of that object or living thing. Any “gods” or supernatural beings that are “high” enough to be devoted to worship beyond acknowledgment or offerings would be more unlikely in my scope of things, and there certainly would be no “god” above reproach. If applying my framework of possibility, I’d be much more likely to acknowledge the existence of sprites, brownies, elves, elementals, etc. as representatives of the supernatural than a “high god” like, say, Zeus or Jesus or Allah. I’m not certain one way or the other, but I lean toward belief rather than way from it.
I do, however, realize that this point of view is outside the norm, especially in a US-centric poll.
Thanks for this, your clarification is much appreciated.
Would a pantheist answer “1” by definition?
I thought about it, but the way my mind works I would have then felt that I had to insert gradations as options between each whole number. So I went the simpler route of asking people to insert their own decimal point. IOW, I’m lazy.
9.99