Dawkins' atheism

Thom, please don't misrepresent Dawkins' position as absolute certainty.

While he walks right up to the edge of certainty, I'm willing to bet that he would profess no more certainty about the absence of a god or god than than you would about the existence of a god or gods. Dawkins, like any thinking atheist, would posit that eschewing beliefs unsupported by observation or evidence is consistent with Huxleyan agnosticism (Thomas Huxley coined the word agnostic). Huxley, as part of his definition, advises, "In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable."

100% evidential certainty is something science never claims; every idea is subject to revision upon better evidence, observation, or explanatory model. Deduction is not reason's only tool- induction is also powerful.

In fact, in his book, "The God Delusion," Dawkins posits a "spectrum of theistic probability," which of course has a wiki page (from which I'll quote): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_of_theistic_probability

Dawkins posits that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other." He goes on to propose a continuous "spectrum of probabilities" between two extremes of opposite certainty, which can be represented by seven "milestones". Dawkins suggests definitive statements to summarize one's place along the spectrum of theistic probability. These "milestones" are:[2]

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
3. Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
4. Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."
5. Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't 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."

Dawkins argues that while there appear to be plenty of individuals that would place themselves as "1", no thinking atheist would consider themselves "7", as atheism arises from a lack of evidence and evidence can always change a thinking person's mind. In print, Dawkins self-identified as a '6', though when interviewed by Bill Maher, he suggested he might be '6.9'[3].

Thanks, Thom,

Ken Cope, listening on Green960

Thank you, Ed in Iowa. I'm also constanly annoyed by people treating "x times more" the same as "x times as much". "More" means "in addition to what was already there", so "3 times more" is the same as "4 times as much".

The rebels in Libya did something very interesting and noble. The National Transitional Council has set up a provisional government, and their interim Constitutional Declaration says (quoting Wikipedia here) that "no member of the Transitional National Council may nominate a candidate [for] or themselves assume the position of President of the state, of a member of the legislative council, or of a ministerial portfolio." They will not be able to rule as an oligarchy.