The Dawkins' Scale

omphaloskepsis wrote: I'm a pantheist.

Is that someone who runs around without any pants on?

I'm certainly a 2. but it doesn't give me any comfort to believe in God. I also believe in reincarnation and I don't much like that idea either. You come from somewhere and you go somewhere. It may sound ridiculous (but we're probably all or most going to be dead within 12 months the way things are going so I've not got much to lose really) but Kansas - Dust In The Wind sums up how I feel about stuff and how very little matters that is material. Someone will no doubt call me out as being 'depressed'. Probably true but I've been there a long time and cope.  

I'm a pantheist. 

I just find it strange that after hearing the story of Mr. Redcandle, I began to believe in God.

Here is the story:

God was distributing brains to humanity. Mr. Redcandle misheard brains as drains, and he asked for a big, empty one.

I'm agnostic. And it makes no difference to me if God exits or not. The world is what it is either way.

^ Some of a more theistic bent than I might say that an imperfect designer led to imperfect designs and imperfect conceptions of God. :)

^^ Certainly the God belief in others is very important to him due to the affect that he sees of religions and superstitious beliefs. I'm sure he has an interesting history with the religious and religion from an early age. Ignoring God, or concepts of God, would have been much easier for him had he been able to ignore superstitious people. It's not surprising that he would want to turn around anti-evolutionists and anti-science people, or at east maybe have some effect in getting those to question their beliefs and promote rationalism and scepticism. He can't force them to believe what he wants, and in fact I would say that those he is trying to get through to have dealt with far heavier indoctrination by the religious, and have an echo chamber effect to confirm their own views/ biases from their communities. I don't like belittling people, but promoting rationalism and empiricism is I think beneficial, and one is up against a lot of opposition.   I would hate to see atheists burning people at the stake for their theism. Don't think many atheists would be willing to organise and blow themselves up with others for their noble cause, or, as evolutionists, murder cartoonists for their depictions of Charles Darwin. I mention that because it was with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and later Paris attacks that I gained a much bigger concern over the potential harmfulness of religions. Where I live is obviously getting more and more religious, and before that I was faced with my wife's friends. I have never told them about my lack of belief in God, but they talk about God a lot and have some views that to me are odious and arrogant in a way.

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By the way, some have been confused when I have referred to myself as an atheist since I am also agnostic and actually have told me that I am confused and I am just agnostic. Atheism means without theism, and I fall into that as I lack belief in God, and I am agnostic on a great many things including lacking knowledge if God exists. It's an interesting and poignant issue for me particularly because of my experience with the religious having being raised Anglican, and having married a Pentecostal Christian -- my wife would probably be a two on the scale. She was pretty hardcore I think but not as full-on as her friends, and she did lots of missions. That she married me says something, although she claims that it was only for my body. :( Some are atheists because we have not been exposed to theism or are not that exposed to theistic thinking - ignorance of theism rather than rejecting theism.

First post before I had my coffee, and I'm not inclined to edit, if it seems even more rambling than usual.