The Dawkins' Scale

I found it ironic that the Church of England said a collective prayer for Richard Dawkins after he suffered a stroke recently. 

I classify myself as an agnostic. I don't know how reality would look any different if their wasn't a capital "G" god but probability says that nothing can be 100% certain.

De Facto Theist for me.

I don't see why he is a hypocrite, he has never claimed to be absolutely certain that it there is no God to my knowledge, but thinks God claims (there are many God claims) improbable and thinks religion can be very problematic (I agree). He has an issue with religions and superstition and supports rationalism, empiricism (and humanist values I think). He also is opposed to astrology, but he probably wouldn't bet his life that there is no truth to that either. I don't think he would accept Pascal's wager, and I say fair enough.

Like Bertrand Russell, if you were involved in that discussion, I forget, he lacks certainty and that's typical of the sciences. I do find him too strident and off-putting sometimes and he has alienated more people who are non-theists.

It is true that he has a reputation for a being a hardcore hard atheist (7 on the scale) with many, but those are people who likely have not read or listened to him much. I even remember him once saying that the percentage has varied. As I said earlier, he generally falls in the de-facto atheist camp (6 on his scale).

Edited by Logan - February 28 2022 at 15:37

I kind of think Dawkins is a bit of a hypocrite. He has this reputation of being a hardcore atheist and yet I read somewhere that he wouldn't bet his life on it.  So much for having a strong conviction. 

I think there is a spectrum of belief and disbelief. I have described myself as an agnostic atheist (a form of weak atheism or negative atheism) meaning that I don't believe in God but I also don't know that there is no God. I lack confidence in the existence of God, and don't believe the claim that God exists even though I would not claim that God does not exist.

I got into that in a couple of topics of mine (one on the afterlife, which was meant more as an example, and one on Bertrand Russell). I have read and listened to loss of Dawkins (my favourite of the "new atheists" is Christopher Hitchens despite disagreements). Dawkins on his scale, from everything I remember, is not a strong atheist by his scale standards. He is a de-facto atheist, which is where I fall, or sometimes I'm more in the weak atheist camp according to his scale. At times I have said that I am like a 6.9999 one. He has said that he is not 100 percent sure, and one can't be absolutely certain. To my knowledge the God claim is an unfalsifiable proposition and cannot be tested, duplicated etc,. reliably.

Here is a chart with his scale:



My scale would be rather different from his, I expect, but the basic idea works for me.


Edited by Logan - February 28 2022 at 14:51

I always need to adjust it by 15 pounds because it's never calibrated correctly.