I received this request to talk about the Richard Dawkins' Atheist Scale.
It's not something we've really discussed on this channel and I've gotten a lot of requests about it. So,
let's talk about it.
In his book The God Delusion,
Richard 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 are 100% certain
that God exists.
Now, 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 that God exists.
And yet, I'm sure we all know religious people
who would easily place themselves at a 1 on the Dawkins Scale.
They can't prove God's existence to you,
but they are totally sure that He's real.
And if you think being a 1 makes no sense, then I would hope you would say the same thing about a 7,
because a 7 means you're absolutely certain
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 can possibly possess.
We don't know for sure that God doesn't exist.
All we could say is we've looked at all the available evidence,
and we have found no reason
to believe in God's existence.
But we can't prove to you
that it's not there.
Also, saying you're a 7
is basically saying that no amount of evidence could ever convince you that you're wrong.
That sort of dogmatism seems to go against everything atheists like to say they stand for.
Now, there are religious apologists
who wrongly assume all atheists are at a 7.
We're not.
It's worth noting that Richard Dawkins
said he was not at a 7.
He actually wrote in his book that he was more of a 6.
He said he felt that there was a very low probability that God exists,
and he chose to live his life on the assumption that God's not there.
When pressed on it later,
he admitted, "Okay, okay, I'm not a 6. I'm probably more of a 6.9"
So, here's a question for you all to think about.
What does it mean
if you're smack-dab in the middle?
What does it mean if you're a 4 on that spectrum?
Well, it literally means you're in the middle.
I mean, you think there's a 50/50 chance that either God exists,
or God doesn't exist.
Which means you think God's
existence is as likely as getting tails on a coin flip.
That would be silly, of course.
I mean, we can't prove the
existence or non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
but it's not like the likelihood of his existence
is the same as
you know, calling heads and then getting it. That's not how it works.
Sorry to those of you I just offended.
The point being, I don't really understand anyone who puts themselves at a 4.
Here's what a 4 does not mean:
It does not mean you're an "agnostic."
Being an agnostic isn't even on the spectrum.
It's wrong to think agnosticism means you are halfway between
believing in God and not believing in God.
Agnosticism refers to a different question altogether.
Could you ever know
whether or not 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.
And maybe you're an agnostic theist or you're an agnostic atheist.
The point is agnosticism isn't on the spectrum.
And anyone who claims otherwise, doesn't really understand it.
It's a separate issue altogether.
Now, what about all those other numbers?
Well, they're just varying degrees of belief ranging from
absolutely believing in God to absolutely not believing in God.
And all of us lie somewhere in that range.
Personally, I'm with Dawkins here.
I'm as close as you can get to a 7 without actually hitting that mark.
I'd love to know in the comments below
where you'd put yourself on the scale.
Maybe you're kind of an atheist, but you're not really sure, you're hesitant to go that far,
and you're like a 5 or a 6, somewhere in there,
or maybe you do believe, but you have some doubts.
So, you're one of the lower numbers.
And while you're doing that, I also want you to think about one other thing:
Where would the religious people in your lives
place themselves on the spectrum?
Because, while it would make a lot of sense
for them to give themselves a low number, like a 2, or a 3,
I suspect a lot of them
would say they are 1s.
And if they say that,
they are lying to you,
and they're lying to themselves.
My name is Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
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