I'm 99.9 percent sure. This means I am not making a claim that I would have to backup with proof because there is no proof either way. Of course, god could get our attention if he cured all those sick kids at St. Jude, but maybe they have cancer because their parents had some hidden sin. That's theist thinking for you and it is ancient at that.

GOOD POINT

FYI: Atheists usually equate spirituality with religion.

What "raging"?????????? Most tolerant bunch of people I have ever met, both types.

@Omnedon A simmering debate?
A TITANIC struggle?
A friendly, ongoing chat?
A spot of tea on the veranda?
A TITANIC CLASH OF WILLS?
A whisper war in the kitchen?

@TheMiddleWay Yeah that occurred to me after I wrote it. I almost deleted it but I thought it might spark some discussion.
An agnostic, in the strictest sense, simply acknowledges the obvious: It doesn't MATTER what your opinion is on the subject!
An agnostic may fevently HOPE 'god' exists, but knows there is (as yet) NO WAY to know.
He (or she) may be convinced 'god' doesn't exist, but, again, knows his or her opinion is worth as much as used toilet paper.
So, to assign oneself a position on that scale measuring one's degree of belief, which an agnostic (theoretically anyway) lacks, just doesn't make sense.
Actually I'm more of a Neo-Deist.
I just think the typical atheist has god-entity-personal deity on the brain! No self-respecting atheist OR agnostic believes THAT!
But I do think about a 'god' by some other definition such as "collective unconscious" or e=mc√ or SOME scientific formula scientists could tap into to detect, and even 'prove' (!), its existence. Just a thought.
Speculating about that and other ideas is allowed Agnostics. Atheists treat ANY conjecture about the concept of 'god' anathema! Oh no! A closet believer!
I'm not worried about that. Who cares?
They do.
Like the theists, atheists are like a CULT. Toe the line, no heresies, no free thought, no god, no way! Disagree and you're out of the club.
Nice to hear from a fellow agnostic. Sometimes it feels a little lonely around here.
(P.S. I just rewrote it. Thanks.)

@Omnedon 'They "generally" don't believe in God? But even there there is some variation ...'
Are YOU joking? There is "some variation?!?"
They really, really, REALLY don't believe in God, like 100%? Or just sorta, kinda, like 68%?
You.just.don't.get.it., do you? Most atheists don't. They can't hold two separate thoughts at the same time:
I don't believe in God. No evidence.
I don't disbelieve in god. No evidence.
See?
It's not that we don't have an OPINION.
No.
I'm a 'Neo-Deist.' I think there is a god, just not the Purple Dragon type.
I don't BELIEVE IN a god, because God, in my opinion, doesn't live in a floating fairy city. I don't know, maybe Mr. Graybeard DOES, but I'm '99.999% sure 'he' doesn't.
I'm SO practically positive, in fact, I'm an atheist when it comes to turquoise gnomes under the bridge
Put me on the scale!
I think, that is, SPECULATE about IT, though. I see god as maybe the unseen force which mass and energy have in common. IT is everything in other words (according to my ongoing, working definition).
IF it has consciousness, I theorize, it might have only gained it completely, to it's fullest extent, when human beings, and other like creatures here and/or elsewhere, developed a cerebral cortex.
BUT consciousness itself is everywhere,
Maybe elsewhere, other creatures have evolved further, and have IQs of 1800 or, heck, 18,000; why not? Seems plausible.
Maybe we have the intelligence of ants, compared to them, and our puny, pathetic, laughable ideas about "God" are on a par with what ants think about US!

Atheists like to scoff at the possibility of an afterlife, too, and reincarnation. 'Where is the evidence?!?' Actually there's quite a lot. Ummm, scientists have documented thousands and thousands of cases? Under circumstances (as in, circumstantial evidence) impossible to fake? There SEEMS to be very little doubt reincarnation is real; it SEEMS like only stubborn, obstinate dunderheads would just dismiss it all out of hand.
There's lots of things I wonder about. Ever watch the History Channel? It'll blow your mind.
So, I'll just speculate away, continue to not believe IN anything, and hope aliens land in my backyard, and take me to a planet--in another dimension, probably-- where they've figured all this out.

@Omnedon I don't know if there's a god or not, and I'm not trying to stir anything up. I was addressing the Dawkins 'belief meter,' you responded, I responded to you, and so forth.
As far as a 'raging debate' goes, it's been going on long before I signed on...I'VE been trying for pinpoint exactly what may be the main issues, and I thought it could be a useful tool.
I've said all I want to say, to you, at this time. I think ANY belief system (or anti-belief system, which is the same thing in my opinion)can take on cult-like characteristics.
I consider Christianity (and most other theistic belief systems) nothing but monstrously huge cults; likewise atheism may be a cult to some people. I'll leave it at that.
If I offended you, sorry. I'm a free thinker and I like to float my ideas and learn from the give-and-take...
I'll continue to do so.
It looks like this topic HAS inspired a lot of discussion! I intend to read it all.

@Omnedon By the way, I personally don't think it's wild speculation to think there may be (and probably are) civilizations in the universe much older and more advanced than our own, with much more intelligence and wisdom..
But it IS speculation.
So what?

@Omnedon The distances involved might be able to be covered, if it's physically possible. I'm no physicist, but just because we can't (yet) doesn't mean it can't be or ISN'T being done.

@Omnedon OR they found a way to transfer their consciousnesses into AI bodies and became androids or cyborgs, or come from other dimensions or alternate universes. Maybe they live or headquarter on other planets in our solar system, or have a base beneath the ice in Antartica. Maybe they live among us and we don't even know it.
All kinds of possibilities most people laugh at, like they used to laugh at the possibility the Earth revolves the sun.
It seems to me theists and atheists and countless others in closed belief systems limit their imaginations to what is readily apparent at THAT GIVEN TIME in the evolution of our bodies, minds, and understanding.

No - the god argument isn't 50-50.

It is quite true that the existence or non-existence of god cannot be proven, but that doesn't mean that both sides of the argument have equal merit or equal evidence.

To believe in god you must also believe in many other things - such as the 'magical' properties of 'divine power', 'mystical communication' of prayer, and so on, which demand effects to occur without any known or testable means for them to occur - and that makes the concept of god inherently at odds with observable and testable evidence.

So while god cannot be proven not to exist, there is still a vast array of evidence that strongly implies he does not.

@ToakReon Does god existence have equal merit for or against? It depends on who you are talking to and what they think is evidence. There is no evidence either way. Did the prophet fly to heaven on a winged horse? Show me evidence of a winged horse. Believers think they have evidence but gods still cannot be proven.

@DenoPenno Oh, but there is, indeed, EVIDENCE. Evidence and proof are different concepts.

There is a great deal of valid evidence that god is an absurd concept, just not PROOF that he is.

@DenoPenno But, there is plenty of evidence that shows that the universe behaves just as it would without a god/consciousness controlling it. There is zero need to insert a god.

Consciousness, will, volition is just not necessary; and if you insert one, it only complicates things as you then have to explain how a consciousness, complicated enough to purposely create everything, came into existence.

@TheMiddleWay Fair enough - if you speak of 'gods' that are actually claimed to do nothing of significance at all - but which are they and are they, in any meaningful sense, gods at all?

@Joanne Be damned if you people don't act like you think I believe in god. If you think so you are mistaken.

@TheMiddleWay No! Evidence does not require to be proof.

A bank is robbed by masked, armed robbers. A suspect man's finger prints are identified on a gun the police later find, and ballistics show the gun was discharged at the robbery. That is EVIDENCE that the man was PROBABLY involved, but by no means PROOF that he was.

The fingerprints could, for example, have been cunningly lifted from some other object and transfered to the gun to deliberately frame him - but that is less likely than the scenario of him actually handling the gun, so the evidence is not proof but still strongly suggestive.

@TheMiddleWay, @DenoPenno I don't think you believe a god exists. My statement was against the line of thinking that an argument for the existence of a god is equally as persuasive as the argument against (again, not that I think that you personally think this.) I think the argument that no god is necessary and, therefore, no need to insert one, is stronger than than the argument that there is, or likely is, one.

@TheMiddleWay Science can explain how things work and can, and does, say that a consciousness is not necessary for it to behave as it does and there is no need to insert one.

@TheMiddleWay Well, strictly, no. Just because everything heavy we've seen has fallen for the last five thousand years doesn't actually prove gravity is real - the next time you release a hammer from shoulder height COULD be the occasion it doesn't fall and floats in front of you. Insanely unlikely - but the possibility remains.

What the millions of tests do is make if more and more unlikely the idea is wrong, to the point that it becomes absurd to believe otherwise - and this is where 'scientific proof' differs from 'rigorous, mathematical proof'.

This is why you must keep re-assessing even the most fundamental things, occasionally forcing yourself to ask 'Can I still be SURE this is valid?'

It's all probabilities, on a continuous scale.

Newtons 2nd law - 99.99999% likely to be true.

Theory of evolution (though, admittedly, there might be subtle variations in the theory as new discoveries are made) - 95% likely.

And so on, down to:

The possibility that god (or the stereotypical fairy at the bottom of my garden) exists - 1% (or probably less).

And as we learn, as we think, as we question, the items on that list shift position.

@TheMiddleWay The 0.1% comes from the fact that the religious will always find a way to explain why you CAN'T test and confirm - it's tiny, because it's ridiculous, but it is not actually zero because the fact that it cannot be confirmed either way means there is a chance, an insanely small one to be true, but it's still there, that the christian bullshit might actually have some validity.

And regarding Newton's second law, you test is a thousand times. You test it a million times. You test it a thousand billion times. Every time you test it, and it 'works', you edge the certainty closer to 100%. 99.9, 99.99, 99.999, 99.9999999999999.

Keep testing, and you get as close as you like to 100% - but technically the NEXT TEST might just be the one that doesn't work. So you get ever closer to absolute certainty, but you never QUITE get to the point where no other option is possible.

@TheMiddleWay I know that science does not care one way or another as to the existence of a god/consciousness and makes no certain claims either way. Science simply wants evidence. And, from what I have learned (yes, as a lay person) there is no scientific evidence for such a being/force---nor is there any need to insert a god/consciousness in order to explain things. And, when one inserts a god, it actually complicates things as you have to then explain its origins.

Science can provide evidence for how things work without the need to insert a god. Does this mean that something we would call a god cannot exist? No, it doesn't. It just shows that, as of now, there is simply no reason to insert any being, or force, with will, intent, volition; and, I don't foresee there ever being a need to do so.

@TheMiddleWay

My heart has beaten, I calculate, over a million times in my 55 years. That doesn't mean it will beat forever.

Yet if you were using me as an example, with no other information available to you, you'd claim a million successful beats in a row, and therefore my heart beating is an absolute certainty?

I do a test on 'something' - the test is successful. I do it a hundred times. All successful. I do it a thousand times. Ten thousand times. ALL successful.

We conclude, even without further information, that that test VERY NEARLY ALWAYS is successful - but can we be sure, from this, that the figure is actually 100%?

No, we cannot - and rightly so.

My 'test' is to throw 25 coins, a 'successful' outcome is to end up with a mixture of heads and tails. Every attempt that doesn't result in 25 heads or 25 tails is successful - but does that mean 25 heads or 25 tails is impossible?

No it does not.

'It has always worked, every time we try' is a powerful indication of truth - but that, in itself, does not prove that it is absolute and ALWAYS works.

@TheMiddleWay No, f=ma isn't certain, it's just vastly more likely. Instead of a million tests, or a billion tests, it can be 10 to the power of 50 tests - and what that shows is that it happened 10 to the power of 50 times in a row, from which we conclude that the next time we try the chance of failure is probably less than 1 in 10 to the power of 50. Less than 1 in 1 with 50 zeroes. That is unbelieveably low, and it would be ridiculous to believe it a meaningful possibility - but the possibility is still not actually zero.

You get it ever closer to zero with repeated tests, but it never actually hits zero.

And my example re my heartbeats said 'with no other information available to you' - so in my example you DO NOT know there is a limit to the number of heartbeats. That is exactly what you are trying to determine from there having already been one million 'tests'.

@TheMiddleWay What we're talking about is assessment of probabilities.

And no, as a 'working scientist', you don't 'take into account' the 0.00000001% chance that f=ma is not true, because that chance is so absurdly small it's not something you consider. Just as when you flip a coin, you do not consider the chance of it landing on it's edge - and the chance of f=ma failing is many, many orders of magnitude lower than the coin on the edge.

Of course it's not going to ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Of course f=ma is true in every, conceivable meaningful sense - but this is the difference between 'scientific proof' (the chance of being wrong is so small, that to grant that possibility any credance makes no sense) and 'mathematical proof' (there is NO chance of being wrong).

Proofs based on observational tests alone can never be 100%, though by continuing the test you get ever closer to that point - and with many things 'very close to 100%' means 'yes, we accept this as true'.

If things are unknown, all that means is that our tests are less conclusive. With religion there's a hell of a hot of howling bullshit - which means that the 'does god exist' conclusion cannot be conclusive.

This is why Richard Dawkins, one of the most vociferous advocates of atheism there is, declares himself not 100% certain. He understands the concept of experimental confirmation of fact.

@TheMiddleWay

No, because you can test f=ma you can see it work every time you test it. Because it has been tested billions of times, you can conclude that it the chance of it working the NEXT time you test it is billions to one in favour. Because, in billions of tests, it has never failed to work, you can conclude that the chance of it failing is less than one in those billions. You can conclude further that the chance of failure is so ridiculously small that it's not worth bothering with.

However testing it has worked only shows that ON THOSE OCCASIONS IT WAS TESTED it worked. It also gives a valid reason to estimate the maximum possible chance of it NOT working next time.

The more you test, the CLOSER to absolute certainty you get - but you never actually get to absolute certainty.

Regarding 'quantifiable' and 'non quantifiable' - all that declares is our level of ignorance. That which we know little of is unquantifiable, that which we know more of of more quantifiable. How quantifiable something is defines how precice our probability calculations can be. If we have to estimate things, then that means our final deduction of probability cannot be precise.

Not having a 'quantifiable' way of CALCULATING a probability does not mean the probability just 'disappears' - only that we have no way to assess that probability without estimation, and estimation makes our assessment less precise and reliable.

@TheMiddleWay

No I'm not being contradictory.

The chance of f=ma failing is so small it it completely justifiable to ignore it (so I say 'Of course it' s not going to happen' ).

This is exactly like you going to the Sahara desert and choosing a single grain of sand before discarding it among all the others - then I go to the Sahara and choose a single grain of sand.

Might I, by pure luck, happen to choose exactly the same grain of sand you did?

Oh come on! The chance is so absurdly small that it is perfectly justified to say 'Never going to happen!'

But, you know what? The chance isn't zero. We COULD happen, by pure chance, to pick the same grain of sand out of the Sahara - but while it is possible, believing it is in any way a MEANINGFUL possibility is nonsense.

@TheMiddleWay

'That is the nature of science: same set up, same experiment, same result'

REALLY?

Throw a dice - get a four.

Same experiment, same set up, you're going to get four again?

No, that is not science. Science is same set up, same experiment, same PROBABILITIES. And by throwing that dice over and over again you get a more and more precise figure for what those probabilities are.

But guess what? Do you find EXACT probabilities? EVER?

Even if we assume the dice is fair, do that test 10,000 times and your figures may suggest you get four 1 time in 6.004, rather than 1 time in 6. So you pop on your 'practical spectacles' and say 'yes, it's obviously 1 in 6, that makes sense, and my tests confirm it' - and you work on the basis. Good!

THAT'S what being a scientist is all about - looking at the evidence, looking at the results, and saying 'the chance of being wrong is too small to consider credible - so we will work on the basis that we are right'. That does not, however, mean the chance of being wrong is ZERO - just that it's so close to zero that you ignore it, and rightly so.

'Practical' spectacles - of course f=ma works. 'Absolute truth' spectacles - well, actually there's a CHANCE a future test will fail! 'Practical' spectacles back on - yeah, there's also a chance I might win the lottery, despite not ever doing it, 'cause a relative of mine, as a joke, buys me a lottery ticket without my knowlegde! 'Absolute truth' spectacles - well, yes, and in reality the chance of f=ma failing is many, many orders of magnitude smaller than winning the lottery. 'Practical' spectacles - so we ignore this absurdly small chance, don't we? 'Absolute truth' spectacles - well... yes... I guess so, but there's still A CHANCE, it isn't ACTUALLY ZERO.

@TheMiddleWay

'there is no merit in thinking that f=ma is anything but certain' (might not be your exact words - sorry).

TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY agree with you. No merit at all.

The chances of f=ma being 'wrong' are so small that there is no merit at all in giving the concept any credence - EXCEPT in the sense that if you start declaring 'one in billions' chances to ACTUALLY BE zero chance, that is not a true statement.

And sorry, if you make a statement that I know to be untrue, my 'inner pedant' wakes up!

@TheMiddleWay

'But if there are zero failures it's impossible to calculate what that chance of failure might be' (again, might not be your precise words)

Absolutely - so we, from experiment, can work out what the MAXIMUM chance of future failure might be. We know that the MINIMUM chance is zero (of course). So we have a 'range of possibilities' from zero, up to a finite (though very small) non-zero figure.

In the absense of other information, can you refine the figure? No, you can't.

But neither can you declare the 'absolute truth' to be one end of that scale (zero) rather than the other, or anywhere between.

@TheMiddleWay

'Consider that it you truly believe this about f=ma...' (etc)

Yes, of course there's a CHANCE prayer might work. The chance is so small that I don't give it any credance at all - as I say to door knocking Jehova's Witness each time they knock. Certainly I have no inclination to pray, just as I have no inclination to do the national lottery - for both the chance of 'benefit' is too small to bother with.

@TheMiddleWay

You need very little information indeed to start calculating probabilities.

'Something' started happenning an hour ago. You have no idea what it is, but that's when it started happening. So, can we estimate how long it will continue for? Just on that? No further information at all?

Actually, yes we can. This 'something' isn't continuous (there was after all a time before it was happening) so it's reasonable to assume it will stop happening some time.

So it will have a finite 'period of happening', though we don't know how long. THIS MOMENT is a point during that finite period of happening.

So, consider that 'period of happening' and divide it into quarters. The middle two quarters together represent half of the total 'period of happening', and a random point in that 'period of happening' has a 50-50 chance of being somewhere in those middle two quarters.

From this we can conclude that there is a 50-50 chance that NOW is within the middle two quarters of this unspecified 'period of happening' - which means there is a 50% chance that whatever is happenning will STOP happening somewhere between 1/3 of the time it's already been happening for (20 minutes) and three times the time it has already been happening for (3 hours).

That is a very imprecise calculation, based on NO INFORMATION AT ALL except that whatever it was started happening an hour ago and is still happening now - yet the calculation of probability remains valid, even though it is imprecise.

Get more information about whatever 'it' is that's happening, and you can calculate with greater precision.

The undefined qualities of the 'god concept' doesn't mean we can't do sums about him! It doesn't mean we can't use valid methods to calculate probabilities about him! All it means is that our sums and our conclusions will not be precise.

@TheMiddleWay

OK - I give up.

There's no point in continuing this discussion, it just wastes both of our time.

@TheMiddleWay I concede that math has proofs. Since the 'discussion' is about proof/disproof of existence/non of god(s), math doesn't enter into it and I think my arguments are still valid.

perspecacity brought it back