I am reading the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins at the moment. You can guess the subject by the title. Not yet finished, but enjoying it hugely and the reason I am posting now is the weekend’s story in the UK’s Sunday Times about the battle between Panorama (the BBC’s flagship investigative documentary programme) and the Scientologists. This is one of those stories where the comments in the online version of the paper make for almost better reading than the story itself. And to help you decide where every contributor to those comments (and every other religious story) is coming from, here is Richard Dawkins’ seven point spectrum of belief and disbelief:
1. Strong theist: 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G.Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’
2. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.’
3. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high.Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’
4. Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence or non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’
5. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’
6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot 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.’
[tags]God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, BBC, Scientology[/tags]
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