Anyone here a Category 7?

[outtathereligioncloset]

I'd classify myself as about a 6.5. I AM certain that if a christian god exists I would be entirely unwilling to worship it.

[Bob Kelso]

I’d call myself a 6.5 in the pursuit of intellectual honesty. Can’t put a definite “no possibility whatsoever” on it but damn near close.

[Minimalist]

If there is no chance that Quetzlcoatl existed then there is no chance that fucking jesus existed, either.




What odds am I given on Quetzlcoatl?

[Rahn127]

There once were two men, a theist and another man who had been known to be one of the greatest liars of his time.

The theist had gone to a judge and told him that the liar owed him a great deal of money. The liar merely said that this was untrue but he was willing to wager all the money he had on a test to see if the theist was indeed a truthful man of God.

The liar proposed that the theist would stand before two doors. Behind one would be an angry lion that would tear him apart. Behind the other would be all the money the liar possessed.

Liar -"If your god exists and he judges you to be truthful, then you can pray to your god and he will reveal which door you should open. Does this seem fair ?"

Theist - "I am positive that my god exists. I accept your wager."

That evening the liar placed a lion in the east door and all his money in the west door.
Watching from the shadows, the theist now knew which door to pick.

The next day arrived and the two stood before the doors.

The liar spoke up and said to theist "Has your god informed you which door you should pick ?"
Theist -"Indeed he has. I shall open the door to the west and collect the money you owe me."

The liar spoke again "I saw you in the shadows and I moved the lion to the west door. Perhaps your god didn't see this."

Theist -"Of course he did. He is all seeing. He merely wanted me to pick the west door in order to get you to reveal your plan. I pick the door to the east."

Liar -"Are you sure ? After all, I am a liar."

The theist was unsure which door he should pick.
Dropping to his knees, he prayed and prayed for an answer. Hours went by and the theist could not choose a door.

The judge concluded that the theist wasn't being truthful about the liar owing him money and given how long he prayed for an answer that never came, his god probably didn't exist either.

[Hobbitgirl]

I’d put myself at a solid 7

[Angrboda]

I go all the way to 11, but never on a first date.

[vulcanlogician]

Sun doesn't rise in the east though. The Earth rotates giving rise to the illusion that the sun moves up over the horizon. Relative to the Earth, the sun is motionless.

*I think this fact is pertinent to the discussion of epistemology we're having. (That's why I bring it up.)

Content equivalence is content equivalence.

Consider, though, the nature of your objection to my knowing that gods do not exist..if it's the same as your objection to my knowing that the sun rises in the east.  I'd be justified in doubting that you know your own name by the same means.

-Which is fine, obvs, there's a wide range of opinion the subject, still, it's good to understand where we find ourselves.

Yeah, but the Copernican situation really demonstrates why I'll always be a 6/7 on all "decided" matters. First off, I don't need to remind you that I'm a philosopher at heart. So that has a great deal to do with my 6/7. But if you have forgotten that I'm a philosopher, the rest of this post should remind you 

We'll get this out of the way first: There is a 0.1^-157,000 chance that a being like Odin or Yahweh really did create the universe... that's one reason not to be a 7. (Ever heard of a cosmic joke?) Anyhoo, I'd be a 6.999999 on the scale just because of this. But this is besides the point.

Let's go back to the whole Copernicus thing. So the ancients saw the sun passing overhead each day and wondered "what moves it." Helios in his chariot? Something else? Also they had other questions concerning their wrong model of the universe. What holds the earth up? A turtle? An elephant? What holds those up?

These are the wrong questions. No answer to them (no matter what it is) would be correct. And part of me wonders if "Does God exist or not?" is likewise a wrong question.

I think it's high time I made a thread explaining my soft spot for pantheism. If anything to put to rest misconceptions that it is deism's gay cousin. It is (rather) materialism seen through a lens of divinity. A view that the entire cosmos is a god greater than any god conceived by man... and more worthy of reverence. Also perhaps to answer the age old questions: "why call the cosmos God?" -- well, why not? Astronomers have discerned that there is far more power in the actual and existant cosmos than the ancients ever attributed to Odin or Yahweh. "But it doesn't have free will!"-- yeah, well neither do you. That was Spinoza's point. A supercluster of galaxies has exactly as much free will as any human being. Therefore, he sees the cosmos as God (rather than a collection of galaxies) for the same reason he sees a man as a man (rather than a collection of carbon and water molecules).

Sorry for the tangent. The point is: 6/7 for life!

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, like I said...there are many positions.  I'm marking you down as a 6/7 on your own name though.  

Moving along..isn't the question "does a supercluster of galaxies have free will/is there more power in the supercluster of galaxies than any god?" also a wrong question, when it comes to whether or not it's a god? How about "does it have agency or cognizance?".....?

If you feel comfortable using the term god for the cosmos....couldn't I also define a god as a hotdog? If we both, then, on the basis of our definitions..conclude that gods certainly exist, have we said anything non-trivial about gods..?

(feel free to export those q's to the pantheism thread, if/when you make it. I'll be there)

[Bob Kelso]

I prefer to define god as a bowl of spaghetti.

[vulcanlogician]

Sure, like I said...there are many positions.  I'm marking you down as a 6/7 on your own name though.  

Moving along..isn't the question "does a supercluster of galaxies have free will/is there more power in the supercluster of galaxies than any god?" also a wrong question, when it comes to whether or not it's a god?  How about "does it have agency or cognizance?".....?

If you feel comfortable using the term god for the cosmos....couldn't I also define a god as a hotdog?  If we both, then, on the basis of our definitions..conclude that gods certainly exist, have we said anything non-trivial about gods..?

*Puts on pantheist's cap*
God is the hotdog, yes. But not just the hotdog; everything else, too. You can refer to a post I made in the troll thread "The ontological disproof of God" for further details on that. But I don't see what your issue is there. It's pretty simple. Nothing is not God. In response to your other remark: I never concluded (or began to conclude) that anything certainly existed. Certainty is for you 7's and 1's.

Does a galaxy have agency or cognizance? I can't really provide an answer for that. I simply don't know. I know for a fact though that the Milky Way galaxy has at least one dim spec of cognizance in it.  Maybe God beholds himself through these weak opsins alone. Again, I do not know.