Why Agnostic?

[Tiberius]

First, I was wondering if you would explain something about your scale. I am confused over '2', which is supposed to characterize someone who {A} believes that God exists {B} despite the fact that God's existence is unproven or even unprovable; yet somehow they are {C} 100% certain about his existence. If C, then A. Pretty straight forward. But given that B, then how is it that C? If one holds that his existence is unprovable, never mind unproven, then what leads to 100% certainty that he exists? Wouldn't that which leads to the strength of C consequently alter the condition of B?

As I explained in my article attached to the scale, and in further posts here, the certainty is a measure of how well you think your personal beliefs represent reality. One can believe in god and accept agnosticism (in fact I found most theists I talk to are of this variety) because they accept that God can never really be proven given its nature. You cannot test any of the qualities of godhood (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc) with being omniscient yourself. Since we are not omniscient, we cannot prove God. This doesn't stop people from believing in God though, since personal beliefs depend on your own criteria of trustworthiness.

With certainty, I am discussing not the certainty of probability (i.e. a coin is 1/2 certain to land on tails), but that of which a person measures their trust they put in their own beliefs. A person can believe in God, yet still have doubts for example. They may have questions about certain actions in the world that cause them to be unsure about their faith, but they still believe in God. Likewise, someone may have no doubts about their faith, or the existence of God, yet still understand that the principles of agnosticism hold, that nothing can really be proven.

Second, if a theist is someone who views the world as though God exists, and an atheist is someone who views the world as though God doesn't exist, what other category of people are there? Even those who are apathetic or find the question tedious nevertheless, in their own life, view the world as though God doesn't exist (atheist). Can you change my mind, by describing a view of the world that is neither theistic nor atheistic?

An apathetic world is by default atheistic, but the people who live in it may simply be people who have never considered the question, or who don't even find it relevant. They are, I guess what Dawkins would refer to as "de-facto atheists".

The whole reason I made the scale was to (a) address problems with Dawkins scale, and (b) to accurately represent a scale which people could define themselves on. I do not think the scale is as simple as you make out in your 4 number example. What about the people who think that God's existence has been absolutely established? I had some people respond to my original scale who said they 1's, and likewise some people who said they were 7's. The word "gnostic" means one with knowledge of spiritual matters (or one who knows God), which doesn't come across as a logical proof as you put forward.

Anyway, I would like to solve this scale once and for all. I do agree that perhaps the certainty aspect could be re-worked, but I think it is important. Perhaps it could be divided much like that of belief, in a 50/50 way. Using phrases "more certain than not" perhaps. It would be good to have a theistic mindset working on this though.