The Hayter-Braeloch Scale

[Dotard]

after all, how many people have even heard of ignosticism, let alone know what it is?

I just did, and now I do.

It's mk

Just Adrain having a mind blowout ...again...poor fellow

Agreed.

[Tiberius]

Okay, I'll re-phrase that. What is one supposed to do with the scale? What purpose or use does it have?

The only real use for a scale of religious belief that I can think of is for surveys of what people believe in.

And for that purpose, the scale seems to me to be asking the wrong question. But maybe you had some other use in mind.

The purpose? It was developed to be a more accurate scale than the Dawkins one, which was being used all over the internet, despite the fact it makes little to no sense and is biased. It's a scale that allows you to compare basic beliefs concerning the existence of God in terms of the strength of those beliefs (via agnosticism / gnosticism).

The reason we didn't include a measure of certainty is because it is a very subjective measure. To give you an example, one person might rate themselves a 4.99, whilst another person could rate themselves a 4.5. From a scale point of view, the 4.99 has more "certainty" than the 4.5, but this might not be the case. It might be that the 4.5 is using a different way of representing his certainty (i.e. anything above 4.5 is very certain, anything below is not as certain).

When you allow people to choose their own sub-scale points, you will undoubtedly run into problems. Is there any difference between a 4.99 and a 4.999999? Perhaps not in terms of the actual level of certainty espoused by the people, but the scale would assert that the latter person is "more certain".

This is why I am convinced that asking simple questions like "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you think God's existence can be conclusively established?" (i.e. Yes or No questions) are a good way of making an accurate scale. Like I said to Purple Rabbit, I'm prepared to try and make a more "fuller" scale with anyone if they want to; I won't do it alone lest I be accused of putting my own "personal spin" on it again, so contact me if you want to do it.

[Purple Rabbit]

@Adrian
The response to your last post adressed at me may seem late. But the problem was that I was taken out some days by the flue. Luckily for me, my mother in law (yeah I'm blessed), notwithstanding the many clear signs I have been giving of my absence of belief, has been praying for my health and now I'm up and running again and ready to refute any theistic claims.

Lumping "strong agnosticism" in with agnosticism is perfectly consistent with getting a simple scale like the one we presented. Both a strong agnostic and a weak agnostic would answer the question "Can the existence / non-existence of gods be conclusively established?" with a 'no'. How they got to that answer is different for each, but our scale isn't interested in the method by which they answer the question, just their answer to it.

You seem to acknowledge that your scale will not do justice to some positions regarding the existence of god(s). But that seems fairly critical to me when defining a scale to plot the position on belief on in a context that is full of redefinition of terms. A seemingly small variation in interpretation might lead to completely other results. For instance, the answer to a slightly altered version of the question you present in the above: ("Can the existence / non-existence of gods ever be conclusively established?") might lead to different answers. So, is your goal to lump in opinion in simple catagories just for the sake of the simplicity of the categories or is your goal to analyze the arguments behind the positions taken?

Regarding theological non-cognitivism, I already said you could place it in the "apatheist" category.

If lumping in is your business you could. If you want to do any justice as to the theological positions, you cannot. Even on Wikipedia apatheism is considered totally different from theological noncognitivism. And when you look out for expert opinion in the field, this would certainly seem ridiculous. Why is it wrong for me to expect anything less than expert opinion and care for spectral finesse from you?

You yourself said, however, that in a simplified scale, there isn't much of a need for such positions. Again, you charge that this has something to do with "personal preference" without even mentioning how. There is nothing "personal" about this.

I've already mentioned where the personal preference comes in. It's in your choice on which dimensions to base your scale and it'in your choice to lump in different position with each other in one category. Isn't it your (and Arcanus') personal choice on these very issues that led to the presented outcome?

As I explained to you before, this was all done last year, before we'd even talked about the different types of agnosticism and theological noncognitivism.

Precisely that chronology of events could have made you decide to somehow adjust the scale. One obvious suggestion is to add a category "Other", since you acknowledge your scale is neither complete nor accurate.

This is a simple scale; it covers almost everyone regarding belief in God. It isn't meant to cover every single belief (I doubt that would be even possible), and to keep things simple it lumps positions together where the belief outcome is the same (though different methods are used of getting there).

Isn't that what I have said?

If you want to work on another scale with me, I'd be very happy to do so. My friend last night proposed that not all possible positions are available on a linear scale such as this, so perhaps a 2 dimensional model might be better. I would be very interested to see if we can get all the positions (or at least, the vast majority of them) onto a scale.

As may be obvious by now I'm not interested in working on any scale with the aim of crude classification. The main reason for that is that I do not believe in crude categorization as a means to delve into a topic with such a high personal character and high impact on people's world view. I am interested however in the dimensions of reasoning involved (e.g. knowability, provability, verifiability, intelligibility) in the different theological positions taken. I only can hope to have attributed something so far.

[Caecilian]

---

Okay, I'll re-phrase that. What is one supposed to do with the scale? What purpose or use does it have?

The only real use for a scale of religious belief that I can think of is for surveys of what people believe in.

And for that purpose, the scale seems to me to be asking the wrong question. But maybe you had some other use in mind.

The purpose? It was developed to be a more accurate scale than the Dawkins one, which was being used all over the internet, despite the fact it makes little to no sense and is biased. It's a scale that allows you to compare basic beliefs concerning the existence of God in terms of the strength of those beliefs (via agnosticism / gnosticism).

The reason we didn't include a measure of certainty is because it is a very subjective measure. To give you an example, one person might rate themselves a 4.99, whilst another person could rate themselves a 4.5. From a scale point of view, the 4.99 has more "certainty" than the 4.5, but this might not be the case. It might be that the 4.5 is using a different way of representing his certainty (i.e. anything above 4.5 is very certain, anything below is not as certain).

When you allow people to choose their own sub-scale points, you will undoubtedly run into problems. Is there any difference between a 4.99 and a 4.999999? Perhaps not in terms of the actual level of certainty espoused by the people, but the scale would assert that the latter person is "more certain".

This is why I am convinced that asking simple questions like "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you think God's existence can be conclusively established?" (i.e. Yes or No questions) are a good way of making an accurate scale. Like I said to Purple Rabbit, I'm prepared to try and make a more "fuller" scale with anyone if they want to; I won't do it alone lest I be accused of putting my own "personal spin" on it again, so contact me if you want to do it.

---

So it was designed as a sort of internet talking point?

I don't really see that it has any practical value tbh. Sorry, just not me cup of tea.

[Tiberius]

@Purple Rabbit

It is not "my goal" to do anything here; I have already made the scale, it is finished. As I have said before, the scale is designed to be simplistic; it does not delve into the reasons behind beliefs (i.e. strong agnosticism vs weak agnosticism) because it isn't meant to. Strong agnosticism and weak agnosticism are lumped together into "agnosticism" for the simple reason that they both give the same answer to the question "Can the existence/non-existence of Gods be conclusively established?". It matters not, in the context of this scale, whether one agnostic atheist thinks that Gods can never be conclusively established, and another agnostic atheist thinks that Gods *currently* cannot be conclusively established. This scale doesn't measure agnosticism, it measures belief in God.

"Even on Wikipedia apatheism is considered totally different from apatheism."

No idea what you meant there. Look, you agreed on this point before; at a push you could argue that theological non-cognivitism can be included in the "apatheist" category. I don't mind if people want to put it there; but I can equally say that it doesn't have a place on the scale in the first place. It wasn't considered at the time of making, and I'm not going to go around adjusting our work without Arcanus here. I suggested created a new scale with all (or at least most) positions in mind, and I stick by that suggestions.

If your charge of personal preference is all down to how the scale is presented, and what decisions went into it, then your argument applies to every scale that could be made, and I don't see how it is constructive. Dawkins' scale suffers from the same, as would any scale yourself and I would make. Such is the problem with subjectivism; there will always be a disagreement. However it seems to me that if at least most people can place themselves on a scale (as we've seen in this thread), then it does have some value.

"Precisely that chronology of events could have made you decide to somehow adjust the scale."

Not really. We wanted to keep it simple, and you admit that theological non-cognivitism doesn't necessarily need a place on this scale if it is meant to be simplistic (which it is). Again, this was a joint effort; I'm not going to go around making changes without Arcanus. Hence my suggestion of doing a new scale, and incorporating all the conversations we've had over agnosticism and theological-noncognitivism (as well as all other stances we can find).

It's a shame you don't want to help with a new scale, but perhaps Caecilian will accept my offer. I like the idea of your 4 dimensions, though I have a question. What would you define as the difference between provability and verifiability?

Update: Well seeing as Caecilian isn't interested, this entire thing is dead in the water. The "Hayter Braeloch Scale" will remain how it is until I meet someone who is willing to help me improve it

[Purple Rabbit]

The copycat involving the double use of apatheism in one sentence seemed obvious to. See the correction I've made.

In short: simplicity is not my thing when considering opinion on belief.

I said that my goal would not be any new scale. I think that it is possible though to discuss alleged dimensions without immediately resorting to that and still bring to the table valuable point of view about what should be adressed by a scale used for a specific purpose. But on the other hand, if I feel like discussing these dimensions (btw the example dimensions I gave were not meant as a complete list) I can do that anytime here I want.

So I guess the H-B scale will remain here on AF as yet another artefact testifying of the on-going attempt of man to unravel the mind.

[Tiberius]

That the list of dimensions wasn't complete was obvious to me, but my question still stands. Unless we have different views of what "provability" and "verifiability" are, I don't see the difference. To "prove" and to "verify" seem to me to be similar (if not the same) things.

[Purple Rabbit]

With this subject it's all about definition, if you ask me. Provability as defined in mathemathics does not compare with verifiability in general. And verifiability might include historical traceability. And maybe we should start with sorting out all these (partially) overlapping notions.

I will come back to you later with my first attempt at an inventory list. OK?

[Edwardo Piet]

Proof I would think of as absolute. Verification on the other hand I would think of as something less absolute or not necessarily absolute. Proof I only think of as not absolute if it's used in an informal sense.

EvF

[lrh9]

Too often debates about definition don't actually deal with the theory of describing something accurately but about arbitrary word usage.

It isn't too hard to describe something with simple, neutral words. Getting people to agree on what words to use for that description though is what is impossible.