Dawkins is not an atheist. See post 138.
Anthony Flew would be thrilled.
Dawkins is not an atheist. See post 138.
Anthony Flew would be thrilled.
Dawkins is (by his own admission in 'The God Delusion') a level 6 on the theistic/atheistic scale - where level 1 is absolute certainty in one's mind that God exists and level 7 is absolute certainty that it doesn't.
It seems that the very religious can have this certainty without evidence (that's what 'faith' is all about) and category 1 is well populated by strong theists.
Atheists tend to need more in the way of evidence for their beliefs and very few atheists would normally admit to being a level 7 - for that is certainty without absolute proof which is not possible - a level 7 person would be hard-line atheist and relying on a form of faith for that position - i.e "I don't believe in a God even though I cannot positively prove it"
In reality most 'atheists' are category 6 - which states that the chances of there being a god is extremely low - approaching zero percent probability but not actually zero. Technically if you are in this category - which all rational thinking atheists would have to admit to then you are technically agnostic to some degree.
Edited by Drosophilla, : No reason given.
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