Pseudoskepticism and logic

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To flesh out this distinction of atheist, agnostic atheist, agnostic, agnostic theist and theist, I pulled in the Dawkins Scale (Message 34):

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1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'

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2.00: 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

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3.00: 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.'

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4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'

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5.00: 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.'

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6.00: 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.'

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7:00: Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung 'knows' there is one.'

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1&2: theist: burden of proof needed
3-5: agnostic: no burden of proof
6&7: atheist: burden of proof needed

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Actually you are incorrect. ANY probability estimate is a positive claim and requires evidence. The whole idea of 50:50 as the default is utterly mistaken. If there were a default rather than "no way to assign a probability", it would have to be at the lower end of the scale, with 5 the highest possible value. 3-4 as stated definitely would need evidence to assign such a high probability of existence.

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Forgive me if I this strikes me as cognitive dissonance and dealing with uncomfortable information that conflicts with your view of self.

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I suppose I will have to forgive you this clear example of cognitive dissonance on your part as you need to deal with the uncomfortable information that a 50/50 probability estimate is not a safe default and requires justification.

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Interestingly, if there is no way to assign probability then the default position is "I don't know, there isn't enough information" - or 100% agnostic.

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Indeed, and you will note that I said nothing against that view. Of course every position on the scale disagrees with the assertion that there is no way to estimate the probability.

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The question is why you think any other position is logical or reasonable.

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There is no position on the scale that you used which does not include a probability estimate, so you agree with me that position 3 and 4 DO require justification.

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If the person replies that this is what they believe based on subjective evaluation of what evidence is available and how it matches their worldview of how reality works, but that they are not sure, then I mark them a 3 and we move on.

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So if somebody said that they believe that God almost certainly does (or does not) exist (thus meeting your not sure criterion) and their justification for this position meets your other criteria you would tell them that they believe that God is likely to exist as not and try to move on. I don't think that that is going to work.Rather, you are admitting to using a quite different scale (which raises the question of why you are trying to use the Dawkins scale at all).

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I guess you'll have to take that up with Dawkins, possibly due to the fact that he doesn't claim to be an agnostic ...

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I wasn't criticising the scale, only your use of it. Which is your problem, not Dawkins'

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Which is just becoming another excuse to avoid the issue of showing evidence or logical proof for being predominantly atheistic rather that predominantly agnostic.

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So now, NOT changing the subject is ""an excuse". I think that any rational person would think that a change of subject - especially such an aggressive one as you have attempted here is a fairly obvious diversionary tactic.RAZD, it's pretty obvious that this issue is too emotional for you to deal with it rationally. A shame then that you keep brining it up.

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Curiously THE TOPIC is providing evidence for any negative hypothesis is just as much of a burden as providing evidence for a positive hypothesis.

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And - as you know perfectly well - that is not what we were discussing.

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ooo now we get projection?

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No, there's been plenty of projection in your posts. That is one of the reasons why I gave my advice.

If there is literally no relevant evidence, how can a God - or whatever we are talking about - be anything other than made up ?Where else could the idea of any purely hypothetical entity come from but from the human imagination ?