Either someone lives their life by the standards of a holy book/religion or they don't.

Either they live as if god(s) exists, or they live as if no god exists.

Given that they think the probability is between 5 and 20 percent, that pretty much tells you that they live their lives as if god doesn't exist.

They're atheists.

If they were theists they would be living in accordance to some holy book or some religious principles.

Evidently some people are misinterpreting my characteriztion of people thinking there is between a five and twenty percent chance. I was not talking about those specific individuals who have gone to the trouble of trying to calculate a number. Rather I was envisioning a poll where people who were attached to lie detector machines were asked how likely they thought organized religion is true. The people in question would, after being forced to thinkk about it and answer it honestly would say some like "rather unlikely".

The people you are talking about in your post are a different bird.

When it comes to unbelievers , their truth is "nobody knows", so why would it be unacceptable for someone to figure a 25% chance of God's existence. Seems reasonable to me. Of course, they wouldn't be an atheist.

Except that the OP stated:

"Atheism is just a very low degree of certainty that there's a god somewhere out there. No rational atheist will ever claim to 'know' there is no god. The best we can say is that it is extremely unlikely. So unlikely, that if you ask me if I think there is a god, I will say no."

That doesn't sound like thinking there is as much as a 20% chance.

And there is a second problem with your assertion

"Either they live as if god(s) exists, or they live as if no god exists."

Suppose they live as if he does exists but think he probably doesn't? Some theists like RLK accept this. But if the god in question is the Protestant God it would do you no good to take this approach. Thinking there is a 4o% chance he exists doesn't cut it. I don't even think 80% would.

Pretty sure in most religions living as if god exists includes believing that he exists, too. IE faith to Christianity. If they don't actually believe in the divinity of Jesus, then they aren't actually Christians. That's one of the major tenets of the religion is that you can be a great person for your entire life and still go to hell for not accepting Jesus' divinity.

David, what do you have in mind when you assign some probability to the existence of God? I'm asking what you mean by the word God. It seems like you need a solid definition/understanding of the concept before assigning any probabilistic chance of the proposition being true or false.

A conscious entity that created our four dimensional universe, sometimes causes events to occur that would not have occured if left to the laws of physics, has particular interest in human beings and sometimes allows them to exist after death.

Ok, seems like a reasonable definition.

Except that's not what you claimed or what I protested.
what is this, Straw Week on 2+2? cheeeez.

Classical proof you have no understanding of God. God is omnipresent. He does not have any kind of image which can exist in the imagination. If the toothfairy is omnipresent, then the tooth fairy is God, and not some external operating form which moves about as how you imagine it for it can't be both.

Seriously you cannot win this one.

All this guessing probabilities to the existence of God is absurd. It is 100% or 0%

Either Omnipresent creative force created everything or it was something impossible and not yet even guessed. WHich should to any logical person put it at 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999~ %

Applying a % to the accuracy of our imagination in defining God and classifying is ok. This can be anything and I believe those having this argument are making this obvious silly mistake.

damaci got it right. The main reason I see anyone would put it between 5 and 25 instead of 0 and 5 is because of social pressure, because they're afraid of offending their relatives and buddies. It's a sort of all-or-nothing deal with religion. There is the delusion/cluelessness side and there is the honesty/knowledge side, they are abrasive towards each other and coexisting is not stable. Vast majority of the time one will squelch the other. People who say 5...25, if they were honest, would most probably drop to 0...5. The fact that religion is such a big thing in the US probably prevents them from being honest as they feel it would be abrasive and socially unacceptable.

That is only if I accept the position that the universe has to have been "created". I don't see why you assume that I do.

Theist / Atheist is a statement about belief.
Do you believe your grandmother was bald at 50?
Yes, I believe that. No, I don't believe that.

Do you believe in a personal god?
Yes, I do. No, I don't.

There's actually not much gain by trying to get past that, partly because the question is vague, partly because 'belief' itself is a vague term.

Do you believe the bridge is out?
We don't have to ask the question, we can watch those who slow down to a crawl as they near the approach to the bridge and those who shoot forward and we'd have a very good idea. Atheism/theism doesn't work that way, you could follow a person around for a month and not know if they are a theist or an atheist.

If you try to decide by "would a person who (dis)believes in a personal god do THAT?" ... good luck.

I did originally claim this but I admit I didn't make it clear. What I was talking about, as I said, envisioned every person hooked up to a polygraph, and telling their degree of certainty that a personal god exists. Those whose answers translated into a number that was approximately between five and twenty percent fell into a group. And I was asking Lestat whether they are atheists or theists. (Many of the people in that group are probably dishonestly claiming a much higher degree of certainty. In fact when I said that Harvard grads often fell into this category I was assuming that many of them were still calling themselves Christian or Jewish.)

Evidently you and Splendour thought I was talking about a tiny group of people who consciously set out to determine God's probability and came up with a 5-20% answer.

Many would. But many other people if they were honest who said 25...100, would drop to 5...25. In any case I was talking about a person's true thoughts.

And I am not going to keep explaining what it means for something to have a probability even if we know it is definitely true or definitly not. It is mind blowing to me that a twoplustwoer doesn't get it.

Good Grief. Do you actually think that is what the issue is. sad.

I think talking about a person's true thoughts you have one peak in 90...100 and another peak in 0...10 and remarkably few people inbetween. I doubt any noticeable group of population by any common feature places between 10 and 90.

If I put a six sided dice in a cup that’s bottom up on a table and shake it, there is a hundred 100% chance it is showing a 5 if it is showing a 5.
Your guess that it is showing a 5 without being able to see it, on the other hand, has a 16.67 % chance of being correct.

Yeah, I'm tired of those arrogant punks in the prob forum talking about the chances of making your hands and crap. It's always 100% or 0%, it always happens or not.

^^ you know I did right more than the original paragrpah.

OK and this applies to there being hundreds+ of imagined Gods, and so it is reasonable to assign probabilities to each individual one.


What is the probability that the universe/reality actually exists?
How many possible or logical explanations are there for this? 1... Which is the omnipresent creative force of God. This die only has one side

The probability that the universe/reality exists as we know it is not 100%. And this

is an outstanding example of a non sequitur.

This is not what it means if you think the chance of something being true is 20%. Some people think irrationally and if you specify "what odds a rational person would give" then there's only one answer to any given question, whereas in fact people with the same information think the probabilities are different.

But doesn't the magic book say that we were made in his image?

That is an English translation.
That does not mean it is correct.
That does not mean any perception of the words is correct.
I perceive us to be made within Gods image. We are creation personified to God and God is creation personified to us. Both of us exist within image, that's what reality is, imagination, design, creativity, which makes us one.

I do find it ridiculous that God is imagined to have 4 limbs and a mouth and hair. God is omnipresent in Islam, Hindu, and Christian religion so why would 'he' have these external characteristics? Why whould God be a 'he' at all.

This is why I don't follow any religion there's too much BS within the obvious truths.

Jesus calls Him Father and is referred to Father many many times, Jesus had 4 limbs. Just because a Bible is an english version doesn't mean the words are wrong. Of course this doesn't mean He looks like a man. There are obviously stories that show some of His characteristics that man does not share.