Despite my appreciation for Dawkins as a writer and scholar, I don’t this scale gives the appropriate option for me. I selected “de facto atheist” instead of “strong atheist” as 100% certainty is indicative of a leap of faith in the direction of atheism. However, my atheism is a bit stronger than the definition of “de facto atheist” in the poll.
Specifically, I rely upon two concepts, the legal concept of burden of proof, and the logical concept of Ockham’s Razor to form the belief that there is no god. I’m not just skeptical or operating under an “assumption”; I also do not have a 100% certain conviction that is no God. Instead, I have a belief that there is no worthwhile evidence that there is a God, and that I can logically conclude that there is no God.
First, the burden of proof lies upon the party holding the affirmative of a position. This is an ancient and well established principle in the Anglo-American legal system. So the people asserting that “there is a God” hold the burden of proof. And I’ve never seen any remotely subsantial evidence of the existence of God or gods, much less an aggregation of evidence sufficient to make a prima fascia case (the existence of God is more probable than not). And even beyond that I have not seen any evidence that stands up to logic or sciencen that refutes the arguments against the existence of God (theodicy and Incompetent Design). So legally speaking, the parties asserting the existence of God have miserably failed to meet their burden of proof and thus I conclude that their assertion is invalid.
Second, the assertion of God does not pass the logical test of Ockham’s Razor. As popularly understood, Ockham’s principle is “the simplest solution is usually the correct one”. However in the original Latin, the principle was stated thusly: “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). In other words, if a problem can be solved without introducing additional terms or entities, then the solution with the least terms is most likely to be correct. Specifically, if you have the opinion that the universe and the human species can be explained as emergent results of the action of the laws of physics and nature over time, then that explanation (sans any Deity) is most likely to be correct.
Therefore, I have no belief thatthere is a God. The corollary is that I thusly believe that there is no God, which I do, but I am not fanatically certain of it. If substantial evidence of the existence of God were introduced or if a theory that included God made more sense than the simpler explanation of the emergent properties of physical laws, then I would change my opinion. However, since in thousands of years of human debate about religion, I have never seen any remotely credible evidence, I sincerely doubt that such evidence will suddenly be produced.
But, I am open minded. If, for example, high end physics experiments were to show that the fundamental structure of the universe was designed rather than emergent, I would have to review the evidence, and if warranted, change my position. But that seems so unlikely as to be nigh-impossible.
PS - I wrote this before I read the more succinct replies above. I could summarize my position as: I’m a 6.9.
Sharpe, always more verbose than necessary!