Gadzooks!

[Conde Lucanor]

Can I put you down for 1% probability belief in God (I am not taking a survey, but it could be helpful if one decides to become more quantitative.)

Hmm...no, I'm sorry, I don't need to lie to you. Absolutely zero probability of a personal, conscious, active god.

To resolve this better we both would have to come to an agreement about the nature of information flow. In some of my other appends I contend that 99% (meaning large, don't quibble with percentage) of knowledge an individual has comes from outside sources like education, news, word of mouth, TV, reading, etc. rather than by personal experience. This of course includes all historical knowledge. For an individual to function properly they have to subliminally or deliberately attach a probability of correctness to any type of information before deciding if, when and how to act on it. The theist, after such a review is simply attaching a high probability to the reported accounts in the New Testament and to the message in the Old Testament. The word "claim" to the theist is not simply used in your sense of being always associated with zero probability but rather with a probability based on that person's best assessment.

Personal assesments, using no other tools than the basic cognitive abilities underlying experience, what we call "common sense", is at the first level of knowledge construction, but it's severely limited for undertanding the complicated relations that govern reality, most of which are not even visible at first glance. This basic knowledge was available to our ancestors in the most ignorant, primitive stages of humanity, which were precisely the times in which explanations of reality were populated with all kinds of supernatural beings and forces. Mythical thinking prevailed in such societies. But under some historical conditions, other tools were developed in the form of philosophy and science, allowing mankind to disclose most of the real physical, material causes, under the surface of appearances. These tools have been so succesful that have dethroned mythical thinking for good as the most reliable source of knowledge. Religion thinking is, however, still navigating the waters of myth. Under that mode of thinking, any probabilty assigned to theistic claims is of very little value for knowledge as compared to any claim made under a rational, systematic, science-based, mode of thinking. That's why the advances in sciences in the last centuries brought what someone called "the crisis in religion", as well as the "crisis in philosophy", which was actually the crisis in the philosophy of Idealism.

Since the atheist is not part of that logic and experience he cannot really competently evaluate the truthfulness of the theist experience. He can deny based on personal preference but not without the risk of serious topical bias concerning the mechanism of information flow.

You are just pointing at mystical experience and revelation. As explained in another debate, these kind of experiences are limited and actually contradict most of what is held in religious doctrines.

Good points. What I probably was trying to get across is that I sense an unwarranted personal level of scorn and/or hostility in how the subject is approached, which is of course unnecessary.

Well, to be honest, I get the same feeling from any discussion about any subject. The world looks like such a hostile environment whenever there are humans around. And I agree completely is not necessary.