Exhaustive, Mutually Exclusive Categories of Belief in Gods

[Consul]

In fact, by your own standards, you are misusing the term ‘agnostic’ for Huxley was referring to a skeptical method of inquiry.

"Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe."

(T. H. Huxley: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/UnColl/ ... gnAnn.html)

Isn't agnosticism thus defined basically the same as evidentialism?

The problem is that what appear to be contradictory statements may not be contradictory. I believe in God and I do not believe in God are not necessarily contradictory statements. You are attempting to categorize beliefs in God. There are many people who believe in God except they do not believe in God as you define God.

Of course, if more than one thing is named God, then I can consistently believe in God1 and disbelieve in God2, because God1 ≠ God2; but if "God" refers to one thing only, I can't.

[Radar]

What I mean by “non-cognitive” experience is something realized or “intuited” rather than thought out in a discursive manner. The attempt to define, compartmentalize and categorize religious thought is to miss the essence of what religion is all about.

It can be done, perhaps, but in the end, it is utterly meaningless, it's just so much "mind-candy." (I wanted to put it another way, but decided against it because of its crudity.)

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Consul,

But you're wrong insofar as apisticism (B-agnosticism) is not the same as negative atheism, because not all negative atheists are apistics. However useful it may be, the distinction between negative atheism and positive atheism has the unfortunate logical consequence that positive atheists are negative atheists too, since you cannot consistently believe in the nonexistence of gods without lacking the belief in the existence of gods: positive atheism entails negative atheism.

I see what you are saying but I disagree. However, my disagreement may be based on appeal to context.

If we interpret negative atheism to not mean non-positive atheism, than we render the quantifier negative meaningless. In that case, negative atheism would just mean atheism (since atheism would include both non-positive and positive atheism). Thus, even if just by context, I think negative atheism would mean non-positive atheism.

However, for the sake of clarity, I think it would most clear to call it (by it I mean what you call B-agnosticism and what I was calling negative atheism) either non-positive atheism or apistic atheism or apisticism about the existence of a god or gods. What do you think?

you can use "theist", "antitheist" ("positive atheist"), and "apistic" ("B-agnostic") instead.

Yes, I agree, and that is exactly how I meant the categories earlier, but the use of the term apistic is much clearer.

And if we add the aspect of K-agnosticism, we get the following classification:

1. theists 1.1 K-gnostic theists 1.2 K-agnostic theists 2. atheists 2.1 apistics/B-agnostics (neutralists) 2.2 antitheists 2.2.1 K-gnostic antitheists 2.2.2 K-agnostic antitheists

People belonging to 1.1 or 2.2.1 believe and claim to know, or are (100%) certain that gods (don't) exist.

Yes, exactly. And hence the 5 different mutually exclusive categories:

• 1.1 K-gnostic theists
• 1.2 K-agnostic theists
• 2.1 apistics/B-agnostics (neutralists)
• 2.2.1 K-gnostic antitheists
• 2.2.2. K-agnostic antitheists

***

Clearly this is not how you want to use the term, but to insist that other uses are misuses is simply wrong.

In fact, by your own standards, you are misusing the term ‘agnostic’ for Huxley was referring to a skeptical method of inquiry

[...]

So, first, your use of the term ‘agnostic’ in the religious sense is contrary to Huxley’s

I'm not sure of the basis for this accusation because in the OP I wrote: "The term agnosticism means 'the doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of their experience'. The term actually refers to a broad epistemological position, not simply a position on whether or not a god or gods exist (source 1, source 2 - page 66)."

In the “Positivity Distinction” you list three categories , but in the “Exhaustive, Mutually Exclusive Categories of Belief in The Existence of a God or Gods” there are five categories.

In this post on the topic "Belief: the difference between I DO & I DON'T", I showed that logically a rational person's belief regarding any given proposition must fall into one and only one of the following three categories:

• A) "I believe X AND I do not believe -X."
• C) "I believe -X AND I do not believe X."
• D) "I do not believe X AND I do not believe -X."

In the “Positivity Distinction” you list three categories , but in the “Exhaustive, Mutually Exclusive Categories of Belief in The Existence of a God or Gods” there are five categories. In the later all but the middle term should be labelled positive if any are. The problem is that you then have both a positive and negative atheism, which runs contrary to Huxley’s negative atheism. You switch from the term ‘atheism’ itself as being negative – neither affirming nor denying belief, to a claim about knowledge rather than belief, and label that positive.

Actually, the three positions are changed to 5 by breaking beliefs into knowledge and non-knowledge beliefs.

So we start with:

• A) "I believe X AND I do not believe -X."
• C) "I believe -X AND I do not believe X."
• D) "I do not believe X AND I do not believe -X."

And go to:

• A) "I believe X but don't know X AND I do not believe -X."
• A2) "I know X AND I do not believe -X."
• C1) "I believe -X but don't know -X AND I do not believe X."
• C2) "I know -X AND I do not believe X."
• D) "I do not believe X AND I do not believe -X."

The problem is that what appear to be contradictory statements may not be contradictory. I believe in God and I do not believe in God are not necessarily contradictory statements. You are attempting to categorize beliefs in God. There are many people who believe in God except they do not believe in God as you define God.

Fallacy of equivocation.

I have acknowledged that one could be an atheist using one definition of the word god and not an atheist using a different one. That's why when using words that could have multiple definitions it is important to specify the definition being used. Otherwise, it's very easy to commit a fallacy of equivocation

Perhaps Consul said it better earlier when he wrote, "Of course, if more than one thing is named God, then I can consistently believe in God1 and disbelieve in God2, because God1 ≠ God2; but if "God" refers to one thing only, I can't."

If you wish to use the word 'god' to refer to something other than 'a being who meets at least one of the two criteria listed in the American Heritage definition', then please specify what that is, i.e. provide your definition. Then let the definition I provided be referred to by God1 and the definition you provide be referred to as God2. Then, we can easily see someone might be an atheist while using the God1 definition but a theist while using the God2 definition. Or instead of saying God1 and God2 we can just use parenthical specifications, like saying one "is an atheist (using the American Heritage definition) but a theist (using John Doe's definition)". However, to leave out those qualifiers leads almost surely to a fallacy of equivocation.

You provide definitions that are less vague and not idiosyncratic but are nevertheless significantly different than what some mainstream theist mean by the term.

The definition I have provided is from the dictionary.

However, I am more than happy if a respondent wishes to specify a different definition and state into which of the 5 categories their belief or nonbelief in the existence of that thing they call god falls and why.

But for some it is not a matter of epistemology at all, as when, for example, God makes Himself known, as it is said He did with His prophets. We might propose epistemological theories, raise questions, and debate this, but none of this arises for one who has an immediate, direct encounter with the divine. I am told that there are individuals and groups today who believe that God speaks directly to them.

And so, whether gnosis is a category of belief may not depend on one’s epistemology but rather on one’s theology. If one believes that God reveals Himself, makes Himself known, then to those to whom He has revealed Himself and who thus know Him, what your categories of belief exclude is knowledge of God. It turns gnosis into a claim of gnosis or a belief that one knows, which may turn out to be false and thus not knowledge but illusion.

I fear we may be talking past each other on this point. My point is simply (to steal the quote from Consul):

"What I know, I believe." ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, §177

Or in other words: 'To know' entails 'to believe'. But 'to believe' does not necessarily entail 'to know'.

***

-0+,

Can a line be clearly drawn between believe and not believe or is there a grey area in-between? Does vaguely thinking that gods exist qualify as belief?

What if someone says, "I think it is more likely that a god exists than not - I feel I relate more to theism than atheism - but I wouldn't go as far as to say I believe that a god exists"?

I understand your concern, but to say "I believe but don't know X" is already pretty vague way of thinking it is true.

What if someone says, "I have no idea if a god exists or not, but if I had to bet some money on it, I would bet that no god exists"?

I suppose that depends on one's own standard of belief as addressed in my topic How much evidence does it take to believe or to know?

However, I am thrown off by the qualifier, "if I had to bet some money on it".

If I had to bet on a coin toss, I would, and I'd just randomly guess whether I thought it would be heads or tails.

However, if I was confident there was a 51% chance X is true and a 49% chance it is not. I would gladly bet on it at 50-50 payout. That's how casinos make money. That to me might be a decent standard of belief, and then belief is corroborated by action such as my action to voluntarily go out and try to bet on it.

Alternatively, some might not be willing to say they believe something until they estimate it's likelihood to be much closer to 100% or even not until it is 100%. However, 100% might be qualified in some context such that even a 100% belief is not true knowledge. In other words, they might expect proof beyond a reasonable doubt just to get to belief and then consider true knowledge impossible, since for instance we could all be living in The Matrix.

The stronger one's belief, the more one may be willing to gamble ... Is there any reason for anyone who "knows" not to gamble everything they own (including own life) on this?

That's a great litmus test for knowledge, I think.

***

Fooloso4,

If we look at Genesis it is clear that God is not perfect. It may be, however, as some scholars claim, that the fathers of monotheistic religions, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were not monotheists but henotheists.

I didn't realize you were including the surahs of Islam since you used the word Genesis. There are very significant differences between the way the surahs describe Adam and creation and the way they are described in the Genesis section of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Regardless, I don't see the relevance to the topic at hand.

This excludes those who do not believe that God is a being, but is, rather, the source of all beings.

If lots of people use the term god to not refer to a being, then I recommend those people contact the dictionary.

Those who use an idiosyncratic definition of the word god are free to specify the definition they use and then answer the question in the OP using that definition. However, it is important for them then to specify the used definition as to not cause a fallacy of equivocation, just as one who would describe a feather as light would need to make it clear whether they meant not dark in color or not heavy in weight.

That is my point. You use the term God as if we have a clear definition of the term.

No, I don't. I gave a definition from the dictionary. Others are free to use a different definition. But the usage of the same term with two different definitions needs to be specified such as by saying something like: "I am an atheist using the American Heritage Definition but using [name definition here] definition I am a theist."

Similarly, if I say, "This feather is not light. And by light I mean not dark in color." One could respond, "The feather is not light using that brightness definition of light, but using the weight definition of light that feather is light." That is reasonable. However, it would have been equivocal to say, "The feather is light and not light," or otherwise to switch definitions without specification.

I don't use the term god like it has a single clear definition. Instead, I have provided a dictionary definition of a thus verified common meaning and I am using the word in that context. Others are free to specify a different definition and thus a different context to use the same word to express themselves. That can easily be done without gibberish equivocations that imply X is not X.

[Consul]

Can a line be clearly drawn between believe and not believe or is there a grey area in-between? Does vaguely thinking that gods exist qualify as belief?
What if someone says, "I think it is more likely that a god exists than not - I feel I relate more to theism than atheism - but I wouldn't go as far as to say I believe that a god exists"?

There's a qualitative concept and a quantitative concept of belief, the latter of which allows "degrees of belief". I think there are no degrees of belief in the sense that one can e.g. "half-believe" something. Strictly speaking, degrees of belief are degrees of belief-strength, of subjective certainty. You might object: but what about the expression "to tend/be inclined to believe that p"? I think that a tendency or inclination to believe is not a "half-belief" but a weak belief, a belief with low certainty.

In my understanding, belief is either present in or absent from one's mind: everybody either believes that p or doesn't believe that p. So "degrees of belief" are degrees of belief-strength within the state of belief. Of course, a rational person doesn't believe that p if she is more uncertain than certain that p.

"It seems clear that there are degrees of belief. There is a highest degree: perfect certainty that a proposition is true. There is a lowest degree: perfect certainty that the proposition is false. In between there are various degrees of belief. The scale has a middle, where judgement is equally poised between the proposition and its contradictory. Of course, the 'belief-scale' is not a scale like the temperature-scale, for it cannot be given a very exact quantification. It is more like the degree of disorder at a party or the degree of freedom which obtains in a society. But some parties are more disorderly than others, some societies freer than others, and equally we are more certain of some propositions than others. Where the degree of certainty is not high we sometimes talk of 'an inclination to believe' instead of a belief.

To accord a degree of belief to 'p', from the 1 of perfect certainty to the 0 of perfect disbelief, is automatically to assign some degree of belief to '~p'. And so, except for the case of perfect certainty (a case that actually occurs, indeed is common), there is a sense in which one's mind is split between 'p' and '~p'. But the situation is different from that where the believer believes contradictory things simultaneously. For the degrees of belief fluctuate in inverse proportion to each other, or, as we may put it, their sum remains 1. So there need be no element of irrationality in the situation. A degree of belief in 'p' which is less than 1 is also a positive degree of belief that '~p', so that what we have here is simply a single state of mind.

The having of a degree of belief that p which is less than 1 must, of course, be distinguished from the belief that p has some probability which is less than 1, where there is some objective measure of p's probability. For one can be perfectly certain or, alternatively, less than perfectly certain that p has a certain objective probability. (Probability is relative to evidence, degree of belief need not be, even if it should be.)"

(Armstrong, D. M. Belief, Truth and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. p. 108)

"Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. Belief is thus central to epistemology. It comes in a qualitative form, as when Sophia believes that Vienna is the capital of Austria, and a quantitative form, as when Sophia's degree of belief that Vienna is the capital of Austria is at least twice her degree of belief that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna.
...
Sophia believes to degree .55 that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna. Normally degrees of belief are taken to be real numbers from the interval [0,1], but we will consider an alternative below. If the ideally rational epistemic agent is certain that a proposition is true, her degree of belief for that proposition is 1. If the ideally rational epistemic agent is certain that a proposition is false, her degree of belief for that proposition is 0. However, these are extreme cases. Usually we are neither certain that a proposition is true nor that it is false. That does not mean, though, that we are agnostic with respect to the question whether the proposition we are concerned with is true. Our belief that it is true may well be much stronger than our belief that it is false. Degrees of belief quantify that strength of belief.
...
When epistemologists say that knowledge implies belief (...), they use a qualitative notion of belief that does not admit of degrees (except in the trivial sense that there is belief, disbelief, and suspension of judgment). The same is true for philosophers of language when they say that a normal speaker, on reflection, sincerely asserts ‘A’ only if she believes that A (Kripke 1979). This raises the question whether the notion of belief can be reduced to the notion of degree of belief. A simple thesis, known as the Lockean thesis, says that one should believe a proposition A just in case one's degree of belief for A is sufficiently high (‘should’ takes wide scope over ‘just in case’)."

(Huber, Franz. "Formal Representations of Belief." 2013.)

"There is a duality in our everyday view of belief. On the one hand, we sometimes speak of credence as a matter of degree. We talk of having some level of confidence in a claim (that a certain course of action is safe, for example, or that a desired event will occur) and explain our actions by reference to these degrees of confidence – tacitly appealing, it seems, to a probabilistic calculus such as that formalized in Bayesian decision theory. On the other hand, we also speak of belief as an unqualified, or flat-out, state (‘plain belief’ as it is sometimes called), which is either categorically present or categorically absent. We talk of simply believing or thinking that something is the case, and we cite these flat-out attitudes in explanation of our actions – appealing to classical practical reasoning of the sort formalized in the so-called ‘practical syllogism’. This tension in everyday discourse is reflected in the theoretical literature on belief. In formal epistemology there is a division between those in the Bayesian tradition, who treat credence as graded, and those who think of it as a categorical attitude of some kind. The Bayesian perspective also contrasts with the dominant view in philosophy of mind, where belief is widely regarded as a categorical state (a token sentence of a mental language, inscribed in a functionally defined ‘belief box’, according to one popular account)."

(Frankish, Keith. "Partial Belief and Flat-Out Belief." In Degrees of Belief, edited by Franz Huber and Christoph Schmidt-Petri, 75-93. Berlin: Springer, 2009. p. 75)

Can a line be clearly be drawn between believe/think and know? When people claim they know, do they really know or do they just have faith (which can feel like knowing) and they are not willing to admit they have any doubt?

Those who claim to know that p believe to know that p; and, of course, they can falsely believe to know that p, in which case they do not know and merely believe that p.

[Vijaydevani]

I realized after reading all these posts that I do not understand belief as much as I understand the term probability. As far as I can see, the probability of God existing tends to zero. That is actually the best I can do. The probability of the existence or non-existence of God being of any relevance to reality also tends to zero. Now if this can be categorized as a belief in any form then that is what I believe.

[Fooloso4]

Scott:

I'm not sure of the basis for this accusation because in the OP I wrote: "The term agnosticism means 'the doctrine

It is not for Huxley a doctrine. By labelling agnostic as a category of belief it is not being treated as a principle but part of a belief.

As to using the term exactly as he did. In Agnosticism and Christianity he says:

without impugning the right of any other person to use the term [agnostic] in another sense

Scott:

Actually, the three positions are changed to 5 by breaking beliefs into knowledge and non-knowledge beliefs.

The categories gnostic theist and gnostic atheist says nothing about belief. They are not an assertions of belief but a claims of knowledge.

Fallacy of equivocation.

I have acknowledged that one could be an atheist using one definition of the word god and not an atheist using a different one. That's why when using words that could have multiple definitions it is important to specify the definition being used. Otherwise, it's very easy to commit a fallacy of equivocation

But you are doing a poll. The result will be some number of theists checking off atheist.

If you wish to use the word 'god' to refer to something other than 'a being who meets at least one of the two criteria listed in the American Heritage definition', then please specify what that is

It has nothing to do with how I wish to use the word. It has to do with problems resulting from your definition. It is not a problem that can be solved, however, with a better, more inclusive definition, because there is no inclusive definition. As I pointed out in my last post: Some have defined God as what is undefinable. Others define God apophatically. These are not idiosyncratic definitions. There is a long history of their use.

Others are free to specify a different definition and thus a different context to use the same word to express themselves.

Not within the terms of your poll.

[Sim Al-Adim]

Gnostic Theist. This knowledge can descend into Atheism on one very odd condition. If the God I know is my higher self, then I am no longer sure.

To understand this condition, one has to imagine what Jesus felt when he recognized his very self as the supreme being, "God".

Jesus proclaimed himself to be a man and God. He did not distinguish himself from a supreme Being. Rather he identified his self with a supreme Being.

Assuming he did distinguish himself from this Being, there would be (for him) a "God". But assuming Jesus found his real "Self" in this experience of a higher power, he is approaching Atheism.

He is approaching atheism because he only admits to the existence of his self (lower, worldy, earthly) in connection with his perfected self (higher, brighter, heavenly). That other self who, in a way, is different from his worldy self, "is a God".

But this "God" is also not anything other than an extended portion of his full self. That "Self" is not a God, since it seems to depend on the worldy man of Jesus. Distinct to and of the personality that is Jesus Christ, such a being (the fully realized "Self") was no different than his worldy self. (The two merely converged) And in this way he admits to there being no God or gods - only people who do and do not fully comprehend the extent to which they exist.

If Jesus recognized only that there was "a kingdom of heaven" within, he is pointing to a further extension of our selves, and remains atheist.

But if Jesus recognized only that he was God-Like, then he was a gnostic theist.

In fact, how WOULD Jesus reply to this poll?

[Neopolitan]

neopolitan, great points about the lack of a definition for 'belief'. I think that defining belief is closely tied to if not the same thing as what I call specifying a standard of belief, which I have addressed in my topic How much evidence does it take to believe or to know?

Of course, in some sense, my way of seeing it as a standard of a belief presumes the use of reason and evidence. In other words, it entails a seeming rejection of basic fideism, which is mostly illustrated by my topic Is faith synonymous with self-delusion?

Needless to say, it would have been difficult to include arguments on all those points when there is so much to argue already. In other words, if we modify the 5 categories for different definitions or standards of belief, then the number of categories increases exponentially. (I will consider the matter and perhaps in a followup topic I can expand the categories based on different types/standards of belief. However, that has little use in my overall philosophical arguments since I reject basic fideism, not just about the existence of gods but in general.)

I agree that fideism is something one can personally reject, as I also reject, but that does not mean that everyone does. Plantinga provides an example when he says that believing in his god is rational even if there is evidence against the existence of god (see the link on this page (titled "the second chunk of Christian goodness")). As you know, evidence against is the only sort of evidence that really matters in science, once you have evidence against a theory it damages if not entirely destroying the theory (although things get messy when people misinterpret neutral evidence as evidence for or against). What you can't do is continue on with the theory completely unchanged, unless your belief in that theory is cemented in place by evidence-resistant faith.

It's possible that people who are really fideists consider themselves evidentialists, but the "evidence" they have isn't really evidence (or it's neutral evidence - such as "the universe appears to have had a beginning").

If the introduction of a new axis means that the categories increase significantly, that just means that perhaps your five categories aren't really exhaustive after all.

Another term which you might want to work on is "know". Bear with me, because this might not initially seem right to you, but I will try to explain:

If you ask me in a casual setting whether I "know" something, I will normally tell you that I do know certain things. I know that Thailand borders Burma, for example. Some will argue that that isn't true, because Burma is called Myanmar - but when I lived in Thailand I used the Thai word for Burma which is very, very close to "Burma". Nevertheless, there is a landmass called Burma or Myanmar or Phama that borders the landmass called Thailand or Phratet Thai or Myang Thai or An Téalainn. I know this.

However, when I look at this more formally, I am just claiming that I know this. I don't know that I know this. In reality I don't know what I know, I only know what I believe that I know (including that particular knowledge belief). I can only know something if I believe that thing to be true, if that thing is true and if my reasons for believing that thing is true are sufficient - if I have justified true belief. Now some may quibble about the "justified" and say that "warranted" is what is required, but surely no-one would argue about the "true". I can only "know" what is "true" - but I cannot know what is true, I can only believe it.

Hopefully this is sufficiently clear.

Anyway, when you have two different categories in your "exhaustive" list:

• Gnostic Theist - "I know one or more gods exist."
• Gnostic Atheist - "I know no gods exist."

What you really have are two claims commencing with "I claim to know ..." or "I believe that I know ..."

If pushed, I have to admit that I personally don't know that I know anything, because I am not in a position to access absolute truth (if there is indeed any such thing). I don't believe that anyone is.

The question therefore is whether a claim to know or a statement of belief with regard to knowing is significantly different to belief. If I merely believe that there is no god, how is that different to believing that I know that there is no god - particularly if "justified true belief" is used to mean know? I'm hardly going to believe something that I also believe to be untrue - which is your category B. So ... I begin to wonder if you may have eliminated category B too early.

Another thing is that we have surface or functional beliefs and under those is all the supporting belief structure that result in those beliefs. It is entirely possible to have two beliefs (call them Y and Z) which, when one goes below the surface result in a situation in which the believer does in fact believe both X and ~X (where X is mandatory to believe Y and ~X is mandatory to believe Z). Pretty much all of us have done this and any on this forum who deny it are almost certainly either liars or hopelessly unself-aware. The honest exceptions tend to be people with autism and similar issues.

That said, I agree that when we are carefully thinking through our beliefs we should not accept inherently paradoxical beliefs when we become aware of them but should instead work out which of the two (or more) is correct and eliminate the false one(s). Or we should step back from them and take an "I don't know" position, ie retreat into agnosticism.

[-0+]

If I had to bet on a coin toss, I would, and I'd just randomly guess whether I thought it would be heads or tails.

However, if I was confident there was a 51% chance X is true and a 49% chance it is not. I would gladly bet on it at 50-50 payout. That's how casinos make money. That to me might be a decent standard of belief, and then belief is corroborated by action such as my action to voluntarily go out and try to bet on it.

If X is "the roulette ball will land in a red number at the end of the next spin", then it is commonly understood that the chances are slightly higher that X is false than X is true. If the payout is 50-50 then it makes sense to bet on False. If one is able to make bets like this on many spins of the roulette, one may be confident of making money. But what if you only have one chance to make a bet like this? It may still make sense to bet on False but how much would you be willing to bet on this? Would you go as far as to say you believe X is false?

If X is "the next role of a dice will come up 6", there is about an 83% chance X is false. With a 50-50 payout it makes even more sense to bet on False, but how much would you be willing gamble on this? With this higher probability are you more willing to say you believe X is false?

If the game is Russian roulette using 1 bullet in a 6 chamber revolver and X is "the next spin of the gun barrel will put the loaded chamber in the firing position", there is also about an 83% chance X is false, but the stakes are much higher. If 50-50 payout then winning will result in receiving another life (how this might work is left to imagination) or an amount of money that an extra life is considered to be worth. It may seem the odds are still stacked heavily in the gambler's favour and there's no reason to have any less confidence betting on False, but maybe the higher stakes make a difference? How many people would be willing to gamble on this? Are you any more or less willing to say you believe X is false compared with a lower stake gamble on a dice throw?

Belief may be a continuum between -100 and 100% and yet people can quite happily say they believe in this or that as if belief is a binary attribute. Each person may have their own threshold on the spectrum above which belief = true, and rattle off statements of belief without giving much thought to this. This may be because the stakes are generally quite low with Belief. If a belief turns out to be false this generally isn't a big deal.

It seems that Like is also a continuum between 100% dislike and 100% like. If one thing can be liked more than something else then Like isn't really a binary attribute, and yet people insist on asking questions like "do you like me?" as if it is binary. And rather than report a datatype mismatch error, people can quite happily cast their Like value into a binary yes or no answer without thinking, perhaps because the stakes are relatively low with Like.

But what about Love? It seems this is a continuum like Like, but the question "do you love me?" may be more difficult to answer. Even if there is agreement about what Love means, the question may still be difficult to answer because the stakes are much higher with Love. It may seem there is a huge difference between answering Yes and No, and yet the difference between 2 positions on the Love spectrum either side of the arbitrary binary threshold can be tiny ...

It may seem this is veering away from the topic of this discussion, but the idea is to question any drawing of a line between belief and non-belief, or between one category of belief and another, and ask how reasonable it is to do this? This may not be questioned much because people often draw lines of judgement between belief and non-belief without thinking as the stakes are usually quite low with Belief. However, belief in God may be an exception as an eternity in Heaven or Hell could be riding on this. This may explain why there is so much interest in this particular belief.

-- Updated 01 Nov 2014, 16:03 to add the following --

It may seem the odds are still stacked heavily in the gambler's favour and there's no reason to have any less confidence betting on False, but maybe the higher stakes make a difference?

(The word "seem" is emphasised here because even though the payout ratio is the same, the higher the stakes, the higher the loss to gain ratio is relative to what one ends up with, and the more devastating loss may seem. If say 90% of what one has is gambled then the percentage of what can be lost or gained is the same relative to what one starts with, but relative to what one ends up with, the gain is only about 47% while the loss is 1000%.)

[Neopolitan]

It may seem this is veering away from the topic of this discussion, but the idea is to question any drawing of a line between belief and non-belief, or between one category of belief and another, and ask how reasonable it is to do this? This may not be questioned much because people often draw lines of judgement between belief and non-belief without thinking as the stakes are usually quite low with Belief. However, belief in God may be an exception as an eternity in Heaven or Hell could be riding on this. This may explain why there is so much interest in this particular belief.

This reminds me of a joke:

A man tells his friend that his wife thinks she's a hen and had done for years. "Why don't you take her to a doctor?" the friend asks. "I should, I know," the man says, "but I'd really miss the eggs in the morning."

The humour in this stems from the ridiculousness of the premise, the wife thinking she is a hen (which she presumably is not) won't make her produce eggs (at least not chicken eggs). However, the faith of some theists seems to mirror this quite closely - at least from the perspective of an atheist. Belief in god and heaven is often portrayed as a prerequisite for experiencing the latter. However, real hens don't have to believe they are hens to produce eggs, similarly - from an atheist perspective - if a god exists, belief in its existence by humans won't have any impact on that existence one way or the other, so it's a little bemusing that so many theists seem to get irritated by the lack of belief on the part of atheists (even to the extent of denying that lack of belief and portraying it as wilful and knowing rejection of an existent god).

Does forced belief differ meaningfully from unforced belief? How does open-minded belief differ from the sort of belief that follows from a tailored examination of the universe? (By that I mean the sort of belief that a home-schooled creationist might have, especially if that person in adulthood continued to select only data sources which matched the "knowledge" imposed on her during childhood.) Is it fair to equate my belief that the big bang is a reasonable explanation for the early development of the universe with someone else's belief that Genesis accurately describes how the universe came into existence?

What I am saying, I suppose, is that the categories being considered are skewed by these quite different types of belief.

[Consul]

Belief may be a continuum between -100 and 100% and yet people can quite happily say they believe in this or that as if belief is a binary attribute. Each person may have their own threshold on the spectrum above which belief = true, and rattle off statements of belief without giving much thought to this. This may be because the stakes are generally quite low with Belief. If a belief turns out to be false this generally isn't a big deal.

Beliefs (and e.g. desires) come in different strengths. According to subjective Bayesianism, which identifies probabilities with degrees of belief, one can have a nonzero degree of belief in a proposition that one doesn't believe. This appears incoherent to me, and the distinction between "partial beliefs" and "total beliefs" makes no sense to me. What does it mean to say that somebody "partially believes" that p? What kind of mental state is that?
In my view, belief is not a continuum between 0 and 1; it is either 0 or 1, i.e. either absent or present. Belief is always total. However, what I think is not always total or absolute is certainty or uncertainty (doubt). Belief is compatible with a nonzero degree of uncertainty, and a nonzero degree of certainty doesn't entail belief.
So it may just be the very phrase "degree of belief" that bothers me so. I'd be much happier if we replaced it with the phrase "degree of (un-)certainty" or "degree of doubt".

-- Updated November 1st, 2014, 8:23 am to add the following --

I realized after reading all these posts that I do not understand belief as much as I understand the term probability. As far as I can see, the probability of God existing tends to zero. That is actually the best I can do. The probability of the existence or non-existence of God being of any relevance to reality also tends to zero. Now if this can be categorized as a belief in any form then that is what I believe.

In my view, it is rationally incoherent to say: "I believe the probability of God's existence tends to zero, but I don't believe that God doesn't exist."

[Fooloso4]

Scott:

A) "I believe X but don't know X AND I do not believe -X." A2) "I know X AND I do not believe -X." C1) "I believe -X but don't know -X AND I do not believe X." C2) "I know -X AND I do not believe X." D) "I do not believe X AND I do not believe -X."

I think getting rid of ambiguous terminology is a step in the right direction. There are, however, problems when a particular is replaced by an abstract indeterminate, but in this case one of the central problems is the concept of God as a determined particular.

Attempting to establish exhaustive categories of belief in the existence of God presents problems that are not evident in categories of believing X. What are dealing with are not categories of belief but claims of knowledge and assertions of belief. As I have suggested elsewhere, the term God is used in so many ways that the only conceptual clarification possible is to point to that fact.

Have you abandoned the classification according to the terms gnostic, agnostic, and atheist? Have you abandoned the claim that these terms have a correct meaning or are you simply specifying how you are using the terms? Is your interest in classification in the service of your poll or is it intended to stand on its own as a kind of template for clarifying beliefs in God?

I suggest a much simpler classification. It can be used for polling purposes as well as for clarifying claims and assertions. It does not attempt to establish exhaustive or mutually exclusive categories. It may better reflect actual beliefs since it leaves it to the individual to definite the term God in accordance with his or her beliefs. Any conclusions we wish to draw from such a poll, however, are questionable.

1) I know that God exists 2) I know that God does not exist 3) I believe that God exists 4) I believe that God does not exist 5) I neither believe nor disbelieve that God exists

[Consul]

There's a qualitative concept and a quantitative concept of belief, the latter of which allows "degrees of belief". I think there are no degrees of belief in the sense that one can e.g. "half-believe" something. Strictly speaking, degrees of belief are degrees of belief-strength, of subjective certainty. You might object: but what about the expression "to tend/be inclined to believe that p"? I think that a tendency or inclination to believe is not a "half-belief" but a weak belief, a belief with low certainty.

In my understanding, belief is either present in or absent from one's mind: everybody either believes that p or doesn't believe that p. So "degrees of belief" are degrees of belief-strength within the state of belief. Of course, a rational person doesn't believe that p if she is more uncertain than certain that p.

We can distinguish between doxastic doubt (belief with doubt) and nondoxastic doubt (doubt without belief).

In my view, where there is a nonzero degree or strength of belief, there must be belief in the first place. If I believe that p, the strength of my belief that p is inversely proportional to the strength of my uncertainty (doubt) that p: the stronger my doubt that p, the weaker my belief that p, and vice versa. And if my doubt that p is or becomes too strong, much stronger than my doubt that ~p, then I refrain from or stop believing that p, and remain or become apistic/B-agnostic, i.e. doxastically neutral, about p (and ~p). How strong is too strong? How much doubt is compatible with belief? I don't think this question can be objectively answered in terms of a precise quantitative threshold. We speak of "the feeling of doubt/uncertainty", and such affective mental states are very hard to measure.

-- Updated November 1st, 2014, 10:46 am to add the following --

I suggest a much simpler classification. It can be used for polling purposes as well as for clarifying claims and assertions. It does not attempt to establish exhaustive or mutually exclusive categories. It may better reflect actual beliefs since it leaves it to the individual to definite the term God in accordance with his or her beliefs. Any conclusions we wish to draw from such a poll, however, are questionable.

1) I know that God exists 2) I know that God does not exist 3) I believe that God exists 4) I believe that God does not exist 5) I neither believe nor disbelieve that God exists

When somebody says "I know that p/~p", it certainly doesn't follow that he knows that p/~p, since he can falsely, mistakenly believe to know that p/~p. (Compare: When somebody says "I am not lying", it certainly doesn't follow that he is not lying.)
So 1 and 2 mean "I believe and am certain that God exists/doesn't exist". (Certainty entails belief, but belief doesn't entail certainty.)

-- Updated November 1st, 2014, 10:51 am to add the following --

If you ask me in a casual setting whether I "know" something, I will normally tell you that I do know certain things. I know that Thailand borders Burma, for example. Some will argue that that isn't true, because Burma is called Myanmar - but when I lived in Thailand I used the Thai word for Burma which is very, very close to "Burma". Nevertheless, there is a landmass called Burma or Myanmar or Phama that borders the landmass called Thailand or Phratet Thai or Myang Thai or An Téalainn. I know this.

However, when I look at this more formally, I am just claiming that I know this. I don't know that I know this. In reality I don't know what I know, I only know what I believe that I know (including that particular knowledge belief). I can only know something if I believe that thing to be true, if that thing is true and if my reasons for believing that thing is true are sufficient - if I have justified true belief. Now some may quibble about the "justified" and say that "warranted" is what is required, but surely no-one would argue about the "true". I can only "know" what is "true" - but I cannot know what is true, I can only believe it.

I think those are right who are epistemological internalists about justification and epistemological externalists about knowledge: "It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something." (L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, §505)

[Radar]

After giving it so thought, decided to go with "Gnostic Theist," but with the proviso that "knowledge" is understood as being experiential rather than conceptual.

[Fooloso4]

Consul:

When somebody says "I know that p/~p", it certainly doesn't follow that he knows that p/~p, since he can falsely, mistakenly believe to know that p/~p.

Right, that is why I specified it as a claim of knowledge.

So 1 and 2 mean "I believe and am certain that God exists/doesn't exist". (Certainty entails belief, but belief doesn't entail certainty.)

This gets us no further since one can be certain and certainly wrong. I would argue that in some cases certainty does not entail belief, that this gets it backwards. In our everyday involvement with the world we often act with certainty without first forming a belief. We may, however, form a belief based on our actions. I do not ordinarily first believe that when I walk the ground is not going to give way before taking a step. It is only when the stability of the ground comes into question that I act on a belief that the ground will or will not hold.

With regard to belief in God, belief usually comes before certainty, but in some cases it does not. Some of the Hebrew prophets claimed to be incredulous even as God revealed Himself to them. Paul emphatically rejected the belief that Jesus was the messiah until experiencing his first vision. It does not matter what the actual cause of these experiences was, or whether they were mistaken or delusional,what matters is that they did not first believe in order to be certain.