Vaniver comments on 2014 Survey Results - Less Wrong

87 Post author: Yvain 05 January 2015 07:36PM

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Comment author: Vaniver 06 January 2015 12:38:00AM 8 points [-]

1319 people supplied a probability of God that was not blank or "idk" or the equivalent thereof as well as a non-blank religion. I was going to do results for both religious views and religious background, but religious background was a write-in so no thanks.

Literally every group had at least one member who supplied a P(God) of 0 and a P(God) of 100.

Comment author: Grothor 06 January 2015 05:18:13PM *  0 points [-]

Literally every group had at least one member who supplied a P(God) of 0 and a P(God) of 100.

Okay, I'll bite: What does someone mean when they say they are Atheist, and they think P(God) = 100% ?

Comment author: jbay 07 January 2015 12:20:59AM *  4 points [-]

According to Descartes: for any X, P(X exists | X is taking the survey) = 100%, and also that 100% certainty of anything on the part of X is only allowed in this particular case.

Therefore, if X says they are Atheist, and that P(God exists | X is taking the survey) = 100%, then X is God, God is taking the survey, and happens to be an Atheist.

Comment author: Nornagest 06 January 2015 05:33:40PM *  2 points [-]

Either they're actually a misotheist, or they're using a nonstandard definition of "God" or of "atheist" (though I think at least the former was defined on the survey), or they misunderstood the question, or they're trolling.

Comment author: Alsadius 12 January 2015 09:29:27PM 1 point [-]

Presumably "Yeah, God exists, but why should I care?". Or trolling/misunderstanding the question.

Comment author: Val 26 January 2015 07:46:19PM 0 points [-]

Wouldn't that be the very definition of a deist or an agnostic, instead of an atheist?

Comment author: Alsadius 26 January 2015 10:39:49PM 0 points [-]

I didn't say that they were good at defining terms.