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CCC comments on Rationality Quotes Thread September 2015 - Less Wrong
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Suppose it turns out that the skeptics are mostly right about Christianity, but that there really was an itinerant preacher called Yeshua in Galilee about 2000 years ago who talked about forgiveness and love and had a reputation for casting out demons and the like; but he didn't really work any miracles, he didn't get crucified, and he certainly didn't rise from the dead.
Then: Did Jesus exist? Well, kinda. Someone existed who's fairly clearly the person the gospels are about. No one existed about whom they're actually accurate accounts. Many of the most important things about "Jesus" don't apply to anyone. While it might feel a bit weird to say something like "Jesus 50% existed" in that case, I think it would give a reasonable idea of the situation.
...I wouldn't describe that as "God 50% exists". I'd describe that as "someone with strong similarity to the biblical Jesus existed".
To take an analogy, again, let us consider Dr. Joseph Bell. Dr. Bell was a medical school lecturer who emphasised the importance of close observation in making a diagnosis, and made a game of observing a stranger and deducing his occupation and recent activities. He was also the inspiration for the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes (who was famous for doing the same).
Does this imply that Sherlock Holmes 50% existed? No. Sherlock Holmes 0% existed; Dr. Joseph Bell 100% existed.
As I think I said somewhere else in this discussion, the way this issue arose wasn't by anyone actually claiming in so many words that "God 50% exists" is a sensible thing to say. Although I've kinda-sorta defended saying some things of that kind, I agree that it's not actually the best way to describe any state of affairs I can envisage. The actual question, IIRC, was whether it's reasonable to regard theistic evolution as intermediate between special creation and naturalistic evolution. Those are all positions that can be held by theists (though in practice not many theists embrace naturalistic evolution) and seeing them as points on a continuum really doesn't require one to endorse saying "God 50% exists" in any possible world.