Hooray! I failed a test!

Crickey Guvnah, that's a complete waste of a perfectly good Stratocaster.

Don't look ... into ... his ... eyes. Mustn't look ... at ... his eyes ... aaarrgggghhhh!

Jumpin' Jeezus, I thought it was a complete waste of human life.

Damn, that high pitched warble of his made my balls ache, and not in a good way, either!

I like how the scale is logarithmic.

I was tempted to give myself a 5 based on question 5 with regard to meditative states (which would make me as woo woo as Sam Harris) but the categorical manner in which it is phrased makes me answer no. If it had been phrased as "Do you believe that a deeply contemplative act such as prayer or meditation may result in knowledge or understanding not available through ordinary thought?" then I would have had to answer "yes". By the way, I would include mental states achieved through the use of psychotropic substances (such as alcohol, caffeine, amphetamines*, cannabis, psychedelics, etc).

* An example of this might be Paul Erdös in mathematics and Philip K. Dick in science fiction literature.

Wowzer! I came here straight from watching Dawkins on the British TV show "The Great Debate", in which he actually got a Muslim clreic to admit that "in Islamic countries, apostates should be put to death".
Delusion index for the clreic is clearly Batshit Crazy.
I, however, scored 0.
---
Oh, and PZ is worong. He didn't fail. On this test, the lower the score, the better your pass mark.

It's hard to know what was going on in PKD's brain, though. Maybe his "craziness" had to do with temporal lobe epilepsy or something else totally unrelated to his history of amphetamine abuse.

The use of "may" in all the questions kills this one for me. "Do you believe that an intelligence may have been involved in the creation of the universe?"- well, maybe there was, how would we know? If the questions were along the lines of "Do you believe that an intelligence _did_ create the universe"- which I guess is how PZ read it- then obviously the answer's no.

For my money, the best evidence against a loving god is probably the harlequin baby. Pretty sure someone put a youtube video of THAT up, too, but I'm not about to link to it. Or go near it.

I was tempted to give myself a 5 based on question 5 with regard to meditative states (which would make me as woo woo as Sam Harris) but the categorical manner in which it is phrased makes me answer no.

That was the only one I momentarily balked at as well.

I was tempted to give myself a 5 based on question 5 with regard to meditative states

Ditto. There's a long tradition within psychology of using various "altered states" to examine aspects of consciousness not available through "ordinary thought", be it through formal phenomenology, psychophysics, pharmacological studies, or meditation. And there are some extremely well-respected neuroscientists (such as Richard Davidson) that do functional neuroimaging of individuals in a meditative state, and these studies "result in knowledge or understanding not attainable through ordinary thought". In other words, one can agree with the question without believing a speck in any sort of woo.

I got 5 points, since there's room, at least as far as I know, for naturalistic interpretations of contemplative meditation bringing to the conscious mind stuff it normally doesn't consider.

Granted, looking at the question again, they ask if such knowledge would be "not attainable through ordinary thought", which implies some degree of non-naturalism. I guess what I'm talking about is more the state of letting your subconscious do the heavy lifting and then asking it for a report of the random stuff it comes up with. IANAP, though I got a 5 on the AP Psych exam 5 years ago. ;-)

On the other hand, sometimes it's better *not* to get in touch with your subconscious. I had a gnome rap song just pop into my head while zoning out in the shower, for example, that I may just whip out at our D&D session tonight. Perhaps that knowledge should have remained unattained...

+5 due to question 5 pertaining to meditation. Even simple breathing exercises are effective (for me), so no worries here.

Or, shorter, what the other folks said. Although they have no gnome rap. I win! Or lose....

Crikey! Who knew Clint Howard can sing!

I want to hear the gnome rap!

I got a 5-again for the meditation question.Not so bad really.

#7

Actually, the use of 'may' lends an air of credibility to the test. If you can't dismiss supernatural possibilities entirely, you don't deserve a perfect score.

Priceless! Thanks PZ, you made my day.

+5 for question #5, with emphasis on the word "Can" in the question. This is something that's subject to experimental verification. A little Orange Sunshine clears out all sorts of cobwebs.

The questionair was uninteresting, but I thought the song was hoot! "OOoo..Oo.OOoo"

I don't know - the first three don't seem that off the wall... (more the second and third). There is a popular idea that the universe may be a simulation, which, while I don't believe it, does make those qualifying "may haves" rather weaken the possible delusion of those questions.

I think the scale was scored particularly to let agnostic atheists take the first three, and meditation practitioners or drug users take the fifth, while still scoring Normal. Yes on each of those questions adds up to 45.

It was more fun than I expected, especially at the end.

+5 due to question 5 pertaining to meditation. Even simple breathing exercises are effective (for me), so no worries here.

Simple breathing exercises grant you access to secret knowledge?

0, No surprize there.

I think the key to question 5 is the "not attainable through ordinary thought" part. I read this as saying that no-one, anywhere, ever, would have these thoughts without prayer/meditation. Even if meditation let's your subconciousness make odd connections, it's quitelikely that thow connections may be made eventually without it.

#7

I thought the same thing at first, but then I realized that it's not asking you what did happen, but what you believe about what happened. IE: When you think about the beginning of the universe, do you see a higher consciousness being involved or maybe playing a part?

Perhaps that helps. It did for me.

I particularly like the way that this labels all the "our universe may be a simulation running in some kind of giant supercomputer" folks as mildly deluded...

A wonderful song about religion...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2505562471952271259&q=tim+minc…

It's rather a pity that Jesus allows those he loves (and who know he loves them) to make utter fools of themselves. You'd think he'd give them divine inspiration and enable them to create songs of heart-rending beauty (not stomach-rending). Hmm. What could the explanation be?

Ooh-ooh-ooh!

I got a 0 then watched that other video. I'm sure I have a negative score now.

Yeah, for cholesterol, just watch daytime TV. specifically the springer-esq type shows. You have to wipe the grease off your picture tube after just 1 hour! you'll never eat a fried food again. Or never watch tv again. Win Win, amirite?

#22:

Simple breathing exercises grant you access to secret knowledge?

Well that depends on what you're breathing and with who, doesn,t it? Also secret implies someone has hidden it, as opposed to non-obvious or counter-intuitive.

Why should I stop watching the song when my GDI reaches zero? I'm goin' for negative territory. Let's see how far I can get!

I kept waiting for the satirical sting. It never came.

I'm ashamed to admit I got 15 points: but - l laughed like a drain as the guy read out the results - a very well made little test : and it could provoke some people to some serious thought.

Peter

I got a +5, because I do believe that meditating can bring epiphanies. It's not something metaphysical, it just forces you to clear your mind and focus.

I also have to mention Q5, as most of our knowledge, (quantitatively speaking), doesn't come from thought at all. It comes from experience.

It is well documented that many of our insights, scientific and otherwise, come from deep contemplation (and unconscious cerebration).

I am a positive/strong atheist yet I can say from experience that one can attain knowledge and understanding through meditation and deep contemplation that cannot be attained via `ordinary thought'.

PZ, I think you answered your own question. Next time you feel a hankerin' for bacon, watch that second video. Your appetite, as well as possibly your will to live, should sink like a stone. In any event, your cholesterol will be low.

Myers you son of a bitch! how the fuck am i supposed to get that song out of my head now?! it's in there. forever. im singing it in my head right now, and i cant make it stop. this is how brain tumours start!

I got a 20. 5 for #1 as I can neither rule out materialistic pantheism nor desim. 10 for #2 as at least one modern quantum theory postulates that there must have been an observer in order for the universe to come into being. And 5 for #5 as meditative, chemically induced or hypnotic states can produce cognitive results unobtainable by "normal" thinking.

Just finished the god Delusion test, and of course I got a
zero. When you think of it, it is really ludicrous, sort of
explaining atheism to a bunch of atheists. I think we
should concentrate on ridicule and blatant reality instead
of mild humor and obvious comparisons. Give no quarter to
these morons,but let them know they are not part of the
rational world.

Question #9

9. Do you believe that people with no particular spiritual views, or spiritual views different from your own, will suffer negative consequences for this after they die?

Point value: 400

I fail to see how this tiny, Lamarckian evolution-based comment could be worth 400 points. It is my understanding that sociocultural evolution is a well observed theory that niches of human understanding evolve with memes as the transmitter of information. Either way, I can hardly believe that PZ feels that the children of the "batshit crazy" aren't negatively effected by their parents or grandparents point of view regardless of how dead the authoritarian progenitor is; this negative effect would also effect the parent's fitness. One would also expect positive effects.

Scored a 20 - I believe that makes me a pretty typical liberal Episcopalian. I can go to our pot luck dinner this Sunday with no qualms.

Scored a zero and started laughing loudly enough when "serious voice-over man" got to "Batshit Crazy", that anyone passing by might've applied that to me. The second vid? It's caused continuous, non-stop barfing. Make it stop!!

That guitar person has a face one would never tire of slapping.

Score 5. Question 5, can't rule it out.

I got a 40 because I can't rule out a higher being having a hand in creation. I just don't think that it pays us any attention at all, let alone cares to intervene in our lives in response to a self-serving little inner monologue.

Scored a zero. Since I haven't seen any evidence that meditation/prayer results in the delivery of knowledge one could not obtain via rational thought, that was a no for me. If the question had been about other possible benefits such as stress relief, or enhancing the ability to focus one's attention, then I would have answered yes.

I detest that song! I'm now forced to think of the doublemint gum jingle just to get the hateful thing out of my mind!

Ditto various folks about wanting to answer yes for "meditative states." Something else I got tripped up on was the "Are people with spiritual beliefs more likely to experience a pleasant afterlife," which was phrased in such a way that it made me want to answer "yes" and eat 200 points (!), despite my atheistic worldview. It's sort of like saying that people with a worldview that includes cars will be better at fixing them, in that someone who has some sort of afterlife gameplan is more likely to please a potential ethereal judge than one who doesn't. It's just that the odds of that actually being true is so small, it's like bringing a parka to the desert.

WTF? The second video put me firmly in negative territory

'a pleasant afterlife'

Can never hear 'afterlife ' without hearing Douglas Adams, ' ...not so much an afterlife, more a sort of après vie..'

also zero, i was tempted to answer "George W. Bush" in question 10... but i guess they were talking about something else :P

I also got a zero. Like many, I debated with myself on question 5. Meditation or prayer MAY result in better thinking, but not due to the intervention of any higher power. It just clears your mind. And it doesn't seem to work for me, so I answered no.

By the way, hearing that guy say "Batshit crazy" in a perfectly professional tone of voice was hilarious.

@#32: I kept waiting for the satirical sting. It never came.

Me too. The way he said "forever and ever and ever and...." was so overdone, it just had to be. Shortly after that, this sinking feeling set in that no, there would be no punchline.....

A big fat zero for me. Like others though, a slight reword of Question 5 would have had me quiver twixt a Yes or No. With the reword a 2 1/2. Without still a big fat zero.

Ken

I got a score of 5 because I said yes to question 5:

"Do you believe that a deeply contemplative act such as prayer or meditation can result in knowledge or understanding not attainable through ordinary thought?"

Anyone who says 'no' to this question would also have to say 'no' to the following (because it's asking the same basic thing):

"Do you believe that performing an activity like swimming or painting or singing or dancing etc can result in knowledge or understanding not attainable through ordinary thought?"

my full blog post on this

So that's what happened to Angus Young? Come on, surely that's a spoof? Please....?

What is "non-ordinary thought?" What's the difference between "ordinary thought" and thoughts had while praying, swimming, meditation, dancing, sleeping or any other activity one can think of?

So long as the dividing line between "ordinary" and "non-ordinary" remains undefined or vague, its position is subjective and arbitrary and I choose to consider prayer and meditation to be ordinary activities (or at least they are for a wide swath of humanity).

So, I get no points for question five.

#40, I think the point was that in order to believe that people will suffer consequences for anything after they die, you have to believe that they'll be sentient after they die. That deserves a few points at least.

Causing negative consequences, well, that's another matter entirely.

BTW I was also a 0 who might have earned (if you can call it earning) at least a few points if Q5 had been worded differently. Points off to the test preparer for that one.

I thought the song must be a spoof of some sort until I saw the "Christian Television Association" overlay at the end. And even then . . . .

Pee Zed,
I'm embarrassed on behalf of us Aussies that the dickhead singer you linked to exists.

But, thanks Anon for linking to Tim Minchin to redeem us a bit. Didn't know of him, but just looked him up and he went to my University!

I got 0 too and but nearly got five on the question in regards to deep meditation potentially leading to knowledge (though it was worded differently so I also had to say no) I stopped taking this test seriously after the numbers started getting to levels to make other previous questions totally irrelevant (somewhere after question 8 or 9 I imagine). The final question being worth 100 million points seems absurd since that notion is at best only ten times more asinine than question 9 which was only worth 400 points.
I find the conclusion pretty smug though to state that people who are so extremely deluded are unworthy of any respect or tolerance seems kind of extreme to me. Sure, their views are unworthy of respect but they themselves still should have rights. I hope no-one takes this quiz too seriously.

I second comments 22, 28 and 34 (disclaimer: the author of 34 is not my son, I have none).

-----------------

I love how mechanic and monotonous the voice is: "If your God Delusion Index is 10,000 or higher, you are batshit crazy." I couldn't say that without laughing.

It's like that Fu Man Chu film with Christopher Lee, the one that's so bad it's good: "I need an ingenious idea right now, or I will die." Then the whole building explodes in a ridiculously huge three-stage explosion. Then the good guy, Mr Smith, who has been watching from the distance, says it's over. And then, just so they can have a sequel, Fu Man Chu (pronounced so that you can hear the spaces) appears in the sky, I kid you not, and says to the audience: "You are wrong again, Mr Smith. I, Dr. Fu Man Chu, live -- !!" (My retranslations from German.)

I answered 'yes' on the first two questions.

I don't really believe that our Universe was created by a conscious being, but it's possible. Maybe we really live in the Multiverse). There's no way to tell it with our current understanding of the nature.

So, answering 'no' to the first two questions is a kind of the reverse delusion. I.e. belief that we know everything.

I'm with comment #8. The use of the word "may" made it so that my score would be rather high. Sure, there may exist a higher consciousness. I certainly think not, in fact, but I cannot say there is in fact not a higher consciousness because who could know such a thing?

Zero or fifteen over the first two questions. I agreee whith S. Wells that it depends on how we interpret words like "may" and "can". Guess I've been studying too much modal logic lately. Usually I interpret "may" and "can" as expressing what logicians sometimes call "metaphysical possibility" unless it's clear from context that some more exacting standard is implied. Under these grounds I'd have to answer yes to the first two or perhaps first three questions.

Of course using this standard I have to say I could be a brain in a vat. Doesn't theism seem like Universe in a Vat?

On people who disagree with me being punished in the afterlife, that's the one thing I wish were different. I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful to think that Jerry Falwell will have at least a brief conscious moment when he realizes that he was completely wrong? As it is, there is no vindication. You can't expect to be able to say "See, I was right. I don't exist anymore!"

Score 0 (if that wasn't obvious).

And I second the remark on the abuse of a perfectly good Stratocaster.

I scored 0 on the test but after watching the "Jesus Loves You, ew, ew, ew" video just once, my score plummeted to -10,000! I'm really afraid of what might happen if I watch it again.

Just change the words of the song to "Cthulhu loves you", and I think the guy has a hit.

It's easy enough to explain question #5 (and why an uneqivocal NO ought to be any rational, educated person's response), as some recent studies have indicated that states of intense meditation/prayer produce a disconnect in one's sense of physical location at large; i.e. you feel you're floating in limbo with no sense of up or down or right or left or backwards or forwards or any orientation in physical space whatsoever. However, not only can this phenomenom also be produced by certain psychotropic substances, it is clearly only a function of a particular brain-state. In other words, it is purely physical in origin; there is actually nothing mystical about it at all. It is not a higher brain state, it is simply a particular brain state, and there is no good reason to think anything other than ordinary knowledge can ever result from it.

I got a 40 on the quiz as I answered yes to the first three questions. However small the likelihood of something, it's still possible, and that's something everyone should keep in mind.

The use of "may" in all the questions kills this one for me.

"may" didn't appear in all the questions, only the first three. The answer to the first question is "no" -- the universe is the wrong sort of thing to have intelligence; it simply isn't an intelligent agent. But for questions 2 and 3, it is not deluded to answer yes, and quite irrational to answer no, just as it would be irrational to claim that there couldn't be a china teapot in orbit around Mars. It is possible that, for instance, this universe is an experiment being run by scientists of some outer universe, among a number of other possibilities. I have no reason to believe it is (thus I am not deluded), but that wasn't the question.

OTOH, if you believe that meditation can bring you knowledge that you can't get by other means, you severely deluded about knowledge, the nature of cause and effect, and the workings of the brain.

#68, Do you BELIEVE [not: Do you think it is possible to any degree] that this higher consciousness or greater intelligence, which exists (or may exist), also created (or may have also created) a microscopic teapot and set it in orbit around the planet Jupiter? If your answer is yes, give yourself, oh I don't know, lots of points.

Oops, beat me to it. Mars...then.

I got a goose egg!
And now I feel so clean.
I scored exactly zero,
What can this really mean?

Perhaps when I'm dead
I'm really, really done?
That puts it into my head
This life is much more fun

Than waiting forever
Till a new one has begun.
Because I'll never, never
Fully use just this one!

Love those goose eggs! I scored a shut out! Woo-hoo!

Didn't take it, don't feel like it. Been around too long (way too long) to take stuff like that seriously.

I can point out that if you of the male persuasion lower your cholesterol too much, and your mom was given a certain anti-miscarriage medication while expecting you, then you would learn something about yourself you could learn in no other way.

Let me put it this way, it would utterly change your impression of chocolate. Not to mention which public restroom you used.

Wait, you mean this was serious?

The way questions 1 and 2 were worded, I couldn't answer no. While I am highly skeptical, I feel I have no evidence to confirm nor deny such a state of affairs.

For question number 5 I paused briefly, but I think the key is the difference between simply "letting the clutter or background noise fade" and some magical medication factor.

I went ahead and answered yes on question five and scored five points. I consider listening to Bach highly meditative, but I don't pray to him and ask him to change things or give me things. The second video just made me want to blow my brains out.

I think youtube is on to you atheist pinkos. All the vids posted by PZ yesterday and today (4) are no longer available.

Way to go youtube. Show those atheist bastards who's in charge. Just like myspace.

Ups, seems like i was too quick to judge... now they are back. Probably a glitch in toutube or (more likely) in my proxy. Sorry.

that this higher consciousness or greater intelligence, which exists (or may exist), also created (or may have also created) a microscopic teapot and set it in orbit around the planet Jupiter? If your answer is yes, give yourself, oh I don't know, lots of points.

Of course it may have done so; anyone who answers no to that is a dolt.

I went ahead and answered yes on question five and scored five points. I consider listening to Bach highly meditative

So what do you know from listening to Bach that you could not know without having done so?

Note 1: "I know what it's like to hear Bach" is no better than "I learned what I learned". Knowledge is true justified belief, and beliefs can be stated as propositions. Experiences themselves are not knowledge (but stateable memories are).

Note 2: If you can state what you know, others can know it by reading your statements without hearing Bach.

I can point out that if you of the male persuasion lower your cholesterol too much, and your mom was given a certain anti-miscarriage medication while expecting you, then you would learn something about yourself you could learn in no other way.

Uh, so how do you know it? Anyway, the question was about gaining knowledge by meditating, not gaining knowledge by having had a different personal history (which of course is not a gain of knowledge at all).

Let me put it this way, it would utterly change your impression of chocolate. Not to mention which public restroom you used.

Neither of which have anything to do with knowing something not knowable any other way. This is more reminiscent of the old saw "If my grandmother had had testicles, she would have been my grandfather".

Another 0-scorer here.

BTW, I can't believe Rod Boucher got away with that song in Australia of all places. You'd think some burly, well-tanned guy would thrust a Bowie knife into his guitar and then throw it to the crocodiles.

Seems reasonable to suppose that certain propositions about meditation itself were initially retrieved from the experience of meditation (e.g. visualize such and such a chakra filling with amrita and raise your core temperature x degrees).

Also, certain kinds of self-knowledge might only arise when one steps back, meditatively, from the usual ego/sensory-immersion (e.g. "a certain % of my thoughts relate to imagined conversations").

I do have to take issue with the first video calling low (0-45) scores as "normal". I think religious people tend to be much more widespread, so I think a really "normal" score would be somewhere between what they call mildly and moderately deluded.

Hey, August Pamplona, comment #7, I know it's REALLY FUNNY to make fun of people with disabilities, but since I have temporal lobe epilepsy I happen to know that it doesn't qualify people as batshit crazy, so how about you pick on some poor crippled kid next time you feel the need to act like an ass.

HD, calm down a bit. You've misread the comment.

The question was whether the science fiction author Philip K. Dick (whose stories lay behind the movies "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report", among others) achieved a heightened state of cognition (in the words of the test being discussed, "knowledge or understanding not attainable through ordinary thought") through use of amphetamines. AP suggests a possible alternative, which is temporal lobe epilepsy.

Dick's work is widely recognized as unique, philosophically sophisticated, and ahead of its time. To suggest that perhaps some of the insights that made it this way were brought on by epilepsy is not an insult to epileptics, and most certainly has nothing to do with making fun of them.

HD . . .

Oops. "HB."

HB,

You might want to consider that you might have been a little bit oversensitive with regards to that comment of mine. If you truly are thinking that my intent with that comment was to make fun of people with TLE, or of Philip K. Dick in particular, you are wrong. I certainly don't know how you got "batshit crazy" from me using "craziness" surrounded by quotation marks (in fact, I fail to see how you saw a "funny" intent in anything that I wrote). While it may not have been your experience, some people with TLE can certainly feel at times like they might be crazy (Philip K. Dick certainly did --not that we'll ever know whether he had TLE or not). My reference to this was not in any way meant to make fun of people with TLE. And, by the way, if you ever read any stories by Philip Dick, that really is "crazy" stuff (and before you get all riled up over it, I mean "crazy" as an allusion to extreme weirdness --extreme weirdness, fortunately for me, not being a bad thing).

Well, I'm sure I'm just asking for it, but I came in at 325. This puts me in the middle of the 'moderately deluded' category, which is nowhere near as amusing as being 'batshit crazy.' The video gave me a good chuckle nonetheless.

Another zero score here.

I agree with #6. It's like golf, the lower the score the better, with 45 being a passing grade. On their sliding scale it's better to be normal than "batshit crazy" don't 'cha think?

Cheers,
Ray

For the people who say can't rule out X so I got points there is hope ;)
The way the test is setup you need to be able to say yes. Not I don't have enough information to rule out a position or I can't say it is not possible.

LionDancer finds that taking two sharp pencils and jabbing them sharply into both ears (being ironic; do not do this at home. LionDancer professional!) makes video sound like pain. Nice sweet pain. Much better than before pencil. I can take pain. I cannot take song.

As a teenager in early 80s Australia it was advertisements like this (second video) that contributed to my impression of Christianity being completely dorky and slightly eccentric. Really, only old folk and earnest weirdos believed this stuff.

It only slowly dawned on me as I got into my 30s (and now, even more so with access to atheist websites like this one) that people really take it seriously and believe it completely. I was actually quite surprised when I realised this.

I scored 5. I'm so proud!

Yeah, I admit, I freaked out a wee bit. I just had gone all night w/out sleep and that makes me a tad hypersensitive. Sorry.

These videos made my day...great fun!! The singer is as scary as hell. I scored 8045 points which apparently makes me profoundly deluded!! :-( I would have been completely normal if I weren't a creationist.

I love the clinical, deadpan "you are batshit crazy". That was an LOL moment.

I scored a zero, like PZ.

The second video....maybe this is is Ken Ham's dad?? ;-)

5 points for question 1. given that the complex interactions between specialized parts of the brain is what we call consciousness/intelligence, it's reasonable to consider the whole of the earth, its people, its other animals, and their complex interactions to be a form of consciousness as well. it's perhaps debatable whether that pan-consciousness is 'higher' than, say, an individual human's consciousness, but that's because consciousness itself is not very well defined (there is no agreed upon comparing function for two conscious systems, though uw-madison neuroscientist giulio tononi has an interesting information-theory approach), leaving the answer to question to be 'yes' for me.

Scored even worse, -12!
Because I don't 'believe' in science either, as I KNOW science is a KNOWLEDGE system, like engineering or any other systems that create continuous PROGRESS in understanding, and an appreciation of the joy to ever expand one's horizons.

#2 is the one that got me. He didn't specify that the creator did it on purpose and he also used the "may" qualifier. So my theory that somebody messing around with their Super Large Hadron Collider accidentally created the singularity is not ruled out.

I stopped watching at 1:45, after the poor wording of the questions caused me to rack up dozens of points. I felt my time would be better spent on PZ's MySpace page. But it's an interesting game: I called bullshit when, at first, I thought the answers had to be given in certainties; but I relented when I realized I was free to answer in terms of probabilities.

For example, question #1 asks whether one believes that there "may exist" a higher intelligence or consciousness that is "somehow associated" with "the entirety" of the universe. From the standpoint of certainties, it is thus asking whether takes the position that there cannot exist the blah blah. Yet the blah blah is so vaguely described - "higher," "consciousness," "entirety" - that I couldn't be sure what the questioner is talking about, let alone consider ruling it out.

From a probablistic standpoint, though, I'm comfortable saying that the level of evidence for whatever the questioner is on about is so insignificant that the probability is what scientists call "really fracking close to nil." :-) So, I needn't answer with a "Yes." A "No, but" will suffice.

On the other hand, and back to the poor wording, I am certain that there did exist a great intelligence associated with the entirety of the universe. Unfortunately, Dick Feynman died in 1988. ;-)

RE#100 by JohnM:

Well said! Known among the stupids I work with as a rather strident atheist, one of them did once make the mistake of asking me to my face if I "believed in evolution."
They were shocked when I responded: "Absolutely NOT!" "But I though you were an atheist," was the drooling response.
I then had to explain that one does not BELIEVE in facts, one KNOWS facts.
I still use that response with anyone stupid enough to ask the question and it never fails to get a rise out of the marching morons.

I second comments 22, 28 and 34 (disclaimer: the author of 34 is not my son, I have none).

-----------------

I love how mechanic and monotonous the voice is: "If your God Delusion Index is 10,000 or higher, you are batshit crazy." I couldn't say that without laughing.

It's like that Fu Man Chu film with Christopher Lee, the one that's so bad it's good: "I need an ingenious idea right now, or I will die." Then the whole building explodes in a ridiculously huge three-stage explosion. Then the good guy, Mr Smith, who has been watching from the distance, says it's over. And then, just so they can have a sequel, Fu Man Chu (pronounced so that you can hear the spaces) appears in the sky, I kid you not, and says to the audience: "You are wrong again, Mr Smith. I, Dr. Fu Man Chu, live -- !!" (My retranslations from German.)