On 1/21/2014 4:53 PM, clipka wrote:
> Note that theism and atheism aren't black-and-white; there's quite a
> wide spectrum between the two, and it's full of people.
>
Umm. I think I am with others in that there "is" a wide gap between. 
Gods exist, or they provisionally don't. There isn't much wiggle room in 
there. Its literally the difference between, "Did someone eat the last 
donut, or is it still in the box?" You can have, to some extent, varied 
opinions on how likely one or the other position may be, or even about 
which one "is" real, but you kind of have to be fairly well on one side 
of the line or the other, in terms of "existence".

Faith, in the sense that religion uses it is like pseudoscience, or as 
Shermer put it, also pseudohistory. It can change via personal belief, 
political, or ideology, but its not "cumulative". Faith, as it applies 
to science **implies** cumulative discovery, which changes the resulting 
expectations, not by opinion, but by accumulation better understanding 
of the subject.

Now, this is a bit of a problem for "god", because you can't a) 
accumulate information on it, if it isn't real, and b) you can't figure 
out if it is real, if no one can bloody define it in the first place. 
And, the latter issue is, for me, the clincher - there are insane 
numbers of "definitions", ranging from so vague you might as well be 
talking about time and space itself, with, or without, intelligence 
being involved, to so specific people paint portraits of them. The 
former are so vague you can't derive any useful information from, while 
the latter are all so specific you can debunk every one of them, based 
on who made them up in the first place.

More to the point, the one extreme is not worth believing in, it would 
be like having faith that "air" exists, and wants to let us breath. 
I.e., both obvious, and, at the same time, incoherent. While, on the 
other extreme, all the options are "unworthy" of being believed in, 
being obvious fabrications of the times they where made up in.

Its kind of hard to imagine what attributes a "god" would have to have 
to be some place between these extremes, and.. not be just as absurd as 
both of them.

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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