eskimospy: It's not faith, it's a reasonable assumtion based upon the facts.
M: I am not sure what facts you mean. I thought we had no facts.
e: I would say that the light is whatever the evidence presented to me most probably indicates... if there is no light coming from a lightbulb then any reasonable person would assume it is off.
M: Well I am talking about a bulb you can't see. I was suggesting there is no reason to prefer off to on in the absence of any data.
e: You're right that I have no idea if god is real or not, but lacking any evidence to show that he exists I would not believe in such a thing.
M: I know, but I also suggested that evidence does exist. You would similarly not be able to substantiate that germs cause disease if you didn't have or couldn't operate a microscope and actually studied the issue with such tools. But people with those tools and the knowledge to use them can. The science of knowing God belongs to the scientists who practice that science.
e: The same thing goes for the flying spaghetti monster, the magical space teapot, and the gnomes at the bottom of my garden.
M: But it really doesn't. One of the greatest piece of evidence for the existence of God is the fact that at all times and all places men will invent him. They don't universally invent the stuff you mentioned.
e: If you say that no evidence is required to believe something is true, then you have effectively removed rational thought from the equasion. While you are perfectly welcome to do so, I won't be joining you.
M: But I am saying that is exactly what you have done. You have decided that the light you can't see is off.
e: It doesn't upset me that people think that they are going to heaven and I to hell though, no. You are right about one thing however...those who deny reality do bother me very much. I thought long and hard about this though, and I can't say it's jealousy at all... it's pity and contempt. I simultaneously feel sad for them for being caught up in something that is so obviously a lie, and I hate them for their weakness of mind.
M: Well I have also thought long and hard about it too and I can tell you I learned almost nothing because you can't analysis with thoughts how you feel. Thought actually is the avoidance of feeling, the way we keep from feeling what we feel. Thought is rationalization. If you want to know what you are feeling and why, you have to actually feel. To feel is to discover your own self hate, to learn that pity and contempt and the hatred of weakness are all about having been put down as a child and made to feel the worst in the world, for being pitied and held in contempt, for being stupid. We react to others who remind us of how we feel about ourselves.
e: I tried for a long time to be religious, my family was Catholic and I briefly dated a girl who I really gave it a shot for. I can't turn off my brain though... sadly enough it just doesn't work that way.
M: How well I know. I could not believe to save my soul. For me without God there could be no meaning, only empty sadness and infinite pain. All the sorrow and misery felt by every soul amounted to cold vacuum in the great scheme of things. Everything is totally empty and without meaning. And the moment I realized there was no hope at all for me, no possibility I could ever escape the total blackness of this truth, the moment I let go and died I was free. When I disappeared I was left only with my heart and the love I had sought from God came pouring out of me. God is a tricky son of a bitch.