It's an annoying fact that if you want to take as a given that people are often wrong about their personal experiences you have to be aware that this applies to you too. It annoys me anyway
Oh, me too :D
I'm not sure all religious people see the world the way you describe. A lot certainly do, though, and that link you gave was very interesting. Stuff like that is why I'm very much a skeptic and, deep down, smugly atheist :)
Reducing the argument to "is there some spiritual force beyond our ken or not" and ignoring the specifics, if your "we're both wrong" is correct then we're not both wrong, the spiritual-force argument wins, because there is therefore something beyond our ken, even if they were all wrong about the specifics of it.
If you express it that way, yes, but 99% of non-atheists don't see it that way, and would be even more upset than us by that outcome. If God doesn't exist but ...*random example* some people can tap into the global consciousness, that doesn't change the fact that God doesn't exist. Having one over the atheists really wouldn't come into it. Even people with fairly vague beliefs tend to have certain specific things they think they understand. About the only people who'd really be right would be the agnostics (and they're always "right" :D) and the incredibly vague "I just think there's something out there" people(*). I see atheism as being like quantum mechanics: it's one thing for people to say "I think quantum mechanics is wrong" and another for them to say "Here is my unified theory of everything which disproves quantum mechanics". The first group is (imo) quite possibly right but not very useful, but the second group is almost certainly wrong, and doesn't get to be smug when an improved version of quantum mechanics comes along if it bears no resemblance to their TOE.
Also, I think a middle ground (ish) would be if certain things that people tend to see as either having a supernatural explanation or not being real turned out to have a scientific basis, like scent-based telepathy or something.
But yes, there's a reason that's my second choice :) And I can see how it could be too annoying to even consider, and this is very much just my opinion.
(*)I'm ignoring all the people who believe "There's something out there...and it cares about us/me"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you?
Oh, me too :D
I'm not sure all religious people see the world the way you describe. A lot certainly do, though, and that link you gave was very interesting. Stuff like that is why I'm very much a skeptic and, deep down, smugly atheist :)
Reducing the argument to "is there some spiritual force beyond our ken or not" and ignoring the specifics, if your "we're both wrong" is correct then we're not both wrong, the spiritual-force argument wins, because there is therefore something beyond our ken, even if they were all wrong about the specifics of it.
If you express it that way, yes, but 99% of non-atheists don't see it that way, and would be even more upset than us by that outcome. If God doesn't exist but ...*random example* some people can tap into the global consciousness, that doesn't change the fact that God doesn't exist. Having one over the atheists really wouldn't come into it. Even people with fairly vague beliefs tend to have certain specific things they think they understand. About the only people who'd really be right would be the agnostics (and they're always "right" :D) and the incredibly vague "I just think there's something out there" people(*). I see atheism as being like quantum mechanics: it's one thing for people to say "I think quantum mechanics is wrong" and another for them to say "Here is my unified theory of everything which disproves quantum mechanics". The first group is (imo) quite possibly right but not very useful, but the second group is almost certainly wrong, and doesn't get to be smug when an improved version of quantum mechanics comes along if it bears no resemblance to their TOE.
Also, I think a middle ground (ish) would be if certain things that people tend to see as either having a supernatural explanation or not being real turned out to have a scientific basis, like scent-based telepathy or something.
But yes, there's a reason that's my second choice :) And I can see how it could be too annoying to even consider, and this is very much just my opinion.
(*)I'm ignoring all the people who believe "There's something out there...and it cares about us/me"