If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....

I'm not sure anymore that the God-is-God-ain't matter is one that can be decided on evidence. Forcing people to reframe their religious beliefs as an evidentiary construct, and then criticizing the construct for its indequacy, might make the world of debatery go round but it's mistaking the finger for what it's pointing to.If the matter is about collective construction of value and meaning, however, then we need to ask different questions. Is the notion of religious belief really analogous to Santa-belief, or more like the belief in the value of currency? Message-board atheists sound like they're trying to convince us that hundred-dollar bills are just scraps of paper. And maybe they are scraps of paper, but they symbolize a whole slew of things that transcend their empirical paperness. In the same way, religious belief is tied into political, philosophical, and psychological matters in ways that are much more important than the existence or nonexistence of The Big G.

I'm not forcing anybody to do anything. I'm just disregarding conclusions that are not based on evidence. People who draw those conclusions are quite welcome to them - just don't expect anybody else to give them value. Currency is "real" because we collectively agree on the fictitious value of those scraps of paper. Santa Claus is also "real" to the extent that everybody knows who he is. In what way is Santa Claus less "real" than Brad Pitt?

Brad Pitt is made of matter, Santa Claus is not.

Um, right. And if it's not an evidentiary matter, then you're disregarding conclusions on the very basis that you already know isn't going to justify the conclusions. That's fine if we're determined to miss the point, but it doesn't give us any better understanding of why people believe. If someone says he's a Christian because his family is Christian, we can't say that's an inadequate basis for religious belief. After all, it's good enough for him. But it's not just that we collectively agree. Currency is a cultural construct that transcends our beliefs and involves legal sanctions for the transfer and treatment of money. Just because something's culturally constructed doesn't mean it's fictitious.

The point is, how do you know?

In this topic, I'm not interested in why people believe. I've been talking about how we can tell the difference between belief and "knowledge". Yes, a cultural construct is something we collectively agree on. We don't always have to take a survey to find out if we agree. The value of currency is fictitious because it isn't intrinsic. Strictly speaking, the value of gold is mostly fictitious too. You can't eat it.

Brad Pitt is a human being and Santa Claus is a fictional character.

Brad Pitt never brought me presents but Santa has.

Literally never happened.You got bamboozled!

Nah, I got the presents. Never got a bambozzle though I did get a Jews Harp and pig whistle once.

I'm not in the mood for playing dumb.Have a nice day.

There's no need for you to play, but the facts are that I have objective evidence for Santa Claus but none for Brad Pitt.

How do you know?

Brad Pitt is a living person. Santa Claus is a hodgepodge of characters from multiple cultural myths.

How do you know?