@ spyman, I think that smeck is saying that we are often in danger of placing too much faith in probabilistic outcomes. I think he has expressed it a little extremely, but he is certainly not alone in this view. Check this guy out - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

He did say that he wanted to abolish the Nobel Prize for economics which was a pretty good start I think! ;-)

I honestly don't care too much for the sarcasm, I'm just telling you what his position is. It's not entirely invalid. When you're tugging over the niceties of a logical debate, dogma and 'it's so obvious' are rarely useful.

No sarcasm from me. I agree with you that he makes a good and cautionary point.

@semck, so, what is your criteria for selecting your belief system... So far what I've got is:
1) Evidence is meaningless because we have no way of predicting in what could be a chaotic world
2) God provides near-regularity - (apparently you don't believe that there could be regularity without it)
3) an internal consistency - once the appropriate God belief structure is selected, all else follows because one is careful to select a belief structure that is internally consistent (this feels a bit circular, but whatever)

I think that more or less, your thesis rests on your faith/belief that the world would be chaotic without a god. The details about which god model you use are just that to me - details. Do you really believe that God is out there pushing every dropped ball to the ground, squishing every squirrel road kill, pushing each photon to its destination? Is that the sort of involvement that you believe God has? Or can God set things in motion and walk away and let them run themselves? Surely God is clever enough and powerful enough to make a world that is so well designed and thought out that it doesn't need his constant and nearly infinite supervision. Thoughts?

OK guys, I'm back but only briefly. Momentarily I'm leaving for WACcon. WOO HOO WACCON!

@santosh, I must say that I appreciate your careful presentation of my argument in my absence. Such civility is all too rare in these parts and does not go unnoticed.

I thus confess to feeling a little bad in resuming trying to pull apart your position, but since I continue to see problems with it, I trust you'll understand my expressing those concerns.

First of all, I am left in some confusion as to just what it is that we are modeling. The past needs no modeling, because it is actually known. Of course, we can try to come up with concise descriptions of what happened in the past, and perhaps that's what you're referring to.

The problem is, despite your saying that you don't care about the future, it seems to me that you do. For example, earlier you said,
"Science and logic work by looking at all your observed data and constructing a proposition for the future,"
and still earlier,
"I have a proposition, that things will continue as they are, and physics will more or less hold, with or without your god, in high probability, statistically."

It certainly seems you are no longer defending the obvious interpretation of the latter, so I'll leave it alone, but let's turn to the former. Are we constructing a model for the future with minimal assumptions? Then not to belabor, but one of the things we can't assume is that any of the regularities we've observed will continue. It's illegitimate, for example, to say, "The sun has risen every time, so our model will be that it will continue to rise until we see otherwise." That's a huge and arbitrary assumption being introduced into the model. There are, as I've pointed out (and you've already agreed) uncountable infinities of models of the universe's behavior in which the sun rises up to now and DOES NOT rise tomorrow. You say,

"At this point, I will have no choice but to propose that Chaos is the model, but proposing this prematurely then would violate the minimality principle."

But it seems that you're violating the minimality principle now by assuming NOT chaos. The most you could assume is that you don't know. And if you always choose the ordered model over the disordered one, for as long as you can, then you're back to having a well-defined but unjustifiable algorithm (and one which flagrantly violates the minimality principle).

Also, why do you always test the "ordered" model? Why not try turning the wheel the other way and testing one of the infinitely many other models that you should be considering? The fact is, santosh, you're NOT going to walk out in front of a bus to see what would happen, because you know all too well. (At least, I hope you're not. Don't do it, santosh!) You can't ignore this belief, but you also can't justify it by any minimality principle. It's not minimal in the least.

(Generic configurations, I should say, generally ARE disordered. If I predict what direction a ball will fly, I am choosing one out of infinitely many, one out of thousands, anyway, if you want to choose measurable granularity. It is always the assumption of order that is far less generic than the assumption of chaos, in a model).

Anyway, I hope I've been clear. I'm really interested in your answer, not just trying to be rhetorical.

@fulhamish, Thank you for the posts. Santosh is right in this case, though, I'm arguing for a little more than a cautionary point about probability. I'm suggesting that laws themselves could completely disappear, and take all our (useful) probabilistic analysis with them.

Or, not that they really could, but that if one does not believe in God, one has no source of knowledge to suggest in the least that they won't.

@spyman, There's a little more subtlety, but that'll do. ; )

In particular, I should probably make one thing clear that I've only hinted at before. I DO accept that the things we're doing -- science, probability, daily decisions, and the like -- are perfectly valid, but only because the Christian God actually DOES exist. It so happens that the atheist is wrong, and thus, so happens that his inconsistent assumptions continue to work again and again, thank God. But in using them, he's kind of relying on things that don't belong to his worldview.

Hey dexter don't forget about choice or free will, I am sure that smeck will have something to say about that too.

@dexter, thanks again for the post. I was already writing when you sent it, I guess. It's a good post. I'll respond in order.

"So far what I've got is:
1) Evidence is meaningless because we have no way of predicting in what could be a chaotic world
2) God provides near-regularity - (apparently you don't believe that there could be regularity without it)
3) an internal consistency - once the appropriate God belief structure is selected, all else follows because one is careful to select a belief structure that is internally consistent (this feels a bit circular, but whatever)."

1) Well, evidence is _not_ meaningless, but it would be on your beliefs.

2) It's true that He does, though in my last post I explicitly rejected the suggestion that there COULD NOT be regularity without it, or at least that I'm arguing that today.

3) Right, it's important to have an internally consistent system. I agree that it feels a bit circular, but it checks out if you're careful. The point is that your beliefs had better make sense of how you could have correct beliefs. Every worldview has assumptions, yes, but if they fail to cohere, then they're unjustified even on its own terms.

"I think that more or less, your thesis rests on your faith/belief that the world would be chaotic without a god. The details about which god model you use are just that to me - details. Do you really believe that God is out there pushing every dropped ball to the ground, squishing every squirrel road kill, pushing each photon to its destination? Is that the sort of involvement that you believe God has? Or can God set things in motion and walk away and let them run themselves? Surely God is clever enough and powerful enough to make a world that is so well designed and thought out that it doesn't need his constant and nearly infinite supervision. Thoughts? "

Very interesting questions, though I think you may have misunderstood me. (My fault, no doubt -- I am notoriously bad at communicating subtle ideas well the first time).

I agree that God could set up a world that worked without His "pushing every ball," etc., so I don't really have an opinion on that one. (By default, I think of the world as the former, not the latter extreme-interventionist model, and I think I could justify that to some extent on my beliefs).

But the point is, whichever one He did, He then told us about it, and that's the absolutely key point. In my worldview, Christianity, God both created the world and created our minds; created the latter to understand the former; and told us He had done so. We thus have a sound epistemic (_in my world view_) for believing that the world will be ordered. I do not have to believe that my mind has mystical or magical capabilities to know the future, only that it was made by the same Person as the future, and designed so it could know it. (Up to a limited extent, of course -- the regularity properties of the future).

It is this lack of an authoritative (or any) knowledge about the future that dooms atheism. It is NOT that the future COULD NOT be ordered, but simply that we have (in that world view) no way of knowing one way or the other, out of all the infinitely many possible future behaviors of the universe. Take atheism seriously, and every belief about the behavior of the universe is a blind, irrational leap of faith.

(And I'm off again fellas -- take care y'all, see you anon).

OK...
Einstein said, in response to the nascent field of quantum physics:
"God does not play dice with the universe."

To which Neils Bohr responded:
"Who are you to tell God what to do?"

To which I respond:
"Who needs God?, perhaps all we have are dice."

@semck83
"It is this lack of an authoritative (or any) knowledge about the future that dooms atheism. It is NOT that the future COULD NOT be ordered, but simply that we have (in that world view) no way of knowing one way or the other, out of all the infinitely many possible future behaviors of the universe. Take atheism seriously, and every belief about the behavior of the universe is a blind, irrational leap of faith."

I'm confused to how introducing God would solve this problem... We have no reason to believe He will be the same in the future as the past.

Moreover the idea that this 'problem' with the atheist position, even if it doesn't exist in a theistic epistemology, provides support for a belief in God is flawed. Even if it were true that God existing meant that we could know about the future, that wouldn't make it true that God existed, or even any more likely that he did. It may comfort us, but it really just explains one irrationality with another.

In fact I'd like to hear why you think that the irrationality of predicting the future for atheists "dooms atheism".

@dexter morgan (or others making similar arguments):

Do you believe that you have free will? (If you say no, I say you are lying) If so, how do you justify believing that you have free will while rejecting someone else's faith? I don't see the logic behind that. The way I see it, some questions are not questions at all; we have no choice but to choose one side (I see free will this way). I think religion is a similar "forced question" for many people, although I personally am agnostic.

@semck:

I think that your point about science being unable to be sure that causality will hold up or whatever (and thus is based on faith) is a good one, but then your jump to Christianity being the best possible solution seems kinda crazy to me. Isn't the belief that the world will continue to be essentially causal strictly more likely than the belief that there is a Christian God and that the world will continue to be essentially causal? I think you are simply wrong when you say (or at least seem to imply) that in order for a worldview to be sound it needs to explain everything. To admit to not knowing something is not always such a bad thing.

@uclabb
I think you post on freewill confuses two kinds of belief. One is a gut, instinctual belief (like freewill, or that causality exists); the other is a considered, rational academic opinion. So many philosophers will say that live there lives day to day as if they have free will and the world will continue to act in the future as it has in the past, but if asked will argue against freewill and against causality. They are not lying. Neither am I when I say I'm certain we don't have freewill. The problem with religion is that it asserts the academic, rational belief in God.

@uclabb, I certainly *feel* like I've got free will in small ways... but often look back at bigger decisions I've made and thought that my decision was pretty much predictable and, in a sense, predestined by my personality and my maturing/experience at the time. Just because I feel something though, doesn't mean its necessarily objectively true. (Example: Leo Decaprio's character in Titanic felt for a moment that he was "the king of the world" that certainly didn't make him that.) I am ultimately undecided about the issue... and I don't see how anyone could prove that they do or don't have free will. I don't see what this has to do with my opinion of someone else's faith. If I have free will, so do they and they can be influenced and make a new choice. If I don't have free will, I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

And yes... I agree: I don't think we can choose what we believe. We can believe contradictory things if we don't realize that they contradict each other, though... and if we realize that or we realize a new piece of information we could change our mind... but yes, it would be a matter of being like "forced" to do so. I've had religious people say, "but don't you *want* to believe in a god? or - don't you want to believe there's a purpose?" - and I'm like - it's irrelevant what I want - I believe what I believe based on what I see and think and feel. And simply wanting it to be different is completely ineffective for me. I would be lying if I said that I changed my mind out of not logic or new information but simply because I willed it. This is also why "praying the gay out" or "just say no" and similar efforts are famously ineffective... one will simply repress and likely reemerge later. Wishing don't make it so.

Just my two cents:

I do not care whether God exists. If one is at peace, then whether he is at peace because he believes in God or for some other reason, that is good enough.

Hey guys, I'm afraid it's going to be another pretty cursory post before I get my 5 hours of sleep and resume the tournament. Once again, I will get back eventually in detail.

@dexter, I have no idea what that means, but it certainly sounds deep. :-P

@dave,

"I'm confused to how introducing God would solve this problem... We have no reason to believe He will be the same in the future as the past."

Sure we do. That's another thing that an all-knowing God would know and be able to tell us (and He has).

"In fact I'd like to hear why you think that the irrationality of predicting the future for atheists 'dooms atheism'"

Well, by removing rationality and knowledge from atheism, it makes it an irrational position -- one where there can be no rational knowledge. Of course, if one is prepared to embrace irrationalism, then one can believe anything, but then there's no point having a discussion at all.

A lot of claims were made at the beginning of this thread about how various posters believe things only based on evidence, and there is no evidence for God. If it should turn out that their disbelief in God dooms the very coherency of believing things based on evidence, then their worldview is in an intellectual shambles.

"Moreover the idea that this 'problem' with the atheist position, even if it doesn't exist in a theistic epistemology, provides support for a belief in God is flawed. Even if it were true that God existing meant that we could know about the future, that wouldn't make it true that God existed, or even any more likely that he did."

The existence of God -- an all-knowing, all-powerful being Who is the ground of all being and cause of all existence -- is not just the kind of thing you test by a measurement in a lab. It is a fundamental, worldview-defining belief. What we have, then, is two views of things, two core ways of looking at things, and we're testing their merits. If you mean that there's no way to deduce directly, "Blah blah regularity, therefore God," that's right, at least as a deductive argument.

However, by demonstrating that one of the worldviews in question actually completely fails to support the intellectual preconditions for basic knowledge or rationality, and even fails to support the types of evidence that are supposed to support _it_, then we can say that it has been eliminated as a _rational_ option. Meanwhile, the alternative, Christian theism, does not suffer from the same problems. The argument is in this sense rather indirect.

@ucla,

"Isn't the belief that the world will continue to be essentially causal strictly more likely than the belief that there is a Christian God and that the world will continue to be essentially causal?"

No. If you assume no God, then there is no positive probability at all that the world will so continue. If you assume God, then the probability both of the existence of God and of the (essential) causality of the world is 1.

"I think you are simply wrong when you say (or at least seem to imply) that in order for a worldview to be sound it needs to explain everything. To admit to not knowing something is not always such a bad thing."

Again, I'm not criticizing atheism for failing to explain _everything_. I'm criticizing it for undercutting the ability to know anything at all. To admit knowing nothing at all is not a good thing, or at least, to _know_ nothing at all is not a good thing; a worldview that destroys the ability to know anything is a rational dead end.

OK, sorry to post and run. Obviously have at it or whatever. It could just be a brief window again tomorrow late. First game was crazy. Have fun!

"Love Is God." - Osho

@semck,
Here is my breakdown on why I believe your arguments to be unconvincing:

1) I believe your assertion that without god the world would (almost) necessarily be irrational and chaotic to be unfounded. One could as easily posit the opposite and similarly have no basis for the claim. Ideas such as "God is the law giver" or "without God we couldn't even have these conversations" do not support your assertion as they simply are a form of the Begging the Question fallacy (this fallacy includes premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly))

2) The fact that I cannot prove that the universe is 100% rational is not proof that it is irrational nor is it proof that irrationality is equally likely. The fact that I have not proven my assertion is not proof that my assertion has no significant likelihood. This is an Argument from Ignorance fallacy as well as a Burden of Proof fallacy.

3) The fact that your hypothesis (Christian God) agrees with observed reality (more or less) and your intuition:
a) in no way proves that it is the only hypothesis (whether imagined or not yet imagined) capable of agreeing with observed reality and intuition (it decidedly is not [see #7 below]),
b) in no way proves that it is the correct model
This is a Hasty Generalization fallacy. ...and likely False Dilemma fallacy.

4) The fact that your hypothesis is emotionally appealing to you (i.e. agrees with your 'intuition' or 'common sense') drawing you to conclude that your Christian God is real is simply the fallacy of Appeal to Emotion (this fallacy takes the form of: Favorable emotions are associated with X. Therefore, X is true.) Also: Ignoring a Common Cause fallacy (i.e. your thought that the Christian God is real and your feeling of emotional well being are associated - but one does not necessarily cause the other... the common cause could easily have been simply pleasant church experiences with friends and family or praying producing a meditative state). Conformation Bias fallacy likely also plays a part (such as believers taking "answered" prayers as proof of God, yet ignoring unanswered prayers).

5) The fact that many people around the world believe in the Christian God in no way supports its truth. Similarly, the fact that a few hundred years ago most people thought the world was flat and the center of the universe in no way supported the truth of those claims. This is the Appeal to Belief fallacy.

6) The fact that the bible presents "evidence" (reported eyewitness testimonies) that are dramatic and, if true, unexplainable by normal physical means (to the best of our current knowledge) does not prove anything - whether it be God who is willing to break momentarily rational rules of physics or some other explanation such as magic. This is both the fallacy of Appeal to Anonymous Authority (all the writers of the bible were anonymous with the exception of Paul) and the fallacy of Misleading Vividness (i.e. Dramatic or vivid event X occurs or is claimed [and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence]. Therefore events of type X are likely to occur. Also kind of a reverse Poisoning the Well fallacy applies (Highly favorable information (be it true or false) about person A (Jesus or Paul) is presented. Therefore any claims person A makes will be true. Also: Fallacy of Magical Thinking (amounts to an admission of ignorance packaged into the pretense of an explanation).

7) Alternate explanations for the universe are numerous, including (but not limited to):
a) the universe *is* chaotic and we simply have too small a data set to realize it (and)
a1) God exists and is irrational and thus created a chaotic universe
a2) God does not exist
a3) God exists but did not create the universe
b) the universe is not chaotic (and)
b1) God exists but is not the god you believe he is (infinite number of possible gods)
b2) The universe does not need a god to make it rational
b2a) God exists despite not being needed for the universe to be rational
b2aa) God made the universe anyway - despite not needing to
b2ab) God exists but did not make the universe
b2b) God doesn't exist
I see no argument by you that clearly puts us into one of these several possibilities to the exclusion of the possibility of any of the others.

I'll be interested if you or anyone else has an effective refutation of any of the above.

#2 above is also: Argument from Uncertainty (Arguing from uncertainty occurs when one attempts to use the tentative nature of inductive claims as a reason in of itself to reject an inductive claim. Inductive claims are accepted or rejected on a probabilistic basis, as per their evidence. Example: There are mountains of evidence exist to support the notion of gravity, but there is but a dearth of evidence to support "Big Foot' Therefore, while both ideas lie along a continuum of uncertainty, they are hardly equitable in truth value. We can reasonably reject Big Foot claims, while we can reasonably accept claims about gravity.)

#3 and #4 above are also: Reification fallacy (Reification error occurs when we treat a sign as a signifier - i.e. when we treat abstract concept as having an existence independent of the brain. This error also occurs when one makes the claim that since one can imagine some phenomenon, then this phenomenon must exist. This argument was used by Saint Anselm. Briefly, Anselm's argument was that since he could imagine a perfect being, then he must exist, since its "more perfect" for him to actually exist "extra-mentally". Rene Decartes also famously fell into this fallacy.)

@semck83
I've worded this response carefully, and tried to point out where you're confused. Its a rebuttal of your idea that a belief in God somehow solves or remedies the "problem of induction", namely that future beliefs about the world can't be rationally justified.

But how do you know God won’t change over time? You assume a belief in God leads inexorably to the idea things don't change over time. It doesn't. In fact you have to assume the God exists, that he wrote the bible, that he was not lying when he said that the world wouldn't change over time, and that he won't change over time, to reach this conclusion. You have to make a much bigger assumption about the world than an atheist does, a much more unlikely assumption. Therefore your position is less likely to be true, and less rational. It assumes more beliefs that aren't rationally justified.

You’re replacing one irrational belief (that the laws of nature won’t change) with another (that God exists, doesn't change, and will ensure the laws don't change), which in no way helps the situation. In fact by inventing some unchanging entity that we have no empirical evidence for to justify your belief, you make your position less rational.

Atheism is not irrational. The belief that the laws of nature will continue to be the same in the future may be irrational, but that does make a non-belief in God irrational. It is not a shambles of a worldview to admit there are some things we can’t know rationally, or to admit all knowledge is subject to some doubt. It is a shambles to invent an entity to solve your epistemic problems and then trick yourself in believing that rationalises all your other world beliefs.

For you indirect argument to work, you need to show why theistic foundations of knowledge are more certain than atheistic ones. You haven’t done so.

'It's illegitimate, for example, to say, "The sun has risen every time, so our model will be that it will continue to rise until we see otherwise."'

You're missing the point. I'm not saying anything about the future. Should I encounter new data that violates my all-encompassing minimal model, then I will incorporate it. This is my position. Why is my model logical? Because
1. It explains all of my data
2. It contains nothing unnecessary

Should the sun not rise tomorrow, I will change my model. I am not making an active prediction about the future, because I have no reason to believe it will be one thing or the other. I'm merely trying to collect new data to compare against my model, and I'm using this model and no other because it is the best model for the data I have. I don't know if this model will work because the future may be different from the past, but when the future happens, my new model will model that AND the past simultaneously, so it is legitimate to try and modify my current best model to fit all the data together.

'But it seems that you're violating the minimality principle now by assuming NOT chaos.'

Incorrect, for the data I already have from the past, my current models are sufficient, and chaos is unsupported because I can observe order, as presented in my models which satisfy the observed data.

This constitutes my world view, which contains zero assumptions, and as such I submit is more rational than the theistic worldview.

It strikes me from time to time that the Christian view is in essence, pessimistic and negative in its views of the world. It assumes that without God, the world would either not exist or be chaotic... It's like God is one big fix - holding this irrational, unlikely thing together (not unlike Atlas holding up the sky or Apollo pulling the sun around) against all natural tendencies. My views don't need God because I view the world as rational and inevitable... like 2+2=4. The world is the way it is because it makes sense to be that way. Christians generally don't think the world makes sense on its own - therefore they have to invent something (God) that forces sense into the world - to explain to them why things appear to actually act sensible despite their opinion that they shouldn't naturally act that way. This also is displayed in their opinions of human nature... that it is "sinful" and naturally evil and only through imposition of laws from above and threats do we behave. It is a really dark view of the world, in my opinion. (I realize that I am generalizing here... what I said certainly is only my personal experience/perspective - and within that, applies the most to radically conservative Christians and least to liberal "coexist" types of Christians - i.e. your results may vary.)

I disagree that this 'god of the gaps'. There will always be gaps in our knowledge, and any student of science will know that the more you know the deeper the questions become; this neither replaces a need for a god, nor obscures the awe of creation.

I fear religion can hinder questioning which is useful for answer finding, because a simple answer can be given, but neither does science claim to know every answer, it is a useful tool for structuring our questions and making testable predictions.

This will never amount to some ultimate answer or perfect solution, there will always be questions which we can't answer and if that is something which fills you with fear then i hope you can find some comfort.

I find the amazing, uncomprehendible Universe to be an inspiration rather than something fearsome. I can't really appreciate the alternative point of view.

I don't kniw what the hell God is, or where it fits into the concept of the Universe apart from as a guide to human behaviour, as putin would put it in terms of control and power - but putin sees everything in terms of control and power structures... Which is a different matter.

As a claim to moral authority i find religious myths to be lacking, natural humanist morals which don't fall prey to an appeal to authority, of either a social organisation (ie church) or any particular text; are superior guides. Anything which comes from within being more powerful than that which is enforced from outside. (of course i'm sure there are those here who have internalized their personal relationship with 'God', alas such a personal subjective feeling is much harder to transfer than a logical rational and objective reasoning.)

@davebishop-
I am not arguing for a rational scholarly argument for a god. That is dumb. Everything semck is saying is, in my opinion, essentially intellectual masturbation. But I do think the gut, instinctual belief that there is a god is a very different thing, and a perfectly reasonable and valid path to faith.

@semck-
Your probability arguments are super whack. For example, using your logic. The probability that there is a Christian God is zero, as you can imagine infinite different systems of the world that would be logically consistent, even on your terms (for example, the flying spaghetti monster, etc). All you are saying is that in some sense, everything has zero probability, and that is a worthless thing to say.

@dexter- I think what we may disagree on is that I think that objective truth isn't the only kind of truth. In fact, I would argue it isn't even the primary "type" of truth. As humans, we need to assign value to our lives. You don't recycle or vote because your actions actually objectively make a difference. You almost certainly do because you want to feel as if you are a good person. And that is a great reason. So to try to argue only objectively about a god, which is one of the main "value injectors" in people's lives, is lacking.

I have two problems with Semeck83's argument.
Firstly his definition of knowledge, that is itself is unknowable. Thus, for example, one cannot make statements about probability - because the probabilistic outcome of a coin flip is unknowable. All scientific evidence is immediately deemed unadmissable because it is unknowable. But then even the statement "knothing is known" is reduced to gibberish because it is "unknowable". It is a self-defeating argument.
Second Semeck83's (il)logical leap to "therefore therefore there must be a Christian God" - is a total non secitur. Why a Christian God, why not Roman Paganism or Scientology or Spiritualism etc? Or even no God? If the universe can be regular with God, why can't it be just as regular without God? But this second point, non secitur as it is, is also reduced to gibberish because "nothing is known."
In the real world nobody uses this Semeck83's defintion of knowledge. Not even Semeck83, otherwise he would not be able to participate in debates on this site. No one could becuase nobody couod ever present any "facts" to support their arguments. In science it is understood that knowledge is not certain. This is different concept of knowledge than the one presesented by Semeck83. A much more useful defintion.

typo... unadmissable = inadmissable

@uclabb,
I have no problem with faith filling in where knowledge is lacking... but, hopefully filling in in logical ways that are consistent with existing knowledge and don't present unsupported departures from existing evidence (for example, semck's proposition that the world could become completely irrational tomorrow is not something that I would have faith in because none of my knowledge is consistent with that).

As far as values, I agree that in a real sense that is the primary type of truth that us humans live by. Science-sans-God doesn't provide that - but then neither does, by itself, believing in a prime mover/intelligent designer. Both are hows rather than whys. As you note, "you want to feel as if you are a good person"... people have intrinsic motivation to do good things. I couldn't agree more. (I don't believe in something being truly 100% altruistic - not that I have a problem with that). My cat has a habit of grooming my dog. Must make him feel good... certainly no objective practical selfish reason, and certainly no religious reason as surely people are the only animals with religion. So - yes, value is separate from objective philosophy about god or not-god.

But... I feel to mix objective evidentiary/logical arguments for or against god with the subjective value that some get from believing in god and that others (such as myself) get from not believing in god is not helpful. What you propose is actually an Appeal to Consequences of a Belief fallacy. (wherein: X is true because accepting that X is true has positive consequences.) I'm not saying that belief in some things that are false can't have a positive consequence (belief in Santa, for example) - but it has nothing to do with truth. Yes, values can be attached to God (or chocolate or rooting for the Yankees or being a Liberal) - but they (values) are demonstrably independent of God, and therefore irrelevant to the conversation, in my opinion.

I get the feeling that I am not communicating well, so let me try one more time: I don't think that mixing evidentiary arguments into discussions about god is helpful either. The very nature of belief in god makes that so. I also, though, reject the argument that because the existence of god is not provable is at all an argument against his existence.

You are right that I am making a "Consequences of Belief fallacy". I don't deny that at all. But I think of it as "X must be true or else I can't make sense of the world I live in" rather than something else. This is not the way I am about God, but I can absolutely see being that way, just as I am about my absolute belief in my core that I have free will.

@ Jack, logical/sensory evidence is very important, because it's all around us, and if we just open ourselves spiritually to believe it, it's like a new door to how we view objective reality. I heard once that there are three signposts to knowing God's will: objective reality, subjective witness, and circumstances.