Believe:

[Pippy]

Kyuuketsuki,

Thank you for your response. I am happy to discuss this with you, even if we disagree.

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I think the experiments you first mention were an attempt to build a machine modeled after the human pineal gland. I am familiar with those experiments, and find them fascinating. The amount of periodicals aside, I think it is rash to assume we have a very complete view of the mind at all. What separates us from people of the past who would have said the very same? They were all proven wrong as our understanding grew through time. I think there are still things we will learn about our minds inner workings.

Of course,, I would be happy to explain more of what I meant by One True World. The capitalization is a jest. Silliness is important. It is a term I have coined (as of yesterday) to describe reality. Not the reality we think we know, but all of it. The entirety of the processes and functions that make reality possible. It is what is used in a court case. Provable reality aside from anyone's concept of it. (If a tree falls in the woods...)

If I say we all have our own reality, then there must be a real reality we all reference. I just think we don't reference it too perfection, and thus unknowingly create slightly false personal realities.
You said, "Perhaps, but some evidence isn't validatable, some is incompatible with the assertion made and some is just fictional,". I could not agree more. But I don't know if the debate over higher powers can be held to the same rules as forensics. As the physical world.

I understand and apologize about "I was blind but now I see..." thing. That is absolutely not at all what I meant for you to get from it, but I understand that you hear that from everyone. I am, unfortunately, not like everyone. I only meant that I do not need to have atheism defined for me. I am not as alien as you think, I have been known in the past to have similar views on this subject as yourselves. Can not any of you say "I was a believer, and then I became an atheist"? I mean it in the same way. With no offense, please.

You also said "In essence the person who claims there are no gods is every bit as wrong as the person who claims there are ... neither has any validatable evidence,". Again I literally could not agree more. That is a point I was trying to make with the first post I made. That this is a debate of theory, of ideas. There is no solid evidence, only what we (choose too) interpret of what evidence there is. Thank you for summing it up so well yourself.

Finally, you also said "from my POV (and I suspect others are much the same) I respect your wish to believe what you want but what I cannot respect is the belief itself as it has no greater merit than the belief there is a cream cake at the core of the Earth,". I appreciate that summation, as it helps me better understand the community here. I picked this thread to join, in fact joined the forum after reading it. I did not, and still don't understand the concept of non-belief. I think I am making progress though, and I appreciate your help. If I may, it is not that you believe in not-god. It is only that you do not believe in god? Although it is contradictory to what I wrote earlier, I think I now kind of get it. Oh yeah, and my belief, to me, has much, much more merit than a twinkie planet. Your personal reality: it's a stupid idea, my personal reality: the only thing that makes sense (my beliefs, that is). So i acknowledge your opinion, and only say that I too have one.

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Then, my friends, we are not as different at all. Not at all. I only wanted to say (in this thread I have hijacked) that I think you choose not-god, or not-belief in the same sense that I admit i choose god. It is a kind of decision, although it can feel very out of our control.
This is only what I think, and I might very well be wrong.
Again, thank you for your time.
"If not for love, then what for?",
-Pip