Theism is literally childish

[emjay]

If you say so.

Wow emjay, you're learning every bad tactic in the book. It's not if I say so. The fact is that you say belief in abiogenesis is not a delusion simply form your personal credulity, rather than from evidence. But, when another person says that cause and effect and our common experience (millions of abiogenesis experiments each day, never a positive result) makes a creator more plausible, you label that as delusion.

I didn't label that as delusion, or if I did, I didn't mean to.

Ultimately it's entirely your prerogative if you want to consider me deluded

You project way too much. I'm not hurt by the OP, neither do I find you deluded. Neither side is deluded. They have opposite positions on questions which are currently unanswerable and have been debated for millennia. The problem is that you guys are calling us delusonal.

I'm glad you're not hurt by it... this is already one of those threads I wish I hadn't partaken in for all the division it's creating. My point about delusion was not that belief in God itself was delusional, but that to the extent that I see (any) belief as emotionally/irrationally driven I find it less credible. But I daresay you're the same; at the extreme, that guy who comes in every now and then claiming to be a direct descendant of God/Jesus; I daresay you find him about as credible as I do. Or MK relentlessly claiming that all atheists are secretly believers who have just turned their backs on God. Similarly, I would not expect you, or anyone, to take me seriously about the health risks of smoking compared to say a doctor, especially if I was climbing the wall fiending for a fag at the time. At the extreme end it's just practicality that says it's pointless to argue; whatever you say is ignored or misrepresented so there is no point in wasting time on it.

for looking to the natural world first, rather than magic, for explanations.

A natural universe beginning from nothing isn't magic?

I don't know what came before the big bang, and it may be impossible to know. But I'm comfortable with that.

Or likewise for looking at psychology first, rather than "spirituality".

How much good is that doing you?

Put it this way, I'm perfectly happy to engage in Buddhist meditation... which some might call 'spiritual', but it will never be anything other than a psychological phenomenon to me, rather than a spiritual one. Or likewise, horoscopes, though interesting in their effect, will never be anything other than bias to me. I have been interested in psychology and the brain my entire adult life, so I could not reverse those assessments and start labelling them spiritual even if I wanted to.

But if so, you'll have to take it up with science.

Science doesn't have answers for the creation of the universe or the beginning of life.

Maybe not, but at least it's trying to find them and looking to this universe, rather than speculating about the unknown and unknowable, to do so.

Occam's Razor.

Occam was a theist.

Fair enough, but it remains the case that magic is not the simplest explanation for... anything. Taken to it's extreme, someone who believed that, would never have to rely on physical evidence for anything. If I find my computer mouse missing, what is the likeliest explanation? That someone in my family borrowed it, or that I misplaced it... or that God took it? But if my computer mouse disappeared before my very eyes, what then is the most likely explanation? I don't know what it would be for you, but for me, psychology, rather than magic would be the first port of call... maybe I'm hallucinating, maybe I'm tired etc; I would try to exhaust the real world possibilities before looking to magic... if I did at all; accepting that I don't know the answer, but that it likely has a physical explanation, even if I can't find it, is still more reasonable to me than assuming magic.

But whether you see me as deluded or not doesn't make any difference to what I've said; it makes me no more likely to see arguments steeped in confirmation bias as credible,

Sure it does - it's just that you choose materialist confirmation bias.

What I'm saying is whether you see me as biased... and clearly you do... any even if you're right... doesn't make any practical difference to how I perceive others; I'm still no more likely see what I personally consider irrational/emotionally driven belief as credible. Basically, if you don't find me credible, then don't listen to me... that's your prerogative... but it is likewise my prerogative dismiss what I do not find credible.