When believing false things is comforting

[Simon Moon]

I think that beliefs based on feels is the anti-thesis to skeptics worldwide and can lead to lots of good and bad things. I think being a skeptic about everything isn't really truly how we act day-to-day and beliefs based on feels are probably far more widely the case in practice than many here would like to admit.

This is true for the most part. We operate in our daily lives using induction and inference, and it works wonderfully well. Today is pretty much like yesterday, people act more or less the same from day to day, physics and the laws of the universe are the same, etc.

So, because this way of operating in the world works...until it doesn't, we can tend to get overconfident in it. One of the instances it doesn't work, is with regards to existential and supernatural claims.

But this isn't the kind of skepticism the vast majority of skeptics and atheists use, or consider viable. We don't go about requiring evidence and valid and sound logic to evaluate everyday occurrences in our daily lives.

If someone tells me they walked their dog this morning, I do not ask them to provide me with demonstrable evidence and reasoned argument before I will believe them. Using inductions and inference, I am willing to believe them at face value. I know dogs exist, people have them as pets, people walk their dogs, etc, etc. I do not have to apply skepticism or critical thinking to this situation.

This is a category of claim that would require demonstrable evidence in order to be believable.

The problem arises, when people, with so much confidence in their abilities to use induction and inference for those everyday occurrences, try to use the same methods with regards to extraordinary claims. Like the claim your god exists.