Evidence for Believing

[GrandizerII]

It's fine to have a belief, a tentative provisional viewpoint on matters like this, but let's not confuse a strong conviction about our beliefs with knowledge, and let's not even have such a strong conviction.

I disagree that there isn't value, sometimes tremendous value, in strong convictions about what we cannot definitively prove, though.

Ok, that's fine except ... when it comes to grand entities, I personally don't think it's a good idea to have such strong convictions. As I said before, the gap in our knowledge regarding the metaphysical aspects of nature is too large for that.

I don't think that the concept of God in itself is necessarily an object of faith. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit is (and I guess so is the FSM if there is an ounce of sincerity in it) but not the metaphysical concept of actus purus; but igtheism makes a good point that the word "God" in itself, at least semantically, might be meaningless.

It may be rational, but it's not conclusively the case that there is this actus purus that somehow transcends nature. It's a belief, a metaphysical stance, but not one that is necessarily warranted.