Theists, are you immune to being decieved?

[Zazzy]

Can you say you practice NO self-delusion?

Yes, I can, because I do not place faith in that which cannot be proven by empirical evidence to exist.

OK. If you can say that about yourself, I have no reason to doubt you. I have been troubled for some time by what I can only see as my "faith" in economics. And I have come to re-examine some of my born-and-bred political views as well, maybe not being so much a matter of "faith" as a matter of blind trust and acceptance. Is there a functional difference?

I cannot with any credibility say that I don't have "faith" in anything, or that there is no matter of great importance in the world that I don't accept as it is presented to me- there are so many that it's hard to do anything but recognize and think about them one at a time.

I think self-delusion is very common- I see atheists practice it all the time, and I think you do, too. I think there is a wider conversation to be had here about it, but as a group I do think atheists are uncomfortable with having it.

Kit, you are a poster I have great respect for (I'm in fact wondering if I've repped you yet). Surely you can see that, despite the great divide between the LionIRCs/Statler Waldorfs and the atheist community here, there are as many differences of great importance between atheists as there are between atheists and theists- and that many of these differences rest on shaky beliefs about the world as it is?

Or maybe I am as crazy as the theists.