If I were an Atheist

[downbeatplumb]

I see a lot of theists who don't get this point, they don't see the difference between their beliefs and facts.

Why should theists be the only ones susceptible to this particular ailment? Although the line between fact and belief is indeed relatively thin. We're told that the planet is committed to a long-term global warming and that the sea level will rise 6 feet by the year 2200, as though both these assertions are facts rather than forecasts. We even have a derisive label, "climate change denier," for benighted folks who should be compared to "Holocaust deniers."

Pilots take aviation weather people seriously and so should we. I'm willing to defer to the better-informed opinion of climatologists. But that's trust, a form of belief. And facts never come in future tense, so the predictions of these climatologists are also a form of belief. We see nothing wrong with believing, provided the beliefs are in accord with generally accepted standards for such things. That remains as true in our scientific era as it was for Essenes hiding in a Dead Sea cave twenty centuries ago.

Do you have a point?
I can't see one.