Ask a Catholic

[Esquilax]

It is a reasonable doubt.

Even if that were to be true (which I grant for the moment), it's only probable and not certain.

That's not saying much of anything; outside of very specific, simple things, we can't declare certainty about any concept without absurdly overreaching in our declarations. If you start waiting for certainty before you form your views you couldn't believe in, say, gravity, for one.

Consequently, we're both left in the position of having to argue that our conclusion is the most reasonable explanation of the facts as we interpret them.

I hear this from theists a lot, and to me it smacks of a demand that everyone else treat their views as though they were solipsists, where it's all just perception and nothing is real, but I notice that the same entreaty doesn't seem to apply for you: it's all just interpretation, yada yada, right up until the point where you're asked how you can determine that your religion is true, and then it's all "by the grace of god," which, aside from being a perfectly circular argument, pretty much sums up the self serving nature of this claim of yours. It's all just interpretation... but that doesn't stop you from proclaiming the existence of transcendent moral values and what have you, with nary a thought to this idea that it's all just subjective.

It seems the only time you remember that everything is interpretation, is when you're trying to get everyone else to admit it. But even if we're to take you seriously on this, not all interpretations are created equal, so to speak; this constant refrain that we have the same facts, but different interpretations doesn't entail that therefore those interpretations should be given equal weight. Here, I'll let Mr. Eberhard's blog explain it.

Incidentally, I would rather like to hear your answer to the question I posed a few pages back; it may have been snarky as hell, but it's still a legitimate question, since I have encountered theists who will cheerfully admit that yes, they have the power to dictate what the atheist's position is to them.