[Dragaera] agnosticism (no flame) (was, long ago: (no spoilers) The 17 [Great Weapons])

[Howard Brazee]

I believe in science, I have faith that I will succeed.

At one time religions were taught the same way as other disciplines - 
"faith" wasn't considered necessary, things could be checked just as 
they can be checked in history.   Miracles could be tested, etc.

But over time, our confidence in the repeatability of science and even 
soft sciences went up, while our confidence in the testability of 
religious ideas went down.   So churches put more emphasis in faith. 

When two theories come out explaining why the universe doesn't appear to 
be expanding at the previously assumed rate, astronomers have confidence 
that further evidence will clarify things.   If believe my team is 
better and you believe your team is better, we have confidence that one 
of us will find out for sure.   If we make a bet, we will be ready to 
pay up at the end of the game or season.

But if I go to some proselytizers from various religions and ask them 
for evidence so that I can pick the correct religion, neither they nor I 
have confidence that they can demonstrate that the other religions are 
wrong.

There are legions of religious threads on the Web, but very few logical 
arguments designed to convince a prospective theist that Christianity is 
more logical than Islam or visa versa.