{originally posted as a reply to a comment left on another blog of mine}

First, thank you for reading my post and at least giving it serious consideration despite your disagreement with my position.

I’ll attempt to clarify the point you question.

When I said, “The evidence or argument that will sway an open minded person has to meet certain qualifications, though. It obviously needs to be convincing and irrefutable. It needs to be logical and consistent with the reality we know. It must be practical, sensible, possible and rational” I was referring to the characteristics of a convincing argument. All of us have a criteria for what we’ll consider as a real possibility and what we’ll dismiss as nonsense unless we can be persuaded otherwise. And what is required to persuade us? Well, for me, it’s the characteristics I mentioned.

I know of no sane person who believes it’s perfectly fine to believe everything that gains their attention. We practice discernment, we weed out the nonsensical and wonder at the reasonable. Just before the above I wrote, “Being open minded does not require us to automatically accept every thought that enters our head, believe every notion floated by anyone, accept the possibility of even the most outlandish idea.

To be open minded is to be willing to be convinced. It’s to be willing to set aside preconceived notions in the face of factual evidence to the contrary. Being open minded means that a person is willing to change their mind when presented with an adequate reason to do so.”

If I find your argument persuasive, within the criteria that describes a convincing argument, I will willingly adjust my view of reality to allow for this idea. I’m in my mid-50s and have had my view of reality adjusted many times. I was a theist from high school to the Army. Then I went through a period of being an Alan Watt’s buddhist. Reading Douglas Hofstadter has radically altered my view of reality. One reason I have no interest in being a theist; natural reality is so mind-blowing, so bizarre, that religion pales in comparison. Nontheless, I welcome anything convincing theism wishes to present. I will determine just how convincing based on my standards, not theirs. Do they use my standards to weight the validity of my claims?

If only theists would put their energy into trying to find convincing evidence to support their beliefs than wasting their time trying to discredit those of us who fail to be convinced. It’s like a store blaming the customers for its lack of popularity.

I’m very open to the possibility that theism is valid. But I want to be convinced by my own standards. I will not “accept it on faith”, as I do not consider that a reasonable demand.

I try to be as philosophically consistent as possible. I apply the same standards of critical skepticism in any situation in which I’m being asked to accept a belief that might have a profound influence on my perception of reality. If I’m skeptical of a guy who wants to sell me a car, shouldn’t I be far more critical of a person who wants to sell my their view of reality? I don’t give science a free pass to my brain and I don’t see why religion thinks it deserves a free pass as well.

To a non-believer who used to be a believer, religion is simply another way of looking at reality that was examined and found inadequate to explain reality. One of several in my life. If it has any more to offer than I’ve already been exposed to, it ought to mention it. Otherwise I’ll consider religion as having taken its best shot and missed the target.

Reality is important to me. I don’t want my view clouded by preconceptions unless they’ve passed the credibility test. I know we view life through filters. I want to be aware of mine and ensure they’re either beneficial or benign. Religion asks me to qualify people as friend-or-foe, us-or-them, to divorce myself from common humanity. Humanism tells me that all humans are one species, all the same, highly evolved animals but most importantly, all equal.

I weigh those two viewpoints and find humanism morally superior to religion when I look at the results of each belief system. It’s not that humanism is perfect, just that I agree intellectually and morally with their way of looking at reality and the results they produce. It’s the filter that seems to filter out less reality than most others.

Am I babbling at this point or still making sense?