First of all, you're just repeating yourself.
Yes. The idea is fairly simple, so I would have hoped such repetition wouldn't be necessary, but I'll be happy to continue until you get it.
Oh does it now! You're writing to a guy who has a degree in Physics
Excellent. So this is remedial stuff for you.
And the double slit diffraction experiment is the salient example of how BELIEF, that is, FAITH is required for the science to work
No. The double-slit experiment is a simple example of how scientific theories are based on evidence,
not on faith. If I believed in wave-particle duality because I had an emotional sense that it was right, or because some ancient people claimed it was revealed to them by the son of God, or something like that,
that would be faith, since it would be belief without evidence. But the two-slit experiment is all about developing real-world evidence. If light behaves the way the hypothesis suggested, then a certain pattern would emerge on the film, and that's just what happens. Such experiments are what moved us past conjecture and hypothesis to a firmer understanding of how things work at the sub-atomic level. That doesn't mean the theory is right. Maybe invisible elves are painting the pattern on the film to confuse us. But right now the wave/particle theory is the simplest consistent explanation for what we see. It's hard to wrap our heads around, but it doesn't needlessly multiply entities to come up with an explanation -- it's as simple and consistent a theory as has yet been formulated that explains the evidence we see.
Your "evidence" of love is an extremely personal experience.
All evidence is, ultimately, a personal experience, in that we only know what comes through our personal senses. But there's a difference between rationally analyzing what comes through our senses along the lines of favoring the simplest consistent explanations for what we perceive, and simply assuming something must be true because we find it emotionally appealing to make the assumption.
I suppose this may come down to semantics. Perhaps you're referring to the evidence-based analysis I'm talking about in the former case as "faith." That's fine. Semantics aren't terribly interesting to me, so call it what you will. But that still leaves the important distinction between the mode of thinking I favor (working towards conclusions along lines of minimal complexity based on tested observations of real-world events), and the mode of thinking I consider a dead end (believing in outlandish things without any evidence merely because they comfort you).
YOU are the one who embraces belief in love and science but cuts God out for no good reason.
As a reminder, my approach is exactly the same as yours in very nearly all examples. Neither of us believes in the actual existence of the god Zeus, Thor, Horus, Bishamon, Dizang, Vishnu, Ahura Mazda, Marduk, Medb, Govinda, Pele, Kui, Mithras, Taiowa, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan, Tezactlipoca, Bes, etc., nor in fairies, vampires, trolls, boggarts, were-jaguars, past lives, Nirvana, and so on. A believer in any of those could, of course, accuse you of cutting out his favored gods "for no reason." But you have a perfectly good reason for not thinking, say, that there's a feathered serpent named Quetzalcoatl, born to the virgin Chimalman, after the god Onteol appeared to her in a dream. You don't believe it because it's an outlandish claim for which no supporting evidence exists.
That's the same position you consistently take with regard to all those other gods and supernatural beings and phenomena in that list.... and the same position I take with regard to ALL such claims. I'm consistent. You're ALMOST consistent, but you make one special exception for the one superstition you're emotionally attached to -- just as most people in the world make one special exception based on similar emotional states, albeit with that one exception varying from person to person (nearly always based on what they were told to believe when they were young children). You reject Odin and embrace Yahweh, whereas if you'd been raised in Norway in 750 CE, you'd have rejected Odin and embraced Yahweh, for identical reasons. I'm one of the rarer people who takes a consistent approach.
it actually takes more faith to believe in a Godless universe than it takes to believe in God
It takes no more faith for me to stick to the default assumption that your god isn't real than it takes for you to stick with the default assumption that the Olmec Dragon God isn't real. The act of faith is to look at something you don't understand (whether that be why it rains, what causes volcanoes, or why the universal constants are what they are) and to insert a supernatural being into the story to explain it to your emotional satisfaction.
You are doing what most people have done throughout history, and inventing supernatural characters to cope with stuff that's beyond your comprehension. That's a dead end. If you embrace a just-so story to explain something you don't understand (serpents lack legs because Yahweh punished them for their ancestor having tempted humans to eat the wrong fruit), that slows the way to a better understanding of why it's really true. We've long since moved past, say, explaining the existence of rainbows as a reminder of Yahweh's promise that he won't drown nearly all of humanity again, but that's merely because now we know better about how rainbows really form. But since we haven't yet moved to a solid understanding of what started the Big Bang or why universal constants are what they are, the masses still do what the masses have always done and they invent supernatural characters to whom to attribute those things. It's the "God of the Gaps" -- as long as there's anything we can't yet explain (and there always will be) there will be a human impulse to attribute it to a supernatural being or phenomenon, as our ancestors did for countless generations.
she isn't getting at home while ya on PJ.........
