Why did our universe begin? (Split from Atheist wins Nobel Prize thread)

[Jarhyn]

Those are not "faith" statements. Humans make probabilistic assessments based on the available information all the time (an AI would do as well). That is no faith, just like, say, it is not on faith that I believe that Biden won the election, or that Tesla's cars are electric, or that you are human. Those are vanilla everyday assessments.

Regarding "those are not faith statements..." My initial intention should be said, that it was not meant to apply to everyone atheist! I didn't mention every aspect of a human's perceptive on reality (vanila-everyday..) are made as faith statements/claims. But even then, when people do make assessments - they DO decide to make conclusions, telling them that this IS the reality so far.

Funny thing , I made similar assessments , and of the scriptures, they seem real enough to me so far. The Faith IS Trust. Trusting the authors (and in turn, God) as the 'testimony and witnessing' narrative quite strongly portrays and how it relates relatively to what we know of the world.

Whereas I, and pretty much everyone else who would call themselves "rational" are more "trust, but verify". I would rather "know" than "trust".

The fact is, reasonable people are willing to attach probabilities to their knowledge. When I make a decision I do not declare how the universe is; rather, I honestly accept that while I do not know the truth, my understanding seems "good enough for now". I accept that the principles I operate under may be wrong, even as I operate under them.

Now personally I've had enough people claim bald faced lies to me to ever actually trust a human being to tell what they believe the truth may be free of verification.