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The existence of mystery should not excuse holding beliefs without sufficient evidence, is a basic point of reason.
The most humble ontological view is perhaps one that assumes no deity, or anything else, without sufficient evidence.
So much of classical philosophy is simply special pleading and god of the gaps.
This is why I'm ultimately a (metaphysical) skeptic.
But when I hold to that position here people get mad because it reduces the majority of what we consider knowledge to trial and error. And then they try to exhibit their successes as evidence like every single person that's been wrong in history.
People act as if the only potent argument against skepticism isn't mere practicality. And sure, one has to act as if knowledge is possible. But that doesn't mean it is. And from that standpoint religion doesn't seem that silly compared to positivism.
At the least we all should have the humility to recognize that reason is limited in its understanding.
Religion is silly compared to positivism.
The way you can tell is that almost no on identifies as such after philosophers took a hammer to it for logical inconsistencies. And yet so many religions continue on, resolute in their beliefs that contradict what we know about reality.
Religion is way more wrong than logical positivism. Several orders of magnitude more wrong, both regarding the level of claim made relative to evidence, and the fact positivism was hoisted on its own petard and actually died off.
Religion gets a privileged position because it’s normal and people have strong emotional attachments to it. The evidence is laughably weak or nonexistent, and many religions practice a kind of epistemology that is directly opposed to reason and science. Apologists can’t prove skeptics (or competing religions) wrong by producing strong evidence, so they play philosophical special pleading games and hide their gods in the gaps and “non overlapping magisterial” as secular knowledge expands.
The fact that religions themselves can’t agree on core ideas and prove their case to other religions, let alone to militant atheists and fundamentalist skeptics, remains telling. The “there there” is humans on average prioritize emotion over reason and religions have developed to exploit that fact, while providing some adaptive (at least historically) benefits.
None of what you're saying is relevant to the question of the truth or justifiability of any of the metaphysical positions you're criticizing.
All that you are doing here is criticizing them from the standpoint of rationalism and/or empiricism, which is circular reasoning given the argument we are having is happening at a level of doubt where neither goes without saying. You can't criticize people for refusing to embrace a scientific worldview when we are unable to logically demonstrate that the results it produces are true, or indeed when we can demonstrate that there are true results it is unable to access.
Besides. The behavior of adherents to various doctrines does not, in and of itself, shine any light as to the truth or falsity of such doctrines. It is likely that every single person that has ever existed has believed true things without proper justification. You and I do as well. And yet I don't see you doubting such things as I do. How come if you reliably apply the standard you wish to deploy here?
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