Some atheists, for example, don’t want to believe there is no God etc. but they are overwhelmingly compelled to due to evidence and reason - though arguably they want to be authentic and honest with themselves and others more than they wish that a God existed, so as a “net want” they “believe what they want to anyway”. So I’ll grant you your generalisation and agree with you. I think what statements such as yours are usually meant to imply though, is that “you aren’t going to change your mind anyway” - which is very wrong for some people. There are probably more who will stick to their guns and even bury their head in the sand (enough mixing metaphors though) before they change their mind - cognitive dissonance gets the better of most. In certain cases, the scientifically minded such as myself actively try and find evidence and reason to change their mind. That’s not to say I won’t challenge my quarter first - I most certainly will - but only in the honest attempt to evolve or even abandon my beliefs.
Believe me when I tell you I want you to try and change my mind.
I already have an excellent understanding of what I do believe, despite not going into it yet with you.
But enough of that for now.
Are you saying that you believe in God because it is “as if” He must exist, given that things are the way they are? Or am I completely misinterpreting what you’re saying here? I cannot stress enough that I am not trying to mock you when re-iterating your words in my own, I am absolutely withholding judgement until I have a clear picture (and even then I probably won’t judge - just take anything that you might have offered and try to incorporate it into a greater understanding).
I actually happen to agree with the Lucy quote - my own philosophy even holds the point of the quote at its foundation. In my terms I call the “unfathomable scale” continuous experience and the “codified/sketch” with “units of measure” discrete experience. I regard the former as primary and the latter as constructed within and parallel to it - and the degree to which you tend towards one over the other depends on your values and intentions.
I still find no necessary reason that God must be included into the picture, especially such that I have no right not to believe in Him. But that’s where people like you could potentially come in - I have yet to see. But so far I’m not feeling anything to convince me that subtle as-ifs necessarily amount to an overt lack of right to not believe in (a) God.