There are people here, and in real life, with whom i cannot have a meaningful dialog. The same is true for each of you, whether you realize that or not.
I make every effort to keep an open mind, and to understand the other person's point of view in a discussion, but as with any person my ability to do those things will always have its limits. Even if i intellectually UNDERSTAND some perspectives, i can't make my mind operate from those premises well enough to truly use that understanding to see that point of view.
AFAICT, many people don't even make the attempt. The "We have the one true way" people are generally that way for one or more reasons, and among the reasons is the simple fact that their brains are hard-wired (AFAICT) to lock onto one meme and exclude any other way of thinking purposefully.
We have a few people here, just as i've seen elsewhere, who clearly (to me) mistake the hole in their head as proof they have an open mind. Statements like "Up is really down, and so is down" and that type of dichotomy might make a good zen koan for pondering, but if used in a serious conversation they indicate to me that the person doesn't adhere to the same rules of language use and consistency of word meaning that *i* consider a pre-requisite for a meaningful discussion.
Then there are the people who never got past 6th grade math, yet think that their superficial exposure to quantum physics gives them enough understanding of that realm that they can expect to be taken seriously when they assert that "science supports my belief". No, in every such case that's not at ALL the case. What science supports is something else that uses some of the same words you are using, but it also includes a rigorous understanding of those words and their inter-relationships. I don't bother arguing, as its no skin off my nose, but it is sometimes... uh... amusing... to watch people effectively promote passages from the movie "What the Bleep do we know?", never understanding that in regards to the writers of THAT movie as the 'we', the answer is "not much and what you THINk you know is WRONG, WRONG WRONG".
I can discuss a variety of topics with people with whom i disagree, but for the discussion to have any real value we must at least agree on the basic rules of the discussion. For example, i recently just decided it was time to ignore someone who was asserting the same ridiculous position he'd stated before, that 'atheism' is based on faith, and is just as much a religion as ... a RELIGION. People who just INSISt that a COMPLETE lack of faith is still... in some bizarro world logic... FAITH don't appear to me to understand that opposites are OPPOSITES.
In those kinds of discussions, i get bored pretty easily. Pseudo-intellectualism and throwing out smart-sounding phrases may impress this kind of person's even less informed peers, but it just leaves me wondering why i bother. Asking me to 'prove' the NON-existence of an entity, and mistakenly referring to attempts to DISPROVE the existence of a suggested entity as a 'NULL Hypothesis' simply shows that the individual may have taken a statistics class, but didn't really master the use of the terms he/she likes to throw around. In fact, the meaning of the term 'null hypothesis' most often refers to the ***common view of something***, which in the case of the question of the existence of god(s), the NULL Hypothesis is that gods DO exist. And it's a basic principle of analysis of this kind of problem that the null hypothesis can NEVER be conclusively proven TRUE, it can only be proven FALSE if the analysis leads that way. So, again, requests that i *prove* a null hypothesis don't just misstate the issue, they show conclusively that the requester is using words he/she doesn't REALLY understand. Again... BORING.
Mathematicians recognize the existence of non-Euclidian geometries. Proofs in 'real world geometry' won't carry over there because the starting postulates are different. If you sincerely believe that 1 + 1 = 3, then you and i can't possibly work together to solve arithmetic problems, or even discuss the correct way to approach them. Similarly, if you start from certain hypothesis that are the opposite of mine, not even worrying which, if EITHER of us, is correct, there's no way that we can have a meaningful discussion in the realm where those hypotheses set the basis for the discussion.
I don't do it every day, but i see this happen when i simply express MY view that there's no god(s). I've grown up ina culture where the existence of god IS the null hypothesis, so the typical person doesn't understand that their PRESUMPTION of this assertion is JUST as much a rejection of MY beliefs as when i refer to god(s) as "imaginary friend(s)". I don't get all bent out of shape when somebody says "God is good", or some other statement that PRESUPPOSES that this entity is out there, even though at its CORE that idea completely goes against the core of my own beliefs, but let me make a declarative statement that "god doesn't exist" and some people react as if i've asked them to murder their children.
Most people here that aren't either one draw no distinction between pagans and Wiccans. Even practitioners of one or the other sometimes claim both. Some Christians think that only 'pure' Christians are really Christians, while some folks have synthesized beliefs that draw from both of those beliefs. As a COMPLETE outsider to that stuff, i note that both groups are comfortable talking about spirits, god(s), creation, etc. While i'm sure that to each group, they are FAR different from the other, but to me they're both just variations on the same basic theme. But for the non-metaphysicist such as myself, there's NO belief in any of that stuff, and it's often difficult to convey a point of view to those people which requires them, just for a moment, to set aside those beliefs long enough to look at the world the way *i* see it, because while i HAVe looked at the world through their lens, even if LONG ago, they have never, and apparently don't even know how, to look at the world through mine.
