[Morality Games]

Atheists and theists disagree because there is a sizeable difference in the logic behind their standards of truth, at least on the subject of God. Theistic logic maintains God is real as long as his existence is imaginable. The only criteria for testing the reality of God's existence is the imagination. Since human imagination is virtually limitless, there is no capacity in theistic logic for the idea of God to be false. They can imagine he exists, somehow someway, so he does. Hence, they can flip back in forth between literal and allegorical interpretations of their respective religions whenever it is necessary to preserve the faith. Ultimately, the only possible outcome of the paradigm of theism is that God exists.

Atheistic logic is more strict than that. God is real only so far as his existence is demonstratable. The only criteria for testing the reality of God's existence is scientific observation. Since human imagination is virtually limitless, it is no sure standard of the truth of ideas. Since we can imagine God exists, we can be on the look out for him, but since it presently appears he does not exist, we assume the position he does not exist. If evidence of his existence ever comes to light, then we revise our position and move on.

There are countless ongoing debates between theists and atheists because no resolution is possible between two groups using opposing logic to construct their standards of truth -- since God is real in so far he is imaginable, anything an atheist can say about the historical, psychological, aesthetic, logical, and scientific shortcomings of religious texts is irrevelant. To a theist, God is only not real when it becomes impossible to imagine his is real (which is impossible). On the other hand, atheists are unwilling to treat the idea of God with more reverence than anything other hypothesis about the nature of reality (that is, as any different from evolution or the Big Bang -- both of these theories rested on a pile of evidence before they were considered true, so God must sit on a pile of evidence too).