It's almost like, if there were a God, then His objective existence would be intrinsically impossible to demonstrate; and if there weren't, then His nonexistence would be equally intrinsically impossible to demonstrate (because anything's nonexistence would be).
If the existance of something is indistinguishable from it's non-existance, then we say that thing does not exist. This is called Reason.
The only reason the debate has continued so long is because one side simply rejects Reason, and holds out for the truth of their claim regardless of all logic, evidence, or reason.
What I don't understand is why the people on the other side keep trying to outreason the pro-God folks,
Because it is preferable to slamming their head into a brick wall.
Eventually, of course, they run into the wall anyway, regardless of what we say. But that is no reason to stop trying.
I suspect the scientific mindset is just as fundamentally ingrained as the religious mindset,
This betrays a deep misunderstanding of science and human nature.
Science is a tight-rope walk; a constant effort to hold what we
want to be true to the test of what
is true. It is not ingrained, and indeed people fall away from it all the time.
Religion, on the other hand, is where one falls to when one falls off the tight-rope: to the world where things are true because you want them to be true.
So from a rational standpoint, the situation at hand is that the schism between reason and faith appears to be insurmountable using our current methods.
Only because we are not allowed to make people suffer the consequences of not growing up.
can new methods be proposed?
Yes. Let's call a spade a spade; let's stop letting the "nice" ones slide while they are empowering the bad ones. See Sam Harris for more.
And do those who would say they're on the side of reason need to improve their understanding of matters of faith if they want to elevate the debate?
I understand the Christian faith better than the vast majority of Christians I talk to. It doesn't actually seem to help.
And to be fair, if God is real, He may very well inhabit the realm of subjective reality, rather than objective reality.
To inhabit the realm of subjective reality, rather than objective reality, is
to not be real.
What did you think "not real" meant, if not that?
