filtherton

As long as we stay away from the sequels we should be fine.

As far as we can tell so far, all of your assumptions very accurately describe the conditions of the 35w bridge immediately preceding the collapse. While they certainly are reasonable, they fall short when it comes to actually helping you avoid collapsing bridges.

But, it sounds like the only difference between you and a theist is that you're more conservative when it comes to taking probabilities into account. If what i am understanding is correct, i generally agree with you.

But beyond this, i don't think that there really is much that can be said about the whole of theism, or of theist people. It certainly does make sense to talk about specific examples of theism as being a catalyst of sorts for all types of unfortunate things, but the key thing here is that the individuals are to blame, not the theism. "Sorry your honor, but i was under the influence of god" is not an effective excuse for anything. So something that cannot be justified, but still occurs quite regularly, is that someone attempts to extend what is actually a relatively inconsequential difference of opinion into an overly broad denunciation of all theists.

As far as perception being an accurate measure of reality:

This can only be the case if your senses would not limit you from perceiving, either directly or indirectly, everything that exists. I don't know that this is necessarily a reasonable assumption- and i don't think there is a probability calculation on it yet- so it's kind of a take it or leave it thing. There is no reason to expect it to be true, and even if it were, there'd be no way to know. So at the very least the idea is on the same probability level as believing in god.

So you have this hypothetical form of intelligence, or say that i do. I created it, and i purposefully limited it's ability to experience certain phenomena. Now, say i limit its experiences in such a way so that it never hears anything, exists in a complete vacuum, and it can't see anything for three minutes out of every four. Now say i have a bunch of these beings, all subject to the same constraints, and let them communicate with each other. Imagine the intense philosophical discussions with various contrived explanations for their intermittent blindness that would ensue. Given the opportunity they would no doubt create the most complex and robust society possible under the constraints of their existence. They would exist in reality, and would thus be experiencing reality, but they'd be the last people you'd expect to be able speak with authority about the nature of reality in any kind of general sense.

So most of us can see and hear and experience air pressure, so aside from that what makes us different from these beings?

If it is not "reasonable" to expect that humans are able to experience everything that exists, how is it unreasonable to believe in things for which there is no evidence for or against?