Still active Mormon friend came round last Sunday and we chewed the fat and he mentioned several reservations he had about the church. Long story short I asked him if he had a line in the sand , a limit to what he would accept beyond which he would admit the Mormon church was false. Surprisingly he said yes. I didn't ask him what it was but I was thinking myself about how , over the last few years of my atheism , I had been drawing the line further and further away from faith based story 'facts'. Looking back at my life I realised I had very weak personal lines, I had believed very silly things. The strength of my acceptance of information does not seem to waver , what's important, for me is the line itself. Until I learnt to draw my own lines I allowed my parents and my church draw them for me.
Now my line is simpler, less sophisticated , it's a probability based line, using the knowledge and skills I have is 'it' probably true. The natural,mechanical world is probably true as it presents itself consistently every day, the invisible , magical world of faith, probably not true. Simples. All the magical things ever described have always failed to work out (Ra never preserved the Egyptians, Jehovah never preserved the Israelites, Thor had a short lease on Valhalla and every person who hears voices is suffering perception issues either via illness, mental abnormality , chemical induced states, brain misfires or through self-trained will).
We also talked about jelly but that's another post :)