ffs, take allegory!!!!
.... God help me... There is NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE for reality. And i know that we are talking about probability here. Probability needs data and we have non. Even you said yourself, anecdotal.
There is no mathematical formula for the existence of reality. You can just approximate their probability from no evidence... except your biased opinion. Therefore its is unproven on booth accounts.
i'll go on with your little charade
you and i both perceive reality, yes? hell, i bet the majority of people in this thread/site/world notices that water is drinkable or walls are hard. As far as we are concerned, reality exists. it doesn't matter if we're all just a dream, or trapped in the matrix etcetera,
we perceive reality with our senses.
Okay watch close as I kill two illogical birds with one stone!
Now imagine an ice cream stand, distributing free ice cream to whoever walks to it. Then imagine children who can see, hear and smell. They walk to the stand everyday and they get free ice cream. All is well and fantastic. These are children with faith. Now imagine other children who are blind, deaf and devoid of any sense of smell since birth. These children will not go to the ice cream stand because they are unaware of its existence. They can't see it, they can't hear the ice cream man talk. They are unbelievers. Once in a while, a nice child will come to them and tell them (telepathically) that they should get some ice cream. The blind and deaf kids ask "What are you talking about?" They answer: "Ice cream! Over there! Don't you see it?" - "See? Hear? How? What does that even mean?" Of course, they are blind and deaf since birth, they have no clue about images or sounds, to them this is complete gibberish. In fact, they believe all other children are raging, deluded lunatics - if there was something to sense, wouldn't they sense it? In the end, they are left alone and they never get to taste ice cream, even though their taste buds are perfectly functional (well ok they can't enjoy it as much without smell but let's ignore that).
And then there is the ice cream man. The ice cream man loves children and he wants all of them to taste his ice cream, though they should do so by their own free will. He put in a huge colourful banner to attract children and every day he uses a megaphone to inform everyone of the day's special, delicious flavours. Of course, he sees the blind and deaf children, for he knows everything, including the rather obvious fact that these children will never see his banner and will never hear him. In his infinite wisdom, he could communicate telepathically with them, reassure them and tell them how to find him. But for some reason, he doesn't. Instead, he shouts in his megaphone:
"Hey! Deaf kids! Why don't you come to me? Today, I have cookies and cream! It's delicious!". The blind, deaf kids do not answer, of course. And the ice cream man concludes that they want nothing to do with his ice cream. And he weeps!
The worst part is that some of these poor blind and deaf kids, every night, are dreaming of sweets. They have never tasted sweets, but they imagine, virtually, how their brains would be delighted by them. But since they see no evidence that sweets exist, they bitterly admit that they are only imagining them. The ice cream man hears their dreams, but does nothing - after all, it's not complicated, they just have to walk over there. How come they don't know?
He set up such a pretty banner! And he talks to them everyday!
Seeing how religious people speak about their faith, this allegory is perfectly appropriate. People with faith "see" things that we absolutely do not. They see things that make no sense to us, things that we scoff at like we scoff at a mythomaniac's nonsensical stories. And then we conclude that they are deluding themselves, which is perfectly rational from our perspective.
If God is concerned - if he truly loves us - then why is he acting like the ice cream man in my example?
