“you just don’t have any good reason to expect this particular pattern in the data.”
If I told someone where I live that everything is made from the same code, they would probably say, ad hoc, “That makes sense,” or “That’s because God made every living thing.” I see no reason to ignore presumptions. Recognizing them is the only way to avoid them.
“one has made it impossible for one self to discover that one might be wrong about that.”
The same is true of naturalism. We interpret reality through lenses. You may adjust for it, if you know you’re using it. If you don’t, you may never think twice about it. Wrestling with cognitive dissonance is something you don’t get too old for.
Here we say, “Jaɓi fof e yeddi fof ko kaaɗi." “To accept everything or to reject everything is insanity.” So a dash of skeptism and curiosity is a good way to learn. To accept everything is madness, just as rejecting everything is madness.
“At some point I think we should just let go of assumptions”
As we recognize them. How do you mean? How do you let go of your assumptions? What does that leave you with?
“Everyone has a world view and with that world view comes assumptions. How is it possible to become “worldviewless”? The closest thing might be to put on another world view for a time and evaluate observations from that point of view and then compare it to other views.”-My wife’s comment
“there’s no conceivable pattern of data you could not explain away with a sufficiently complicated and inscrutable number of motivations and capacities on behalf of the designer.”
Yes, metaphysical theories like theism are attempts to make sense of things. If things can’t make sense there would be no sense in trying.
“I think the same is true from a naturalist point of view. If a lady diagnosed with severe scoliosis (so severe that she was told she would not be able to have kids) was “healed” after being prayed for- x-rays showing a big “s” shape in her spine before the prayer and then a small “s” shape after the prayer, with doctors giving no explanation for the change- from a religious point of view she would attribute the change to the supernatural. However, someone from a naturalist point of view would not be able to come up with this same conclusion and therefore look for others explanations. Conclusions to observations are dependant on one’s world view.” -My wife’s comment
“There’s no end to this.”
Yes, I think so too. We can imagine endless scenarios, or explanations for anything, and one can explain anything away in like fashion.