Talking to Flatmate1 (formerly2) last night and she had some interesting insights on the whole God / belief / faith thing. Basically she has faith but is unable to prove this which for a dedicated philosopher is pretty unsettling. However she had this to say on the subject of belief (I'm paraphrasing) :-

"Individual experience is entirely subjective - we experience things but there is no way to actually ascertain if someone elses experience matches your own. We know what it means to reference 'the yellow wall' but the object 'yellow wall' may be perceived entirely differently by 2 individuals. The only real communication is via language : an experience which may be utterly non homogenous but is consistent is agreed to be labelled 'yellow wall' therefore we know what we're talking about. So what you might say?

The point of all this is that experience and existence is entirely subjective - it only exists for the individual. I cannot therefore prove that once I leave a room it continues to exist. I believe it does but I can't prove it does, nor can I disprove it. The same logic applies to God - I can believe in Him or not as I feel and either scenario is equally valid to the individual"

Of course the problem with that is that the individual can believe anything at all they choose to, and all beliefs are valid.

And why do these conversations have to take place so late and require the consumption of so much red wine?