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And I agree with that ... but it's precisely the sort of nuance that gets lost in translation.
Evolution is a good example. Scientists have a painstaking working model of evolutionary biology that's assembled from millions of data points. There are bits and pieces we don't understand, but we think a lot of them are 'known unknowns'.
Creationists have a book that they say is right and that if reality contradicts it, then that's the doings of Satan and trust the book.
To call both of those the same thing, 'belief' is to do the former a massive disservice and to elevate the latter's nonsense until both are equivalent.
Perhaps, if we want a term, it should be 'understand'. Scientists 'understand' nature to operate under the principles of natural selection. I guess Creationists 'understand' the world to operate on the principle of divine intervention.
It places the emphasis and burden of proof on the understander, I think, gets the subjective nature of it across.
But I still think it's conceding ground and words that faith-based ideology won't. You are not going to get a fundamentalist to agree to differ. And it's not a desirable outcome, either - evolution and creationism can't both be right: one of them *has* to be wrong. Pretending and humoring and word games don't change that.
