What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

There you go, missing the point again. Are you doing this on purpose?The point is not that you're getting the benefits. The point is that if everybody gets them, regardless of faith, you can't claim that for Christians, they come from God. I'm sure they do. Yet, statistics show that Christians are no more or less likely to have good or bad things happen to them than anybody else. People's lives change. I imagine that if you asked around you would find that just as many people had lives that got better, or didn't change at all.That's my point. Your method of asking around is subject to response bias because you're not taking into account the things that prove you wrong (people who's lives change in the oppoiste direction you're looking for, or not at all), but only the things that prove you right.Converting to Christianity has no statistical effect on your life, at least, no supernatural effect. I imagine that some people get happier or more satisfied when they do it. Me, I got happier when I left the church. That doesn't mean that there's a supernatural power to atheism. It does hurt it. It means your sample set is tainted by response bias. You're cherry-picking from the sample set to get only the responses that prove your point and ignoring - even forgetting - the responses that prove you wrong.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-24-2004]

Well, that's pretty generous of him.But that doesn't really help. See, you say that the benefits come from your God. The Hindus say it comes from theirs. The atheists say it comes from no-one at all; it's just happenstance.Who's right? Well, it's fine for them to think so, but there's just no reason to believe anything supernatural exists. Everybody does it. In fact it's so prevalent among human beings that it's ludicrous to take someone's word that they aren't committing response bias. It's just a basic condition of the human mind - it forgets non-events. I'm not trying to call you a liar; I'm simply informing you that anecdotes do not make a science. Memory is a fickle thing and the least accurate way of trying to find out what is true about the world.Do you know I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore? Maybe this gets back to your idea of a Great Debate between us... I'm reticent because I don't know what the subject would be. I forsee an exchange like this:"I believe God exists.""I believe he doesn't, but there's no way to know for sure.""I agree that there's no way to know for sure."Where do we go from there? It's only people who make arguments like "I believe God exists and I know better than you" that I argue with. I don't think you hold that position.My intent isn't to convince believers to unbelieve. It's to defend atheism as a rational choice from people who want to tell me that it's not. I don't think you've been trying to (which I respect and appreciate) so honestly I'm not so sure what we're discussing anymore.

What about the atheists, though? Remember their point is that since the "benefits" you're talking about seem to be just the way life is, there's no reason to ascribe anything supernatural to it. Absolutely none that meet any kind of standard useful for reliably determining fact from fiction. That's why I don't believe. As far as I'm aware, those are the only methods for determining truths about the universe that reliably eliminate the most human bias. Hence, I don't believe.Faith is fine for you but it doesn't work for me. Glad that we had this chat, tho. Catch ya in the evo debates, then?

That's a pretty bold claim. While I'm not sure that I disagree, I don't believe that I would have called it "arrogant". Maybe it is, but I might have led with softer language.But I see your point. The theist claims to have knowledge that, by any rational epistomology, he can't possibly have.Then again I don't see a lot of theists walking around claiming belief in God is universally sensical, so might it not be that you're trying to hold them to a standard that they don't claim to share?