Problems with being an Atheist (or Evolutionist)

It should be noted that Tit for Tat doesn't always win and it does depend on the initial pool. For example, if there were lots of Tat for Tits (defect initially and the cooperate if the opponent cooperated) Tit for Tat would lose against Tit for two Tats (Cooperate first. If the opponent defects then cooperate on the next turn, if the defect again then defect and only begin the cooperation stage again if the opponent begins to cooperate).Axelrod noted this first in fact - he calculated that Tit for Two Tats would have won the first tournament he held, but would have done poorly in the second which was more 'aggressive' (I believe people were trying to 'beat' Tit for Tat.)

Tat for tit draws against tit for tat, since they alternate between defecting and being betrayed. If we assume being betrayed is worth 0 and betraying is worth 5 after 50 rounds we'd see 125 points each.Tit for tat against itself gets 150 points each under the same condition (cooperation being worth 3)Tit for tat against tit for two tats ends the sameTat for tit against tit for two tats leaves the score as 152 to tat for tit and 147 for tit for two tats.So if there were lots of tit for two tats in the pool of players, Tat for Tit would draw against itself (50 points if mutual defection is 1 point) and tit for tat but will win against all those tit for two tats out there. So Tat for Tit ends up winning more games than the others (though obviously it does relatively poorly against itself, so it should be rare if we are keeping a running total).

You forgot to mention miscarriages of justice: where a jury is deliberately kept ignorant of certain facts - or is given misleading information or is given information that they are not trained to understand and yet still 'find guilty'. Or when despite a lack of evidence, cultural biases on the jury result in them finding a person guilty (colour of skin, sex, attractiveness, personality, sympathy for the victim etc).Kind of important when the prosecutors of creationism and anti-evolution are peddling demonstrable falsehoods to a jury of untrained people with a clear bias against the defendant (evolutionary biology) while skipping over the slight fact that as much as they try and smear the defendant they bring (un)surprisingly little evidence in favour of their hypotheses of creation etc.

I notice you didn't discuss the substance of my criticism.

Samson was a famous Jewish suicide killer if we're to accept the account of him killing the philistines he was a bigger killer than Atta.There are the Tamil Tigers...but they are a secular/political group that may use religion to direct their weapons.The Japanese Kamikaze pilots...dying for a divine god-emperor.Buddhists have been known to set themselves on fire or starve themselves to death, but I can't think of any suicide/killers. Can you name anything else that can be found this way? If not - why the special pleading? Imagine the God of the Bible was real.QED

By your definition EVERYTHING is based on faith - which rather dilutes the word. Faith is not the same as belief. One can have faith in something, without believing it (indeed - this is the ultimate act of faith). One can believe something, but not have any faith (I believe my newly built table will function, but I'll test it before laying dinner on it).The problem comes when you ask 'Why do you have faith in x' how do you answer?Faith means 'trust'. And experience has shown me that when someone says 'My claim is true, I can't prove it, I can't show it to you, you'll just have to trust me - it's the only way to know I'm telling the truth.', while asking for some investment of my time or money - they are often wasting them.If I were to do otherwise - I'd be broke and I'd believe in the most monstrous collection of mutually exclusive concepts.Do I hold the belief state, with faith, that god does not exist: No.
Have I accepted the claim that such an entity exists? No.
Do I hold the belief state, with faith, that god does exist: No.
Do I think there is such an entity? I doubt it.
Why do you doubt it: Epistemological reasoning.
Do you have faith in your epistemological reasoning: Yes.
Why? It builds space ships and solar panels while also helping to avoid conmen, frauds, swindlers and snake oil salesman.

Not those same words - because when put like that it becomes rather transparent. You believe Jesus Christ is our saviour and was God and did miracles. You claim this is true.so

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My claim is true

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Check.You also state that you can't prove it.

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I can't prove it, I can't show it to you

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CheckYou also say that 'God wants us to believe by faith' which is basically saying

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you'll just have to trust me

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CheckNow of course- most people say "But it isn't me you have to trust, it's God/Jesus." - but God isn't making the claims. You are claiming that God is making the claims, not just you but all other Christians.Of course - if you can do better than that - I'm all ears. Why should I accept your claims if the answer is not "you have to take it on faith!" - or can you explain why faith is something different than trust? You seem to be confusing them. Faith and trust are very related terms, surely? Everytime I've discussed it with a theist they have confirmed that having faith is basically equivalent to having trust. You hold the belief, not because of the evidence, but because you have decided to trust the claims are true very strongly.

Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.

If you have a different version that most of the people I've spoken with before - spit it out So to be clear - do I need to see the truth in what Jesus taught which will lead to faith or do I need faith to see the truth in what Jesus taught? It's important to know - because Christians keep giving me different answers depending on where abouts in the argument we are (usually, by the end, I need to have faith to see the truth).Surely I need to have faith that the 'teachings' are indeed Jesus' teaching and not the teachings of someone else?

If you had never read any other version of the Bible but the NIV would you have concluded that they were not in agreement? I don't know for a fact - but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that NIV scholars thought the 'accord' was a later addition, or maybe they just thought it redundant. Remember the tower of Babel?The real question is - why not preserve the originals if they were so important? But this is a Bible Study topic and so we should probably leave it there