mig_killer2,
You should watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkHarZHrWJE&feature=rec-fresh

No problem!  Edward Current is a satirical genius imho.  His other vids are also worth checking out.

Ummm, didn't you make reference to your connection with Tektonics and your nomination of Rook for some negative award on that rather pathetic, highly defensive web site?  Tektonics in its mission statement declares its belief in an inerrant bible, so it seems you associate with biblical inerrancists.  Given that a person is known by the company he keeps it seems reasonable to assume you are at least a 'fellow traveler'.   Especially as elsewhere you recommend inerrancist scholars like William Lane Craig.  Perhaps you shift your  'beliefs' according to the case you are arguing.    Nothing like being flexible is there?    

Belief in the sun being a thinking entity made the ancient Egyptians happy for 3 thousand years, but it still didn't change the fact that civilization wasted its time doing such. I myself am happy to know that the sun is a ball of burning gas.

The entire stupid motif of the Abrahamic religions is that of bribes and threats.

Which is more moral to you? Someone who donates money to a charity looking for a tax break? Or someone who donates that same amount not expecting anything back?

The same goes with learning. Do you learn something new because someone might give you something? Or do you learn something for the sake of learning?

Theism teaches you to act like a child who needs to be told what to do with daddy threating to spank you or bribes you with a cookie. That is not moral, that is like training a dog. I don't consider my intellect to be the same as a dog and a sure wouldn't follow any human who would expect me to act like such.

I am an adult and whomever I am arround has something they want to convince me of, or wants me to do, better demonstrate WHY I should head their advice. Blindly following anything, a celebrity, a politician, a political party, a government, or a god, without question is stupid.

I haven't read all of the thread so someone may have already read this.... If you become an atheist you'll be just as happy as you were as a christian. Because all the things that genuinely make you happy will still be there.

What you will gain is a freedom from the hell doctrine. From the fear that keeps you in line, that makes you feel guilty whenever you put a foot wrong, that has you praying for forgiveness all the time in order to minimise the chance of going to hell. Freedom from the "knowledge" that any loved ones you have who don't believe are going to hell. Freedom from the urgew to convert them so they may be heaven bound.

Ultimately, the gains will be for society as a whole. I don't think the individual will see any greater elevation in their mood, but society may start seeing a reduction in some of it's woes. Or maybe not.

See, no christian decides to become atheist. If your line of enquiry ever leads you  toward the path of non - believing,  it'll just be your own bad/good luck.  Once you see it, you can't not see it. You will have no say in the matter. Then you'll have to just bite the bullet and focus on other things to make you happy, like family and friends etc.

You get to enjoy drinking the brains from new born babie. Just kidding.

Nah, he has made it perfectly clear that he is in it for the payoff.

To the OP:

Your question has been answered as well as it can with the information you have provided. Atheism does not come with a cash payout. It does not come with an "everything just feels better" clause. If your belief system must come with a payoff and "reality" isn't enough... I suggest you stick with your bedtime stories (whichever silly superstition you believe in).

I keep trying to edit one of my dialogues w/ mig_killer2.  I'm trying to make it easier for everyone to read it.

I'll use the 'quote' function properly hopefully before the end of this millenium!  

Sure looks that way...but it's only been a week.

Maybe there was a religious convention somewhere?

Or maybe he just got...

Nah, silly me, that could never happen.

btw, prozac, wendy with the knife is COOL

Think maybe atheist jesus finally saved him? I hope so ...        

GRRR you kind of answered your own question. You gain truth if god is nonexistent , your shred off a delusion and it is a delusion if in this argument you assumed god is nonexistent , religion is a delusion in your own words for this argument .

Besides lets see , you get the lifting of dogmatic dictatorship of religion and now :

-         Stem cell research and medicine from it is available for you and other people (everyone is atheist in this scenario).

-         You can masturbate , masturbation is more fun then feeling the presence of god so from a pleasure standpoint masturbation is more true then god (you must stop believing in god and start masturbate this will give you more pleasure you little hedonist )

-         You gain scientific knowledge about the world if you embraced creationism before

-         You will lose the fear of hell.

Besides if you measure your standpoint on pleasure why not replace god with something that gives you more pleasure ? A atheistic philosophy ? Candy ? Masturbation ? Drugs ? Strong medication ? The removal of the part of the brain responsible for pain (you will feel non stop pleasure and will never be sad or unhappy )

Do you have so little critical thinking ability that you pick and choose what to believe, and that you believe things based on some sort of perceived gain? 

Do you believe in Santa Claus?  Now there is some gain.  Presents every December.

Personally, *I* believe things BECAUSE THERE IS EVIDENCE.  I may or may not like what I believe.  But when I believe something it's because that's what the physical evidence leads me to think.

The same thing you stand to gain by believing anything: a false sense of surety.

Rather, for the sake of argument, let us take the following premises:

1. The existence of God cannot be empirically proven or disproven.
2. Belief is an assertion of surety of knowledge; to believe in something is to claim that you feel confident enough to assert that it is true.

Then, let us ask this: Can you be sure? Truly sure, not simply 'sure enough' to ignore the doubts you still have? If so, how? If not, then are you comfortable with the idea that you are lying to yourself? Are you comfortable with the idea that you are lying to others? We'll come back to that last bit.

First, we should look at the dangers of lying to oneself. Self-delusion is a dangerous habit to get into; it has a tendency to expand beyond our initial intent. A man who habitually lies to himself will find it easier to continue to do so in other avenues -  such as when he questions his own judgment or motives, for example. This can lend us a false sense of security and confidence, and often ends up leading us astray into decisions or situations which are harmful to ourselves or those around us. A man who habitually lies to himself may have an easier time justifying to himself actions with he knows to be foolish or wrong. Better to not lie to ourselves, to admit when we simply don't know, and to continue to seek understanding and truth. The man who does this is far more likely to understand himself, and those around him.

We don't exist in a vacuum, obviously. If we did, none of us would be communicating with one another. Our decisions matter in the here-and-now, but more, they matter in the cascading sequence of decisions to come. Consider: The point was raised that religion has caused more externally-directed harm than drug use, in the form of wars, crusades, campaigns of conversion 'by fire and sword' as it were, inquisitions, etc. You counter, quite reasonably, with the fact that your statement was about you. Just you. Why should you actively disbelieve in the existence of God? It's a fair question, and a fair response, but at the same time, it's a bit myopic.

Let us abstract the question, just slightly: 'Why should I abandon X belief?' If you don't feel this is a fair abstraction of your original question, then I acknowledge that you likely will feel the rest of the response to that abstraction will not apply. However, I do ask that you consider it, just the same. Obviously, if you feel this is a fair abstraction of your original inquiry, I also ask that you consider what follows.

Lets us then look at 'why should I abandon X belief?' in an historical context: If belief X helps you to function in your daily life, gives you some measure of stress relief and reassurance in your own worth, and allows you to externalize and face hardships you encounter with greater ease, then you might well consider that belief to be helpful. But beliefs are funny things: they are easily twisted and used in times of difficulty as a means to divide people, to categorize, to find the 'other' among us and shun them. At this point, you may well be saying to yourself 'I already responded to that, though. That has happened, sure, but that wasn't me, so why should it be applied to me?'

And the answer is: what comes after you. Who comes after you? Imagine, if you will, a world where belief in the 'subhuman' nature of the Jewish people simply wasn't handed down to children anymore after, say, 1800. Or better, where that belief had never been promulgated to begin with. And yet, for working poor, the ability to demonize a people they'd never met, and would never met, to give a label and a 'face' to an external agency that was somehow responsible for their poverty, their misery, their hardships... provided an outlet for stress and frustration, another bond with those around them, and the reassurance that no, of course they weren't the bottom of the food chain. Why, those people were hardly even human!

It helped people deal with the frustrations and hardships of their existence. If it hadn't, it wouldn't have continued to be passed along. And I'm sure that even as they bitched and grumbled about 'jewish bankers', most folks in say, 1860s Austria weren't about to go murdering people to lessen their frustration at not making enough money.

But we pass our beliefs on to our children. And our children's children. And it is better to teach our children to seek truth, rather than to ever believe that without evidence, without proof, they can ever know it.

So. What benefit do you get by believing God does not exist? The same thing you stand to gain by believing anything: a false sense of surety.

What benefit do you get by not believing you know the answer to a question that cannot be answered? Truth. The ability to trust your own judgement and our own honesty. And the knowledge that we are not passing down unproven rumor to impressionable minds who may, because it comes from a source they trust, take it to be The Inerrant Word of Dad. Even when we grow up and know better than to think our parents are infallible, the things we learned early on, when we thought they were... those things stay with us. Can you be sure that your child will have the intellectual strength and curiousity to think for himself if Dad Says So is one of his choices?

Give the next generation the opportunity to seek truth, too: don't weigh them down with unproven beliefs.

Remember: Atheism is not the belief in a lack of God. That's Gnostic Atheism, or Strong Atheism. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. That includes Weak, or Agnostic Atheism - the statement 'I don't know, and not knowing, cannot claim belief or invest trust and faith.'

The admission of ignorance is the first step in the search for truth, and ultimately it is the search that is the truest reward, the greatest benefit.