Some of this I agree with; we can get a bit more sophisticated.

We come into the world knowing more or less nothing, and have first make the leap to trust that our observations reflect an external reality... then make a lot of decisions around "who to trust" -- even taking a science-based approach, where I can technically understand & perform at least some of the experiments myself, I have actually personally performed/witnessed a very, very small percentage. You can't "stand on the shoulders of giants" if you don't accept the work of those giants... though of course, the results of scientific inquiry are everywhere; the knowledge gained is put to use in manipulating our environment. And scientific fame is gained through revolutionary discoveries, upsetting the status quo, so there's a large incentive for scientists to uncover errors made by their predecessors.

So as you were saying, we go through life giving a rough probability value to everything we believe, absolutely.

This is where I feel like it goes off the rails; the claims are extraordinary, but the evidence is extremely thin on the ground. Try standing back and thinking of it as if, say, two gospel authors came to your house, 40 years after Jesus' death -- just long enough that any physical evidence of miracles (including the resurrection) was long gone. You just had these two guys, with second or third-hand knowledge that didn't really match up in some important ways. Would you be convinced? What would they have to say to convince you? Either way, remember, you have nothing but their word.

Then suppose a different two guys came to your house the next day, saying similar things about a completely different prophet. Would you *also* be convinced by them?

I saw various references to morality as being a basis for worshiping a supreme being in another post of yours, but I'm not grasping the concept at all. Why would spending time in worship be a moral act? Isn't it better to be out interacting with the world in the way God wants (assuming you know)? You may just have a very different concept of morality than mine.

Is the Bible consistent, then? And prayer doesn't seem to differ in any observable way from simple goal-directed meditation, a perfectly natural occurrence.

Wait, the millions of people spreading *which* word about him? Because it varies quite a bit, like you'd expect from non-supernaturally-inspired regular people. The written records of his works -- not written by God, mind you, but by more people as told to them by other people.. and filtered/collected by still more people -- are also still very inconsistent.

Which suggests two questions:
* why would God refuse to provide any reliable, consistent source of knowledge about what he wants? Even if everyone who prayed sincerely reached a common wisdom, that would help an awful lot; but they don't.
* Given the reality of the situation, is it more likely that God actually exists, or that the idea was created and spread via people?

Doesn't this ever strike you as oddly convenient? Based on this refusal, an enormous percentage of all human beings who have existed have never even heard about Jesus. Why does God rely so completely on very fallible human action to spread his word? Or, what they claim to be his word -- obviously, most of them are wrong, since they differ so widely.

But what form does this influence take? Because it certainly seems like the charisma of the missionary/church leader/etc. has a pretty strong correlation with the number of converts (leaving aside historical forced conversions).

Okay, then why isn't it more effective? Why aren't there more Christians? There are an awful lot... if you count Mormons, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. all as Christian... but their beliefs are very divergent, so clearly the Holy Spirit isn't communicating anything very consistent or coherent. And the majority aren't getting any kind of Christian message anyway.

Most people mean "supernatural event" by miracle. The parting of the seas, rising from the dead, walking on water, turning water into wine, etc. doesn't happen any more.

Sorry if I seem rather negative about these ideas; I'm an incurable idealist about humanity, and really think we can do better as a whole than we are now, but part of that requires the realization that some inarguable "truths" that force us into useless conflict constantly are not so inarguable after all. Reality is messy, but at least it's consistent.

Wait, wait. Stop there. You have a seriously screwed up idea of what makes people happy. You'll be blithe and carefree if you spend all your waking hours doing unlimited harm to those around you? I suppose you also imagine that the most pleasant life is built on massive orgies and drugs binges 24/7, right?

Good luck with that, I guess.

Or -- wait -- maybe you were attacking a straw man? Hmm.

I mean, come on now -- you have to dedicate at least a few seconds of thought to what you're "arguing" against. People are social creatures. Unless you're a psychopath, you have empathy, and you care about the respect & love of those around you. So the happiest, most fulfilling life is actually doing honest work and feeling like you've used your talents well and made a real difference in the lives of others.

Not doing whatever "feels good" with no other thought involved. That could work for about a week, maximum.

Does *anyone* have religious belief on the basis of evidence? My understanding is that there are certainly religious people who are rational thinkers and even scientifically minded, but they generally agree that a leap of faith is required. There are many questions about the universe to which science's answer is "we don't know", but based on observable reality, the answers that religions offer are not probable by any stretch of the imagination.

An intelligent mind would not leap to the conclusion that "worship" was at all helpful or desirable to that worthy being.

An intelligent mind, exposed to an infinitely worthy being (and somehow able to recognize that), would attempt to communicate with it.

Somehow that option is unavailable with God. Instead we have:
* ancient & highly contradictory writings by people who claimed to have some kind of contact with God thousands of years ago
* "messages" from God, in the form of natural occurrences that require aggressive interpretation.

What's the point of having a supremely worthy being if all your calls go straight to voicemail?

Well, don't quote any book of the Bible (Leviticus is a fine example) as evidence of what God supposedly wants unless you also accept what the rest of the book says.

Because Leviticus... boy, oh boy. There are some strange rules in there.

How in the world do you decide which bits to quote? People talk with such confidence about what God wants, and back it up with very carefully cherry-picked quotations. It always kind of baffles me; I've actually read the Bible.

A god who wants anything specific should at least, you know, notify us that he's around.

I mean seriously, it's not that hard. If it were me, I'd put an enormous floating obelisk in some highly public place, and make it do something extra-magical, like whoever looks at it seems my latest message in their native language.

I just came up with that off the top of my head. Imagine what an all-powerful being might think up!

Probably something better than "sending" various people to be his emissaries. And stopping all the miracles once scientific principles became widespread.

I sure wouldn't want to go to heaven. I mean, look at how our morality has evolved over time.

Go back even just a few hundred years, and even the "good" people are perfectly accepting of horrific levels of racism, sexism, etc. etc.. Do you want to hang out with those people?

And I'm sure that in the future, people will look back on us, our ignorance and horrible prejudices.

So if heaven existed, it'd either still be EMPTY, or full of racists.

Correct -- killing is very much okay in biblical terms, like how you should kill any woman who isn't a virgin on her wedding night, any son who curses his parents, any fortuneteller, anyone who sacrifice to other gods, anyone who works on the sabbath, anyone on the other side in war (sometimes women & children as well), etc.

It's just "murder" that's wrong -- basically killing someone when it's NOT justified by the law.

The penalty is death.

You seem to have a very... loose sense of causation. Huh.

First, a very obvious point: the utility of religion is utterly irrelevant to the TRUTH value of it. If we found that people who worshiped the Hamburgler were invariably happier, more peaceful, and more responsible world citizens, you're saying you'd be on board? Really?

It's a valid question, because if you actually study the utility of religion (instead of just swallowing the huge leaps of logic and painful oversimplifications of history that you've listed), chances are pretty likely you're going to have to set aside your religion and head towards a reality-based viewpoint. The argument that religious belief is doing more harm than good in the world today is fairly solid.

Aside: I think this word "miracle" does not mean what you think it means.

There's a lot of all kinds of things in the Bible (including long strings of genealogy, which is pretty useless particularly nowadays) but yes, there are some treatments of morality.

Many religious texts include some kind of attempt at codification of a system of morality.

Unfortunately, while studying a source like the Bible might lead you to think more on moral questions (always a good thing!), it isn't much good at *teaching* you morality or even in providing a good framework for thorny moral questions. In general, the bible seems to actively oppose a deep & considered morality in favor of a very parental kind of approach, "obey me and don't ask questions".

Also: moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc. have continued to develop rather a lot over the last couple of thousand years (though certainly not to the extent that many other fields of knowledge have... moral questions are more limited & recurring). We also have a much better understanding now of where our basic moral impulses come from and how they function (and how they fail to function when reasonably they ought to...) -- I feel like studying *that* will give you a much better moral base, with a pragmatic approach to actually guiding your own and others' behavior to make society safer, kinder, more just, healthier, etc., then you could ever get studying the Bible.

I mean, think about it -- on the one hand, you have a invented parables delivered by people who actually doesn't *know* how this particular action will turn out in most cases... they invent a pat result based on their (hopefully relatively extensive) personal observations to teach you a simple moral. Some of them are relatively sensible, but some are designed to show the power of "our" deity as opposed to competitors, some are designed to more-or-less record law as it was a few thousand years ago (long before current concepts of human rights and so on), and some are just plain weird, maybe due to poor transmission somewhere along the line. At least Aesop's Fables are relatively consistent in quality, by comparison.

On the other hand, you have long-term, large-scale studies with sometimes surprising & counter-intuitive (or counter-to-common-wisdom) results. Which actually show what methods of impulse control are most successful, how different child-rearing strategies affect development, how different approaches to incarceration & rehabilitation affect recidivism, etc. etc..

Which is more valuable? How much time should we spend studying each, if we want a solid & useful moral foundation?

I actually do think the bible (as well as Qur'an & other major religious scriptures) is worth some study -- it's a fascinating collection of documents, and a strange little window into people's minds thousands of years ago -- but I have never understood the people who argue that it's an important source for learning morality.

...some of us are athier than others?

It's not "outside" the realm of science. Logic and reality (i.e., science) provide no support whatsoever for belief in a god or gods. That doesn't mean "it/they don't exist". But that also doesn't mean the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist... that's an incredibly weak foundation for any strong belief.

I have ideas that I find emotionally appealing -- a concept that the universe is an enormous machine or organism, and I am a tiny but essential cog or cell within it -- vague ideas of predestination and so on.

But when I talk about "reality", I put those ideas aside.

This is the problem with religion -- people have no idea what it's "truth-value" actually is. They actually pray NOT because it helps them think & evaluate by whispering to an imagined benevolent deity... but because they seriously think a magic being is listening, might help them out, and that praying is a better use of their time than trying to solve the problem themselves.