Proving all (other) religions wrong.

The existence of a creator might even be why primitive tribesmen assume a deity in every part of nature, human activity, etc.

• A universe creating god implanted in his favorite creation (man) a tendency to assume it was there, but did not leave any evidence to conclusively prove the fact that he exists, meaning that it's really not all that important to this creator OR
  
• Assigning agency to an otherwise inert rustle in the grass helped avoid the one time in fifty that rustle might be a predator and therefore helped specimens of every species reproduce 
  

But I don't think the scenario is commonly used to explain human tendencies towards assuming a creator.

I mean versions that are not yahweh, not jesus, in any way. I know this question gets too difficult once I start asking things like "how many people believe in different versions of your god's rules?" which is essentially the denominational question no christian can answer. How many times did you pray to, say, the ancient Egyptian gods, or the Aztec gods, or the Hindu gods, before Jesus took your call? Why are there so many more people that do NOT believe, if it's so obvious and he can communicate with all of them?

Can you explain why in this very specific proposition you do not feel that this assignment of an unseen agency to an undemonstrated agent does NOT explain why we as a species have invented gods who act as unseen agents over naturally occurring events?

The denominational question has been addressed to you at least by myself. I pointed out, which you can test for yourself, the core belief of what each individual church believes. You can go to any evangelical church website, click on to the section that states their belief, and you'll see that they're pretty much all the same. Even between Pentecostals and Baptists which traditionally are alleged to be the evangelicals that have the least in common. Usually the link will say something like mission statement, what we believe, etc. When Billy Graham went to seminary, there were students from a wide variety of denominations. He stated how intrigued he was by how similar they all actually were in their beliefs.

As far as praying to different gods, I didn't pray to any of them. I prayed to God, the creator of the Universe, whomever that may be. This is what you can't seem to grasp.

--> @RoderickSpode

That IS the explanation.

No, at this point I'm just asking him to explain how the survival of a caveman due to extreme caution relates to belief in a god/creator.

Well I don't consider atheist activists (especially militants) as representing the rest of the modern world.

Theists are yet to enter the modern world as reason, logic and rationale are what represents it; and they have floundered.

I think obsession is a sign of weakness.

I still have yet to understand why theists are so obsessed with living in the past rather than joining the modern world. Weakness of the brain, perhaps?

Yeah, I'm sure somany Christians are really not at all interested in riches or notoriety, that's exactly why they're not making headlines. They're not making headlines because their stories sound an awful lot like something you'd be really concerned about if it were another god. Imagine a story on the news where they talk to a ton of middle eastern people and they're all going on about hearing voices in their heads, getting visions in their dreams, and receiving orders from their god? Wouldn't you think "fuck, they're crazy!" If this were a homeless man on the street talking about his personal encounters with Abraham Lincoln, you'd think he needed help. Change that to Jesus and you think "Well the lord's taking care of this guy"? I have to answer my own questions because often you don't, and I want to move the conversation forward. I am also trying to keep things moving, so I am raising my objections to answers I think you'd have. Feel free to refute them, offer different answers, it'll help us converse, far more than your complaining. 

I think it sounds like a sensible explanation that is in keeping with what science has demonstrated about genetics, consistent with Occum's razor and offers a natural take on humans' collective tendency to assign agency even if there is not enough evidence to make that determination. It keeps a specimen safe longer over larger population numbers. It's survival instinct. What do you think of chimpanzees shaking sticks and screaming at thunderstorms? Do you think their thunderstorm enemy might be real out to take the monkey's territory, or do you think they might be assigning agency where there isn't any?

This is the thing with evolutionary theory that religious people just don't seem to understand. It doesn't require any real imagination, it doesn't require any element to be added, it's insanely simple: traits and behaviors that over the long term benefit the large population propagate (like being startled and running when you are not sure the source of a noise in the dark, which increases your chances of survival), traits and behaviors that are deleterious over a long term to a population are deselected, only through the pressure of the environment around you. TO use a clumsy example, there's no need to add a magical being that says to baby giraffes "This is how you walk from the moment your born!", adding that only leads to more unanswerable senseless questions.  The giraffes that walk from the day they're born can evade predation and pass on their "I'm a good walker!" traits to their own offspring. THe ones who couldn't walk are a delightfully easy snack for a cheetah and do NOT get to reproduce their bad walking genes. 

Interesting. SO there are portions of your religious doctrine that you simply ignore because you personally don't agree with them? Isn't that basically a denomination of one person? I guess I can't square how you believe in an afterlife whose reward is based entirely on what team you're on (according to the book you could be a super-righteous aborigine but you don't know Jesus, you're out!) with how you make the decision what to ignore. You don't sound very convinced. Maybe you could flesh this idea out further?

Do I think they're assigning agency where there isn't any? No. In fact, the fact that they cannot distinguish between a real predator, and a simple act of nature strengthens my point as far as I'm concerned. I don't think they have any clue what they're shaking their sticks at. They are not mentally able to determine that.

Which seems more sensible:

• A universe creating god implanted in his favorite creation (man) a tendency to assume it was there, but did not leave any evidence to conclusively prove the fact that he exists, meaning that it's really not all that important to this creator OR
  
• Assigning agency to an otherwise inert rustle in the grass helped avoid the one time in fifty that rustle might be a predator and therefore helped specimens of every species reproduce 
  

One has a demonstrable explanation.  

He gave you the explanation that made sense, from a logical and evolutionary standpoint, of our tendency to assign agency where there isn't any. It seems to me he addressed it, you just say he didn't and then don't really say what you object to, just that it doesn't explain Jesus. 

For one, in the scenario he gave, the assigned agency was a known natural predator. The caveman knows what a lion is, probably from experience, and knows how dangerous they are. So his precaution, even if over-precaution will save his life. We can change the scenario to the caveman seeing a parched piece of land near a volcano. The lava is no longer flowing, so there's no real danger. So he can assume the land is parched due to an earlier volcanic eruption, or he can take the more cautionary approach and assume it's parched due to a fire breathing dragon that may still be in the area.The problem is that the caveman won't assume that because he probably never saw a fire breathing dragon. That....and there probably are no fire breathing dragons. So his caution is probably fairly meaningless.

Which seems more sensible:

• A universe creating god implanted in his favorite creation (man) a tendency to assume it was there, but did not leave any evidence to conclusively prove the fact that he exists, meaning that it's really not all that important to this creator OR
  
• Assigning agency to an otherwise inert rustle in the grass helped avoid the one time in fifty that rustle might be a predator and therefore helped specimens of every species reproduce 
  

One has a demonstrable explanation

A question you probably shouldn't really ask me. But, ok.

Believing in the creator is a choice. There are reasons not to choose the biblical creator.

1. One might avoid choosing the creator if they're a hedonist. That one hits home for me because that's why I initially did not want to find out that the God of the Bible is real. 

2. One might avoid choosing the creator if they think they're righteous. Since you mentioned the super righteous aborigine in the other thread, the problem is that the super righteous aborigine is only super righteous by human standards. And our opinion could change once we found out that said aborigine committed something immoral by our current standards. Ghandi would be a good example. A man many westerners considered equivalent to the righteous aborigine. Any bad he may have done would be trivial. A human weakness we're all subject to. Now it's been alleged that he had some practices that are considered highly immoral by today's standards, so some people are taking a different stance on Ghandi's righteosness.

3. One might avoid choosing the creator if they think he is evil. (Of course when I refer to the creator I'm referring to the God of the Bible). But I think most of the time it's an excuse due to either problems #1 and 2, or any other reason I haven't mentioned.

The choice not to believe is merely one of a number of manifestations when facing the choice. And I'm sorry but I think God does have your attention. It's evident by how often you come here. God is a part of your life whether you want to admit it or not.

I think you are mischaracterizing atheists here. There are nearly as many different kinds of atheists as there are atheists including spiritual and religious atheists. Many atheists must surely have told you that the problem for them is that no god claim has met its burden of proof. This has nothing to do with hedonism or being righteous or even ones desire to believe or not believe.

If you had sufficient evidence many agnostic atheists would have no choice but to believe. Evidence is what makes us believe.