atheism is irrational

Author: n8nrgmi

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eternal view had me organize my thoughts so i thought i'd jot them down for my easier future reference. 

there's good evidence for God. atheism is irrational because they pretend there's no evidence or at least there's enough evidence to be at least agnostic. 

we see things that look supernatural happen to praying theists but there's no reason to assume those things happen to atheists. supernatural healings. 

the large majority of people who have NDEs who are atheists end up believing in God (almost everyone who has those experiences, even skeptics, end up believing in the afterlife, but that's just a related point). there's lots of good evidence for NDEs so we should take them seriously. such as out of body experiences being verified under scientific study.   it's stupid to argue that it's common for people to hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when they die and then give no good reason why that happens, when drugs dont cause that to happen either. dr longs book 'evidence for the afterlife' is full of good evidence. 

there's good and inexplicable evidence for demonic possession. 

there's the point that the universe is going from high energy to low energy as if it's a clock that got set (how does something happen once within all eternity and never happen again, what does that even mean?)... there's no good alternative hypothesis that has good evidence for it, just speculation. 

it's stupid to argue that humans are just elaborate living robots. it should be intuitive that we are more than that, and it's forced and artificial to think that way. 

the design of the universe is weak evidence but it's evidence

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TheUnderdog
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@n8nrgmi
I believe God exists but he is a genocidal maniac unfit for worship.  He supports cruel and unusual punishment (something that liberals oppose) and he supports censorship (something that conservatives oppose).

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@TheUnderdog
it's possible to believe in God without believing the bible is inerrant and without being a fundamentalist christian. don't throw the baby out with the bath water. it's a decent point regarding 'the problem of suffering' but all the points you made show you to be basically creating a straw man. "these stupid arguments are often attributed to God so you assume they must be true)
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@TheUnderdog
why would you say you left christianity and then assume all of the stupid stuff christians believe is actually true? 
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@n8nrgmi
Regardless of their impact, some scientists and scholars still view NDEs through the lenses of psychology, biology and neuroscience. John Martin Fischer, a philosopher at the University of California, Riverside, and co-author of Near-Death Experiences says that one explanation for the universal similarities in NDE reports is often ignored. “It’s not that we’re in contact with an otherworldly realm,” he says. “We’re all similar. Humans have similar developmental histories, psychologies and similar brains.”
Beyond that, all humans have to come to terms with the looming threat of death. When we’re in a situation that seems like it might lead to our death, Fischer continues, we react in similar ways. “The biochemistry and the neurophysiology interacts with our psychology in complex ways to produce similar reactions,” he says. 
Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, argues that NDEs can be slotted neatly into a neuroscientific framework. Like Fischer, he says that these are complex phenomena, but also notes that many of the well-known features of NDEs can also be triggered by situations where someone’s life isn’t in danger. “The context of the experience — feeling threatened — may be as important as the actual medical threat,” says Nelson, who also wrote The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain. He points out that the experience of fainting can generate similar effects: “Done in the safe confines of a laboratory, [it] will induce identical elements to a near-death experience.” A study published in The Lancet in 1994 found that syncope, or fainting, also prompted NDE staples like feelings of peace, entering another world and being surrounded by light.
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@n8nrgmi
A cracked egg lying in the middle of the sidewalk is not “evidence” that a seagull laid an egg in midair. 

To be evidence; a particular fact, must be indicative of one explanation over another - even by a little.

Being ridiculously superficial, and simply talking about NDEs, with no detail at all, which not bothering to assess whether it actually points to something - you could possibly argue that multiple people experiencing God is “evidence” of God. But only then.

The detail of NDEs make it no such thing. NDEs are highly similar to various forms of Drug trips, especially things like Ketamin and LSD. Many aspects of NDEs such as out of body experiences can be triggered by drugs or particular environments. NDEs themselves share similarities but are heavily influenced by culture that someone lived in; and experiments relating to whether the experience is real (such as seeing a picture orientated so that it could only be seen If someone was floating above it).

Given that, NDEs do not actually indicate that a supernatural explanation is more likely; quite the opposite.


The “design” of the universe one is sort of assuming your conclusion. What you really mean is that some aspect of the universe seems complex and difficult to understand.

But to be evidence - the thing you’re looking at has to indicate one thing over another. 

In this respect, why do you feel the existence of entropy makes it more likely that God exists than any other possibility.



In reality; the big confusion you make is that you’re confusing specific facts being evidence for God and God being an explanation of specific facts.

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@Ramshutu
drugs dont cause people to experience elaborate afterlife stories. there are some similarities with drug trips, but they are completely different otherwise. most drug trips involve lots of random imagery, a scatter shot of experiences. not consistent elaborate afterlife stories. 
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@Ramshutu
lower energy states come from higher energy states. something had to cause the first maximum energy state of the universe. similar to the causation argument but also pointing out that the universe causing itself is a violation of reality as we best know it. also the ticking clock point is such that how can we have an infinite ending come from a finite beginning? something has to be at the beginning that is infiinite but it doesn't look like the universe meets that criteria. 
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@TheUnderdog
why would you say you left christianity and then assume all of the stupid stuff christians believe is actually true?
Because he has no real argument against Christianity, so must use points in his argument that he has already dismissed as untrue in his life.

Here is another contradiction.
He says God is a "genocidal maniac unfit for worship.", But do people who say such silly things ever wonder how Christianity was able to get a majority of people to convert and consider God to be worthy of worship?

I believe God exists but he is a genocidal maniac unfit for worship.  
He uses Christian doctrine as true to justify his rejection of God whom he calls false. It's the epitome of an irrational argument.
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EVERYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ATHEIST IS A CLOSET AGNOSTIC. 

Atheist or atheism is short for.  (  you theists can Take alllllllll the time you want to prove God exists  ) 
FULL STOP

You have infinite time to prove god exists.
Please take ya time. 
Take a couple more thousand years trying to prove god exists. 
Seriously dont rush guy's. 
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@ethang5
He says God is a "genocidal maniac unfit for worship.", But do people who say such silly things ever wonder how Christianity was able to get a majority of people to convert and consider God to be worthy of worship?
Because most people, especially people without college degrees (like the people who originally converted to christianity) don't bother to fact check everything they are told.  They are told there is an invisible man in the sky; they believe it.  They are told that the bible is his word, they believe it.  They never bother to read the bible because they can't read.  By the time people learn how to read, their faith is cemented in.  But atheism is developing and Christianity is losing its stronghold on the US, the EU, and other western places.

People converted under threat of death by the Roman empire after the emperor had converted.
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@n8nrgmi
there's good evidence for God. atheism is irrational because they pretend there's no evidence or at least there's enough evidence to be at least agnostic.
Agnosticism isn’t some middle ground between theism and atheism. Gnosticism addresses knowledge, theism/atheism address belief. On the question of whether you believe in a god there are only two options; you either do, or you do not. If you do, you’re a theist. If you don’t, you’re an atheist. The proposition ‘God does not exist’ is completely separate from this.

So right off the bat, you’re strawmanning the overwhelming majority of atheists including most of the people of the people are are probably thinking of when you wrote this.

we see things that look supernatural happen to praying theists but there's no reason to assume those things happen to atheists.
You cannot claim something looks supernatural until you have a confirmed example of the supernatural to compare it to. If I told you that you look like a scnitzlerod, you would have no way to assess that without having any idea what a scnitzlerod is.

This example pretty much sums up your entire argument, so I’ll respond to all of it with one simple statement;

Things that do not exist cannot be asserted as the cause for other things.

Does this mean God and/or the supernatural doesn’t exist? No, it means that they cannot be asserted even as a candidate explanation until you can first demonstrate that they exist.

If you’re claiming to be logical then you must follow it’s basic principals. All you’re doing is bringing up phenomenon for which there are no explanations you accept, and then claiming God solves these problems. But of course God solves it, because that’s essentially what God is… the solution to every problem. NDE’s? God solves it. High energy to low energy? God solves it. God is a panacea of solutions, which means you aren’t doing any work. Just asserting him for everything and then claiming it makes the most sense. That’s not logic, that’s an end run around logic and the work it takes to develop an understanding of the world you experience.

With regards to the first cause argument this one is again very simple and all comes down to one basic question… ‘why is there something rather than nothing’?

Your answer to this is God, but that’s incoherent. God is by definition… a something. So what you’re really doing is asserting that God is responsible for his own existence, the exact same argument you reject as irrational with regards to the existence of the universe.

To put that another way, the theistic claim is that God exists. This by definition makes him subject to the nature of existence itself just like the rest of us, so God cannot be the explanation for it.

Back to the main point, at the end of the day all most atheists are saying is that these answers are beyond our reach. And given that we have no access to this realm of reality where God supposedly presides, any other position is inherently irrational.
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ethang5
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@TheUnderdog
Because most people, especially people without college degrees (like the people who originally converted to christianity) don't bother to fact check everything they are told.
Christianity first excelled in those parts of the world that had a higher percentage of people who could read. In fact, Christianity really took off AFTER the printing press made bibles accessable to all. There were no colleges when Christianity started.

They are told there is an invisible man in the sky; they believe it.
Told by whom? Christianity says God is NOT a man, and is NOT in the sky. I'm a Christian and was never told that, not are those things in the Bible. You seem to be telling us your uninformed opinions.

  They are told that the bible is his word, they believe it. 
Is your problem with belief? For example, you were told the world is spherical. You believed it. What's the difference there?

They never bother to read the bible because they can't read.
Even people who can't read, can think. If the Bible itself discouraged belief in God, the Advent of the printing press and formal schools would have quickly killed Christianity. Reality contradicts you. Christianity florishes where people can read and Bible's are available.


By the time people learn how to read, their faith is cemented in.  But atheism is developing and Christianity is losing its stronghold on the US, the EU, and other western places.
Your two sentences above contradict each other.

People converted under threat of death by the Roman empire after the emperor had converted
This is not true, but for the sake of argument, let's accept it. People are converting in record numbers in Africa, Asia, and South America under no threat at all. To what do you attribute that?

But as I suspected, atheists will not want to talk about the thread's topic, but will instead tell us how they personally don't believe the Bible.

Just their responses here aptly demonstrate the irrationality of atheism.
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@ethang5
Christianity first excelled in those parts of the world that had a higher percentage of people who could read. In fact, Christianity really took off AFTER the printing press made bibles accessable to all. There were no colleges when Christianity started.
Christianity took off when the Roman empire became Christian.  People didn't know how to read back then.

 For example, you were told the world is spherical. You believed it. What's the difference there?
The scientific consensus is that the earth is round.  I can google map the shape of the earth and confirm the world is spherical.

If the Bible itself discouraged belief in God, the Advent of the printing press and formal schools would have quickly killed Christianity.
People didn't always read the bible.  I have a bible at home.  It doesn't mean I read all of it.  The typical person who bought a bible didn't read all of it.

Christianity florishes where people can read and Bible's are available.
Christainity is losing supporters because people are reading bad bible quotes and deciding that they don't want to be affiliated with it.

By the time people learn how to read, their faith is cemented in.
What I meant to say was when literacy became common significantly after people became religious.  This doesn't mean people read the bible initially just because they were literate.

But atheism is developing and Christianity is losing its stronghold on the US, the EU, and other western places.
People are reading the bible and are alienated by it.

People are converting in record numbers in Africa, Asia, and South America under no threat at all. To what do you attribute that?
Atheism is stigmatized in Africa.  In Asia, christianity isn't that popular except in countries that are copying the west.  South Korea likes to copy the west so they have a lot of christians there.  When the west is the wealthiest civilization in the world, other civilization like to copy them.
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@n8nrgmi
it's possible to believe in God without believing the bible is inerrant and without being a fundamentalist christian
It depends on your definition of, "belief in god".  You as a liberal believe in Donald Trump if you think he exists.  That doesn't mean you support him.  Your allowed to not support things you believe exist.  But if God is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving (what christians argue he is) and he wrote the bible, then everything in the bible is supposed to be for the good of humanity.  Instead, God opposes freedom of speech by imposing harsher punishments for freedom of speech than the Chinese communists.  God is an SJW.

why would you say you left christianity and then assume all of the stupid stuff christians believe is actually true? 
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@ethang5
He says God is a "genocidal maniac unfit for worship.", But do people who say such silly things ever wonder how Christianity was able to get a majority of people to convert and consider God to be worthy of worship?
Because the people who get converted to christianity never fact check the bible.
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@n8nrgmi
Okay, so you’ve missed the point.

Explanation of is not evidence for.

With NDEs, God is one of a class of explanations for which God is an explanation. They are not evidence for God because they do not indicate one explanation above another.

Specifically because;
- they can occur without life threatening conditions.
- they are culturally and personally specific to each person, rather than a single consistent deity.
- they contain very similar trends and mental states to drug induced altered mental states.
- they contain very similar trends to hallucinations, and dreams.
- There’s no verified example of any of these extra-corporeal experiences revealing extra corporeal information.

So in this respect, there is no specific aspect of NDEs that explicitly point to God over being the product of an altered mental state. IE: it’s not evidence.

If the NDEs all showed the same God, or showed external information that would only be accessible to people if the vision were real - it would be evidence.

But all the various aspects of NDEs are consistent with them being a product of the brain - which has the capacity to produce visions, dreams and hallucinations based on changes in chemistry and operation - going through the same specific process that causes changes in chemistry and operation during specific events: all of which strongly influenced by the individuals personal beliefs, experiences and culture.


The qualifying statement you need to be able make for it to be evidence is: X is evidence of Y if it’s unlikely for X to be true if not Y

In this case, there are very valid reasons To believe x could be true if not Y.

How you’re justifying things is: X is evidence of Y if it is consistent with Y being true.

That’s why they’re inherently different.


Likewise with the entropy X is consistent with Y.

But you have no basis to make any extrapolations of any kind as to whether the existence of entropy could be possible in any naturally occurring universe. You can’t, it requires information no one has; you don’t even have any plausible reason to presume it would necessarily be true if God existed either.

So you’re pointing to something you see without being able to state with any degree confidence whatsoever that God is likely to have created a universe with entropy over one with something else; and that some naturally occurring universe would likely not have entropy.

That’s the primary issue with most theists idea of “evidence”, the confusion between “I can explain it, you can’t”, and “this is demonstrably unlikely to be true if you are right.”





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When God was doing his book, he would of been all like. 

Adrian.

Hey Adrian  
Write this down for me.
Adrian then stops him there , and says that he cant write.

Hey Brendan ?
Write this down for me pal. 
But Brendan can't read or write neither. 

Marcus,  Gregory. 
No go. 

Then he gets to Paul  
#19
SkepticalOne
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@n8nrgmi
there's good evidence for God. atheism is irrational because they pretend there's no evidence or at least there's enough evidence to be at least agnostic. 
'There's enough evidence for god to hold the view that god is not known (agnosticism)'.

Agreed. 

BTW- atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive. So, you're undermining your own argument...
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Watching atheists tell people they have to believe every word if the Bible is fact to be Christian is hysterical.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Watching atheists tell people they have to believe every word if the Bible is fact to be Christian is hysterical.


Well Poly.

If that statement had been understandable.

Then it might have been understandable.
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@ethang5
@n8nrgmi
n8nrgmi title :
atheism is irrational
What evidence can you present to support that claim ?

there's good evidence for God.[1] atheism is irrational because they pretend there's no evidence or at least there's enough evidence to be at least agnostic.
[1] So you claim, but can you prove that ?

the large majority of people who have NDEs who are atheists end up believing in God (almost everyone who has those experiences, even skeptics, end up believing in the afterlife, but that's just a related point). there's lots of good evidence for NDEs so we should take them seriously. such as out of body experiences being verified under scientific study.     it's stupid to argue that it's common for people to hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when they die and then give no good reason why that happens, when drugs dont cause that to happen either. dr longs book 'evidence for the afterlife' is full of good evidence.
What is the idea there ? We don't understand it, therefore God must be doing it ?

there's good and inexplicable evidence for demonic possession.
In case that is relevant, please explain its relevance and present the evidence.

there's the point that the universe is going from high energy to low energy as if it's a clock that got set (how does something happen once within all eternity and never happen again, what does that even mean?)... there's no good alternative hypothesis that has good evidence for it, just speculation.
If I understand correctly, your argument is the following :

P1. We don't understand the behaviour of energy in the universe.
P2. God is the explanation for everything we don't understand.
P3. In order to be the explanation for something, God must exist.
C. Therefore God exists.

Is that indeed your argument ?

the design of the universe is weak evidence but it's evidence
Correction : apparent design.
Are you suggesting it be irrational to not be convinced by weak evidence ?

drugs dont cause people to experience elaborate afterlife stories.[2] there are some similarities with drug trips, but they are completely different otherwise. most drug trips involve lots of random imagery, a scatter shot of experiences. not consistent elaborate afterlife stories.
[2] What a coincidence. Neither do gods.

lower energy states come from higher energy states.[3] something had to cause the first maximum energy state of the universe. similar to the causation argument but also pointing out that the universe causing itself is a violation of reality as we best know it.[4] also the ticking clock point is such that how can we have an infinite ending come from a finite beginning?[5] something has to be at the beginning that is infiinite but it doesn't look like the universe meets that criteria.
[3] What evidence can you present to support that claim ?
You also seem to be missing that the total energy of the universe appears to be increasing as the amount of dark energy appears to be increasing.
[4] How so ?

[5] If I understand correctly, your argument is the following :

P1. We don't understand how something with an infinite ending can come from a finite beginning.
P2. God is the explanation for everything we don't understand.
P3. In order to be the explanation for something, God must exist.
C. Therefore God exists.

Is that indeed your argument ?

ethang5  to TheUnderdog :
But as I suspected, atheists will not want to talk about the thread's topic, but will instead tell us how they personally don't believe the Bible.[6]
Just their responses here aptly demonstrate the irrationality of atheism.[7]
[6] Your prediction turns out to be wrong.
[7] Is that a fact or just your personal opinion ?


#23
Double_R
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@Polytheist-Witch

Watching atheists tell people they have to believe every word if the Bible is fact to be Christian is hysterical.
Do you believe the Bible is the word of God?

If no, then on what basis do you consider yourself a Christian?

If yes, and you don’t believe every word, then you are not a follower. You are determining what to believe and what lessons to take and applying them as you see fit.
#24
EtrnlVw
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@Ramshutu
Explanation of is not evidence for.

With NDEs, God is one of a class of explanations for which God is an explanation. They are not evidence for God because they do not indicate one explanation above another.

Perhaps you're missing the point entirely. Whether or not NDE's prove any particular relationship with any religious source is not the point. NDE's are evidence that the soul exists independent of the physical body which certainly indicates that what religious and spiritual sources have been proposing is true, or at the least there is plenty of evidence which supports the claim that a soul exists. And if a soul exists then it certainly indicates that God exists, since of course.... a soul falls into the category of Theism.

Specifically because;
- they can occur without life threatening conditions.

NDE's by definition are when a person has been declared medically, clinically dead. Brain death occurs within minutes after the hearts stops beating, after the heart stops beating and there is NO brain activity is when an NDE can take place.
The documentary called "I Survived Beyond and Back" introduces NDE occurrences who have been hospitalized and presents the corresponding medical facts with each case. If you are not sure, clinically dead are those who have "flatlined". These NDE's are recorded after the heart stops beating and there are no signs the person is alive. This is when the soul detaches from the physical body and freely moves outside the confines of the brain and body.

- they are culturally and personally specific to each person, rather than a single consistent deity.

I'm going to assume you have no clue why you are saying this, did you hear it from somebody else? However, when a person leaves the physical body they may have many variations of experiences, including extensions of their cultures and this doesn't work against NDE's.
Variations of experience is not a negative it is what makes creation beautiful....It would be like sending ten people across the globe in various directions and assuming they should all come back with the same experience of persons, places and things. Rather, the afterlife is as vast as the physical universe and perhaps much more so. Many societies that we experience here extend outside of the physical world so it is likely when a soul will exit here they will continue their relations they had with their religious affiliations and cultures. In other words souls who have certain religious backgrounds will not be forced to be in the company of other strange and unfamiliar beliefs. No one would force you to leave your family and friends to go live with strangers and places you are not welcome why would you think that should happen when a soul leaves the body?
When you leave the physical body you will be present in a parallel universe, you could be located in any number of places and where you go from there could be virtually any numbers of other places. A soul is not bound to anything really except for Karma, and many times it's a persons desire that dictates where they will go next.

- they contain very similar trends and mental states to drug induced altered mental states.

Not true, SHAME on you. They are not altered mental states at all. In fact quite the contrary they are highly lucid, clear and articulated experiences. Everyone knows what normal conscious experience is like, you can't contradict a persons conscious experience that they had themselves. So you should do a bit more research, I would suggest watching the documentary I outlined above.

- they contain very similar trends to hallucinations, and dreams.

Nope not at all....do you think people are dumb and don't know the difference between reality and dreams or altered states of awareness?
"Aren’t NDEs hallucinations? No. Hallucinations are usually illogical, fleeting, bizarre, and/or distorted, whereas the vast majority of NDEs are logical, orderly, clear, and comprehensible"
"People looking back on hallucinations typically recognize them as unreal, as fantasies, whereas, people often describe their NDEs as “more real than real."
"Aren’t NDEs the result of anoxia (lack of oxygen) in a dying brain? No. Physicians have compared oxygen levels of cardiac arrest survivors who did and did not have NDEs and their findings discredit the anoxia hypothesis"
"Haven’t locations in the brain been found to produce an NDE?  there is no empirical evidence that any one of these, or a combination of them, manufacture the NDE.  Every perception we have will be associated with activity in a specific part of the brain, but that doesn’t mean the activity caused the experience"
"Many of the patients who have been revived have been able to describe in great technical detail exactly what went on in the operating room"
"The findings of this study suggest that virtually all NDEs contain at least some elements that are not dreamlike."
"Only one NDEr out of 217 met these requirements, suggesting virtually all NDEs contain elements that are not dreamlike.  These study findings suggest NDEs and dreams are generally different states of consciousness."
"There also appears to be a heightened awareness of the physical senses and emotions, much more so than dreaming.  This can be seen in comments like, 'I've never recalled a dream with such clarity before,' or 'No, very real, I will never forget!,' or 'it was very real to me, the power and energy was nothing like a dream.'  In fact, this heightened awareness and clarity of events seems to play a key role in NDErs occasionally concluding that life on earth is not as 'real' as life on the other side.  These descriptions are very different than those of ordinary dreams."

- There’s no verified example of any of these extra-corporeal experiences revealing extra corporeal information.

Lol, what is this supposed to mean? what it verifies is the proposition of the souls existence as being distinct from the brain and body. That's what we're looking for here.

So in this respect, there is no specific aspect of NDEs that explicitly point to God over being the product of an altered mental state. IE: it’s not evidence.

An NDE explicitly points to the existence of a soul, as we went over above. Asserting NDE's are a product of altered mental states is poor research on your part. Sure, I'm sure you can dig up a materialist link on someone making that claim, it is contradictory to the actual facts. In other words, do you like someone making assertions about something you witnessed you know is not true? people aren't as stupid as you might assume. The average person knows what normal conscious experience is vs some bizarre altered state of consciousness why? because everyone is conscious, it's something they know and understand quite well obviously.

If the NDEs all showed the same God, or showed external information that would only be accessible to people if the vision were real - it would be evidence.

Typically, NDE's don't "show" God, again...I think you're missing the point besides the fact you appear to be very ignorant of such cases. Typically NDE's show that the soul leaves the confines of the physical body, from there they have a variety of experiences just like if we sent you all over the world you would have many variations of experiences. When you leave the body you are present within a parallel world/universe, not present with "God" per say, although people may see spiritual beings and hear audible sounds. Rarely as reported, some souls hear God speak to them....it's not God who defines Itself, it's souls who define God as they perceive who God is. In other words if a soul encounters God, they typically call God whatever name they are familiar with albeit it's the same Reality the other souls encounters.

But all the various aspects of NDEs are consistent with them being a product of the brain - which has the capacity to produce visions, dreams and hallucinations based on changes in chemistry and operation - going through the same specific process that causes changes in chemistry and operation during specific events: all of which strongly influenced by the individuals personal beliefs, experiences and culture.

This is all speculation you have no real reason to be asserting as if you know anything about it. As long as the soul occupies the body, there will be brain activity and once the soul leaves the body there are no signs of life. This is because the brain is simply a conduit that confines the souls conscious experience to their physical body.


#25
ethang5
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@TheUnderdog
Christianity first excelled in those parts of the world that had a higher percentage of people who could read. In fact, Christianity really took off AFTER the printing press made bibles accessable to all. There were no colleges when Christianity started.

Christianity took off when the Roman empire became Christian.  People didn't know how to read back then.
People knew how to read. There is a passage in the gospels of Jesus reading in the temple at 33 AD.

 For example, you were told the world is spherical. You believed it. What's the difference there?

The scientific consensus is that the earth is round.  I can google map the shape of the earth and confirm the world is spherical.
You were told, and you believed it. Don't castigate others for things you're also doing.

If the Bible itself discouraged belief in God, the Advent of the printing press and formal schools would have quickly killed Christianity.

People didn't always read the bible.  I have a bible at home.  It doesn't mean I read all of it.
Is the goalposts now reading ALL of the Bible?

The typical person who bought a bible didn't read all of it.
The typical person where and when? The typical person a few years ago learned the Bible in school. It was a big part of his education. In non-western countries, people know the Bible almost by heart.

Christianity florishes where people can read and Bible's are available.

Christainity is losing supporters because people are reading bad bible quotes and deciding that they don't want to be affiliated with it.
First, Christianity is growing worldwide, not losing supporters. The Bible is still the most known and quoted work of literature. Hardly any verse of the Bible is unknown. People in the west are doing just what the Bible predicted, setting themselves up as God, and thus must reject the Bible which contradicts any God but Jehovah.

Your two sentences contradict each other.

What I meant to say was when literacy became common significantly after people became religious.  This doesn't mean people read the bible initially just because they were literate.
There was hardly anything else to read. There were no libraries. The Bible is what most people learned to read on. Virtually all early Christian leaders were able to read. It was the Bible that convinced them. Heck, Matthew, Paul, John, and Luke could all read.

People are reading the bible and are alienated by it.
Untrue. This is your opinion. Most people who say they are "alienated" by the Bible held that opinion before they read the Bible.

Reading the Bible is a very dangerous thing for an atheist to do. What most do instead is read snippets online beside atheist interpretations on atheist websites. My experience has been that very few atheists actually know the Bible. They know movies and TV shows, and ignorant views from idiots like DeeDee or Stephen.

People are converting in record numbers in Africa, Asia, and South America under no threat at all. To what do you attribute that?

Atheism is stigmatized in Africa.
Atheism is stigmatized everywhere. Only 12% of the world's population is atheist.

In Asia, christianity isn't that popular except in countries that are copying the west. 
This is untrue. Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Asia.

South Korea likes to copy the west so they have a lot of christians there.
Your view is simplistic and naeve. America is now the one copying Korea with K-Pop. There are growing Christian populations in North Korea and China.

When the west is the wealthiest civilization in the world, other civilization like to copy them.
If other civilazations liked copying the west, and the west was turning away from Christianity, wouldn't other civilazations also be turning away? Your argument is self-contradictory U.D.

He says God is a "genocidal maniac unfit for worship.", But do people who say such silly things ever wonder how Christianity was able to get a majority of people to convert and consider God to be worthy of worship?

Because the people who get converted to christianity never fact check the bible.
I got converted and I checked the Bible. Every Christian I have known in my 60 years has been converted BECAUSE of what the Bible says, and have learned it better after conversion. The world is much bigger than the 5 mile bubble around your house.

You have somehow confused your opinion with reality.
#26
ethang5
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@Amoranemix
ethang5  to TheUnderdog :
But as I suspected, atheists will not want to talk about the thread's topic, but will instead tell us how they personally don't believe the Bible.[6]

[6] Your prediction turns out to be wrong.
Unless you carry the plural of majesty, my prediction is still right.

Just their responses here aptly demonstrate the irrationality of atheism.[7]

[7] Is that a fact or just your personal opinion ?
It would be amazing if my personal opinion was being posted by atheists. The OP claimed atheism was irrational. Not a single atheist poster, including you, has spoken about atheism. Instead, you all  either attacked Christianity, or merely requested clarification of his argument.

If any of you actually tried to defend atheism, he would quickly see that something irrational cannot be logically defended. And that is why the responses here aptly demonstrate the irrationality of atheism.
Topic's author
#27
n8nrgmi
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the central issue, is that what i presented in the opening post, is plain evidence. and atheists demand more evidence, and remain skeptics for the sake of being skeptics. 
#28
Polytheist-Witch
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@Double_R
If my username gives you the impression I'm a Christian then there's nothing I can say to you.
#29
Double_R
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@Polytheist-Witch
I couldn’t care less how you label yourself, I was responding to the comment you posted. You claimed it was “hilarious” watching atheists tell Christians they have to believe every word of the Bible to be a Christian. Do you stand by that or not?

If yes, see my response and address what I wrote.
#30
Double_R
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@n8nrgmi
the central issue, is that what i presented in the opening post, is plain evidence. and atheists demand more evidence, and remain skeptics for the sake of being skeptics. 
I left you an entire post explaining why what you presented is not evidence. Others have given some very strong objections as well. Do you have any response, or does calling us skeptical for the sake of being skeptical suffice in your mind?