christian looking to understand athiests

[Redbeard The Pink]

i see that most of you believe what you do because of lack of evidence that there is a God.  Personally i am a christian because of all the evidence ive seen and the ways ive seen him answer prayers.  ive had people come up to me and pray for problems that i was having that i hadnt told anyone.  ive had many prayers awnsered in ways that could only be explained by God.  I also completely understand everyone heres point of view

Ah...the "Answers to Prayer" argument.

The problem with prayer is that it functions entirely on confirmation bias (and usually a not-so-small portion of self-hypnosis). It's kind of like fortune telling you perform on yourself. You send a question/request up like this little balloon, then start staring at the sky. Whatever falls back is a sign from god.


If your desired outcome happens (bonus points if it seems unusually expedient and coincidental), then YAY! God answered my prayer! He exists!

If your least desired outcome happens, god is testing your faith. He has a plan for you, and he works in mysterious ways. Your hardship is all part of his mysterious plan, like to teach you a lesson or something, and if you just keep believing and keep trying to learn your lesson, then maybe he'll ease up eventually, and when he does, you'll know that he exists.

If some other random outcome happens that's somehow favorable and/or seems to lessen your focus on whatever problem it was, then YAY! God answered my prayers in ways I never could have imagined! Showers of blessings! God exists!


Are you seeing the problem here? Regardless of the outcome, it's always interpreted as god's doing, and therefore evidence that god exists. It's the exact same thing as Tarot and Astrology; you're set up with an expectation that's so vague it's could be met by a mere stretch of one's own imagination.

And yes, I believe in the Big Bang, and Evolution, and that the Universe is billions of years old. Why, don't you?