Why the religious will never admit you won the argument (and why they don't care)

[SteveII]

Religious people don't actually believe for the reasons they give in defence of their faith. 


Here are the top 5 reasons why I think they really hold on to their beliefs:

1) IDENTITY - 
2) COMMUNITY - 
3) TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE - 
4) FEAR OF DEATH -
5) INDOCTRINATED FEAR OF HELL – 

If there are any I have missed please feel free to post them in the comments below.

For religious people who hold their beliefs for these reasons, they may feel justified on an emotional level to ignore the intellectual defeat of the ideas and apologetics they give in defence of their religion, as they were never what they were defending in the first place. They don’t care about TAG or Kalam – they care about managing their personal fear of death and damnation, about protecting their identify and self image, about being a valued member of a community, and about validating the most transcendent experiences of their lives. This is why they use 'faith' to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny.

After all, as evolved primates we are still hard wired to have our conscious thinking overridden by instinct to avoid a perceived threat - the "indelible stamp of our lowly origin' as Darwin so rightly put it.

Despite this, I still believe that in the end, the truth will win out.

I think you have overstated #5, but I can see why you would think that.

I think you forgot a pretty big one, actually the biggest one...People believe the truth claims of the religion. Since you are obviously talking about Christianity, that would mean that one would believe the contents of the NT are true. This actually supports your thesis that people don't believe in Christianity because of natural theology arguments. However it brings up another problem to add to your list of problems:

1. Your list dealt with emotional/psychological reasons and as such are easily dismissed. Now with the NT thing, you will have to deal with a belief in real people and real events. 
2. I am curious why you think Christianity in particular needs an adherent to "ignore the intellectual defeat"? 
3. Your belief that Christians use "faith to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny" is quite a bold statement. What scrutiny can you bring to the table that I cannot go and find 500 books on written over the last 2000 years? You seem to operating under the mistaken assumption that you can bring up objections that cannot be answered. 
4. You also seem to be positing faith as a product of evolution and..."in the end, the truth will win out.". Your message is not getting out. There are more Christians in the world every day than there were the day before.