My view and reasons for them. Atheist and Christians welcome here. (short)

[Quick]

That would be true if I was immune to bias and I had a good understanding of reality, but I don't and neither do you. People are not robots and they don't actually think all that rationally. Because of this, what people believe and the reasons for them go a hell of a lot deeper than what someone can rationalize. It's a pretty self evident thing, it's just that I admit it is happening when a lot of people do not.

Of course it;s happening..but it;s not really germane to what I;m commenting on.  You explained to us that your beliefs give you a sense of purpose..and that because of this it;s not really that important to you whether or not they are accurate.  You also explained..however, that if you could not maintain those beliefs..the sense of purpose in your life would vanish.  

In that context, it doesn;t really matter whether you come to believe that the contents of your faith are accurate (or abandon that notion) for rational or completely batshit reasons.  Only that the change in your appraisal of those things has a profound effect.  An effect that just might alter your perception of things "outside of god"...even.

Can you see how these two claims are diametrically opposed, and how they present a situation incongruent with many other comments you've made in regards to your appraisal of your own faith and faith in gods in general, as well?

If it so happened that my beliefs were wrong and disproven (they never will be), I am not sure how I would react to that. However, you make it seem as though I am already believing something that has been proven false, which isn't the case. Everything else you are talking about is purely hypothetical and not worth discussing. Did it ever occur to you that sacrificing a minor thing for a much greater gain is a net positive? Do you claim to only believe what is true? That would be the claim you would have to make in order to say what you are saying here.

That would be true if I was immune to bias and I had a good understanding of reality, but I don't and neither do you. People are not robots and they don't actually think all that rationally. Because of this, what people believe and the reasons for them go a hell of a lot deeper than what someone can rationalize. It's a pretty self evident thing, it's just that I admit it is happening when a lot of people do not.

Of course humans are not immune to bias.

But there are tools specifically designed to help eliminate bias. The problem is, you refuse to use them when it comes to your pet belief.

The very fact that you choose your belief because it makes you feel good, as opposed to because it is supported by evidence, is a blatant demonstration that you do no care about what is actually true. Don't you want to know if your beliefs are true, or at least likely true?

And the fact that you think that we are all equally susceptible to our biases, is just plain wrong. Like I said, there are tools that will help eliminate biases.

I think you need to restate what my beliefs are if you are going to say I am not using the tools that we have to reassess what my beliefs are. I said at some point on this forum that our tools are only as good as the weakest link in our biases which are a byproduct of our flawed perception. I didn't use those exact words, but that's basically what I said. And you could argue "but we know so much about reality now" and to that I would say "how do you know that?" There is no way to know how much of reality we have actually figured out. So then that leaves us at the point where I can only believe what I know to be true for myself.

Am I right in thinking that this guy is placing himself in a middle ground, not being an atheist or a theist?

That's fine, if you use certain definitions for words. But that doesn't stop him being necessarily a theist or an atheist by our (common) definitions. So he would be carrying over a sizable chunk of people he's referring to as atheists (or theists) into his middle-ground camp, without acknowledging this. It's a tactic I've seen many times before (possibly due to misunderstandings, possibly not, but once this has been pointed out, that excuse disappears). It's a way of trying to feel superior to both sides. He's assuming all atheists take a stronger position than they necessarily do.

He sounds way more like a theist than an atheist to me as it happens, but as usual, the word "God" has no coherent meaning so the point is moot.

Yep, I smelled this days ago. Some kind of semi detached mystique that makes him special.

You realize that I don't actually put the much importance on my belief in God right? Like I said in my intro thread, I am just here for Mafia. I just thought that while I am here I might give my perspective on my beliefs while I am here. I'm not like here on some kind of mission to show how superior I am or some shit. Like what's the rational thought behind me doing this anyways? How are people logically concluding that I think I am superior to other people? It does not make sense.