What's your opinion on Liberal Religion?

[Angrboda]

Let me see if I understand you here.

You seem to be saying that you have a crucial bit of information, which every rational religious person in the world lacks. But if they continue to learn they will eventually glean this bit of information, and then they, like you, will not believe in God. 

I am skeptical that you have information which every rational religious person in the world lacks.

What's your opinion on demonic possession or haunted houses? I've known folks who believed in ghosts and stuff like that. But otherwise they struck me as rational people.

I've also felt that, if they could see things the way I see things, they might reconsider their position on the existence of ghosts, possession etc. I feel like you perceive some haughtiness in Alan's sentiments that I don't see. But maybe that's just bias on my part because I agree with Alan's position. -shrug-

As I see it, Alan is an atheist for a reason. To him, he's concluded that God doesn't exist for a reason. If you have a reasonable belief (or lack thereof), it seems natural to think that others would agree with you if they were working with the same information that you're working with.

It goes both ways, I suppose. If someone thinks they have genuine information that suggests that God exists, it's only natural that they'd think that if an atheist had such information, they'd believe too. That's why I'm always listening to theists, to see if any can convince me. Compelling arguments have been made, but no convincing has been done. Less-than-compelling arguments have also been made. In fact, most arguments from theists are less than compelling. And I think that's what Alan had in mind when he wrote his post.

In the field of social psychology, illusory superiority is a condition of cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities, in relation to the same qualities and abilities of other people. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits.

Wikipedia || Illusory Superiority

I just learned that there are around a half-dozen hypotheses for explaining this effect. I'll need to investigate.