In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus

[Sheldon]

My statement has predictive power, and I'll gladly put money on it. You ask any number of participants if they agree with the positive set of adjectives or negative set of adjectives describing the God of the Bible, and whether they self-identify as atheist or theist, and you will get a significant correlation.

And as a bonus, do the same with Sheldon's claims, like whether they have an "ability to deny objective reality, no matter how well evidenced, if it contradicts their beliefs."

My single variable vs all of his. $1,000 per person. Who wants to join?

I'm an atheist, and I don't have any relationship with god, positive or negative. We can replace me with any of the vast number of people who have lived, utterly unaware of or unconcerned about your deity, and find exactly the same answer. So many Mayans, Aztecs, Hindus, Polynesians, Buddhists, etc. that just couldn't care less.

He simply doesn't understand atheism or atheists at all. One can despise the attributes assigned a fictional deity, but they have nothing to do with why one disbelieves that deity exists. 

The extra challenge he added about theists denying objective reality, was a lost bet the minute he made it. 

Anyway, I have to be up early to travel for work tomorrow, just as well as he was never going to honour his bet.