We're told that the sun disappears over the horizon for the same reason that airplane contrails reach the horizon (which ironically is due to them following the curvature of the earth). So let's consider perspective at night. According to a Flat Earther I asked, Australia is about 10k miles from the US in a Flat Earth model.
We know that:
$ \theta_{ele} = atan(h/d) $ Where h is the height of the sun off the flat earth and d is the distance to the sun's nadir point (directly below the sun).
When the sun is over Australia, it's dark in the united states.
It's 10,000 miles from US to Australia.
Flat Earthers generally report that the sun is 3000 to 4000 miles in elevation. This is probably because if you tried to triangulate the sun (at approximately infinity miles away) from a curved surface you erroneously believed to be flat, you'd find that it appears to be about $ r $ miles away.
But how can that be?! $ atan(3000/10000) = 16.7 \degree $ !!. That's a pretty good elevation. About one and a half fists above the horizon! That would be pretty obvious!
Making the small-angle approximation, these angles and distances scale approximately linearly. To get as low as half of a fist above the horizon, we need 1/3 the height (let's say 1000 miles!). To get as low as one degree (still 2 sun widths) above the horizon, we'd need to be just 100 miles up. That's just at the edge of space. The sun could be hit with an amateyr rocket!!
With that, I've got no way to try to rescue this theory. The angles don't make sense. Anyone got a way to make this problem work?
I'm so tired of repeating myself to Flat-Earthers. It's like they revel in doing their math wrong, but there's not enough characters in twitter to send them the proper equations. So I'll address a few classic pics here to explain how it's done.
The distant mountain picture
This is a favorite among flat-earthers, and it's pretty easy to show they get the math wrong. Someone told this guy that he can use a simple linear fit for earth's CURVED surface (8 inches per mile or some such tripe). I'm not sure where this approximation came from, but it obviously doesn't fit a curve very well. Anyhow, here's an example:
Here, we have the classic flat-earther example of a "mountain that's too far away to see." First, let's check the facts. After a bit of digging, I figured out that they're claiming this is Mt. Denali. That's 140 miles away, with an elevation of roughly 20,000 ft.
It's actually 700 ft at the summit of the Hilltop Ski Resort, but it turns out that won't matter in the end.
Anyhow, let's assume they're right and it's Denali. First, calculate the distance and angle to the horizon from an elevation of 700 ft. I'll let WikiHow explain how to do it. I'm using the arccos formula:
Suppose the picture were taken from the parking lot of Hilltop instead of the top. The horizon is still 27.5 miles away, well within the range of Denali's summit.
32 + 174 means you can see the tip of Denali from as far as 206 mi at an altitude of 700 ft (assuming there's no mountains in between and neglecting atmospheric lensing, of course). This is obviously not a problem for observation from 140 miles away.
Just for convenience, we could figure out how tall an object needs to be to see it from a distance, x. We simply add the horizon distance to the solution to our first equation for h:
$ \cos( \frac{d}{r} ) = \frac{r}{r+h} $ $ h = \frac{r}{cos(\frac{d}{r})} - r $
This means we should be able to see the top 12,300 of Denali.
Time Zone Solar Models
This is another flat earther hand-waving explanation for time-zones.
Even the most casual thought regarding this picture and you'll realize that since the sun is above a flat earth, you'll be able to see it at all times from any location on earth. Turn this model on its side and draw a vector from any point on earth to the sun and you'll see that it never sets. The figure below shows this and explains the problems.
If there's some other way to interpret the animation above, I sure can't think of it. Send me a comment or tweet to help me understand.
I'm left wondering if flat earthers lack all spatial reasoning. It sure seems that way.
Pilots Would End up in Space!
This one is so bizarre that it takes a little work to wrap your head around. Essentially, the argument is that airline pilots would need to adjust their elevation by 1 degree every 6 or 7 minutes to keep from climbing higher and higher and crash into the firmament or flying into space. There's some specious assumptions here:
That airplanes fly along laser-like straight lines
Airplanes will continue climbing at the same rate for a given angle of attack even as the air thins.
That the pilot has the sensitive equipment to recognize one-degree drift over 6 minutes
In the same way as you might make minor course corrections along a straight road to keep your car centered in your lane, the autopilot (or the real pilot) is constantly adjusting to maintain a reasonably constant altitude and heading. These corrections are happening at a rate of tens to hundreds per minute. To the pilot or autopilot, this feels like maintaining altitude. In reality, it's conforming the flight to the curvature of earth. This publication described the typical roughness of a commercial flight. I've pulled out the "rough cruise" section because the constant readjustment of altitude is more clearly apparent. Same thing happens in "smooth cruise", but more gradually.
Simple computer models can help us understand when and where we'll be able to observe curvature of a sphere. The key factors which affect the appearance of curvature are:
Altitude above the surface
Camera Focal Length (or field of view)
Radius of the sphere
I'm sure someone could write an expression for the apparent curvature versus these parameters, but it's easier to just show you. I'm using an open-source tool called Celestia which accurately presents the position, sizes, and velocities of celestial objects. I highly recommend it. It's fun to play with.
Changing the Field of View
Here's the same view as the Field of View is altered. This is like zooming out on your camera. The FOV is reported in the bottom-right while the location (constant) is presented in the upper-left.
Changing the Altitude
This one is a little more obvious. As you move to higher and higher altitudes, the curvature becomes more apparent.
Note that the Distance is 30 km. That's a decimal place, not a comma.
Radius Matters Too
This one is just for fun. Here's some spheres of different radii from the same distance.
Mythbusters are shills?
Well, as we've shown, the curvature isn't expected to be visible at low altitudes. Here's Adam Savage at a 12 mile altitude witnessing the curvature for himself. So I suppose he's got to be a liar now, eh?
The Moon / Spinning Earth can't be felt!
Moon: The gravitational acceleration of the moon on the surface of earth is given by $ a = G m_{moon}/r^2 $ or roughly $ 3.6 \times 10^{-5} m/s^2 $ compared to the $ 9.8 m/s^2 $ I measured in high school for earth's gravity. That's less than one part in a million. A hard thing to measure.
Rotation: The acceleration of an object on the equator due to circular motion from the rotation of the earth is given by: $ a = \omega^2 / r $. This also tiny at $ 0.034 m/s^2 $. This effect (0.34%) MIGHT be measurable by exceptionally sensitive equipment and a skilled scientist, but these are the sorts of people the Flat Earth crowd seems to consider untrustworthy.
Edit: I fixed my math above. Rotation is actually much more important than I originally calculated. Thanks to @TheOlifant for catching my error:
The mentality of flat-earthers seems to be very similar to that of anti-vaxers and deeply religious. The believer thinks they've figured out that most of humanity is wrong, and that their answer is the right answer. They often tell you to "research it," and couple commands with insults "stupid" or "dummy" or "sheep."
These believers think they've figured out what "they" don't want you to know. The "they" varies between people, but it seems to be illuminati, the government, or the Free Masons. For devout Christians or Muslims, the "they" is Satan, heretics, or demons.
These believers pride themselves in being different. They think they're visionaries for knowing the truth when everyone else has it wrong. Despite having no formal training in the specific scientific claims they reject, they feel sure that all the professional scientists have been deceived by the "they."
What's particularly interesting is that these people seem to blindly follow (IMO obvious) quacks. Some guy with a YouTube channel is seen as more reliable than all the world's scientists. They wave off these brilliant scientists by presuming they've never actually TESTED any of the claims they learned in science text books without seeming to notice that:
The YouTube quack has never tested his flat earth claims. At best their "evidence" seems to be that they find actual physics hard to understand or inconsistent with scripture.
Scientists actually do verify the basics. They build more complex experiments on top of them, so if the basics weren't right, nothing would work.
This got complicated in a hurry. I'm going to color-code it for you. Green will be for lies or baseless speculation. Red will be for fallacies. Purple will be for non-sequiturs.
The Bible is a collection of 66 books which were written by about 40 men over a period of 1500 years or more. Most of these authors had never physically met but yet their message in what they wrote is structured, consistent, accurate, inter-related and perfectly unified throughout. Though these writers physically penned the 66 books, the individual writers, at the time of writing, had no idea that their message was eventually to be incorporated into one single Book, that we know today as being The Bible. Interestingly (as we keep in mind the accuracy & consistency of their writings) these writers believed and claimed that they were writing or transmitting the very word of God – or that their writings were as a result of the inspiration of ONE single Supernatural Author – God Himself. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 – All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
All we need to is notice that the premise of this claim is laughably false. The volume of work by Christian apologetics necessary to "homogenize" the wildly inconsistent and inaccurate books of the bible show just how inconsistent it is. The wide range of beliefs held by disparate groups, all of whom consider themselves Christians reinforces this fact.
But even if it were as consistent as the author of this blog claims, later authors clearly knew of earlier authors and shared a common religion with them. Consistency is not without plausible naturalistic explanation.
2. The Scientific Accuracy of the Bible
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ow my sides hurt.
Another striking evidence of divine inspiration is found in the fact that many of the principles of modern science were recorded as facts of nature in the Bible long before scientist confirmed them experimentally. A sampling of these would include:
The Earth is round, not flat as once believed (Isaiah 40:22).
The Bible refers to dinosaurs. Job 40:15 and Job 41:1 speak of two such creatures.
I've converted the original article claims to numbers so that I might taunt them one by one.
1. Isaiah 40:22 says nothing about a spherical earth. Indeed, it puts "God" above the earth the heavens like a curtain over it. If you understand basic geometry of a spherical earth, "above" is an irrelevant concept for a spherical earth. It ONLY makes sense for a flat earth.
Edit: original author implied that "God sits above the circle of the earth," a point long since refuted. http://www.crivoice.org/circle.html
2. Wow. Winds blow.
3. "He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing." has nothing to do with gravity as the author claimed. I'm sensing a trend here.
4. I think ancient people understood that if you let the blood out of something, it dies. This is not modern scientific discovery.
5. Or … it speaks of monsters. See how that works? It didn't describe fossils, it described non-existent creatures just like other fairy tales.
3. Over 100 Prophetic Accuracies About Jesus Christ
This is called a Gish Gallop, and since the author doesn't bother to lay them all out, I'll simply point out that the Jews sure don't think that's true, and the Torah is their book so they should know.
The one consistent theme of the Bible, is that from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible consistently refers and prophesies about Jesus Christ who ultimately is mankind’s Lord & Saviour. There are over 300 specific prophecies in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
4. The Bible Is Endorsed by Jesus Christ
So we're to believe that Jesus endorsed a book which wouldn't exist for another 300 years after his death? LOL.
Matthew 5:17-18 – (Jesus speaking) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”When Jesus was on earth at the time, only the Old Testament existed. Jesus read and quoted from the Old Testament. Therefore if the Bible was inaccurate or untrustworthy, Jesus would have not quoted the Old Testament. When Jesus was tempted by the devil, Christ overcame the devil’s temptation by responding with Scripture quoted from the Old Testament.This was a clear indication not only of the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible but also that Jesus Himself was willing to be obedient to do what The Bible teaches. READ Matthew 4:1-17
First, need to demonstrate that:
Jesus never quoted anything which contained any falsehood
Infallibility somehow provides a protective power against "devil temptation."
5. Its Survival
This whole claim doesn't even make sense. Why would survival imply truth?
The Bible starting from Genesis has survived for over 1500 years. No other book has been so consistently studied, bought or quoted by mankind. Its teachings are still relevant even after 1000 years, a clear proof that God’s word is authoritative and does not change. No other book has been loved or hated as the Bible but yet it still survives and remains the highest seller among all books. Matthew 24:35 – Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Yup. Meaningless fluff that has absolutely no relation to the alleged conclusion (the Bible is True). I suppose we're to believe that its longevity implies some sort of magical protection from Yahweh, but even if that were true, it wouldn't demonstrate that Yahweh authored it or endorses it.
6. Archaeological Evidence
Sigh.
A number of archaeological and geographic evidences exist to prove the accuracy and historic truthfulness of the Bible. Archaeological discoveries have been made which verify the various Biblical stories and events mentioned in scripture. Romans 1:20-21 – For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
This is the Composition / Division fallacy -- the belief that because some aspect of the Bible is true that this truthfulness somehow applies to the whole. Let's consider the following excerpt of mathematical equations I just made up.
2 + 2 = 4
2 + 2 = 4
2 + 2 = 4
2 + 2 = 4
7 + 7 = 12
2 + 2 = 4
2 + 2 = 4
We observe that nearly all of the equations are true, but it's not at all safe to assume that this applies to all of the equations.
7. Life Changing Power
For thousands of years, the Bible has changed countless lives and has provided a means by which mankind can know and understand who God is and what God says about every life situation that we face on this earth. The Bible also is one huge story about God’s relationship with man. The Bible speaks of God’s love and plan of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ. People of different backgrounds and beliefs can testify of the life changing experiences that God’s word has brought to their lives. Hebrews 4:12-13 – For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Yup. Just more baseless speculation and dogmatic claims. No real substance. Even if the claims being made were true, it wouldn't demonstrate the truth of the Bible.
Have you been called "spiritually blind" or told that you "wouldn't believe in god if it stood in front of you?" It's insulting, right? These phrases and tactics are common in religious and other cultures which Religious culture shames doubters. Whether the language and culture is intentionally designed in that way or simply arose out of cultural evolution can be debated, but the fact remains that it happens.
In some churches, the shaming is overt and explicit, but it's pervasive in the culture and language of even the most liberal and open churches. After over a year of debating on Twitter with theists, this tactic has stood out as a clear and consistent technique that's used in an attempt to shame those who question or doubt.
Responses to Questions
The shaming of in-group versus out-group doubt seems different. Members of the faith are treated much more friendly than non-believers. The tactic is very effective at stifling open and honest discussion of the most fragile aspects of theism. Depending on their perspective and congregation, many theists will tell you that their church encourages questioning.
However even in these cases, there exists strong and persistent shaming of a specific type of questions: Those which question the fragile foundation of theistic belief. These are things like:
Does a god exist?
How can a just and loving God condemn anyone to hell for torture?
Why does God punish an innocent child for the sins of mankind? (A logical follow-up to an attempt to explain away the "Problem of Evil" by saying we live in a fallen world or man's free-will causes suffering)
Has God ever told you something you didn't already know?
Any challenge or doubt of the divinity of Jesus (e.g. How do we know jesus really did the miracles in the Bible? None of them left a trace.)
Common responses designed to shut down further questions:
You're overthinking it (one of my personal favorites)
Questioner's fault.
You just have to have faith.
Implies that the doubt or question is a failure on the questioner's part.
God has a plan which we are not capable of understanding.
Rather than specifically insulting the questioner, this one says all humanity is incapable of understanding God's perfect plan.
Trust the Bible. God wouldn't lie / is not the Deceiver (a reference to Satan)
Responses to Outside Doubt
The most common response to shut down challenges from someone outside theism is to attack their personal character or insult their to imply that god is so obvious that the nonbeliever must be handicapped (e.g. "spiritually blind").
You're unable to see your own bias against Christianity
Rather than address the question, the theist charges a doubter with bias and bigotry.
You must be struggling with faith.
You and those on your side are completely biased to oppose every argument for Christianity
You're not really an atheist. You're rebelling against a god you really know exists
This one is an insult to personal character -- calling the opponent a liar. It's also based in scripture (Romans 1:20). To a believer who thinks the Bible is infallible, there's no way to even address this belief. You MUST be lying because no part of their Bible could possibly be wrong.
You are invincibly blind to your own arrogance, hatred and hypocrisy (all this for asking hard questions or expressing reasonable doubt)
You actually hate god. You're "swine" and I won't cast my brilliant "pearls" in front of you.
Also: I'm a good person for attacking you now in the hopes my god won't torture you later.
You're just like the doubters and haters Paul described in Romans 1 & 18. So your doubt and refusal to accept my claims means my book made a prophecy and is therefore true in its entirety.
Stupid Challenges to Atheists
You have no morals
Without God, what is the meaning to life?
[Insert despot here] was atheist
I'm not sure any of these even justify a response, but I've got a couple gems:
I've poked at prophecy in the past. I assert that it's better explained as post-hoc favorable interpretation than as legitimate future-telling. A Christian asked me to expand on how we can apply Bayes' Theorem to prophecy. On the surface, this seems like a trivial task, but it turns out to become pretty murky since the likelihoods of the various events are very hard to quantify. Nevertheless, I think it's instructive to consider.
Background
Bayes' Theorem is a theorem in probability and statistics which computes the likelihood of related events given some assumptions. In its simplest form, it states:
$ P(A|B) = \frac{P(B|A) P(A)}{ P(B) } $
Where P(x) is the probability of x being true, and P(x|y) is the probability of x being true, assuming that y is true. x and y being events or observations.
Method
For starters, let's consider what I think is the meat of prophecies: That they support the claim of divine and infallible nature of a holy book. Let us ask Bayes, "What is the probability that a holy book is divine ($div$) given that a prophecy it contains is true ($pro$)." That is to say:
I'm not sure if we'll be able to get very far, but let's dive in, shall we?
Divinity Yields Accurate Prophecy?
$P(pro|div)$
What is the chance that a prophecy will be true in a divine book? That depends on who you ask and what you assume for the nature of the divinity which inspired the book. That being said, be careful what you apply to this probability. Too low and the $ P(div|pro) $ approaches zero. Too high and a failed prophecy will prove the Bible isn't divine.
Likelihood of Divinity
$P(div)$
What is the chance that a particular holy book is divine without any other assumptions? Again, this depends dramatically on the incoming assumptions about the holy book in question.
Many presuppositionalists enter the discussion with $ P(div) = 1 $.
If you assume that one book is divine among all titles ever written, your value for $ P(div) $ is very close to 0.
If you assume that of the four holy books (Torah, Bible, Quran, and Book of Mormon), one and only one is divine, you get $ P(div) = 0.25 $
To be honest, I'm not satisfied with any of these answers. All of them are pretty arbitrary given that we have no way of knowing if or how often books are divine.
Likelihood of Prophecy being True
$ P(pro) $
What is the likelihood of the prophecy coming true without any assumptions about the divinity of the book in question? In evaluating this likelihood, it's important to consider:
If people believing the book is divine will make the prophecy more or less likely to come true
The likelihood that the event would happen anyways
In other words, to determine if the prophecy is true, we must consider it in the context of the events we know to be true
$P(evt)$ in the denominator means that if the event would be likely to happen anyways ("There will be wars and famine and disease!!!") then the prophecy isn't likely to be true.
$P(pro)$ in the numerator means you have to guess at the likelihood of the specific prophecy being true. I'm not sure how to estimate this value. Perhaps this could be done by comparing it to other prophecies in the book?
$ P(evt|pro) $ is the probability of the specific events, given that the prophecy is true. Again, this is very subjective, but it means you must clearly define what your "event" is and assess its likelihood given the prophecy being true. If there are other ways of fulfilling the prophecy, they reduce this likelihood.
Discussion
I'm not going to drag you all the way through a specific example. My intention in this post is to communicate the various terms that need to be considered when assessing the likelihood of a book's divinity given that a prophecy is true. Hope this helps.
Extra Credit
Suppose we believed that $P(div) = 1$ and $P(pro|div) = 1$. Show that $P(pro)$ must be equal to unity and that therefore ANY prophecy which can be shown to be false proves the assumptions are wrong -- either the Bible is not divine or the divine agent produces false prophecies.
I'm toying with the idea of a short & sweet coming out message to my friends, many of whom went to Christian youth group with me. This would probably come as a minor "huh" moment for most of them.
I'm not sure how serious I am about posting this on Facebook. Probably not very, because I'm not really the type to make a big stink about my beliefs. I thought this might be helpful as a Coming Out Atheist letter for others. Here's a draft:
About 20 years ago, I started sincerely exploring the reasons why I believed in God. True things withstand scrutiny, and it was important to me that I be consistent in the things I accept as true. I considered the strength of the foundations of my religious beliefs. The reasons I thought had for believing in a God were not at all convincing when examined honestly.
Absent a defensible foundation for God belief, I considered the only honest conclusion would that God is not likely to exist. Looking across the history of human religions, the progression from polytheism to monarchy-polytheism to monotheism is all too clear. I'm quick to dismiss all those silly ancient beliefs like Roman and Greek pantheons. What objective evidence could I point to when asserting that Christianity is somehow different?
The magical beliefs surrounding Christianity fell as well. It's clear from our understanding of the brain that my consciousness resides there in. And that its demise will surely mean the end of my consciousness. There's no rational reason to believe that I will somehow survive the death of my brain. In short, it's wishful thinking that directly conflicts with everything we learned about consciousness.
This last realization took some time to come to grips with. I was raised to believe that my religion made me immortal. That loved ones lived on in a magical place where there was no pain or suffering. Where they were aware of the happenings here on earth. They could possibly even read my mind. I believe that such would be my fate as well, and coming to grips with my mortality was by no means trivial.
I've lived my last 20 years without any sort of God belief and couldn't be happier. My version of immortality is the influence I have on those around me. It's rewarding to realize that I can be inspirational to those around me and that they will carry forward my vision, my joy, and my curiosity to others.
How does this guy feel when his beliefs are challenged? Do you suppose he's able to fairly consider ideas which conflict?
It's human nature at times to tie beliefs to our self-identity. Religion is the most common example, but politics are a close second. When we do this to ourselves, it makes us emotional about any challenge to our beliefs, as such challenges are also a threat to our self-identity.
For example, if a person says your belief system (be it atheism, Catholicism, or Islam) lead mankind to commit atrocities, the implication is that you are personally capable of and inclined to commit those atrocities. As the anger wells up in your chest, you become unable to discuss the assertion rationally. Our human minds are wired to respond to threats, and the fight-or-flight response responds to social threats as well as physical. Given the relative security and anonymity of the internet, it's a whole lot easier to choose to fight. When we chose to fight while emotional rather than to proceed with deliberate and thoughtful responses, things get ugly and we wind up looking like the "angry atheist".
Such attacks (i.e. the Hitler attack) are common on Twitter, and are blatant attempts to provoke an irrational, emotional response from the opponent. This behavior should be called out for its immaturity or dismissed out of hand. Do not give the attacker the pleasure of seeing you mad.
Often, the provocation is much more subtle and we can miss the emotional reaction it induces in ourselves. When a theist asserts that atheists have no morals or purpose, does that make you angry? Notice the biological reaction in yourself and use that awareness to take a deep breath and calm down before you respond.
A Solution
Sexy Lady Justice!
The best way I've found to help minimize my personal sense of threat or social hostility is to dissociate my beliefs from my sense of self. Though I identify as an atheist in this anonymous social-media persona, it's not a defining feature of my identity in real life. I've come to terms with my limited ability to know things. My senses and cognition are human, no more. I have made mistakes big and small, and I will continue to do so. It's okay to admit this fact and continue to do my best moving forward.
This approach to truth and honesty allows me to evaluate any claim that's made fairly and honestly. I'm not in any way set on maintaining my atheist belief. But I am keenly aware of the human cognitive biases which can lead to false beliefs. After all, I've fallen for many of those cognitive bias errors myself.
These cognitive biases are often mental shortcuts and assumptions we all make to simplify the decision-making process. The apply to all of us, and not just in our evaluation of religious beliefs. I've made that mistake in many areas. Some good examples are irrational fear of flying and our tendency to make snap judgements of other people's motivations. It takes meticulous deliberation to think through beliefs and assumptions carefully, and each of us is liable to make that mistake when we're quick to reach a conclusion.
I often tell theists that I "Will Convert for Evidence", and I mean that with all sincerity. I believe I have drawn the most reasonable conclusion possible given the evidence available to me. If I discover new evidence that leads me to conclude a god actually exists, I will change my belief. Thus far, all the evidence I've seen is better explained by failures of human cognition such as group-think, wishful thinking, and emotional decision making.
The best I've seen from theists seems to be "promising" me that they "know" it's true. While I don't doubt the sincerity of their convictions, I understand the ways that people reach the wrong conclusions, then double-down on those conclusions rather than re-evaluating them.
I generally ask with sincerity how they know their particular god is real and how they selected it from among all the other religious beliefs. Most haven't considered any other religious beliefs. Those who have tend to draw comparisons like, "So which is most plausible? A mad prophet on a flying horse or humble Jesus on a donkey?" [link]
Such statements make it clear just how fair the evaluations of other beliefs were. The fear of damage to self-identity leads people to tip the scales in their identity's favor. The end result is a less impartial assessment of alternative explanations and a greater chance of missing the correct interpretation.
