And here’s the rest of it. If you just arrived here for the first time, the original post I’m replying to is here - which, in turn, is a reply to this one, written by yours truly.
My disclaimer at the beginning of part 1 still applies: my reply is not about whether God exists or not, but, instead, about several points in Serenaid’s original reply which ring the “illogical! does not compute!” warning bells.
Oh, and this one is even longer. 
Self-sufficiency is absurd. No one is self-sufficient.
I know your reply isn’t really about this, but let me say just one thing here: when I say “self-sufficient”, in this case, I don’t mean that I can (or want to) live as a hermit or something. I have running water at home, and electricity, and other modern commodities, and wouldn’t want to lose them for some weird “I’m going to be 100% independent!” whim.
What I meant, there, is that I need no external justification for my life, such as serving God (religion) or serving “the state” (fascism) or serving “the people” (communism).
If something needs an external justification, the implication is that it’s not “worthy” on its own. That is, to me (sorry to say), a repugnant way of thinking, if the subject is life. Our lives are our own (I know you disagree).
Note, by the way, that out of the 3 best known philosophies which state that our lives are not our own, 2 of them (fascism and communism) have been thoroughly acknowledged as evil by Western societies, having been responsible for wars, purges and genocide. That should tell us something…
Take hunger for example. You can provide for your hunger because you have money to buy food. You have money to buy food because you have a decent job. You have a decent job because you’ve acquired a skill. You’ve acquired a skill because you were able to learn that skill from someone else. At any one time in this chain of events, your fortune could have crumbled and you might not have acquired that skill which makes you useful. All goodes we have are provided by God.
I prefer to think of those things are more than “fortune”. Much like divine intervention, the idea of “luck” denies hard work, intelligence and inspiration. Note that I’m not necessarily speaking of myself, but I hate the idea that whoever succeeds is “lucky” (or “favored by God”).
As to everything being provided by God, I really don’t think so. Sorry, but it almost touches circular logic: I should believe in God because whatever good I have comes from God… but that already assumes belief in God, which I don’t have. And no, this is not out of spite or pride or arrogance or anything; I simply see no indication that he exists at all.
You only realize that self-sufficiency is insane when you are faced with a situation that neither you, nor any of your abilities, can pull you out of.
And neither will “God”, or prayer. Really, I don’t think I’m some superman. But I’d choose my mind over wishful thinking any day.
Christians love and enjoy life because it is given to us by God. Atheists love and enjoy life because they think the world is such a great place to be.
It’s not necessarily “the world”, it’s life itself. And a lot of Christians don’t love or enjoy life. If you do, you’re in the minority.
God is not of this world. The devil is of this world. Anyone who loves the world is of the world, and clearly, does not know how horrible the world can be.
On the contrary, we know how the world is. It’s a planet, it isn’t “good” or “evil”. People, on the other hand, can be either.
I agree, there is joy in being alive. Joy that we have been given a life to serve God and praise God.
Sorry, but that’s little more than slavery, to me. I have a father, and I love him, but I don’t think that my purpose in life is “to serve him”, or that he “owns” me. Nor will I want my children, when I have any, as my own slaves.
If there’s one thing worse than slavery, it’s trying to convince people that being a slave is moral.
Again, I know you completely disagree with this, but our lives are our own - and if you dismiss yours so casually, it’s your own choice - and responsibility.
You’re missing the glorious cream filling of it all. The pleasures that come from God are far more satisfying than anything the world could offer.
If you mean “in the afterlife”, again, I don’t think such a thing exists, and, anyway, that’s an “easy way out” from having to deal with this life. If you’re talking about pleasures in this life… sorry, but, again, my experience is that Christians tend to be much less happy than atheists.
Therefore, you do not own your life nor your body. You’re living a lease. Think of your body as your courteousy car. Though you had no choice in selecting it, it is your soul’s vehicle for existence on earth. The lease on this courteousy car expires at a pre-determined point in time. When the lease is up, you will be handed back to your rightful owner.
As I said before, I can think of no way of thinking more evil than one which says that our lives are not our own. We are not slaves. We are not cattle. We are not property. Even if God existed, we wouldn’t, morally, be.
See, it may come as a shock to most Christians, but, as an atheist, I do have a sense of morality, of good and evil, of right and wrong. The thing is, while Christians believe that morality comes from God, and, therefore, what is moral is what God wants, and vice-versa, my own morality comes from my love of life - life in this world you call “sinful” and “of Satan”. To me, “good” is what promotes life - not merely survival as an animal, but life and growth as a rational human being. Evil is what is against that life. To me, slavery is evil, suffering is evil, sacrifice is evil, hatred of life is evil. Telling us that our lives are not ours is the most “anti-life” idea I can think of.
As I said, even if God turned out to exist, it would not follow that we belonged to him.
The same goes with you. Your life is borrowed, should you not be careful with it because you want to return it to your owner, God, unpoisoned by sin and sacrilege.
Again: I don’t think God exists, I have never seen anything to indicate he does; I think it’s an intellectual cop-out. It’s certainly much easier to say “God did it” than to actually understand how something works or appeared. It’s much more comforting to believe in another life where everything will be perfect, instead of actually dealing with this one as it is, as a responsible adult. And I really can’t see how Christians can advocate slavery to a being (real or not) with a straight face. I know, I know, you don’t think of it as “slavery”, because you do it happily, and you even find “meaning” in it. But a rational being belonging to any other being is slavery, whether he is happy or not. It’s the “belong” part, you see…
The rainbow is not the work of man.
Of course not. It does not follow, however, that it is the work of a god either. As far as I can see, it’s 100% natural - and science has already explained what causes it.
And it is these intricate complexities that show us the splendor and magnificence of God. For the complexity of such beautiful phenomenons are not the work of man, but the work of a greater power among us.
Why must everything be “the work” of someone? As Douglas Adams once said, “God did it” used to be the best explanation we had, but now we’ve got much better ones - and ones that don’t demand the supernatural.
Christians do not go around crying out to be struck dead so that they can be taken into heaven.
Some do. Again, you can answer that they are not “true” Christians… but that’s the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. As far as I see, they are - they believe in God, believe in what it says in the Bible, including the parts you quoted, which say that God is not of this world, and so his faithful shouldn’t be, shouldn’t love it, either. The logical implication of that is “take me, Lord Jesus!”. After all, who wouldn’t want to leave this “world of sin”, and be with God?
Most criminal inmates are Christians.
Yes but how many of them are real practicing Christians? How many of them have a real sense of what it means to be a Christian? How many of them know God? You see there are many who are labelled Christian, but very few who live up to the label.
No true Scotsman.
As I said, they are Christians to me. If I asked them, they’d say they are.
You are so right. Christians are closed-minded because they don’t operate by way of the mind as atheists would. Christians are open-hearted. They operate by way of spiritual insight that can only be felt at a deeper level than the brain, the heart level.
Now, sorry to say, but you just sounded like an Atlas Shrugged villain. They said mostly the same as you just did - whenever anyone used logic and reason to catch them in their contradictions, they’d say that what they “felt” was “beyond logic, beyond reason”. The problem with that is that you can believe anything, without the usual safeguards of the mind. No matter how absurd or preposterous.
It’s much like an adult forcing himself to become a child again, to relieve himself of responsibility. After all, who can argue with “feelings”? No matter what one does, no matter the consequences, if one “felt it deeply in his heart”, who can blame him?
A Christian will not acknowledge the possibility of his belief being an error because of the certainty of God that he/she feels in and around them.
There. How can anyone possibly reply to that?
“I’m sure about it because I have faith, and I have faith because I’m sure about it.”
Faith is the trust in things unseen. Why does something become real only after we’ve seen it?
Because there are degrees of credibility. Nobody has ever seen anything supernatural, so such a thing does require evidence - and extraordinary evidence, too. You can’t make the most outlandish claim in the world and expect people to believe in it just because “you really feel it”.
Our minds cannot tell real truth from simulated truth, we must trust with our hearts.
Sorry for repeating myself, but I’d take my mind over wishful thinking any day.
“Trusting our hearts”, when the mind tells us that it doesn’t make sense, is no more than wishful thinking.
If you refuse to become wise by God’s Word, you let yourself become vulnerable. And so you are taken over by the corruption of the world. The corruption of the world makes people evil, greedy, self-centered, and uncaring, to name a few.
It’s not “the corruption of the world”. Nor is it our “sinful nature”. We don’t have one. People - as individuals, not as groups - make choices. It’s a concept that most people absolutely refuse to accept, because of the responsibility involved. It’s much easier to say that “human beings are sinful”, “the world is of the devil”, “it’s society’s fault”, “it’s our upbringing”, “it’s in our genes”, and all the other responsibility-evading excuses.
I don’t buy any of them. Nor do I use any of them for myself.
Besides, I haven’t found out that most Christians are “better persons” or “more loving” than the typical atheist. Much the opposite, in fact. “No true Scotsman”, again? 
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So, no comments on this one?
I could add my last meta-level comment in the response to the “Open hearted-xn” The effort to defend religion and faith seems to want to employ reason and evidence to disprove reason and evidence. Of course this is doomed to failure not merely because it undermines itself, but also because it requires denying everything at all, including this god notion..
As to other points, how arrogant is it for one to assume that a particular flavor is more pleasurable for everyone than all others? This is of course what is being said when he asserts that teh cream filling of god’s gifts or whatnot, are the most pleasurable for everyone… I contend that I find the greatest pleasure from using my mind, in learning and gaining knowledge, with far less pleasure to be gained from participating in illusions… no matter how many people who see only the illusions tell me that this is the greatest pleasure I can experience.. Very reminiscient of Plato’s Cave.. They see shadows while living in the dark and deny that anyone who has left the cave has experienced more or better..
As to faith being equal to knowledge and reality, I would have gone further and pointed out that in collapsing the distinction between the fictional or non-existent and reality, he offers direct argument for the existence of all manners of beings, including the gods of other religions.. .(as well as Peter Pan, the Cookie Monster, and Speed Racer..)
“The corruption of the world makes people evil, greedy, self-centered, and uncaring, to name a few.” Hmm… perhaps he is correct, but then wouldn’t this be one of the more pragmatic reasons for OPPOSING religion and faith? After all experience demonstrates to us that power leads to those negatives, and religion claims to have the greatest power of all…
No point in commenting when you agree with everything being said.