You're infected! A parable of trojan malware.

One day George was browsing the web, when he encountered a popup that read:

"Your PC is infected with malware. Click here to install PC-Savior Anti-Malware, and perform a deep scan of your system."

George thought to himself, "I suppose my computer has been running slow at times," so he went ahead and clicked the link. PC-Savior installed itself on George's computer, then a window showed that a system scan was in progress. An hour later, the window showed,

"System scan complete. PC-Savior has cleaned 382 infections from your PC. Click OK."

"Wow," thought George, "that worked really well!" George grinned as a sense of victory swept over him. He clicked the OK button, which brought him to another screen which read:

"To maintain optimal PC health, we strongly recommend using our Scan Scheduler to run a weekly scan. Click Next to begin your free 30-day trial of PC-Savior Scan Scheduler."

"That makes sense," thought George. He clicked Next, and the window read, "Congratulations, you are protected!"

"Great!" thought George.

The weekly scan ran as scheduled over the next month. Each time, the scan results showed that dozens of infections had been cleaned out. This gave George both a heightened perception of his computer's vulnerability, and greater thankfulness for the ongoing protection he received from PC-Savior.

After 30 days, a window popped up:

"We hope you have enjoyed your free 30-day trial of the PC-Savior Scan Scheduler. To continue utilizing this service, and maintaining optimal PC health, please consider subscribing for $10.00/month. Enter credit card details below."

"Hmm," thought George. "Well, just imagine how terrible it would be if all those infections were still on my computer." George went ahead and entered his credit card details.

From then on, $10 was charged to George's credit card each month, and the weekly scans continued to run.

As time went on, George still felt that his computer wasn't running as well as it ought to. He had trouble running other programs, games, and viewing certain media. He began viewing his computer as inherently a piece of junk, being barely held together by PC-Savior. As his computer worsened, he turned more often to PC-Savior to run additional scans, and even purchase additional premium features such as the PC-Savior Malicious Site Blocker.

Occasionally PC-Savior would pop open a window that said,

"If you're happy with PC-Savior, please share it with your friends and family!"

Not wanting anyone to be without the important protection he had, George would enter the email addresses of people he knew. Several of them even signed up, and George felt a sense of pride over how many infections he'd surely saved them from.

A couple years later, George remembered his friend Wendy, who's really into computers. George figured Wendy definitely needed PC-Savior, so he entered Wendy's email address. The next day, George got a call from Wendy, who proceeded to tell George,

"I got your invitation to download PC-Savior. Did you do any research into that software before installing it? It's actually identified as trojan malware by several reputable sources. A trojan masquerades as legitimate software, while actually harming unsuspecting users."

George chuckled in disbelief. "Wendy, I've been using PC-Savior for two years now, and it has literally cleaned thousands of infections from my computer. My computer would be dead without it!"

Wendy replied, "I know it sounds pretty wild, but PC-Savior's scan results are actually fake. Nothing ever got cleaned. Not only that, but PC-Savior hogs a lot of your computer's CPU and memory, which hurts performance. Even worse, PC-Savior contains mechanisms for evading your computers built-in security features, such as quietly turning off your firewall. This actually exposes you to greater risk of infection. Did you have to pay for PC-Savior?"

"Well," said George, "I didn't have to, but I chose to subscribe to get better protection. Anyway, lots of programs cost money."

"But you're not getting what you paid for," replied Wendy. "You installed PC-Savior to protect yourself from malware, not realizing that PC-Savior is malware. There are actually several forums online where people discuss uninstalling PC-Savior. It's not very easy to do, you have to get deep into your computer's registry. But a lot of people have successfully uninstalled it, and most of them report significant improvements after doing so. Check out the forums sometime if you're interested, and I'd be happy to help."

George wasn't sure what to make of all this. The notion that he'd been duped for two years, and had himself duped other people, sounded pretty absurd, almost offensive. "Thanks, I might check it out sometime," said George. "But I've had a different experience with PC-Savior. I'm pretty happy with it."

Atheistic Faith

I often hear the assertion that atheism is a faith, just like Christianity. A friend of mine, Theo, told me that during his period of deep doubt, he ultimately perceived that it was either a step of faith toward God or a step of faith toward atheism. The former promised him everything, the latter nothing. He chose to continue in Christian belief. If I were in that situation, I'd do the same.

But the difference between Theo and I is that during my period of deep doubt, I had a totally different perception of my predicament. I wasn't choosing between two equally sized steps. It was not a step of faith toward God or a step of faith toward atheism. It was a step of faith toward the Christian claims, or not. I was very sure that the Christian claims were untrue, so rejecting those claims never seemed to involve the slightest bit of faith. Quite the opposite, faith became something to avoid, a quality promoted by countless groups selling false ideas.

But did I unwittingly replace my Christian faith with a new faith?

To conclude that I indeed have a new faith, we only need determine what my new faith is in. The answers I commonly hear are, David has faith in:

1. There is no god / higher power
2. Jesus was not God, despite all the evidence

My responses:

Regarding item #1, I actually don't strongly agree with that statement. I am confident that the Christian God is a fictitious character, but for all I know our world may indeed be the result of some higher intelligence, call it God or whatever you will. I don't have faith in item #1.

Regarding item #2, again I indeed reject the claim that Jesus was God, but find it oxymoronic to describe this rejection as a faith. To describe both belief and disbelief in Jesus as a faith is to strip the term faith of significance. The Bible defines faith as "confidence in what we hope for, assurance in things not seen". That doesn't describe the atheistic worldview at all. Atheism is not a hope-based worldview like Christianity. Atheism's goal is truth, whether or not that truth is comforting.

If disbelief in Jesus can be considered a faith, it must be classified as a negative faith rather than a positive faith. It is faith that some proposition isn't true, rather than faith that some proposition is true. These two types of faith are extremely different. A person is very well defined by the few positive faiths they possess. However, every person possesses a countless number of negative faiths. If I tell you "there's a colony of talking rabbits inhabiting the earth's core", you now have a new negative faith. Negative faith is rather insignificant to a persons identity. Consider which statement tells you more about Joe:

• Meet Joe, he is a Mormon
• Meet Joe, he is not a Muslim

The first statement tells us something significant and meaningful about Joe, while the second statement tells us nearly nothing. Negative faith is essentially nothing. Which brings me to my point: a step of negative faith is essentially nothing! Not all steps of faith are equal. Negative faith is so opposite to positive faith, and so distant from the normal usage of the term faith that it doesn't make sense to label it a faith of any sort. Negative faith is better labeled non-faith! Believing and disbelieving in Joseph Smith's writings are not equal steps of faith. One is faith, one is non-faith.

So, I don't consider disbelief in Jesus to be a faith, and I don't think there's a genuine answer to "what does the atheist have faith in?".

As another angle to this, consider the term faith as it's commonly used to refer more broadly to a lifestyle. The Christian walk of faith normally consists of:

• Reading and submitting to a specific collection of writings believed to be supernaturally borne and ever-authoritative.
• Weekly meeting at church and home to strengthen belief in an invisible/theoretical leader, singing songs to that leader, symbolically consuming that leaders flesh and blood, etc.
• Daily one-way conversations with that leader both privately and corporately.
• Holding on through periods of doubt in that leader.

Atheism doesn't have such a list. There just aren't any specific lifestyle requirements for an atheist, and the atheist community is not plagued with doubt like the Christian community. Atheism is not a "walk of faith" in the sense that Christianity is. Even if the term "faith" can be thinly stretched to describe both Christianity and atheism, the faiths are not analogous whatsoever.

I feel that by accusing atheists of faith, Christians are implicitly knocking the concept of faith, trying to show that atheists are guilty of the same fault. Well, atheists don't want atheism labeled as a faith, and certainly Christians don't want the concept of faith belittled. We can resolve both issues by ceasing to call atheism a faith.

My Coming Out

When I ask Christians about their views on homosexuality, I tend to get a lot of positive statements such as:

• "You know what, God loves gay people too"
• "That's not for me to judge"
• "Gays are welcome here"
• "It's all about God's grace"

I appreciate this attitude, because it's light years beyond the original Old Testament mandate to put homosexuals to death (Leviticus 20:13). Interestingly, this positive attitude toward homosexuality is very different from the view I developed as a child growing up in church. I think I understand why.

The church's fundamental beliefs about homosexuality haven't changed:

• Living an actively gay lifestyle means you're living in unrepentant sin
• You're a broken/deviant/wrong version of what God wants for you
• You need to be repaired by becoming straight
• You're in danger of hell

So while I appreciate concealing these fundamental beliefs with more positive statements, the church's fundamental beliefs seem to play a much stronger role in shaping a child's view of homosexuality. That was my experience growing up in the church, and that of most other boys I knew. I did not consider gay men to be real men, but wholly emasculated, covered in shame, sexually/spiritually debased, and hell-bound.

I never questioned these fundamental beliefs, nor had a real problem with them since I'd never met any gay people. I was always attracted to women, but did have occasional gay fantasies, despite my concrete conviction that it was wrong. I never seriously questioned my heterosexuality, but sometimes did wonder if I'd end up experimenting with homosexuality at some point.

The idea of engaging in homosexual acts was occasionally exciting while I was fantasizing. But after the mood passed, I was ashamed because I did not view gay men as real men. I figured that if I ever really had such an encounter, I would never be able to hold my head up again, wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'd developed homophobia from a church that claims not to be homophobic.

In my mid 20's I had my collapse of faith for unrelated intellectual reasons. It then dawned on me that I'd developed my view of homosexuality entirely at church, so I decided to reassess. I quickly realized that, short of a religious conviction, I couldn't find anything wrong with being gay.

Apart from "God says so", I tend to get these responses when asking Christians why they believe homosexuality is wrong:

1. Homosexuals cannot reproduce together
2. Homosexuals tend to be promiscuous
3. Anal sex is physically dangerous
4. Homosexuality is often linked to emotional trauma in the individual's past. Their best life would have been realized without that trauma, and they would likely have been straight. God still wants them to experience their best (heterosexual) life.

Here is my assessment of each argument:

1. My parents have had sex hundreds, maybe (definitely) thousands of times, and have reproduced only 3 times. In the vast majority of sexual encounters, reproduction is not the goal, but rather is actively avoided (unless you're Catholic). Anyone who cannot physically reproduce, whether straight or gay, has several other options including my favorite, adoption.
2. Heterosexuals also tend to be promiscuous.
3. This is specifically an argument against anal sex, not homosexuality as a whole (same-sex love, other sexual acts, lesbianism, etc). Anal sex does indeed pose risks. Compared to the vagina, the anus does not naturally lubricate, the internal tissue is more prone to tears, and therefore poses a greater risk for spreading STDs. These risks are mitigated by safe practice (prudent partner selection, lots of lube, condom, no rough-stuff, stop if it hurts, etc). So, is anal sex worth the risk? The answer is simple: decide for yourself, and I'll decide for myself! That's the same answer I'd give to someone who asks if rock-climbing (or any competitive sport for that matter) is worth the risk. On another note, some repercussions of anal sex are rather exaggerated by anti-homosexuals, for example, the claim that anal sex leads to fecal incontinence later in life. This is largely propaganda (there is no epidemic of incontinence in older gay males, just ask them).
4. Let's assume it's true that homosexuality is linked to childhood trauma, that it's a debilitation of sorts (which I don't believe). To then tell the "debilitated" gay person that they should stop being gay is like telling a paraplegic that she should walk. While some debilitations can be overcome through therapy, some cannot. All evidence (look no further than the incredible failure rate of ex-gay ministries like Exodus) indicates that a person's sexual preference cannot be changed by will-power, therapeutic or religious methods. Regardless of why someone became gay, the point is, they're now gay. When someone comes out of the closet, it is emotionally healthy to accept their homosexuality, and emotionally damaging to encourage them to be heterosexual.

Once I'd broken down the arguments against homosexuality, my feelings toward homosexuality began to gradually soften. As I actually met a few homosexuals, I noticed that they tend to be some of the most mature and interesting people, no doubt strengthened and stretched by the struggles they've endured living in a somewhat homophobic society.

I became intrigued by the sexual sameness inherent in homosexuality. Don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate the beautiful "opposites attract" paradox of heterosexuality. It's an unrivaled adventure to dive into the mysterious world of a woman's sexuality, attempt to learn how she works, and develop a sexual chemistry. But I'm intrigued by the idea of sleeping with someone who knows male sexuality first-hand as I do, someone who wants and feels essentially the same things I do. Just as there are beautiful unique aspects of heterosexuality, there must be beautiful unique aspects of homosexuality. I can understand why some might choose one, and others choose the other.

So, this is a former homophobe's "coming out" of the homo-friendly closet. I'm a heterosexual who has had occasional gay fantasies, and I affirm homosexuality as every bit as righteous and acceptable as heterosexuality. I believe any two consenting adults should be able to love each other romantically, marry, and raise a family together. I see no reason to discriminate one couple from another based on their genders.

The fact that many Christians today use such positive statements to express their views on homosexuality indicates to me that the fundamental Christian beliefs on homosexuality do not strongly resonate in their hearts. That is a great sign that the Christian culture is continuing to move in the right direction, away from obsolete ancient legalisms. But the fundamental beliefs on homosexuality are still deeply engrained and taboo in Christian culture. I'm enthused to see that certain progressive denominations are boldly showing affirmation for homosexuality, and look forward to the day when the church of my childhood can do the same.

Scope of Evidence

Christian apologists point out that the New Testament is the best attested document of the ancient world, due to the high and early number of copies. This makes Jesus life, death, and resurrection the best attested story in ancient history.

So, what conclusions shall we draw from the best attested story in ancient history? Well, it's usually important that the scope of one's conclusions match the scope of the evidence. This is a fundamental concept in statistics, where confidence intervals weaken as sample sizes shrink. For example, you cannot survey 25 Italians about their diets, and draw conclusions about the dietary habits of the human species. Another example, you cannot analyze a reported UFO sighting and draw conclusions about the nature of life on other planets. The grandiose scope of such conclusions does not match the very limited scope of the evidence.

The conclusion that "Jesus is God" is a conclusion of tremendous scope. Actually, it is the largest scope of any claim that could be made. It is a theory of all things, of the origins, purpose, and future of the universe and the human race, and of the existence and nature of other dimensions/beings and their relationship to us.

So then, what is the scope of the evidence for this gargantuan claim? The answer is: a small collection of ancient Jewish cult writings known as the New Testament. Yes, the only evidence to support the truthfulness of New Testament stories are the New Testament stories themselves. The stories introduce the main character Jesus, posit the gargantuan claim that he is God, and sadly serve as the only evidence for that claim.

But what about the fact that it's the "best attested document in ancient history"? Doesn't that give it a leg up? Well, once again, where does all this attestation for the New Testament come from? The New Testament!!! By "attestation", apologists are merely referring to the fact that the stories have been copied a lot, as there are a few copies of the same stories (often nearly word-for-word) within the New Testament, and the New Testament has been copied quite a bit throughout time. There is no outside attestation of the actual events. Quite the opposite, the rest of the world regarded this cult's beliefs as baloney, much as we regard cults today. It's all-too familiar, a small cult reports a universe-rattling event which oddly seems to have gone unnoticed by the rest of the population. No matter how you attempt to reconstruct the events of Jesus' life and death, you are reconstructing events which, at the time, failed to convince the vast majority of people that Jesus was God. I want to restate this important point; the Christian apologist is attempting to convince us of events which did not convince the vast majority of people who were actually there during the events (that's why Judaism still exists). To call the events "attested" is like putting a single drop of lemon juice into a pitcher of grape juice and calling it lemonade.

If the actual events didn't even convince those who were there, why should the sparse stories convince us 2000 years later?

So then, what conclusion shall we draw from a collection of ancient writings which depict twelve men following around a man they believed to be God? The answer is quite simple; we should conclude there existed a small ancient cult who believed their leader was God. To then adopt the cult's beliefs would require ignoring the tremendous deficit between the scope of the conclusion and the scope of the evidence, a mistake that many religions have made. (any mormons reading this?)

When it comes to drawing conclusions of such universal scope, we should require evidence that is similar in scope, not a handful of ancient cult stories. Analyzing the New Testament stories and concluding that Jesus is God (and all the theology/religion that comes with it), is an even greater stretch than analyzing a UFO sighting from 5 country-bumpkins and subsequently devoting the rest of your life to educating others about alien biology, and personally preparing for another extraterrestrial visit. Don't be a slave to stories.

Reasonable Arithmetic

There is certainly no shortage of Christian writing which aims to demonstrate the reasonableness of Christian belief. For example, take this list of popular books / sites:

• Reasonable Faith
• str.org (Stand To Reason)
• The Reason For God
• Faith and Reason
• Reasons To Believe
• Reasons For Faith
• The Case for the Real Jesus
• Love Your God With All Your Mind
• Compelling Evidence for God and the Bible

What do these books tell us about the reasonableness of Christian belief? We could (and ideally should) read them all and formulate our own opinions. However, we can ascertain one conclusion without even opening the books: Christianity struggles to present itself as reasonable. You would never see a book on the shelf titled "Reasonable Arithmetic", because arithmetic doesn't struggle to demonstrate its reasonableness.

My $30/mo Smartphone

A month ago, Katie and I were still paying Verizon around $125 a month for 2 feature phones (aka dumbphones). We are now paying $60 a month for 2 smartphones. Here’s how:

• Page Plus monthly plan – $30 each
• Samsung Galaxy Stellar – Ebay – $110 each
• H20 Sim Card – $0.20 each
• Sim Cutter – $4.09
• “Flash” phone – $40 each

Here are the details.

Verizon’s feature-phone plans are barely cheaper than their smartphone plans, and both are expensive. The price we see on our bill is always way higher than the plan price Verizon lures us with. And I don’t like being bound by those 2-year contracts. Time to ditch Verizon.

After considering several options, including using only an Ipod for all communication, I arrived at the following solution.

I found a prepaid carrier called Page Plus. They use the Verizon 3G network, which means coverage is identical to what I already enjoyed. They offer a no-contract monthly plan of 1200 minutes, 3000 texts, and 250MB data for a measly $30. I ported my phone to Page Plus, a very quick and easy process, and they terminated my contract with Verizon for me. Of course, I made sure that my 2 year contract with Verizon was up, lest Verizon charge me hundreds of dollars for early termination.

So at that point, I’d cut my cell phone bill in less than half, while keeping the same coverage, flip phone, and number. Sweet! But why stop there?

I then purchased a mint condition, manufacturer refurbished, Samsung Galaxy Stellar off Ebay for $110. The Stellar is a stripped down version of the Galaxy S3 (today’s flagship Android phone), but casual / first-time users like me don’t notice a big difference. The Stellar was just released in Sept 2012, and Verizon currently offers it free with a 2 year contract. This makes for an ideal smartphone to buy used on Ebay, as it’s very new and inexpensive.

Because Page Plus is a 3G only carrier, 4G phones like the Stellar aren’t officially compatible or supported. But with the right expertise, a 4G phone can be “flashed” to work with Page Plus. There are several services out there to accomplish this. I went with a fellow named Janarian; he charges $40, performs the service remotely through the net, takes under 2 hours, and accepts PayPal. The process involved cutting and inserting an H20 sim card.

The Page Plus $30 plan provides only 250MB of data, but several friends told me they never exceed that if doing just basic web/email. It’s the YouTube and other streaming media that gobbles data. But of course there’s no data limitation when connected to wifi, which is the vast majority of my time. So basically no YouTube when outside, no big deal. The email, chat, and calendar notifications are a huge benefit at work.

So now I’ve got a smartphone with the same coverage, the same phone number, and have cut my phone bill in less than half. At under $160 total, the smartphone is paid for by just 5 months of the savings I earn by ditching Verizon.

After confirming that everything worked beautifully for a month, I got Katie onto a Stellar and Page Plus as well.

Why does disbelief fit so well?

I think my root objection to Christian belief is that the premise “Christian beliefs are false” fits scarily well with reality, which my intuition says wouldn’t be the case if Christian beliefs were indeed true. By “Christian beliefs”, I mean the core supernatural claims of Christianity, namely that the three members of the Trinity exist, comprise “God”, and the Bible is their word. If these beliefs were false, there’d be several conditions that would have to be true. I will list some of them.

If Christian beliefs were false, these conditions would have to be true:

• Christians would have to believe in a god who is invisible, inaudible, and untouchable.
• Prayer would have to be statistically ineffective at treating disease, especially compared to medicine.
• Modern prophecy would have to be statistically no more accurate than normal prediction.
• Christians would have to be no safer from harm than others.
• No Christian could be able to demonstrate a miracle to a panel of scientists.
• The Christian “word of God” would have to have been written by humans, and contain normal human characteristics.
• The Christian “word of God” would have to not demonstrate any higher understanding of how the physical world works, beyond the primitive understanding of it’s ancient human authors.
• Christian belief would have to spread solely by human teaching, rather than be learnable directly from Jesus/God or nature. “Unreached” societies would have to not discover Jesus on their own.
• There'd have to be no outsider witness accounts of the grandiose miracles depicted in the Bible, such as the Feeding of the Five Thousand.
• Jesus would have to have lived a normal human lifespan on Earth.
• Jesus would have to have visited only a relatively small geographical area.
• The resurrection story would have to include an excuse as to why the resurrected Jesus isn’t available for viewing, such as “he flew away”.
• Jesus would have to have not returned, and we would have to be able to reconfirm that every day.

Again, if Christian beliefs were false, the preceding list of conditions would all have to be true. And as luck would have it, they all are true! Am I to believe this is purely coincidence, or buy into a fanciful theological explanation for each one? No, false belief accounts for the list too easily.

On a secondary level, if Christian beliefs were false, there are many conditions I would expect to be true. I consider them secondary because they wouldn't necessarily have to be true, but are intuitive expectations if Christian beliefs were indeed false.

If Christian beliefs were false, I'd expect these conditions to be likely true:

• I’d expect Christianity would emphasize qualities like “faith” and “belief” as highly virtuous.
• I’d expect Christian belief to include reasons why God doesn’t interact with us in clear/consistent/verifiable ways.
• I’d expect there to be a widespread problem of Christians having trouble establishing a “closeness with God.”
• I’d expect there to be a widespread problem of Christians having trouble understanding “what God wants to say to them” and “what God wants them to do.” 
• I’d expect there to be a widespread problem of Christians experiencing periodic doubt.
• I’d expect the study of geology to offer little/no support for the story of Noah’s global flood.
• I’d expect the study of geology/cosmology to offer little/no support for the Genesis creation account.
• I’d expect Christianity to be splintered over what God is saying/wanting today, how to interpret/understand what God supposedly said in the Bible, and theology in general.
• I’d expect Christian belief to have evolved the idea that any promises made to us in the Bible are guaranteed after we die, not necessarily in this life.
• I’d expect that Christians would not stand out as morally superior than the rest of mankind.
• I’d expect the most common reason for rejecting Christian belief to be intellectual rejection of the truthfulness of Christian belief, not some preference for bad behavior or a wish to oppose the forces of good.

Again, all these are intuitive, expected conditions on the premise that Christian belief is false. And indeed, every condition on the preceding list is true. The expected outcomes of false belief are fulfilled for Christianity.

The premise that Christian beliefs are true leaves the theologian stretching and inventing to explain why all the preceding conditions are true. On the other hand, the premise that Christian belief is false essentially guarantees that the preceding conditions would be true. I will be painfully thorough here:

• Christians believe in a god who is invisible, inaudible, and untouchable, because God doesn't really exist
• Prayer is statistically ineffective at treating disease because God doesn't really exist
• Modern prophecy is statistically no more accurate than normal prediction because God doesn't really exist.
• Christians are no safer from harm than others because God doesn't really exist.
• No Christian can demonstrate a miracle to a panel of scientists because God doesn't really exist.
• The Christian “word of God” was written by humans, and contains normal human characteristics because God doesn't really exist and therefore doesn't write books.
• The Christian “word of God” does not demonstrate any higher understanding of how the physical world works, beyond the primitive understanding of it’s ancient human authors, because God doesn't really exist.
• Christian belief spreads solely by human teaching, and “Unreached” societies do not discover Jesus on their own because God doesn't really exist.
• There are no outsider witness accounts of the grandiose miracles depicted in the Bible, such as the Feeding of the Five Thousand, because God doesn't really exist and therefore does not perform miracles.
• Jesus lived a normal human lifespan on Earth, because God doesn't really exist and therefore Jesus was not God.
• Jesus visited only a relatively small geographical area, because God doesn't really exist and therefore Jesus was not God.
• The resurrection story includes an excuse as to why the resurrected Jesus isn’t available for viewing, because Jesus was not really resurrected.
• Jesus has not returned, because Jesus is dead and is not going to return.
• Christianity emphasizes qualities like “faith” and “belief” as highly virtuous because God doesn't really exist.
• Christian beliefs include reasons why God doesn’t interact with us in clear/consistent/verifiable ways, because God doesn't really exist.
• There is a widespread problem of Christians having trouble establishing a “closeness with God" because God doesn't really exist.
• There is a widespread problem of Christians having trouble understanding “what God wants to say to them” and “what God wants them to do" because God doesn't really exist. 
• There is a widespread problem of Christians experiencing periodic doubt, because the truth is knocking at their door.
• The study of geology offers little/no support for the story of Noah’s global flood, because that story is fictitious.
• The study of geology/cosmology offers little/no support for the Genesis creation account, because that account is fictitious. 
• Christianity is splintered over what God is saying/wanting today, how to interpret/understand what God supposedly said in the Bible, and theology in general, because God doesn't really exist.
• Christian belief has evolved the idea that any promises made to us in the Bible are guaranteed after we die, not necessarily in this life, because God doesn't really exist and therefore cannot make or fulfill promises.
• Christians do not stand out as morally superior than the rest of mankind, because God doesn't really exist and therefore does not assist with morality.
• The most common reason for rejecting Christian belief is intellectual rejection of the truthfulness of Christian belief, because God's non-existence ensures that belief will be intellectually problematic for those who aren't prone to accepting false religious beliefs.

The list makes perfect sense now that we've explained each item with "because God doesn't really exist" (and the likes).

Another way of looking at the first two lists: If Christianity were true, alternative conditions would be much more intuitive/predictable. For example:

• “Unreached” societies might discover Jesus on their own. After all, God supposedly wants everyone to know Jesus.
• Jesus might have hung around for a few hundred/thousand years after his resurrection instead of flying off into the sky before too many people saw him. After all, Jesus is supposedly immortal and wants a relationship with everyone.
• The “word of God” might contain knowledge beyond the primitive human knowledge of the day, such as how to make penicillin. After all, God is supposedly omniscient and cares about us.

I could similarly go through each item, but enough thoroughness.

In conclusion, this is where I see the large gap in rationality between the believer and non-believer; the non-believer’s worldview perfectly predicts/explains so many conditions surrounding Christian beliefs, and with such a simple statement as "God doesn't really exist." Meanwhile, the believer's worldview stretches to explain each condition, writing countless books addressing each one, yielding an ever-increasing sea of theological literature, the whole of which is internally volatile and covers all spectrums of bizarre. I've swam through that sea long enough to know that I am intellectually drawn much stronger to "God doesn't really exist." Disbelief is considerably more rational to me, and thoroughly resonates within me as a vital step toward truth.