The need for certainty will not allow you to have faith-- in anything. That is sad.
That’s terrible, terrible cynicism. 
I can’t think of any way in which this responds to what he said.
What are you talking about? Professing a belief you don’t really have in the hope of getting a reward is cynical. Being honest isn’t cynical.
And another thread successfully derailed by the Random Religious Response Generator dubbed Theophane by its creator.
Theophane, suppose an atheist asked you to convert him to Christianity. But at the same time he asked Abdul, a devout Muslim, to convert him to Islam. What would you do?
There’s no point in citing the Bible because Abdul will just cite the Quran. You can’t offer yourself up as an exemplar of faith because Abdul has just as much faith in his religion as you do in yours.
Is there objective evidence you can offer that Christianity is true and Islam is false?
If I survive the encounter with Abdul and the atheist, Christianity is true. While Abdul kills the atheist, I can run away. If my head stays attached to my neck, the superiority of my religion should be evident. It wouldn’t matter if Abdul kills the atheist or the other way around. And if the atheist saves me from Abdul … atheism wins!
Anything to avoid answering a question. 
I put a little thought into my reply.
But none into answering the question.
[Insert obvious comeback here]
I could try again and deliberately write something that you’d enjoy picking apart. It would be a slab of red meat.
what the actual fuck
Ah, thanks!
Totally serious answer here:
Far more likely, IMO, than an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god, is what I call the Master Programmer.
An omnipotent omnibenevolent God seems about as likely to me as a god of banana pudding, who constructed this entire planet out of banana pudding. I can look around me and see the world clearly isn’t all made of banana pudding, and in the same way I can look all around me and see that this world isn’t the work of an omnibenevolent being. And if we decide to bring “mysterious ways” into it, then I can’t dismiss the mysterious banana pudding God either, who disguises the nilla wafers under an illusion of bedrock and oxygen.
But a Master Programmer is possible.
That’s the idea that someone has created a computer powerful enough to simulate an entire universe to a level of granularity sufficient to satisfy the perception of an AI contained within that universe: everywhere I look is constructed to a degree that will fulfill my sensory capacity. If that computer could be created, it could probably be mass-produced, and it’s possible that there are billions of such simulations running concurrently; the chances that I’m a “real” being, rather than an AI in a simulation, are pretty low (since there’d be a lot more AIs under this scenario than “real” beings).
And it’s quite possible that the Master Programmer is looking for certain emergent properties among her AIs. Specifically, she may well be looking for AIs capable of analyzing their environment in a rational manner, rejecting the spurious supernatural explanations seeded within the scenario. The Master Programmer will save these rational, analytical AIs after the simulation is completed. The AIs that accept the spurious, nonrational explanations? They get deleted–or maybe they get copied over to that entity’s version of Doom to act as intelligent opponents for a highly advanced FPS game, where they get gibbed for all eternity.
Bah, you say, that’s ridiculous. So I’ll just end by quoting you again:
If nothing else, this thread has given me an epiphany:
while “what the fuck” is a banal phrase, adding the word “actual” makes it totally hilarious.
It did seem a little like a Kobayashi Maru-type scenario, now that I think of it.
Are you running for the office of president of the National Non-Sequitur Society?
No.
Sorry, that’s a Star Trek reference. I just assumed you’d know what Kobayashi Maru referred to.
Aw shoot. Looks like this thread’s headed for the quarry now.
(with all affection to Bo)
Well, one of us does.