Would this explain the nearly laughably inept “prophecies” of Jesus the evangelists found in the OT? They wouldn’t work for any learned Jew, who would point to their having been taken out of context and shoehorned into the life of Jesus (and vice versa), but would seem plausible to someone coming from outside Judaism.
Exactly.
However, as a member who has been here for 2 1/2 years who feels fully confident to plunge into a religious discussion, it would seem that you would have taken the time to know what has been written by such prolific posters as Diogenes and Polycarp, thus limiting your embarrassment when you accuse a person who has expressed actual antipathy to biblical literalism and has discussed the issues of evidence on several occasions (although perhaps reaching a conclusion different than yours) of not bothering to inform himself.
Not sure I get the point you’re trying to make here. As someone born and raised in Franco’s 60s Spain to a traditionally conservative Catholic family – though I must admit in my parents case their Catholicism was mostly nominal – I can assure you that it wasn’t for lack of indoctrination that I turned out to be an atheist/agnostic. Point I am trying to make is that it appears to me that some of us simply lack the “gift of faith” and can thus see through the obvious contradictions, absurdities, and assorted – sorry, but I have no other way of putting this – pablum that passes for religious doctrine.
In fact, many of same objections I had when I was taught The Cathechism - by Jesuits no less – still hold true to this day. To put it simply I was never able to take The Leap Of Faith as The Wall Of Reality kept getting in the way.
I’ll also leave it to the discerning reader to consider who’d be more willing to fall into your “flying pigs” analogy. 
Someone else has already tackled the main thrust of this (false) claim, just wanted to add that you’d also have to factor in the amazing number of intra-faith disputes as to how to interpret the original teachings in order to see how far from any sort of “consensual God” religions really are. For instance, you’d be hard pressed to find much in common between Fundie Gods and Liberal Gods – to the point where they are mutually exclusive. And again, this is only looking at it from an intra-faith perspective.
Hmm… lemme take a stab (just for Lib ;)) at this: could it be that you’re all simply guessing and hoping you’re right?
Then you wouldn’t be a “fundamentalist-type theist” now would you? 
Question for you: outside this message board/internet, can you tell us how many times you’ve been accosted by fire-breathing atheists trying to er… de-convert you? If you’d like, I’d be more than willing to give you the reverse answer to that question. Sort of like comparing notes…
It wasn’t about indoctrination, nor was it about the “gift” of faith, that made me come to that conclusion. It was more a matter of realizing what sort of evidence points to the existence of God. Basically, I realized that the only evidence that would conclusively lead one to believe without a doubt that God exists, is entirely personal - and not empirical. All of the empirical evidence, as I see it (regardless of how you interpret it) is debatable. Ergo, I had to concede it was possible that all personal evidence people claim might be fabricated, and that it’s possible God doesn’t exist. That’s pretty much all I can surmise on the matter.
What’s that supposed to mean?
If you mean Marley23, I responded to him. I admitted in my response that the information I found, in looking for some concrete data, suggests that it’s not an easy task at all and that many of the guesses by various persons or organizations might be way off. That said, I used the numbers provided by two separate sites to come to a conclusion that wasn’t irrational, even if it was a stab in the dark, and I was willing to admit that it might be way off. If indeed there was a column by the Straight Dope proffering that there a billion atheists in the world, I would like to see the numbers they used in obtaining that calculation. Unless I see something to the contrary, I will probably assume that my conclusion, arbitrary as it might be, is the best estimate I have (for reference, I estimated some 220 million atheists in the world). And if that is correct (which is obviously debatable), then my statement about 90+% of the world not being atheist is not false.
And, as I also said in that post responding to him, I said that I used “God” in a general sense, not specifically referring to God as Christianity (and possibly some other faiths) refer to him.
From a personal standpoint (and I say this without intentionally pontificating), I believe that it’s difficult, if not impossible to accurately determine anything about God (if he exists). We can make many assumptions, some of which may be close or right on the mark, but it’s pretty hard to be certain about anything about him, just as it’s pretty hard to be certain whether or not he exists at all. Does that make any sense?
Definitely not (no offense to any of them). If I’m a theist, I’d like to think I’m a rational one.
On this message board? A couple of times. On other message boards? A few times. In real life? Rarely. It’s much easier to accost people from behind a firewall.
On a serious note, I can imagine if you’ve ever been to any college where Christians are not a minority, and any number of other situations, I’m sure you’ve been confronted more times than I have. What does that prove? That you’ve been more oppressed than I have? If you have, I’m sorry. Maybe you and I can take a tour through my university when the fundies are out, and we can both tell them to stop bothering us, they aren’t going to change our minds. 
:smack: