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1.) You asked: “WHY WOULD THE MAJORITY OF THE WORLD BELIEVE IN IT IF IT WEREN’T TRUE?” There are many theories on why religion is still around today. I will attempt to expand on the one mentioned in my essay above. MEME THEORY designates that religion is a compilation of ideas that have a certain temptation to aspects of human psychology. More specifically, some concepts, beliefs, thoughts, and symbols operate in ways similar to natural selection. Some are easily thought, held, or believed; others are not. Meme theory refers to these concepts, beliefs, thoughts, and symbols as memes. Hence, God, Satan, Heaven, and Hell are all examples of memes and because religion is made up of so many interrelated and mutually supportive memes it is still prevalent today, despite its illogicality. If you would like to learn more about the memetic nature of religion I would suggest looking into it yourself. In the meantime I will give you a few examples I have used in my essay. Most religions restrain their followers from exploring other options or using critical thinking with the threat of Hell. Any temptation away from their faith can be classified as the “work of the devil,” in their minds. At the same time they encourage their followers to have blind faith in their God and are ultimately successful in this task because they teach that this behavior is rewarded in Heaven. These religions are creating generations of ignorant followers who don’t want to challenge any of their religion’s teachings largely because of their irrational fear of Hell and their desire to get into Heaven. Another problem is that these fears and desires are instilled in their children at a very young age because religion includes a meme directing believers to spread the religion to their children and friends; a meme that Richard Dawkins classifies as abuse. Many religions also wish to “spread the faith” to others, taking advantage of the longing of the follower to both get into Heaven and save another from Hell.

2.) Occam’s razor implies that because of the lack of convincing reasons to believe in God, disbelief is better. This principle states that one should no make more assumptions than the minimum needed. If you would like to know more I would, again, advise looking it up for yourself; you will find that Occam’s razor is extremely important to science, philosophy, and it is also a good example of common sense.

3.) This is related to Occam’s razor: when you tell of these people who have experienced spirits it is far more likely that there is a simpler explanation for these experiences than another entire dimension of reality. I would gladly help you find it if you would give me more information on their specific experiences.

4.) At this point in our debate you have only referenced us to other people’s work. If you prefer to debate that way, then I suggest you read this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

5.) Why do you insist that there must be a plane of supernatural existence? You have given me no concrete evidence and you consistently fail to prove this. At this point you have reiterated the same point over and over again without providing usable evidence. Subjective recollections of an experience are not viable evidence because of three reasons. 1.) Human error. 2.) Many things can go wrong with the human mind to nullify all of these subjective experiences. 3.) An alarming number of people are willing to fabricate these types of stories for the purpose of attention, to say nothing of the immense publicity and fame that can come along with it.

6.) “Innocent ‘til proven guilty” has no relevance to this situation. You would not say that fact is “true ‘til proven false.” Also, your point about the Earth not being at the center of the universe is more analogous to your argument. Your argument is archaic, increasingly unsupported, and counter indicated by a growing body of evidence.

7.) You are correct in saying that humans are not perfect, but that is exactly why we should take the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people in the scientific community who are putting their minds to a problem and working to solve it over the delusions of one person. Science attempts to find the most reasonable explanation through the use of logic and reason. Faith, on the other hand, is not based on reason or logic.

8.) You asked me to understand, respect, and not offend the people who have found “it.” A year ago I would see this as a reasonable request and I will do my best to respect these people as other human beings, but I have no respect for their disease. What they stand for is incorrect. These people often advocate intolerance, and this is not an ignorable fact. In addition, whether they belong to an organized religion or not, anyone who has “found it,” as you put it, advocates ignorance. This is what I am fighting against. It’s my attempt to leave the world in a better state that I found it.