When a friend in elementary school found out I was atheist, he suggested I go to church and fake it. I replied, "wouldn't your god know I was faking?" He was completely dumbfounded by that.

We have gotten into Pascal's Wager and free will on this one.

I think people should believe in my butt hair. My butt hair has a better heaven and a much worse Hell, so If you had to make a choice it would be better to believe in my butt hair. The other important factor is I can prove my Butt hair actually exist. Pascal's Wager debunked.

If god does know all then he knows our decisions before we ever make them. If this is so we can never do anything that god does not already know we are going to do. Thus we can only have one path in life that we will ever take. So we can't ever actually make any choices. Free will Debunked.

Next......

Things that influence an individual's decision to believe in god (fear, reward, etc.) begin to undermine the concept of free will. Christians will tell you that god doesn't force us to believe in him. However, there are strong inducements to do so. Eternal life offers a strong push in the direction of reward. The fear of eternal damnation influences potential believers in a profoundly negative way. Then there is the first "great" commandment where god demanded that we love him with all our "heart, mind and soul." It is a non sequitur to command that someone love you. I would expect god to know that. It clearly subverts the notion of free will. And what god or religion was Pascal referring to? Choose the wrong one and you lose anyway.

I thought you had to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior to go to heaven? Just a mere belief in him or heaven wasn't enough. So if that's the case, then wouldn't that make their suggestion moot?

believing in something just to get a reward or to avoid punishment is about as Christian as it gets... there is no such thing as a moral Christian, just obedient and disobedient ones...

Pascal's wager. It's a sucker bet!

It's just stupid. You can't choose to believe something; and if one tries to do that, it speaks poorly for that person's intellectual integrity.

I'll be so busy shaking hands with friends in hell, I'd have no time for heaven

I had a person tell me “why would you play Russian roulette with your soul”

It’s kinda hard to defeat the irrational when you’re only armed with reason

If there is a god, I don't want to go near it. Plus Hell sounds like it would be more fun

Had that argument in High School once.

Hell seems more fun anyway.

Ugh, Pascal's Wager again? Your all knowing god dosen't know the difference then?

They just can't imagine being outside the box they're comfortable in.

You do not need Sam Harris to understand that if an all powerful, all knowing god exists, it can not be fooled by just saying you believe in it so you can get admission to heaven.

We can choose to accept a position supported by facts or we can choose to remain willfully ignorant. We can even choose to believe nonsense despite the facts and call it faith. We always have a choice... here at least we are mostly all congruent with the facts that support a natural evolution, we don’t need to prove there is no god! We can envoke reason, let a believer prove a god existed, but they will fall back on faith, a fancy way of saying I know nothing and I’m not interested in learning.

We are all born atheists. Anything else must be taught.
The whole "believe--just in case" thing, is nothing more than hedging, and indulging
in their own self-doubt. That's why THEY believe, and they just want you to join in
their delusions.

The idea that we can believe "just in case" is a laughable one. Their deity is supposed to be all knowing but if we pretend to believe just in case there is a god, he wouldn't know? Lol, religious people logic.

I saw this idea where some scientists believe that some memory of our ancestors is inherited. This account for the guy I met that sat down and played hymns on the piano without any lesson ever. I know some people can play "by ear", but this guy had never even touched a piano in his life.