re: Atheists die sooner, are ill longer, and lead less happy lives than non-atheists

Well, I read this whole thread this afternoon when I ran across it after lunch. I'd share a few thoughts.

First off, there's a lot that you have to take on faith in the mainstream scientific explanation of the why and how of anything being here. For this universe to be so finely tuned for sentient life pretty much requires an infinite number of universes for that fine tuning to appear. None of them ever have or can be observed, if they exist. There are innumerable examples like this throughout this theory. An atheist who demands pictures or objective evidence is being hypocritical when they do so.

The statement was also made about the trustworthiness of the bible. You made the case for the original manuscripts, but you made a jump from that based on an assumption-translations ARE suspect. There are no word for word translations from the greek/hebrew/aramaic to the English that can be made. It only takes the change in translation of a few words in important places to change the meaning you will get from that text. I'm a staunch bible believer, but not of the translations. In my view, the mainstream of Christianity has gotten some things wrong because of this. That's opened the door for criticism from atheists, which makes it harder for people to see the true light of scripture, and where science is actually pointing to. It's becoming more and more obvious to them that this universe is a created thing, with an intelligence behind it. They are careful to posit that intelligence as 'alien' or 'higher' or even human beings of the future instead of using the word that most theists would use-God.