"Yes, a smoker does want to believe that smoking will continue to give him great pleasure in the future -- but then, you are not presenting the smoker with facts and evidence that smoking will continue to give him great pleasure in the future. It's just the opposite. You are presenting him with facts and evidence which show that he is likely to be greatly harmed in the future by his continued smoking.

See the difference?"

There is no difference here worthy going into.  I had several paragraphs laying out how they are similar enough to defeat your objection, but decided that detracts from the point.  What we need to be doing is speaking to the attitude of the person.   All you are looking for is a reason why a person who hopes for something, has evidence of that thing, might still reject it.  I've offered two reasons, both of which can be found easily enough in our selfs or a local high school.  Pride and 'being wounded.' are examples that I've given.  

Its pointless to quibble with me on whether or not its a rational or coherent thing.  But people do irrational and incoherent things all the time and that doesn't make them insane or mentally incompetent.  It could just make them stubborn.  Do you have children, Cogito?

"Of course the smoker will balk at accepting facts and evidence that argue against what he wants to believe is true."

But what he wants to believe is true.  He will continue to experience pleasure for a number of decades into the future.   In the case of a smoker who points out "My grandpa smoked for 80 years and died healthy at 95" he may choose to reject your argument that the bad will come to outweigh the good, but it may not be because he has a mental defect.  The 'stubborn' personality trait may cover it- but also the powerful physical effects of addiction may account for it, too.

"My answer is: No, they don't, not if they're rational about the proposition."

As I've said a number of times now, this sort of narrow statement is perfectly acceptable.  Its your insistence that they must then be characterized as insane, or like you did on the other thread, argue that those on this side (me) are saying you are a child.  Those sort of broad strokes are simply not justified from your argument.

Haven't you ever had someone say to you, "X is doing such and such.  He won't listen to me because I'm his mother/father/teacher/coach/whatever, but he'll listen to you..." ?  Why should the messenger matter to the legitimacy and rationality of the message?    You can call 'X' an insane childish moron if you like, that's your call.  But don't put words in my mouth and state that that is whaty I am saying.  When YOU become a Christian, you can walk around calling atheists and non-believers dunderheads, but you'll still only be speaking for yourself and offering your own opinion.

Cogito: "Yes, a smoker does want to believe that smoking will continue to give him great pleasure in the future -- but then, you are not presenting the smoker with facts and evidence that smoking will continue to give him great pleasure in the future. It's just the opposite. You are presenting him with facts and evidence which show that he is likely to be greatly harmed in the future by his continued smoking. See the difference?"

sntjohnny: "There is no difference here worthy going into."

If you do not see a significant difference between a person's balking at facts and evidence presented to him that argue against a proposition that he wants to believe is true and a person's balking at facts and evidence presented to him that argue in support of that proposition, then apparently we are arguing two different points.

Cogito: "No, they don't, not if they're rational about the proposition."

sntjohnny: "As I've said a number of times now, this sort of narrow statement is perfectly acceptable. Its your insistence that they must then be characterized as insane [that is unjustified]."

But clearly (or at least I think it should be clear) I don't "insist" that such people be referred to as insane even though I happen to believe that the word "insane" (in the usage of "very foolish or absurd") is perfectly appropriate in this situation. I've used the words, "insane," "absurd," "irrational," "mentally incompetent," and probably one or two others, as well, to describe the situation I'm talking about so it's hardly fair to say that I "insist" that a specific word be used.

If you choose to call such behavior "irrational" rather than to call it "very foolish or absurd," that's fine with me.

What this means, then, is that you believe that people who do not believe in one of the various gods (or does this apply only to disbelief in the Christian God?) are irrational.

You believe that a disbelief in gods (or perhaps a disbelief only in your own specific god) shows that a person a) is not endowed with reason or b) is affected by loss of usual or normal mental clarity or is incoherent, as from shock or c) is marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment: an irrational dislike.

Is this a fair statement?

Also, you've completely dropped the whole 'beneficial' aspect from your premise, which was a significant part of my earlier reactions. Without that aspect, it does change my reaction, because it does change what we are talking about. But you have acted as though you've changed nothing. Its only left me a little confused, is all. Are you now excluding 'beneficial' from your earlier premise? Do you still think it belongs?

I apologize for being less than precise with my use of "beneficial." In looking back over the thread, I see where it may have been a contributing factor to our misunderstanding -- but no I haven't dropped "beneficial" from my premise. The only reason that I haven't used it in the last several replies is that I consider it to be somewhat redundant in this context with the word "desirable."

I'll try to do a better job in showing what I mean by "beneficial." I use it in the following manner:

Propositions that we rationally believe to be beneficial to us are propositions that we desire to be true.

This, too, is tautological. "Beneficial" of course means "promoting or enhancing well-being." We all desire that our well-being be enhanced.

Now, we can argue about what constitutes "well-being" but it is difficult to deny that whatever we consider "well-being" to be, we all desire it for ourselves. Thus, if I believe that the truth of a proposition is beneficial to me then I will find that proposition's truth desirable. From this it follows that if I am thinking rationally and if I believe that a proposition's truth is desirable then on the basis of sufficient evidence that supports the proposition I will believe that it is true; if I don't, then I am thinking irrationally.

Cogito wrote: "You believe that a disbelief in gods (or perhaps a disbelief only in your own specific god) shows that a person a) is not endowed with reason or b) is affected by loss of usual or normal mental clarity or is incoherent, as from shock or c) is marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment: an irrational dislike."

sntjohnny wrote: "Haven't seen a false trichotomy in a while.  Without embracing either or these three ( c might be acceptable), let me add d) proceeds logically enough from certain assumptions which themselves have not been well evaluated and may have been chosen also from a wide diversity of motivations."

That is not a false trichotomy for the following reason:

It is a logical truth that disbelief about a proposition either is rational or is not. Based on everything you've written so far, I believe that you do not consider the disbelief in the proposition "Eternal bliss exists" to be rational. Therefore, if disbelief in the proposition "Eternal bliss exists" is considered to be irrational, then one of the usages for the term "irrational" (which I list above) or a usage very much like one of them MUST be acceptable.
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To believe in the truth of a proposition for which we have sufficient evidence to know that the proposition is true IS to exhibit rationality in regard to belief about that proposition; to believe otherwise is not to do so. This is tautologically true.

Thus, anyone who is presented with sufficient evidence to know that "eternal bliss exists" is a true proposition will rationally believe that "eternal bliss exists" is actually a true proposition.

To believe otherwise is to believe irrationally in regard to that proposition.
 
Now that the preamble is thankfully over -- please God, let it be over :) -- may we now discuss the evidence which some theists consider sufficient to warrant belief in eternal bliss or should that discussion take place in a separate thread?