People don't rely on the scripture to form their religious beliefs at all anyway, there's a filter of picking and choosing which is really just based off what they like.
(1) The possibility that Santa Claus exists is equal with the possibility that your God exists - That's concrete enough for me.
(2) It's not the 'greatest lie in history', you can be mistaken.
Btw waterphaerie, could you please respond to this? If you were to find out a friend was going to die and she would recieve pain killers that would eliminate any pain death could bring her, would you feel the same as if she was telling you she was going away for a trip to the behamas and will never come back? I somehow imagine you'd be rather more upset than that.
I'd argue that's because you don't believe in the afterlife anymore than I do, you just hope it's true.
As much as this interests me personally and does somewhat relate to the topic at hand, I think if we stick to 'Gods existance' for too much longer (not necessarily scriptural accuracy though) we should move the conversation to
http://community.boredofstudies.org/214/news-current-affairs-politics/106355/does-god-exist/