Hey Chris,

You conveniently forgot to mention your performance at Biola University earlier this year where you got your humble ass handed to you on a plate by double PHD William Lane Craig. Everyone that has seen or heard that lecture overwhelmingly claims Craig the victor. It seems your dulcet tones and canny deliveries don't match up to informed debate with a seasoned Apologetics master. Christians are mostly at a loss in trying to deal with your arguments because they are untrained in this kind of discourse. You have done the religious world a huge favor though in making them reassess their assumptions and look deeper into their own beliefs. Overall you still smirk at your own seemingly infallible stance, but in many ways your positions on religion can be confronted as ignorant by a worthy opponent.

Do you feel that religious other than yours are legit? i.e. that their myths are as acceptable as the so called truths of your religion? I always laugh that religious don't find their myths to be 'out there' but feel that the truths of the other religions are indeed clearly myths.

I never implied that other religions are legit or not. They are all absolutely legitimate in the mind of the believer. The Bible clearly states that "According to your beliefs so be it onto you". Islam, Buddhism, Sufism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, on an on are all acceptable to each individual that believes them. Athiesm has no book yet, and no code of beliefs so far, so what standard can we debate their beliefs upon? But when an Athiesm wants to stand against any of these well established faiths they have much to pick apart.

Why dont Atheists create a code of disbeliefs that we can debate them on? If they are scientists and Darwinists so be it, but Darwinism and science are on going fields of study and should be addressed as such. Evolution is great and totally sound but that doesn't deny the reality of God. Science is awesome and greatly enchances our life, but so what that's not going to refute the existence of God either.

What you don't understand is that I have no clue, NONE, what 'god' is and have NO belief about this word. NONE. Yea, I know what the religious say 'god' is and a higher power, etc.. is all about (DUH) but I feel these are all just myths. That if there is such a concept as some type of 'god' it is way beyond anythink mankind can understand.

I just don't see the need to believe in what I'm calling the great myths. But I do respect the practical aspects associated with religion; sense of community, values, giving, love etc but one can get these from being secular. For example, if JC was born of a virgin birth and was really just a man and not the son of God, I don't see how that would change anything.

Nutnics,

As a believer in God, and someone who was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for 12 years, I am still dumbfounded by this idea that belief in God is at odds with scientific rigor and reason.

This got started when evangelical Southern Baptists began trying to insert religious dogma into school science curricula in the '80s and it is a very, very unfortunate development for Christianity. To so many non-Christians, therefore, they would believe that Christians obsesses every Sunday over Creationism, as if Creationism is the central focus of the faith. Hence, in answer to the Jesus fish on cars you now see Darwin fish, which is actually a non-sequitor of sorts.

That Christianity has now become synonymous with "anti-Science" is just wrong and sad to me. Again, I blame the evangelical Southern Baptists who made an unholy alliance between faith and politics.

Growing up I was taught that science was all about discovering the infinite creations of God. I still very much believe that. There is absolutely nothing that science can possibly discover which would "disprove God." All discoveries simply open up new avenues for awe and praise of God's creation.

And that is where the fundamentalists fall short. Whatever happened to the concept of "taking something on faith?" That notion acknowledges that not all things are knowable. Some unknowing, a bit of doubt, is part and parcel of faith. To be absolutely sure, requires no faith at all, just consistency with dogma. It requires no renewal of belief. Faith is an act, not a state of being. People who believe in God can ultimately only move through the world with the sincere hope that these beliefs are true. At its best, that is the very place where faith can create "miracles" of sorts.

Some philosopher said this: "If a man starts out with certainties he will end in doubts. But if a man starts with doubts he will end with certainties."

JG, just meditate and sincerely wait to discover something. Works for me. Anything more complicated is just man-made gobbledy gook.

Well, in Christian Eschatology, JC had to be a man and live a sinless life in order to defeat sin itself for mankind. By dying perfect he was able to defeat death and Satan's hold on human mortality.

I know, I know this is fairy tale bullshit to you and many others and I respect that perspective. It is a fantastical approach to the human condition, to life and death and good and evil. Most people cant bridge that gulf and believe in demons, devils, souls, and the afterlife by using these figurative aspects.

Even the Jews, whom Jesus was one of, don't believe that salvation is even necessary so their messiah is still coming to bring a reign of Heaven on Earth, instead of dying and being redeemed in Heaven thereafter.

It's all about what your comfortable in believing yourself. If you are comfortable believing that there is no sin and no accountability then that's good for you. If you feel that there is sin and therefore there must be accountability for the evil in this world, then Christianity defines how that sin is absolved and Jesus is able to redeem you. It's rather simple actually, but it takes a humility that most non believers take as weakness or ignorance.

Come to think of it, not to prattle endlessly, but Athiests seem to prosthelytize more than any other religious group other than Scientology these days.

Do you have the same religion as your parents? I only ask because it appears you wish to believe that you decided to have these beliefs all on your own. Hey, maybe you did but 90+ percent of people have the same basic religious beliefs of their parents or family. My guess is that if you were born in Iran you would be a Muslim.

Anyhow, I'm not an athiests and I do feel they are too pushy. I'm just a know nothing agnostic.

You still don't understand. I have no need to discover this 'something'. I'm very happy, I have a great wife and lot of people I love, and I don't need something. If there is something I'll discover it after I'm dead. I'm 100% OK with that. In other words being agnostic works for me.

EarlyBird:

I am still dumbfounded by this idea that belief in God is at odds with scientific rigor and reason.

EarlyBird,

I second your comments. As bad, from my point of view, New Atheists have used everything you describe as a springboard for racheting up the level of non-civil discord. I read PZ Myers more than most other people, but there's no question in my mind that science has been put in a worse light due to hostile attacks, however well founded, on religious issues people have become attached to (like what happened in Dover, for example).

It's all about what your comfortable in believing yourself. If you are comfortable believing that there is no sin and no accountability then that's good for you. If you feel that there is sin and therefore there must be accountability for the evil in this world, then Christianity defines how that sin is absolved and Jesus is able to redeem you. It's rather simple actually, but it takes a humility that most non believers take as weakness or ignorance.

Actually it is 100% consistent with Hitchen's criticisms and those of others such as The God Gene. You may be right that Hitchen's lost the debate to a scholar of Apologetics, but it doesn't change the fact that this above is a very modernist retreat from the assertions made by millenia of scholars and asserted in the Nicean Creed.

Essentially you are saying that God is something that some human brains create so as to comfort themselves in a world they cannot 100% understand or Control.

Fair enough, but that does NOT apply to the vast majority of religioniss.

nutnics,

Good catch on the Craig/Hitchens debate. However, keep in mind you had an expert debater versus a media gadfly; I don't think the outcome of that debate is any more indicative of Truth than if Hitchens were to debate Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort.

I would submit that Kant is the source of this anti-science and that the Southern Baptists simply took Kant to a ludicrous extreme.

Sure you can consider science as "praise of God's creation" - but as more and more of the world gets explored, the non-interventionist nature of God, more and more fails the Zombie Philosophy test. And as that happens, Gods "existance" more and more ceases to be meaningful.

Why should anyone refute the existence of God, when no one can prove his existence? Atheists don't need a code of disbeliefs. They are not the ones spinning fantasy.

I would submit that the average Southern Baptist has never heard of Kant.

I would also submit that to see science as as a way to discover God's creation does not require one to believe in an "interventionist God." I certainly don't.

The issue of God's existence is profoundly meaningful on a personal basis.