they have to make that decision on their own. here’s hoping the trend for this to happen around the world continues.

1) Time is infinite in the past (support: time could not have been “caused” to begin – as causation yielding a change of state is a temporal phenonemum)
2) Our universe/multiverse of interacting forces, energy and matter is not infinately old (support: our universe has not reached completion yet – the deep freeze, per modern scientific perspective).
3) There was therefore a delay from an eternity past to allow provision, or at least first interaction of said forces, energy and matter to begin the universe/multiverse as we know it.
4) The delay mechanism must have
4i) traversed an infinite time a priori hence exhibiting a characteristic of transcendence over time, and
4 ii) demonstrated a property of selectivity, which implies intelligence and/or purpose.
5) The delay mechanism can be postulated as the creator of our physical universe/multiverse, with a characteristic of agency transcendent of time with suggested intelligence or purpose.
6) The creator of our physical universe has characteristics highly consistent with a theist deity – or God.
7) If a substantially non-equivalent scientific or philosphic alternative cannot be postulated or even imagined to explain the delay mechanism posited in (3 – 4), it is reasonalble to believe in a God until/if such alternative can be imagined or hypothesized (support: it is reasonable to place belief in a best, or only reasonable hypothesis/ theory in explanation of a phenonemum).

Well, you won the debate. I can’t argue with your experience having family and friends it MUST be god. There is absolutely no way you could have a good job, friends, etc without divine logic. I don’t have these things myself because, as I am sure your preacher explains (when he is unravling the mysterys of the universe) atheist have no friends.

Yes, that’s right, atheists have NO friends. We hope to destroy all religon and eat your babies. We have no morality and often contemplate murder-suicides. Why, when I lost my invisible sky-man I wanted to eat human flesh – yummy.

Thats okay because your god(s)/goddess will burn me for eternity. By the way, I really love the way all you god-loving theists have taken care of “gods foot-stool” (you know Earth).

Well got to go, babies to eat and all. Hey, when you see your god be sure to ask him why he seemed to be so kind to western civiliaztion and so shitty to africa?

Firstly, I in no way think that all theists somehow are less intelligent than atheists. I work as a researcher and, granted most other PhDs that I run into are atheists (or at least agnostic), I have found a few that are theists. As is well understood, correlations do not define causations.

I can not recall ever believing in a God, even as a child. This often left me on the outside of a “religous” family.

Among my earliest issues was the idea of free will and an omnipotent, all-knowing, god who had a plan for the universe that could not deviate. How is this possible when human beings can act so irrationally/unpreditable? If a god knows this and has made appropriations for this behavior does this not mean that real free will is an illusion? Also, I have noticed that as time progressed the god became more forgiving/loving – is this a reflection of society? In the bronze age when the bible was written life was harsh and unpredicable thus so were the god(s) worshiped. As we became more knowledgable, the god(s) become more compassionate. Also, given that there are currently over 10,000 different religons in the world how do you know you have the right one – aren’t most religons geographic?

I can see the rational for the belief in a god and it exists outside of intelligence – comfort. It takes a strong will to live life being completely responsible for your own actions.

The emotional desire for a central authority, real or not, is strong and I believe embedded in the biological make-up of a lot of human beings.

One last note, just an observation. Why do religous people require you to believe what they believe “or else”. Believing is not a choice, either you do or do not. What kind of supreme deity would burn someone forever for simply questioning – something our brains naturally do? I am truly amazed at intelligent individuals that seem to block logic/reason and go to church every sunday – I assume that they see the bible as symbolic stories providing moral lessons. If they are just stories, why bother? Also, what kind of lessons in morality can be gathered from the absured violence of the book of Leviticus – do religous moderates just overlook it?

If I am wrong, please provide REAL proof. I would love to have the drunken happiness of believing in magic/god(s).

Apologies for getting off-topic – have been enjoying this blog/thread and attendant interesting viewpoints though I’m pretty much convinced that Peter is taking the mick.