I don't think you can have an orthodox debate regarding such a vague and extensive subject.  A discussion is much better suited to cover that.  A short introduction.  I consider myself to be an agnostic atheist, I'm an atheist because god doesn't exist.  I'm an agnostic only because I consider myself open minded enough to realize that a strong atheistic approach would be making as many assumptions as any theistic approach.  My background is in IT and telecom, everything I know regarding theology and philosophy is self taught.  I value intellectual honesty, truth and rationality, and I don't believe in an objective moral frame of reference.  Growing up in Eastern Europe during the Iron Curtain, religion was not a strong presence, I have gone through various stages of belief in spite of that and as I was attempting to answer philosophical questions, just general naval gazing.  

Enough about "I" let's have a few words about yourself. 

Edit: after re-reading my introductions, I haven't seen that many "I"s since Argus.  Poor form apologize for, me. 

Your story is very personal, and I I will take the honesty of it at face value.  Thank you for sharing it with me, and I'm sorry to hear about your friend.  One of the things I would like to point out is the way you reason your previous atheistic experience.  I'm going to paraphrase but I believe that you had taken an atheistic stance without thoroughly reasoning your position.  You imply that as an atheist you believed yourself more intellectual, and you wanted others to believe as you have.  The reality is much more banal, and the intellectual quality of my belief is not equated in intelligence, I would say it's a matter of awareness.

The way I would describe my current position is such.  Imagine you notice a group of people gathered at a street corner watching a man doing the pea and three cups trick.  You stand on the sideline and notice that there is a hole in the table where the pea disappears and the whole scam becomes obvious.  I feel as though I am that guy, I don't feel more intelligent than the other members of the crowd, I am just more aware.  I want to let them know that they are wasting their money and time, that they cannot win.  I see religion as just one other irrationality on par with porn stars against vaccinations, homeopathy and the like.  I can see why people would want to believe, but the arguments feel like nails on the blackboard against my rational.  

I have had lows in my life also, I have come out of those without any help from a higher power.  

Shoot with the questions

 

Loaded questions .  I will try to answer short and to the point, if you need elaboration I'll be more than happy to provide it.  

- Conversion to an Abrahamic religion has such a low probability of happening as to be non existent.  The reasons are many but I will cite the numerous interpretations of the deity derived from the old testament as the primary one.  In order for me to be convinced, I would have to experience something outside the realms of physics, and even that would just convince me of a currently unexplained phenomena.  Perhaps a powerful personal experience may potentially turn me into a deist. 

- Not necessarily, and definitely not always, but in most cases it is indeed evidence of absence.  Also extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.  

- I was born an atheist, along with everyone else on the planet.  At an early age I was an atheist because the society I grew up in promoted that sort of thinking, but I have gone through various stages of belief.  I read the bible out of curiosity quite early and found it very boring, as well as very irrational.  I had read Greek mythology a year before, so to me it was just another mythology, though one not quite as "cool".  Eventually I started reading philosophy and I remember being blown away by the Cosmological argument and Zeno's paradox in particular.  It really had me thinking, along with my maturing personality, I started developing a deistic explanation.  A sort of God of the Gaps if you will.  It had taken many forms, I've read the bible again in English when I was 15.  I had gone through a period of pseudo-Christianity, and emotional appeal Christianity, but I was never convinced in the back of my mind so to speak.  I was just sort of trying it on for size, if that makes sense.  Going with it to see if I see the light or whatever.  As I've started reading more physics and science in general, the gaps started to get smaller and smaller.  I have searched for any sign of supernatural and found none.  The best I could come up with for the longest time was Agnosticism.  Up until a few years back I have considered myself an agnostic.  Upon examining my position further, I realized that I don't believe in any current religions, so I must be an Atheist.  And here I stand an Agnostic Atheist.  

-I'll give you the Jesus thing because the meaning of life thing is very loaded.  I believe the biblical Jesus did not exist.  The story of Jesus is based upon real individuals as well as prior myths.  There must have been at least a handful of such "teachers" walking around near the last decades BC and first decades AD.  Perhaps there was a more prominent Jesus though I don't really think he's relevant except to Christianity, he doesn't answer any questions for me personally.  I guess you can take some good from his teachings, but you can take some good from Cat in the Hat too if you look hard enough.  

-Ah, the meaning of life 42.  Here is how I see it.  As humans, our subjective interpretation of what constitutes a successful goal achievement, is in constant flux.  By that I mean, the actual process of achievement of such a goal is the actual active engagement, where as the goal is the passively inert.  Life is composed of various degrees of engagement.  Be it emotional, physical, intellectual and so on.  Basically the meaning of life is to engage the environment.  I derive two pet theories from that.

Firstly, a pseudo-taoistic approach for the everyday life.  Since life is engagement, in my opinion, in order to live fully, you have to be engaged fully, or focused fully upon what you do.  For example, if I water the plants, I try to clear my mind of everything else, and do it properly.  When I play with my kids, I leave all else behind and focus fully on that.  ( I have three very young kids, 4 year old and 2 and a half year old twins).  Ultimately in my job, I feel most satisfied when I'm in "the zone", and I get there almost every day.  Where the "craft" just flows naturally.  I mean this in a completely naturalistic way, no supernatural involved. 

Secondly, the environment, or the universe in this case, I imagine it to be as the a two dimensional water surface.  Initially it had a value of zero, perfectly flat.  Everything myself and everyone else does, changes that value, negatively or positively.  Think of it as ripples from a rock hitting the water.  The ripples intersect and sometimes cancel out, sometimes amplify.  In a way our actions are immortal, because the value is changed, future values will be dependent on how we influence it RIGHT NOW.  Even after you die, your body continues to influence the earth you are buried in, or energy released in your cremation.  Your influence on people while you are alive, will dictate to some degree how they engage the environment(universe), even after your passing.  If your influence was strong enough, their actions will carry echoes of your actions even after they in turn have passed.  Just think of the person that invented the wheel.  His/her  actions are causing ripples in this theoretical universe that are amplified by everyone using wheels.

I'll leave it here for the sake of coherency.  I'll ask a few questions in the next post.

 haha, rants are perfectly fine, I'll respond to some of those key points soon. One thing I would also like to point out is that if I don't respond right away, please don't think that I've forgotten or have quit. I have a lot on my plate these next few weeks but will always get to this thread eventually, it's number one on my favorites list. Now to your questions:

For your first question can you please be a little more specific on what you mean? I know epistemology to be the philosophical branch of knowledge, so are you asking precisely what my view is of reality? Just trying to make sure I get every detail before giving an answer.

My view on science in general is that it is one of the most important things us humans have in life, it's a fascinating thing that gives us answers to things that we would have never expected to find out about in the past. I think religion and science can go hand in hand and shouldn't be looked at as foes or topics that contradict each other. Science can both falsify or verify claims of religion. When religions make claims about the natural world, they intersect the domain of science and are, in effect, making predictions which scientific investigation can either verify or falsify. There are plenty examples for each, and I can share them if necessary. Folks who think that science and religion are mutually irrelevant need to realize that the cat is already out of the bag; and I daresay there’s little prospect of stuffing it back in. Science and religion have discovered that they have important mutual interests and important contributions to make to each other, and those who don’t like this can choose not to participate in the dialogue, but that’s not going to shut down the dialogue or show it to be meaningless. With that said, I believe that science can't answer everything and shouldn't be looked at as infallible or that it debunks religion. Science encounters metaphysical problems which religions can help to solve. Science has an insatiable thirst for explanation.  But eventually, science reaches the limits of its explanatory ability. For example, in explaining why various things in the universe exist, science ultimately confronts the question of why the universe itself exists. Even if space time is beginning-less and endless, we may still ask why it exists. Here theology can help. Traditional theists conceive of God as a necessary being whose non-existence is impossible, who is the Creator of the contingent world of space and time. Thus, the person who believes in God has the resources to slake science’s thirst for ultimate explanation. I believe both my faith and science to be necessary and relevant in my life, I certainly don't think science is totally mutual to atheism.

As for my views on evolution, it has changed throughout the years. As a teen I believed it to be the obvious answer, but mainly because A it seemed to fit more with my atheistic views and B it was what we learned in class. After converting I became a bit more agnostic on the idea, not throwing it out but certainly not saying it was true. After studying it enough and reading, I would consider myself a theistic evolutionist. Like science in general, believing in evolution certainly does not take away the chance of a God, and in my opinion only raises the chances.

I'm a Christian over others because that was the "religion" that helped me through my troubles, it was definitely the most relevant to me. It was the Bible that saved my life if you will and it made the most sense to me. I've studied other religions a lot throughout high school and college, my uncle converted to Islam right before I converted to Christianity and my best friend was a Mormon. From reading scripture and from my experiences personally, I would say that Christianity was the best answer for my life in a time where answers seemed nonexistent. Through time and wisdom, I realize that Christ makes more and more sense each day. In the words of CS Lewis, I believe in Christianity like I believe in the sun, not necessarily because I can see it, but because by it I see everything. 

I'll respond to your post before the questions ASAP, and please feel free to follow up with questioning. 

 Sorry it's taken a few days, I hope my tardiness doesn't become repetitive! 

Saying that Saying you were born an atheist suggests that you started out with the concept of what a God is, and believed that He didn't exist. That's patently silly. "No-one is born a theist" would be less so, though. I hear that statement a lot from non-believers that I was "born as an atheist", if that's the case I was also atheistic to almost everything else in life. Just because we don't have knowledge of God, or germs, or laws, does not mean we deny them does it? Children are born without the knowledge of there being a God. They do not judge that there is categorically no God, as atheism does, nor do they have the capability to know whether or not there is a God. At best, you were born agnostic, but you are not born thinking God does not exist.

The historical person Jesus of Nazareth was an amazing individual. New Testament critics have reached something of a consensus that the historical Jesus came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority, the authority to stand and speak in God's place. That's why the Jewish leadership instigated his crucifixion for the charge of blasphemy. He claimed that in himself the Kingdom of God had come, and as visible demonstrations of this fact he carried out a ministry of miracles and exorcisms. But the supreme confirmation of his claim was his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus did rise from the dead, then it would seem that we have a divine miracle on our hands and, thus, evidence for the existence of God. Like CS Lewis said, you either thought Jesus Christ was a complete nutcase or the son of God, there's nothing between those two that can plausibly be predicted if you agree that Jesus existed. 

Now most people would probably think that the resurrection of Jesus is something you just accept on faith or not. But there are actually three established facts, recognized by the majority of New Testament historians today, which I believe are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus: His empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances and the origin of the disciples' belief in his resurrection. Let's look briefly at each one of these. I first heard these in a William Lane Craig debate awhile back, I can't remember which one it was specifically. I don't want to get into arguing Christ as much as I would a creator, but I thought it fit your post perfectly. Here it is:

Fact #1: Jesus' tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers on Sunday morning.According to Jacob Kremer, an Austrian scholar who has specialized in the study of the resurrection, "by far most scholars hold firmly to the reliability of the biblical statements about the empty tomb." According to D. H. Van Daalen, it is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions. 

Fact #2: On separate occasions different individuals and groups saw appearances of Jesus alive after his death. According to Gerd Lüdemann, a prominent German New Testament critic, "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ." These appearances were witnessed not only by believers, but also by unbelievers, skeptics, and even enemies. 

Fact #3: The original disciples suddenly came to believe in the resurrection of Jesus despite having every predisposition to the contrary. Think of the situation the disciples faced following Jesus' crucifixion:

      1. Their leader was dead, and Jewish Messianic expectations included no idea of a Messiah who, instead of triumphing over Israel's enemies, would be shamefully executed by them as a criminal.

      2. Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the world.

Nevertheless, the original disciples suddenly came to believe so strongly that God had raised Jesus from the dead that they were willing to die for the truth of that belief. Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar at Emory University, states, "Some sort of powerful, transformative experience is required to generate the sort of movement earliest Christianity was." N. T. Wright, an eminent British scholar, concludes, "That is why, as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him." 

Attempts to explain away these three great facts—like the disciples stole the body or Jesus wasn't really dead—have been universally rejected by contemporary scholarship. The simple fact is that there just is no plausible, naturalistic explanation of these facts. Therefore, it seems to me, the Christian is amply justified in believing that Jesus rose from the dead and was who he claimed to be.  But that entails that God exists. 

Reality seems to be a projection to a lot of people, it is as real as any other projection can be. Reality to me is truth, God is truth so therefore to me, God is reality. The creation of God is built around certain truths, laws, or principles. Those truths define the creation and the way it truly operates. Human opinions do not change the reality of the way things operate. Human logic, or human reasoning, may explain things in a completely different way than the Bible, but human logic does not establish reality, it simply attempts to explain it. This is my interpretation on it, I know yours is completely different obviously. The Bible says we are to walk by faith, not by sight. Living by God's truth will change what we see, but living by what we see will not change God's truth. Perhaps discussing faith will dig down further, I would love to talk about it!

When I say science and religion have mutual interests, I simply mean I believe they both strive to answer similar questions. Science is knowledge, and Christianity seeks out to answer questions knowledge cannot answer. When I say science isn't infallible, I'm saying that it should not be the sole method of explaining things. When you say science only deals with physical concepts, that is where my point comes in perfectly. Answering physical concepts, while very important no doubt, does not explain the big picture. When you say I'm personifying science as the thirst for explanation and not THE explanation, I think it can be both. Science answers new things every day, from germs, to cures, to the origin of our species. By answering these big questions, science must have the thirst for explanation, for without that thirst or seeking of answers, what is the point? Those who do not seek will not find, Darwin certainly had the thirst for explanation, as do most scientists (almost everyone I've met, that's for sure). 

I'll rant more later, I'll work on some questioning to keep the discussion moving. Can't wait for your response! No hurry...

I'll say it once more (and probably a few more times after it's all said and done), I apologize for my tardy response. Throughout the week I keep telling myself I need to get on here and continue my discussion with Ktulu, but I hope you forgive my hectic schedule of college and working part time. Now onto your argument(s)...

As much as it might surprise you, we agree on 90 percent of what you are saying. The only difference is that the reality you speak of is purely an atheistic one. You may find a green leaf beautiful in the same way I do, but the difference is that I believe that beauty is defined by God. Like I said before, this idea is completely irrational to you because your views on life are completely different than mine, in this case my explanation may seem like a cop-out in terms of a discussion because it seems so easy to say "I believe in what you said, only with God!" I certainly don't define reality from laziness or carelessness, but from the same method I use to describe a lot of things. If we were to argue theistic evolution vs atheistic evolution, I think it would be very redundant due to the fact that we probably believe the exact same kind of evolution (evolving from a common ancestor), but that I believe it was played out by a higher power. If there's anything specific you'd like to point out or discuss, please feel free. If not, I think a discussion on some other key aspects would be appropriate. 

Some things I'd like to discuss with you in detail:

-your rebuttal to arguments such as the teleological argument, cosmological argument, moral law argument, and ontological argument. I would be more than happy to present the arguments in my wording, and also for you to post your own arguments against a God. 

-diving down a bit more on the compatibility of science and religion, my argument coming mostly from the brilliant Scientist and Christian Francis S. Collins.

-To go back to the first request, objective moral values and universal morality. Also, good and bad (right and wrong) done in the name of both religion and non-religion.

-The Universe and cause of the Universe (once again, going back to the first request by examining the cosmological argument).

In a nutshell, our views of reality are very similar when you take out my faith portion of it, no need to continue on in my opinion.

 

On my version of OA, I'm assuming you are speaking of the Ontological Argument? If we are going to move onto the arguments for and against god, I'd like to start off with the Cosmological argument because I can just paste one of my previous posts on the subject and I think it could lead to a great discussion. (discussion, not debate)

So do you mind if we start out with the CA?

 For this Kalam CA, I will use the same basis I used in my "debate" with RedneF. This is a very short and brief version of it, but I want to start off small so we don't talk past each other once more and focus on the specifics.. Starting off with the actual argument:

1.)Everything that begins to exist has a cause of it's existence

2.)The universe began to exist

3.)Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The first premise is coherent enough, "Everything that begins to exist has a cause of it's existence." The infinite regress objection falls apart here because something that has no beginning has no cause, i.e. God. If God never BEGAN to exist or came to be, then he would not fall into this category. Next, the second and third premises are the key. "The began to exist," therefore, "The Universe has a Cause." But, is the second premise true? Entropy throws a wrench into everything because if the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, with cosmic drift, everything in the Universe would have drifted apart.  Craig's arguments based on the impossibility of an actual infinite-An actual infinite cannot exist.An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist. Craig's arguments based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition-A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite. In essence, the Big Bang idea that the Universe expanded from a single point, provides serious support to the KC argument. The only possible objections are: 

1. Cyclical existence - The Universe expands and collapses, and has done so for all eternity. (We have no evidence for such a thing, and if we did we'd cease to exist)

2. Infinite Multidemensional Reality - There are an infinite amount of parallel universes that are being created at every moment, and they have been doing so for infinity. (Another theory we have no evidence for, but is cool to think about). Based on these, the burden of proof lies with you, the skeptic. The excuse that "naturalistic" causes are all we can accept, flies out the window when the evidence points to one explaination. Ockham's Razor insists that you keep explainations simple, and since available evidence points that way, the conclusion, "The Universe has a Cause" stands.

This is all a nutshell presentation of Craig's thesis. Other objections could probably be raised, which Craig has a knack for answering. If one feels so inclined, one should read Craig's three major published debates on this topic. I'll be awaiting your response and/or questions. I almost added my questions to this introduction of the Kalam CA, but I'll hold them off until you reply. I am awaiting it!

 

This thread died quickly, if Roger is still around, at least let me know you no longer want to take part in this discussion.