The Creationists' Nightmare

[FallentoReason]

I think the apologists that have actually had experience will tend to do that. All my friends that haven't had exposure to arguments via forums or whatever else have pulled out the 'easy' answer at some stage to me.

Well, yeah, I think the average person doesn't tend to think too hard about justifying their beliefs or having a consistent, coherent worldview - theists and atheists alike. The arguments tend to be very ad hoc, not very consistent, and for the most part poorly supported.

People that hang around forums such as this I think tend to be atypical in that regard - we DO think about it, discuss it, debate it, etc etc etc.

Kind of getting off onto a tangent here, but something just occurred to me...

I've been on forums in one form or another since the 1980's. Oftentimes it feels like the arguments are always the same, nobody ever concedes a point, nobody changes their mind. But in retrospect, in my case, that's not really true - I've changed my position on several things (mostly political issues) because of discussions such as the ones we have here - and I looked at my beliefs, and discovered that some were held for irrational reasons I couldn't justify, or even rationalize without self-deception.

Yeah it's crazy what forums can do to you. It's like you're tapping into a wealth of knowledge that has been refined over decades through discussions. I've only been discussing on forums for 5-6 months now and I can confidently say that a) I'm a different person now than back then and b) I have learned how to think critically as opposed to accept word of mouth without question.

Before forums (when I was still a Christian) my argument for God was this:

1) Jesus was the Son of God
2) He said only through him we can go to heaven
3) Now, science can't disprove someone's existence therefore can never disprove God because Jesus was a person.
4) Therefore science can't touch God
5) Therefore, why would God want you to prove an infinite amount of facts before eventually answering the question 'is there a God' (if ever)? That's not what he wanted from you.

Needless to say, when I brought that up for the first time ever on the internet, I got beat down pretty badly. I honestly thought I had something that no one had ever thought of haha...