I love religion!

[Purple Rabbit]

You bring up empirical evidence yourself as an acceptable alternative but non-empirical deductional proof is valid also in debate. Still you put the words in the mouth of the atheist that all evidence must be empirical.

I disagree here if we are trying to prove existence. Deductional proof does not validate the existence of a deity. You can logically prove things by definition, but that does not mean they exist. It can work in debate if it’s theoretical, but not in physical reality.

Hmmm. In fact with this stance I think you have a more restrictive approach than I have. You're assuming a dichotomy between that what exists and that what can be thought. And most of us accept this dicotomy as truth. I accept it myself as the most probable model of reality but leave open the possibility that some evidence in the future might lead to other conclusions. Like in The Matrix we cannot be 100% of such a dichotomy. I leave open the possibility that deductive reasoning some time in the future might lead us to conclude that something necessarily exists. IMO however it is not possible to conclude conclusively from deductional proof that things in reality either exists or don't exist. BTW, this touches on a subject that interests me much, the relation between mathematics and reality.

In trying to see "things from another point of view in order to examine your own" you stretch yourself beyond the boundary of logic and forget that both theists and atheists implicitly or explicitly accept the rules of informal logic in which circular reasoning is fallacious when engaging in debate. This is necessary to be able to communicate. If a theist or atheist chooses to accept what is considered illogic such as the circular reasoning in your examples all gates to hell are open for we should accept on word alone all assertions being made. There is no halfway into the realm of illogic. Once you let in illogic all argument disintegrates.

Hmmm, not quite, but I agree with you. Thing is, once you get really into theological ideas you inevitably get into symbolic and codified language. Many religious ideas aren’t quite ‘illogical’ if you see them from their point of view; i.e. Qur’an is proof of God’s existence. I am going beyond my logic, but I can still try to see other’s views. Once you go into the philosophical ideas deeply, they create their own logic rather than working by simplistic means. The Qabalah could be an example of this.

Circular arguments should be dismissed now though, that was more a dig at those who use them, as opposed to a serious attempt to justify them.

Firstly, using symbols and codified language as in theology or popular bible interpretation is not necessarily the same as using logic but can easily amount to a case of mimicking logic. The popular bible interpretation you can find in church on sunday is too loosely defined to constitute anything that comes near logic. The shift in some churches from literal to metaphorical interpretation testifies about that fact. The range of 3000+ christian denominations testifies about that fact.

Secondly, since it's basis is strictly dogmatic all of theology is special pleading, the logic of it is not attached to reality by means of critical examination of the validity in reality of premises from which argument departed. Sure you can have all kinds of logic in that way, as you can have all kinds of academic math that probably will never have an application in reality. That logic is airborn, it has no roots in reality. The thing is that all conclusions arrived at from such air suspended logic are totally irrelevant yet they are claimed to be extremely important. Sure, I can follow the reasoning of airborn god concepts and I may even wonder about the splendour of human imagination, I may even agree with moral conclusions arrived at in this way, but at the end of the day it amounts to speculation and fabulation. And that seems a pretty miserable basis for all things important in this life to me.

So the real challenge is not about being able to see the 'logic' of the believer but about the rooting of that in reality and about the best method to arrive at meaningful conclusions about reality.