Philosophical help with a Christian debate

[bennyboy]

I've not properly formulated this in my mind but to me there is something really strange about a theist attempting to prove the existence of God:

God demands faith, faith denies evidence.

In other words there is little or no value assigned to belief in incontrovertible evidence.

For a theist, therefore, to attempt to prove God means, that if they succeed they prove a rather incompetent God which is as bad news for them as it would be for an atheist.

There is a God - but he's not very good at his job?

I don't think faith in God, in religious terms, really means believing that God exists. That part is taken for granted. The faith part is more the belief that even if the rules suck, and your life sucks, God is up to something very special that makes it all worthwhile.

You are taking God as a hypothesis, to be weighed by evidence. But that rationale doesn't make sense to a properly religious person. They feel something in the air all around them-- something that makes the hairs stand up on their arm-- and they know for sure that only something very special could cause such a special feeling.

Back to the philosophical argument-- I think the solution is simple. Ask your opponent to properly and fully define God. If he does, it should be easy to show that under his definition, God cannot exist (omni-3 problems etc.) If he doesn't, then say you're not in the habit of arguing about things when neither party knows what things you're talking about.