(March 7, 2015 at 9:45 pm)Drew_2013 Wrote: How would I approach the debate were I an atheist?
1. Drop the ‘I’m a weak-atheist’ strategy.
Your arguments following only justify weak atheism. If it makes you feel better, I'm a strong atheist toward the literal version of God described in the Bible: how we got here is not as described in Genesis, there was never a global flood, the sun never 'stopped in the sky' to give Hebrews a military victory, there was never an Exodus, and the Jews were never enslaved en masse by the Egyptians. So the God who flooded the earth and plagued the Egyptians does not exist. Not to mention the theodicy problems. However the God of deism doesn't contradict observed reality or logic and could possibly be real, there's just no evidence that it actualy is real.
'Weak atheists' tend to be careful about what they claim. It's a personality trait. You're not going to change their personalities. Strong atheists sometimes try to argue that weak atheists wouldn't have a problem saying there definitely are no leprechauns...but actually, most of them would, in my experience.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.