How to debate a Christian

[NoGodaloud ?]

then i guess you have a better explanation for our existence. what is it ?
if you answer : i don't know, i can help you out.

No, you really can't. I don't believe things on faith.

I think you don't know Goedels incomplete theorem.

I have a personal virtual library, where i collect answers to issues, which i regard relevant, and which makes it easyer for me to find the information i want.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...m-t274.htm

Faith and Reason are not enemies. In fact, the exact opposite is true! One is absolutely necessary for the other to exist. All reasoning ultimately traces back to faith in something that you cannot prove.

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.
You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.
(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

I don't believe something because I don't have an answer. I don't need an answer. I'm perfectly comfortable with saying I don't know because you know what? No one knows.

You might never know in the sense of find absolute proof. These you will find only in mathematical formulas. But you can think , and find out the most rational and reasonable answer to a series of things.
Specially today, where our scientific knowledge is advanced as never before, and alouds us to have a insight of how our universe, and living beings work. This gives us a platform to deductive reasoning, as we never before had. So its really not wrong to believe, to deduce God as being the best answer, because no other answer makes sense to explain things of our natural world. If you say " i don't know " at the beginning of a scientific journey, that makes perfectly sense. To say however still " i don't know", how it might happened, that first life arose on earth, after you have over 50 years of advanced study, is quit a different thing. After you know, that a living eukaryotic cell contains many hundreds of thousands of different complex parts, including various motor proteins. These parts must be assembled correctly to produce a living cell, the most complex ‘machine’ in the universe—far more complex than a Cray supercomputer. You can say, after the question arises, how it could have arised : " i don't know", or you could say : a natural origin is very unlikely, specially because a living cell contains DNA , which is complex and specific encoded information, and information comes always from a mind. Therefore, the most probable explanation, is, that God created life.

Science has a good idea how the universe, life, species, etc... came to be.

I really don't think so.

Evolution is a fact.

Micro-evolution is. Macro-evolution is controversial, So its not a fact.

Big Bang is a fact.

Good that you agree on this. Since the Big Bang is the beginning of our universe, it has a cause. What cause do you suggest ?

I don't have to take an extra step and imagine a creator god to accept those.

You have far from explained a series of issues, which also demand a explanation :

how was the universe finely tuned to life ? how did life arise on earth ? why is there Sex ? why are we , humans , conscious, and have thoughts, and the ability of speak ? how do you explain the information contained in DNA ? how do you explain the conscience of morality ?

Besides, for all the things science doesn't know, such as what existed before Planck time, (The time before the Big Bang) I'm not going to assume I know. I'm going to reserve judgement until there's actually evidence.

You cannot base your world view only os science. Science is very limited to explain our existence. It can explain and explore the natural world, and even this only in a limited degree. But it cannot go further than explore our universe. It can't explain, why and for what reason certain things happen.

No. The Big Bang theory did not simply "Happen out of nothing". That shows your supreme misunderstanding of what it actually is. The Big Bang was a singularity that expanded outward. To the best of science's knowledge, this was rather simple stuff that eventually expanded to create the universe. However, the important thing to note is that the Big Bang has nothing to say about what happened before the big bang. So you don't know that there was nothing.

We don't know, but we can think about what is the best answer to this question. What was the singularity? It was indeed point zero, from which the Big bang started. Beyond it, there was nothing physical. No time, no matter, no space. So from this starting point, it follows rationally, that the Big Bang most probably must have had a cause. It could not create itself, since it did not exist prior to it.

Which is easier to believe? That this simple stuff always existed, or that a supreme creator caused the big bang billions of years ago and through billions of years of the universe forming, and then life evolving, he finally gets around to us and gives a shitty Bible and sends down his son as a blood sacrifice.

The former is far easier for me to believe. Especially when theists argue that God always had to existed, why not remove that extra unnecessary step and accept that maybe the universe always existed in one form or another?

two reasons ( but there are more, btw.) Second law of thermodynamics. If the universe would be eternal, the universe would already be on a state of heath death. Secondly, because

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5231

Are numbers potentially infinite? Yes, sure they are. They can potentially go on forever and ever. Potentially, the quantity of numbers is infinitely large. There's no end to them. Now, how do you ever get from a potential infinity to an infinity when it comes to numbers? Well, you can start counting--one, two, three, four, five, billion one, billion two, a zillion one, two, a quintillion one, a quintillion two. Keep going. Do you realize that at any particular point in time as you keep adding one number to another--a procedure which potentially could go on forever--that you haven't really accomplished that feat? You haven't really gone on forever, have you? The number gets bigger and bigger, of course. But at every particular point you happen to be counting at, your count describes a finite number. Will you ever get to eternity by counting, adding one number onto another? The answer is no, you won't.

there is no infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time, only a finite number of events. Here's another way of putting it. If you can't get into the infinite future from a fixed reference point (the present) by adding consecutive events one by one, you cannot get into the infinite past by subtracting consecutive events, one by one, from a fixed reference point (the present). If you can't transverse the distance in one direction (present to infinite past), you can't transverse it in the other direction (infinite past to present). This means that if the universe consisted of an infinite series of events in time, you could never arrive at this present moment.

I believe things on evidence. You cannot claim that what science doesn't know is God. It's a God of gaps argument, which I ain't buying. You actually have to meet a burden of proof before I will accept anything you say. Asking me "which sounds better" does not meet that burden.

To ask proofs of Gods existence is sensless. Gods existence cannot be proven. Thats why the right philosophical question is : how can we best explain our existence ?

Essentially, assertions are not proof, they are just that...assertions. I instead take the appropriately skeptical viewpoint and not accept your claim.

I don't make simple assertions. I do deductive reasoning, based on scientific knowledge, based on facts, we know through science.