Prove a "Judeo" Religion

"What a cop out that was. I can support my position on morality with evidence as I have already done so. If you can't then I'd suggest you go ahead and rethink your position." I'm not sure what "evidence" my opponent is talking about it, but as mentioned, we have different positions on the issue and neither can be proven without bringing in religious texts. Okay, to make things easier, let's pretend that I concede and admit that there is a Universal Morality which suggests that there is a God as you originally mentioned. That doesn't really move our argument forward. "This sentence is incredibly disturbing. If you have no reason to be moral...you could never have a reason to prevent someone from being killed. You would have no reason to stop a man like Hitler from rising to power. Don't you understand why your worldview is so messed up?" Yes, other than me not wanting people to get hurt or suffer, I have no reason to be moral. I don't need a religious text to tell me what's wrong and right, I trust myself to judge my decisions on their "morality". I don't need the threat of eternal punishment to keep me from doing bad things, and this can be said for the vast majority of people on Earth because of the adaptation of empathy, as I mentioned previously. "So why feel guilty about anything that happens?" As I mentioned, we feel guilty because of our well developed empathy. If we didn't have our empathy which is a biological adaptation, we wouldn't feel remorse (like psychopaths). "Your source was some random dude with a blog that had absolutely no sources of his own and he claimed that there was only 20 Christians after Jesus' death. I have already explained why this is impossible." My opponent, again, fails to provide a single source that contradicts mine and simply points a finger saying that the source is not credible. This "random dude" is a credible New Testament scholar who got his Ph.D. at Princeton. He was actually quoted in one of your own sources. Again, if you think the source is wrong, provide another, more credible source, with different information and we, along with the voters, can judge the sources side by side. "Again, you shouldn't disregard a source merely because you already assume to know what is possible/impossible." But couldn't I say that you do the same? You trust a source because you assume to know what is possible/impossible, that God makes everything possible? My point is that the "scientific worldview" is much more rational and doesn't require the constant "God did it" cop out. Humans used to use that card on just about every natural phenomenon until scientists came up with ideas on it actually happens. If you heard about a man that flied, it seems much more reasonable to listen to the scientist that tells you it's physically impossible and that it didn't happen rather than the person that says "God did it". "If you read the rest of the link, it shows you some of those documents. But there are many cultures that describe a worldwide flood" There are also many cultures that describe dragons in similar ways but that doesn't mean they're real. I did indeed look at the rest of the link, and it only speaks of the "Sumerian King List" documents. The "Babylonian documents" in question are not mentioned or referenced in the rest of the article. http://www.smithsonianmag.com... "How can you say that? The Bible has places proven to exist, and people proven to have existed (including Jesus), and events that have actually happened? How does this add only a minor amount of credibility to the Bible?" Because as I said, no one contests those things in the Bible. I don't think the Bible is complete fiction, so it is not surprising to me that some things in the Bible can indeed be easily confirmed. However, as mentioned, this does nothing to prove the legitimacy of the things the Bible is actually attacked for. Other legends/myths also have elements of truth such as the real existence of Mount Olympus in Greek myths or the real existence of Troy and the Mycenaeans in the myth of the Trojan War. "Nothing about the spread of Christianity was slow. It spread like crazy after the death of Jesus." Another source-less, empty claim. I have a source written by a Bible scholar and historian that clearly says that the spread of Christianity was rather slow. "Usually I don't have to debate the existence of Jesus because it is generally common knowledge. I was hoping not to spend so much time on that. That said, my argument wasn't that you should believe in the existence of Jesus because scholars do. My argument is that you should believe in the existence of Jesus because the Bible, many early historians say his was real (such as Josephus) and because the majority of our scholars acknowledge that he existed. Also, claiming a theory to be true is much different then claiming that a person existed." While I am in heavy disagreement with the last sentence, I will address the subject of Jesus' existence later on in this argument. "Not true, I have already shown you that cultures had a story of a worldwide flood (http://www.talkorigins.org......). So there is obviously something to be said about a worldwide flood. And aside from that, you can't say a source is unreliable merely because you assume that a God doesn't exist and that he can't flood the earth he created." I addressed the first sentence in a small argument above. As for the third, I am still in very strong disagreement with this kind of logic. We might as well assume every historical myth and legend to be true because we "know" that God can do whatever he wishes. "...the fact is that an all powerful God could do anything he wanted. The Bible specifically says that God used water below the earth and above it." Well we know, possibly unlike the Bible's authors, that the Earth is not flat so you can't technically have water below it. However even if all of the water from aquifers was gathered (water from underground), it wouldn't be nearly enough. Simple geometric calculations would reveal that to flood the Earth in the way the Bible describes, 4.5 billion cubic kilometers of water would be needed. However, we only have 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water on Earth, so it seems that the only possible way to counter this is to pull the "God did it" card. (I think the calculation can be done by calculating the volume of the Earth if the surface of the crust was as high as Mt. Everest and subtract from that the ACTUAL volume of the Earth). Now, let's just assume that somehow God did spawn all of this water. My next question would be, where did it go? http://water.usgs.gov... http://rationalwiki.org... "You dropped everything in my argument about morality" As mentioned above, neither of us can prove anything and it's really not central to our debate. You used it as proof for a God, this is not the focus of our debate as I am not contesting the existence of a God. "As for the Bible, are you going to be able to come up with an actual reason to discredit it?" I think I already have and I continue to support that position. I'm not even going to go into the ideas that God just spawned a man and made a woman out of his rib, but my position on Noah's flood stands. I'm a bit disappointed that my opponent ignored my arguments, questions rather, on the topic of Noah's flood that I presented in Round 3 (presented in a, b, c, d, e format). I was curious to see what you could come up with, although it would most likely be the "God did it" card, I haven't ever found a way to really answer those points without the pulling of this card. About the last words of Jesus: I sort of see the logic in this argument, although I am not totally convinced because after he said "It is finished", he gave up his spirit which I assume would mean he died. And in the other account, having said "Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit" he breathed his last, which I assume means he died. And even if I am wrong, I don't understand why both accounts wouldn't have the same things written down. Why didn't the second author write anything about the wine or the "it is finished" phrase? Let's not dwell on this too much, I am not in such strong disagreement with my opponent on this point. Unfortunately, we could not cover everything in this debate such as Evolution, but I found this to be a fantastic debate. While I am absolutely no where near believing in Christianity, I will admit that I am now going to think twice about my views on the existence of Jesus and may do some more research about that on my own. Thank you so much for the debate, this has easily been the most enlightening and challenging debate I've ever had on this topic.