God is Irrelevant in Today's Life

Wow, first debate, I'm not sure where to start. Let's start with the argument. Foucault has stipulated that God is irrelevant in today's life. I am going to argue that God is indeed relevant. Relevance is a tricky issue as relevancy is judged by individuals. We see the same data but interpret it differently. For instance, most, if not all cultures have an account of a flood of epic proportions. A theist will examine the flood stories and say it means the Genesis account was true. An atheist will point at the same information and say that Christianity is nothing special. This can be applied to most scientific arguments. As far as scientific arguments go, I will only say that the probability of all the factors coming together perfectly and for such a period of time as to sustain life for millions of years is extremely low (http://www.reasons.org...). However if Foucault wishes to pose scientific arguments I will do my best to answer. In his last debate, Foucault compared believing in God to believing unicorns exist: "If I were to say "unicorns exist, prove me wrong", that would be ridiculous". To use a similar analogy, let's say we are walking through a forest in Ireland and find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. We haven't seen the leprechaun, but we have seen evidence that seems to suggest that he does exist. From a Christian perspective, things such as order and morality point to the existence of God. Therefore, I am going to focus my argument on the moral implications of a God-less world. Argument One: Right and wrong can't be right and wrong without God Many atheists I have talked with have proposed that the society determines morality. This is logically false. If the society determines morality then morality is constantly in motion creating contradictions. For example, alcohol was banned during the prohibition. Was the act of drinking wrong? Certainly not by today's ideals. The same concept can be applied to abortion, the death penalty, or any number of current issues. Who knows? Maybe murder will be morally justifiable tomorrow. Argument Two: Perceived Morality Why is it that we can so easily point to immoral behavior and call it out for what it is. My last comment in argument one was a joke, but we all react to blatant murder for one's personal gain as immoral. Christians can explain this phenomena by pointing to God's initial creation of man; we were created both physically and mentally in the image of God. We know morality because God initially created us with his understanding of good, absent of evil. We commit atrocities because after the Fall we lost the ability to restrain ourselves from sin entirely, but we still know what good is to some degree. Atheists will point us to the chemical reactions in our brains and social patterns but this would have troubling implications. It would necessarily mean that our legal system is penalizing those who have no control over their actions. For example, a murderer can't truly be held accountable for his actions if his mind is only doing what nature is telling him to do. Argument Three: No Reason to be Good This is an argument that atheists tend to be the most defensive about. When I say an Atheist has no reason to be good, he usually retaliates with something to the effect of, "well if you have to have the fear of God and punishment to be good than you are no better than us peaceful atheists". This is an excuse, not an answer. Atheists have no reason to do good unless it benefits themselves in some way. From the perspective of an atheist, there cannot be imposed on anyone any lasting punishment or reward for one's actions during his or her lifetime. Consequently an atheist can feel free to act in any way that he or she desires without fear of consequences after one's life. The counter to this argument would be that religion also does the same thing, except it promotes immorality with the promise of eternal happiness. However this argument can only be used against Atheists, Muslims, or religions and ideologies that promote warfare or evil for their own expansion. Biblical Christianity specifically says to love your enemies, and never promises reward at the expense of another human being. I apologize if my initial arguments are not in the correct round, I did not receive an answer to my question in the comments concerning the set-up of the debate.