It is rational to believe in a god

Thank you for accepting my challenge; I look forward to a lively exchange. I'm going to take each claim that you've made one at a time but I'll begin by reiterating your claims. Please do accept my apologies and provide me with correction if I have misrepresented your claims or if I have missed any details out (indeed, I'm sure you will). Pro's claims: [1] Eye witness accounts in the bible indicate the existence of Jesus, who performed miracles [2] Eye witness accounts outside of the bible indicate the existence of Jesus, who performed miracles [3] Marcus Velleius Paterculus witnessed one of Jesus' miracles [4] The Argument From Design [5] The Cosmological Argument Rebuttals [1], [2] and [3]. I'll return to each of these points individually but I'd like to start by pointing out that showing that there was a Jewish mystic 2000 years ago who it was claimed performed miracles would not be sufficient evidence to justify my belief in a god, nor do I consider it rational for anybody else to do so on this evidence alone. [1] There are not that many eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life in the bible; most of the New Testament was written at least 50 years after Jesus' alleged death. Paul's Epistles are almost certainly the earliest writings in the NT, at around 50AD. Interestingly, Paul does not ever speak of Christ Jesus as if he ever walked on Earth, but rather as a spiritual entity who was not incarnate. I quote here from his earliest writings, 1 Thessalonians 5:23 "May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ". Note that he doesn't talk about "second coming", nor about "returning"... I contend that Paul, the earliest of the writers in the NT, did not think of Jesus as a man incarnate. [2] There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus outside of the bible (But Pro, please cite some and prove me wrong if you can); there are scant writings that even mention Jesus outside of the bible until hundreds of years later. Some examples include Publius Tacitus (C100AD) and Julius Africanus (C200AD). [3] That Marcus Velleius Paterculus (a real Roman historian) witnessed a miracle of Jesus' is a recent fabrication by the World News Daily Report - but snopes.com does a better job of debunking this than I could: http://www.snopes.com... [4] The Argument from Design is as flawed as it is old, although it does have a rough and ready instinctive appeal and seems to remain a favourite of religious apologists. I'd be happy to dedicate some time to debunking the argument, if Pro wishes to fight the point; there are plenty of angles to take when attacking the problem... here are a couple of my favourites: a) If there were a God, rather than needing 70 sextillion stars and 13.75 billion years, there would only be need of one planet. Rather than having more planets than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. The only reason this universe needs to be this vast and this old is if life occurs randomly without any intelligent design. If life occurs only by happenstance, then any life that exists should exist in a amazingly vast universe just to allow the chemicals needed to kick up life enough chances to happen to kick up something as complex as life. (from ironchariots.org) The universe seems very poorly designed if human life is the ultimate end of an intelligent designer. More than 99.9999999% of the observable universe is extremely hostile to life. Humans have been on Earth for less than 0.00005% of its existence. b) The argument from design is self-defeating in this way: we start by comparing a rock and a watch, concluding that the watch is non-natural and therefore designed. But if we continue and conclude that life, humans, the Earth and the whole universe were designed then we come to the conclusion that the rock was, after all, designed... oops! How is one to determine what is and what is not designed, especially if you're claiming that everything is designed!? c) Evolution by natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the complexity of life; no more explaining needs to be done! The story of the rich history of life is writ clearly in the fossil record. [5] Everybody's favourite apologetic position: The Cosmological Argument. Again, I'd be very happy to elaborate on this deeply flawed argument, but I'd ask that you consider reading what the excellent counter-apologetic site Iron Chariots has to say: http://wiki.ironchariots.org... However, for those who cannot be bothered, I'll offer my simple rebuttal here: If your explanation of how anything came to exist at all is that "God created it" then who created your God? Your explanation, ultimately, fails to answer the question at all; in fact, it begs a far more complex problem! "It's no use, Mr. James " it's turtles all the way down." - J. R. Ross, Constraints on Variables in Syntax 1967