Something regarding atheism vs religion - not sure yet

Thank you for setting up the debate and for the opening statement. As you mentioned, we've exchanged several emails already and I avoided providing detailed answers to your questions because I was hoping to be able to do it in a structured setting like this one. It is my opinion that Christians/theists are wrong in the way they approach the subject with atheists and my hope is to be able to use this discussion to demonstrate why to other theists. Let me start at the end of your opening statement by clarifying that I personally agree with you regarding the nonexistence of the immaterial soul both for the reasons you mentioned and because I think the idea contradicts a sound reading of the Bible. At least as far as I am concerned, this topic can be taken off the table. I also share your belief that we must approach this conversation with humility as we cannot know anything with absolute certainty. And, I agree with you regarding the importance of approaching this discussion rationally and scientifically. Beyond that, here is a list of clarifications regarding my perspective on the theist/atheist debate: 1) I believe the role of theists in this debate should be defensive and not offensive. In other words, those theists who feel the need to impose their views on others both on a personal and a societal level need to stop. We have no business forcing atheists or any other group to adopt our worldview. And, we should learn, from thousands of years of recorded history as well as from numerous modern theocracies, the benefits of church/state separation and stop trying to impose our religious views on society, whether in politics, in science, or elsewhere. Yes, we do as theists have a responsibility to participate in this debate when our own worldview is under attack but not in order to attack the views of others or impose our perspective. And, this distinction should be kept very clear in every debate. Now given that I approach debates in this way, I don't generally find discussions about the definition of atheism or about how the atheist constructs his own worldview very relevant to the conversation; not unless the atheist feels his methodology is the only/most rational one to use. My concern is primarily with what the atheist thinks of the theist worldview rather than of his own. 2) In my opinion, the theist/atheist debate has multiple layers each of which is dependent on the previous; sort of like a multistory structure where each floor cannot be built until the previous floor is completed. Christians and atheists are at almost opposite ends of a wide philosophical spectrum and, skipping over steps or tackling them in the wrong order will inevitably result in an unprofitable conversation. What I mean by this will become clearer as we move along since there might be times when an argument is presented and, in order to address it, I will have to address prerequisite topics first. 3) For any conversation to be productive there has to be some degree of mutual respect. If a flat-earther were to challenge a scientist to a debate, the scientist would be unable to take that conversation seriously; in essence, it's next to impossible for a person to be rational, educated and unbiased and still believe the earth is flat. In my experience however, a large number of atheists today relate to theists/Christians in the same way. Basically, it's not just that there is difference of opinion between us but atheists consider the evidence to be so obviously and so completely against the existence of God that there must be something wrong with anyone who believes otherwise. And, when either one or both parties in a discussion have such a view of the other, the conversation cannot continue as would a normal conversation. One of my priorities in my interactions with atheists therefore has been to try to get to the bottom of why so many of them reason in this way. What I have concluded definitely does not apply to all atheists and you will have to let me know to what degree it applies to you if at all, but it does apply to a large number of the people I've talked to so far. The foundational reasoning of most atheists I've talked to can be summarized in very simplistic terms as follows: Premise 1 - Because the theist is the one making the positive claim, the burden of proof is entirely on him. Premise 2 - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Premise 3 - The only acceptable form of evidence is Scientific Evidence. Therefore, since no one has ever come even close to meeting this burden, the probability is high that god doesn't exist. It is my belief that the majority of atheists who place theists on the same level with flat-earthers do so because they build their entire philosophical structure on this foundation. And, in my opinion, this foundation is flawed. A more reasonable foundation would be as follows: Premise 1 - The one Known or Given in this equation is that we exist; that plants, animals, planets, and the universe as a whole exist. The universe is not just a random arrangement of particles. Premise 2 - Because we do exist, it stands to reason that we've gotten here somehow. And, there are multiple potential explanations: (1) the universe was intentionally created by an intelligent entity or, (2) the universe developed unassisted through naturalistic processes, or (3) there is some other explanation. Premise 3 - Each of these propositions must be supported by evidence and the determination is made by contrasting the various options rather than by placing the entire burden of proof on just one of the options. Moreover, all these propositions are extraordinary and therefore all require extraordinary evidence. Finally, when it comes to scientific evidence, the naturalistic methodology of science limits our ability to examine any of the supernatural options scientifically. 4) In a reality where God does not exist, the primary tools we would have at our disposal for learning about our reality and for examining the God question would be Reason and Science. Reason would allow us to make inferences regarding what are some of the possible explanations for our existence while science would allow us to test out those possibilities. In a reality where God DOES exist however, we would still have reason and science but we could potentially have an additional source of information: divine revelation. In other words, if a God does exist, it wouldn't be entirely up to us to look for Him. He could reach out to us as well. However, since both sides agree on reason and science as sources of information, these two should be discussed first. 5) Most theist debaters I am familiar with argue that it IS possible to demonstrate conclusively that God exists using logic and science alone. To do this they make use of arguments like the cosmological/first cause argument or the fine tuning argument, both of which, in my opinion, are flawed. They are flawed because they assume their own conclusions and because they are based on 18th century philosophy that is no longer persuasive in the scientific era. Atheists on the other hand feel that logic and science conclusively point in the opposite direction and I disagree with this as well. In my opinion, if we restrict ourselves to only logic and science, we don't have sufficient information to determine that the possibility of God's existence is significantly lower than 50%. And, I think most atheists would double-check themselves if they thought that there was a 50% chance that God exists. A large part of the problem in these debates is the inability of many atheists to understand the limitations of science; what we know and can know at this point in time. 6) I want to close with some quick definitions: God - like you said, not necessarily all-powerful. God's omni attributes, whether true or not, tend to get in the way of the discussion, in my opinion. Supernatural - 'any phenomenon which has its basis in entities and processes that transcend the spatiotemporal realm of impersonal matter and energy described by modern science.' I get this definition from M. Boudry's paper (which I believe I've referred you to before). In fact, for anyone else reading this, I believe there are two main camps among scientists when it comes to the role of naturalism in science, (a topic that tends to come up eventually) as described by these two papers: http://infidels.org... https://sites.google.com... I find it helpful to most conversations when I share these papers and my response below: http://mikemanea.com...