It is illogical for someone to disbelieve in God.

In closing, I would suggest that for further debates the scope of strictly reduced significantly. In this debate Pro has brought up, just to name a few arguments : a) The classic cosmological argument (the universe exists, all things are caused, ergo GOD) b) The nature of logic implies the nature of God c) One can not disprove God and thus atheism is illogical and other arguments, and simply moves from one to the other as fast as arguments are brought up to oppose them. Each of these ideas themselves can, and have been, and will continue to be discussed in some detail. It is a disservice to them and to any discussion to throw them about with such frequency and hope that the argument is won simply as it were by hitting a bulls-eye by firing a thousand darts. It is impossible to give them the respect they deserve both in presentation and as well in a rebuttal when there is a limit of a couple of paragraphs for each. "Hitches ideal god would be himself with the power that the Christian God has." Not in anything I have seen or read would lead to this conclusion, Hitchen's characterization of himself as a father is explicit in the nature of fact that at some stage he moves from beyond one who has control over his children, past judgment, past even influence even and simply one of appreciation. This is the attack he makes on the Christian God, it never reaches this point and treats humanity as if it is always in the infant stage and needs forever watching and judging. Though that being said, it would be curious to know exactly what he would think regarding on how the nature of the universe should be if there was a God, defined simply as a being that is worthy of divine worship - though it is likely he would content that is logically not possible given inherent free will. "So to have a presupposition doesn't make something rational, despite how many people do it, it does not make it anything other than irrational." Of course, and who ever argued that a presupposition is inherently anything, it is simply a presupposition, what is or is not rational is the argument which comes after the presupposition, this is in the nature of logic. An observation is not logical, it simply is or is not. The conclusion which comes from the observation is or is not logical. The nature of a presupposition and what it implies to knowledge would be as part of a theory of epistemology. "I differ greatly, I would argue that at least God (but I really know it to be the Bible) is the foundation of reality where no presupposition can be applied to assume." Except of course for the presupposition of the existence of God and the presupposition of its foundational nature, it is what it is because it is what it is. "Empiricism, morality, logic, etc all have presuppositions attached to the credibility of their legitimacy to them being sufficient enough to demonstrate knowledge." Empiricism is a way of gaining knowledge through information, justification of that knowledge could be foundational, or it could be through coherentism. There is a difference between application and justification. " ...you must first give reason for why logic is legitimate " Yes, and indeed it is a non-trivial problem and this is why there is considerable effort by mankind into theories of epistemology which attempts to answer the question of how to we know that we we know really is known? Can a claim even be made for objective morality, or even truth for that matter? [1] "Hard atheism rather, cannot exist. Since it makes the claim that God cannot exist, therefore pointing to the prospect that God doesn't exist, but to assure that God doesn't exist, would need evidence. This hits a problem, since you cannot find any evidence that would disprove God's existence, then there is no reason to presume that God cannot exist." Again, the arguments for hard atheism were noted in the above, they are not empirical in nature, they use the nature of the definition of God to show that it is either inherently contradictory or that the observation of existence is not what would be expected if there is a God. "In fact my opponent has made a fallacy in his distinction, he said that an agnostic is someone who believes that something is unknowable, and that a weak atheist is someone who suggests that there is no evidence for the existence of God. But this is simply false, an agnostic can also say that there is either no evidence (or is evidence) for God and against God, yet still be an agnostic and assume that God existence is simply unknowable." Yes, again there is a distinction here, atheism is a position on if an assertion (there is a God) is true or false, agnosticism is a position on if the truth of assertion is known or further can be known. [2] [3] Thus yes, one could be an agnostic theist, or a gnostic atheist or any other combination. "Thus if there is no God (atheism is true), then logic and reason do not exist either, concluding that atheism is illogical." To quote : "Logic is the discipline that studies this distinction—both by determining the conditions under which the truth of certain beliefs leads naturally to the truth of some other belief, and by drawing attention to the ways in which we may be led to believe something without respect for its truth. This provides no guarantee that we will always arrive at the truth, since the beliefs with which we begin are sometimes in error. But following the principles of correct reasoning does ensure that no additional mistakes creep in during the course of our progress. " [4] Is God anywhere required for that? To end dealing with certainty, logic and what is and what is not - I will quote from a man who inspired me, among others, to take the path I did, Richard Feynman : "Some years ago I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers — because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers! I said "I don't think there are flying saucers'. So my antagonist said, "Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it's impossible?" "No", I said, "I can't prove it's impossible. It's just very unlikely". At that he said, "You are very unscientific. If you can't prove it impossible then how can you say that it's unlikely?" But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible. To define what I mean, I might have said to him, "Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence." It is just more likely. That is all. " [5] [1] http://www.rep.routledge.com... [2] http://dictionary.reference.com... [3] http://atheism.about.com... [4] http://www.philosophypages.com... [5] http://en.wikiquote.org...