Atheism is more rational than Christianity

"Disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings" and "the doctrine or belief that there is no God" are the two definitions of atheism given by the quoted source. Both definitions essentially mean the same thing (as should be expected.)" Wrong. Both of them fit under the definition of atheism but they are not the same thing. One makes an active claim. One does not. One requires a burden of proof. one doesnt. Most atheists, nearly every single one you will ever meet, will never tell you they actively believe there is no god. What you will here is that they lack a belief in god. No atheists would use definition one and definition 1 doesnt even follow the words etymology. A- without/lacking/non Theism (root: theos)-belief in a god/deities. Literally: lacking/without belief in deities. NOT, the doctrine that there is no god. Atheists are actually petitioning to have that first definition removed as it isnt even accurate. "But if we cannot agree on the terminology, we can at least both acknowledge that "the doctrine or belief that there is no God" (whatever word we want to apply to that) is not more rational than Christianity." I agree. And so will every atheist you meet. But i adhere to and am only defending the later definition. "In the last round, I gave the example of a civil court trial in order to show that the existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven to an absolute certainty, but that we (the atheist and the theist) can both follow the evidence where it leads. Pro seemed to agree that we ought both follow the evidence where it leads, but I would just add that the statement made by Pro "True but in court in order for the defendant to be guilty, guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt" is false. My example was that of a civil court trial, not a criminal court trial. In a civil court trial, 51% certainty will do in order to win a case. This is the type of "trial" we ought to use when following the evidence where it leads in the case of God's existence." I wasnt aware you had specified civil as opposed to criminal. This analogy kind of went awry so ill let it go. it isnt the meat of the debate anyways. "Pro responded by attempting to provide geological and historical evidence for the past being real. This just shows a misunderstanding of the concept. Geological and historical records mean nothing when trying to show the past is real, for in the scenario I have given it is possible that the ideas of geological and historical records were placed into our minds within the last few minutes. It takes faith in our memory to believe that the past is truly real, just as it takes faith in our physical senses to believe that the external world really exists." Wrong. it takes no faith to accept my memory and my senses as accurate as i have the evidence of my entire past experiences with my memory and senses to lean on. I can also compare my memory and senses to that of others and i if they match up thats evidence that theyre functioning accurately. "Faith in God is no less reasonable than faith in the truth of our memory or in the accuracy of our physical senses." Nobody has ever seen or tested for a god. Yet we test our memories and senses every single waking minute. "It has been asserted that the idea of a transendent being is incoherent. I see no reason to think that this is the case. I can perfectly well conceive of a spiritual being who requires neither space nor time to exist. " How? Explain the ways by which this deity could transcend space and time, which in reality isnt even accurate as we know time isnt a "real" as it is woven in with space as the 3d construct of spacetime. Sure i can think of a deity sitting outside space and time in a really vague sense. Yet its the logistics of a deity doing so which make it incoherent. "Pro gave the following set of reasoning in order to support his assertion that God is incoherent:..." "This argument is trivially easy to recognize as false. It is not logically possible to create a finite mass of rock that cannot be lifted by its own maker if that maker is God. The idea of a "rock that cannot be lifted by God" is incoherent, in the same way that a square triangle or the smell of the color purple are. Showing that "a maker" (in other words, "a human") could chip off a piece of rock too heavy for himself to lift does nothing to show that the same would be true for God. The incoherence in this case does not apply to God, but rather to the idea of this very heavy rock that Pro attempts to describe." I dont think you really demonstrated why it doesnt apply to god so much as just claimed it doesnt apply to god because hes special. But this too is not the meat of the debate id rather just move on and focus on the other arguments. "Once again, I will have to ask you to provide some sort of warrant for the claim that it is incoherent for anything to exist outside of space and time. As stated previously, I can perfectly well concieve of a spiritual being who requires neither space nor time to exist. Furthermore, we have examples such as abstract objects (i.e. numbers) and objective truths. Both of these exist outside of and independent of space and time. So, it seems to me that there is no incoherence of transendence of space and time. " 1) see above. 2) Nobody is claiming abstract objects actually exist in our reality. Theyre linguistic labels not physical things. "My apologies for not making this clear. So the following statements are a simple misunderstanding of the structure of the argument:" Its wierd you say that because the arguments are actually in order by premise. Thats why i addressed them as so even if you didnt intend for them to be that way. "The first premise to the first argument reads "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." To this, Pro stated "Everything in human existence has come about through "creatio ex materia" or the rearrangement of pre-existing materials." This is false. Our universe is part of human existance, and it is incoherent that the universe itself could be rearranged from previously existing materials simply because there were no preexisting materials to rearrange with!" We dont know that. It very well may have. Once again this is the problem with trying to make claims about the origin of the universe. Without a PhD in graduate level physics and mathematics you cant even begin to have a real conversation about the logistics of it. Yet Christians seem to think word games and word based arguments can somehow rationalize god into existence in a realm of human ignorance. "The second premise reads "The universe began to exist." It appears that Pro disagrees with this statement, although I don't believe the reasoning was given. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem shows that any universe which is on average in a state of expansion (as our universe is) must have began to exist. Futhermore, one who asserts that the universe is eternal faces the philisophical dilemma of Hilbert's Hotel, which shows that the idea of an infinite number of things existing in reality (i.e. past events of an external universe) is absurd." My issue is that when you use the term "began to exist" the argument attempts to equivicate creatio ex materia with creatio ex nihilo. You cant claim that everything that begins to exist has a cause, as we see in our human experience everything does via creation ex materia, and then say therfore the beginning of the universe must be the same when the beginning of the universe would require (especially via a god) creatio ex nihilo. Its false equivication while also making claims about the unknown state prior to the beginning of the universe. "We have still not been given any good reason to think that "the doctrine or belief that there is no God" is more rational than the belief in god" That was never the intent. See first argument. Im arguing that suspending or lacking belief in god is more rational than holding belief in god.