It is better to live as a Christian than to live as an atheist.

I feel like my opponent and I are now just going around in circles on certain points. I will make rebuttals of my opponent's last arguments, and a brief restatement of my own positive arguments. My opponent has said that I misinterpreted his appeal to fear. I, however, am saying that appealing to fear is exactly as intellectually lazy as he suggests people are who convert to Christianity from atheism. And, more to the point, my opponent's distinction between what he means when he says "afraid", and what I ridiculed is not very strong. We all know what it means when somebody says someone is doing something out of fear. My opponent then states: "Again you are misinterpreting me. I never said that Christians DON'T question faith, I merely said that they don't HAVE to question faith, which according to Christian teachings is true because there is already a supposedly good explanation for everything. Please don't mince my words. I believe you actually agree with me on this point:" I added the paragraph that "agrees" with my opponent as a stab-in-the-dark at trying to understand him. I cannot believe that this is what my opponent meant the whole time. If that is the case, then my opponent's argument is practically self parody. Firstly, I will repeat that if Christianity is deficient because nobody commands you to be a scientist, or to be familiar with science in any way, then atheism is precisely as deficient, because nobody commands atheists to learn anything either. Secondly his explanation of how a Christian's lack of interest in science is apparently morally inferior to an *atheist's* lack of interest in science is not an argument, but a joke. I can imagine some Christian high school student in science class... "QUESTION #1: DESCRIBE NEWTON'S LAWS OF GRAVITATION." "I don't have to. God exists, and all the answers are already laid out for me." There may be a number of back-woods, fundamentalist congregations, way back in the Ozark Mountains, who feel this way. Some of those people handle snakes; I'm sure they are weird in other ways. But my opponent claims, "this is seen as a good enough reason for the majority of Christians not to question such things." Nowhere near anything even approaching a "majority", or even a sizable minority, feels this way. My opponent's argument on this is definitely worthy of ridicule. My opponent then seems to take exception to the fact that I pointed out that some atheists regimes have killed gay people, and that support for abortion among atheists is high. To the first point on gays, I will say that it is very easy to find information on gays being sent to gulags under the soviets, and persecution under the atheistic Chinese Communists. To the second point about high abortion support among atheists, I direct his attention to Gallup- "Americans with no religious attachment (self-identified atheists, agnostics, and those with simply no religious preference) identify as pro-choice by a 49-percentage-point margin over pro-life, 68% to 19%." http://www.gallup.com... My opponent then states, "Whether or not God has the authority to judge or not is irrelevant as I have already shown why I think his judgement is ultimately immoral." Well, no, actually. My opponent asked my *why* God gets to judge, and I told him. And I pointed out that just because he disagrees with God's judgement does not mean God doesn't have the prerogative to judge. I answered exactly the question my opponent asked, no more, no less. My opponent also says that I minced his words about cherry picking the bible, but his attempt to dodge his own accusation, when thrown back at him, is not impressive. When talking about God, he, like practically every atheist I argue with, will skip over large portions of the bible, declaring God to be this, that, and the other terrible thing on the strength of verses they find while jumping around the scriptures. Christians, on the other hand, are the only ones who assert their opinions about God after acknowledging everything about him, both the wrathfulness and the mercy. Atheists are the ones who cherry pick. Further, my opponent then states, " If a man beats a young child to death yet that same day saved a child from getting beaten to death do you think he would be forgiven?" To which I can only respond, if the State of California sentences your neighbor to die for something, is that the same as you sentencing your neighbor to die for something? The State has authority to take life. God has even more authority than the State. You, personally, have very little authority to take life. If this is immoral to my opponent, then fine. But God doesn't have to explain himself to my opponent, when his reasons seem deficient. God is all knowing, all seeing. Furthermore, He's a thousand times more forgiving than my opponent. God may have commanded Israelites to kill all Canaanites, but has my sinless opponent volunteered himself (or his child) to die for the sins of the entire world, offering free salvation to any takers? Does my opponent immediately and completely forgive anyone who asks for it, even as they continually commit offenses against him? Probably not. Yes, God has issued terrible, wrathful judgements (3,000 years ago...), but he has also shown acts of forgiveness that 99.9% of all humanity would be incapable of- and those he continues to this day, in 2013. The last time he did anything wrathful was c. 1,000 BC, give or take. Could we get a conversation about God that reflects 2,500 year old realities on the ground? Still...God kills hundreds of thousands of people a day? I did not know that! God is a bully because he allows bad things to happen? Bullies don't allow bad things to happen. Bullies *do* bad things that they shouldn't be doing. God only does *ahem* "bad" things when he passes judgement and issues the death penalty, which is entirely within his rights as President of the Universe, Chief of Celestial Police, First Chair Violin In the Cosmic Orchestra. Again, you can disagree with God, but it is not very sensible to say that if God exists, he does not have the authority to pass judgements and such. Lastly... 2) There is nothing in Christianity that tells me I am not responsible for my actions. Christianity teaches us that God weighs our hearts by our actions, so we should do good things. The atheist claim that religion means you are not responsible for your own actions is absolutely ridiculous. I am extremely responsible for myself. 3) Only atheists feel they have to prioritize their time on Earth? Christians have bucket lists same anyone. I look forward to Heaven, but I only have one chance to see the Taj Mahal, so you can bet I will be prioritizing my time here. 4) Leaving a positive legacy is in no way mandated by atheism, or precluded by theism. This point is ridiculous. There are several hundred million Christians (if not more) all through history who have left positive legacies after lifetimes of desiring to do good. Apparently, my opponent has not heard of even the more famous ones. As for my two positive points, I don't feel like my opponent refuted them at all, even though he claims that he addressed them already. My opponent did not address my contention that it is entirely feasible, even probable, that an appreciation for God's world can motivate you to ask questions about it more than the possibility of falling into philosophical nihilism inspired by atheism. My opponent also did not address my contention that Christianity's prohibition on what he refers to as "freedoms" actually leads to greater self development than the practice of these "freedoms". My arguments have not been successfully refuted by my opponent, while I have repeatedly shown that my opponent's arguments are all misconceptions, or fallacies.