God is Great.

I thank Ian for his response.I say that God's existence is not unlikely at all, provided that there are lots of info that He has given us. The information that I have talked about (which are the points that you have dropped in this debate) are prophecies about Israel, how 40 people wrote the books in the Bible, and the scientific accuracies.Con says, "If there were a god, he would be made to answer for so many crimes. He allowed more than six million Jews to die. Why?" It looks like Ian either did not read my argument carefully, or have read my argument at all. I have already stated that God gave us free will, which allowed us humans to commit various types of immoral acts. That would be our fault for using free will unwisely. Also, Con makes the same mistake of believing that God does not have a morally sound reason for allowing these bad things to happen. Again, how could you know this? Maybe there is a greater purpose for bad things to happen that only God knows of. "To claim that the world's 'evils' cannot possibly have a greater purpose is to claim omniscience yourself" (1).Additionally, my opponent brings up Evolution to disprove the story of Adam and Eve. However, the only problem is that evolution did not occur at all, and is simply nothing more than just an interesting theory. To begin with, there are many missing transitional links between fossils (2). This is called the evidence of absence, or evidence showing that the process of "evolving" never occurred. Moreover, the fossil "evidence" is contradicted by DNA sequences data. A science writer named Roger Lewin stated, "The overall effect is that molecular phylogenetics is by no means as straightforward as its pioneers believed. . . . The Byzantine dynamics of genome change has many other consequences for molecular phylogenetics, including the fact that different genes tell different stories" (3). A geneticist named N.A. Takahata also said, "Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination" (4). So, my point about Jesus' sacrifice (for our sins) still stands.The reason why God punishes people when they abuse their freedom immorally is that He is just. Also, you are making a straw-man argument when you say that God kills you when you mess up. The truth is that God is slow to anger (Numbers 14:18) and He did not always kill people, even in the Old Testament. My God resorts to killing people only when things are exceedingly bad to a certain measure, as implied by the "slow to anger" part. I also repeat that He killed people because He is just.My argument about the Ten Commandment still stands. I have already explained that they were ultimately for the betterment of men, not because God has personal ego issues. Even from Con's perspective, the "only things" that are "actual laws" are supposed to be more than not murdering and not stealing. He omits the part about lying, adultery, not honoring your parents (you are here because of them) and coveting. We must recall the fact that Con called himself a secular humanist. So, wasn't he supposed to consider things like adultery and lying in his list too? After all, a humanist is someone that is concerned for the welfare of other human beings (5). Furthermore, there are no 'bad' parts in the Bible. There are events in which homosexuals and disobedient children are killed, but then again, Con did not even bother to read my argument about God punishing sin as He is just. Also, the Bible is filled with "grotesque stories" to show us the failure and sinfulness of people. Lot wrongfully let his daughters be raped by a mob, but events like that were recorded so that we could further learn what is right and wrong (1st Corinthians 10:11). Likewise, there were 42 (not a few) kids that made fun of a bald prophet (not a mere man). The young lads expressed malice when they said, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" By saying "go up", the 42 lads were referring to how they wanted the prophet Elisha to be gone, or dead. This can be related to how Elisha's predecessor, Elijah, ascended to heaven in 2 Kings 2:11. Also, the term 'baldhead' was one of “contempt in the East, applied to a person even with a bushy head of hair (6). "Lepers had to shave their heads, so such a statement could easily have been a deliberate and malicious insult, something dangerous in a mob that can quickly get out of hand" (7). I conclude that my opponent made an error by saying that God sounds utterly ruthless. On the contrary, Deuteronomy 4:31 says, "(For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them." The only problem is that people choose to disobey God in a continual manner, which caused God to take just actions of punishing them accordingly. Sources:1. http://www.debate.org...2. http://www.icr.org...3. Roger Lewin, "Family Feud," New Scientist (vol. 157, January 24, 1998), p. 39. 4. N. A. Takahata, "Genetic Perspective on the Origin and History of Humans," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics (vol. 26, 1995), p. 343. 5. http://www.thefreedictionary.com...6. Jamieson, R., Fausset, A., & and Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (electronic ed.) (2 Ki 2:33). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.7. http://carm.org...