Something regarding atheism vs religion - not sure yet

I was trying to figure out why this conversation was progressing so poorly when, from what I remembered, you seemed like a reasonable person during our email exchange. So I went back through our emails and realized that we have already covered much of this ground before and, because it's been over 6 months and I've written a ton of materials and have had dozens of conversations since then, I had forgotten. Had I read the emails before we started, I definitely would have approached things differently. But, it's a bit late in the debate to do much about it now. We are still running into the same roadblocks we did in our emails but we definitely didn't have to start everything from scratch, so I do apologize for that . Reading over your emails you seemed very insistent for me to explain my belief in specifically the Christian God, which I almost never do but, because we've been at this for a while, I will give you a quick overview. Once I do however, I already know how you will respond and, I am telling you now that I will not engage you on that topic as I have no interest in it at this time. Here's why: 1) I specifically told you in my emails that if I debate you, I will be debating as a theist and not as a Christian. Also, it is very clear in my book that this is how I always do things so there is no reason to be surprised that I am actually following my own advice. There are thousands of Christians in cyberspace you could have talked to if you didn't like my approach. 2) In a situation where I disagree with someone on points A and B and point B is dependent on a correct understanding of point A, I simply refuse to debate point B until point A is resolved. This, because I refuse to waste time in a conversation I already know cannot possibly get anywhere without addressing prerequisite differences first. 3) Because it is entirely my choice what position I choose to defend in a debate. I have even had debates with Christians where I argued as an atheist to make a point. I am under no obligation to defend everything I believe in every debate. 4) What atheists believe or don't believe about the Christian God doesn't affect me at all. I can coexist with atheists just fine just like I can coexist with Christians from other denominations that I disagree with on essential matters. What affects me and everyone else is when atheists portray God-belief in general as outside the boundaries of acceptable/rational belief systems. And this has nothing to do with the Christian God since atheists say the same thing about Muslims, Hindus or any other theistic group. (This is in no way an accusation against you personally. If this is not something you do then my book or anything I've said just doesn't apply to you and I don't really have anything else to say to you. My objections are for the people who do this.) 5) Talking about Christianity when there are so many, much more fundamental, differences does nothing except to open up dozens of cans of worms at the same time making it next to impossible to address any of the topics adequately. Since I am the one having to do most of the explaining, this just guarantees that I will never be able to get to everything. And, it gives the atheist room to wiggle out of situations; every time I am close to addressing an objection he could just switch to another one. 6) In many instances, the atheist could raise an objection in just 1 or 2 sentences that could potentially take me several pages to address. The more topics on the table at the same time the more this is multiplied and I just don't have the time to sit and type all day. 7) I believe that in any situation where two people disagree on a topic, this IS the only honest approach. They have to to be clear about definitions, to break the discussion down into manageable chucks, to cover the topics one at a time and in a logical sequence (if B depends on A, discuss A first) etc. If I was a Creationist who didn't know much biology and got into a discussion with an evolution professor, the honest thing for me to do would be to let him lay the foundation of genetic diversity, natural selection, mutations, the fossil record etc. instead of arguing against macro-evolution. That being said, I will give you just a brief overview of how I make the case for the Christian God: Let's say we have a scale where the closer you get to '0' the less likely God exists and the closer to '100' the more likely. We use reason & science only for now. At the beginning the scale is at 50. 1) I start with the deist god - a god who engineered our universe but who no longer intervenes. This in order to isolate variables since a god who intervenes through intercessory prayer is a different topic than God as creator. Here we compare hypothesis for how the universe came to exist. I expect that at the end of this conversation the scale will still be at 50. 2) I address the theist God. This God is just as much a creator as the deist God but also intervenes in people's lives today. My argument here is simply that if God intended for science to prove He intervenes, He would have revealed Himself openly from the start. Therefore, scientific detection of direct intervention cannot be expected and the scale remains at 50. 3) If after covering both these sections the scale is still at 50, I argue that it is just as reasonable to believe in God as not to believe. This is as far as we can get using Reason & Science (R&S) alone. ---- everything up to here is up for discussion; the rest is not at least for a while. 4) Given that belief in God is already rational, is there additional evidence outside R&S? Is there GIC, God Initiated Contact? There has to be something that is universal and not just for one of the religions. The evidence here is Providence - God intervenes in the individual's life in a personalized way. Every religion has people who follow the religion only culturally, but every religion has people who claim to have experienced God in a personal way: helped them in troubled times, guided them through life etc. 5) Compare religions - how do they address reasonable issues like suffering and evil, how do they explain human nature, what is the overall paradigm, is there logical consistency, what evidence do they provide for their claims, etc. 6) The Unique Selling Proposition offered by the Bible (in contrast with other religions) is Prophecy. It predicts things that already happened in history as well as things that will happen in the future that we can check by. Again, I already know how you will respond to each of points 4-6 and do have an answer, but I will not be discussing this now. Returning to our previous discussion, you made the point that a generic God is nondescript and therefore one cannot live according to the paradigm that it exists. However, your generic god is different than mine. Your generic god is simply a meaningless word. Like saying, I believe blah blah exists. The generic theist God I am describing is generic in the sense that we don't yet know if He will turn out to be the God of Islam, or the Hindu god(s), or the God of some other religion or no religion. But while generic in this sense, we do have a partial description: He created the universe and us + He watches over people and interacts occasionally. So if after looking at all the evidence that we can gather through science and reason there is still a good possibility that the generic God exists, yes, the correct conclusion is, we don't know. But people are justified in going with either option. First, because the generic God has significant implications: 1) If this God has created the universe, he is a powerful being. 2) If he has gone through the trouble of creating everything and us, He probably has certain expectations and we need to be mindful how we live our lives. Second, people have to choose how they relate to this question as it is more than just a mental exercise. It is a life question. Say someone gets to a fork in the road and the sign with directions is missing. The correct answer to the question, 'which way is the destination,' from the perspective of a mental exercise is, 'there is no way to tell so we might as well stay here.' But, in this situation, if a person chooses either the wrong path or neither path (I don't know so I won't make a decision), they still won't get to their destination. Basically, 'don't know' and 'wrong choice' have the same outcome. Many people, if facing the 50% probability that God exists will choose to live under the paradigm that He does and they are justified in doing so (and so is the atheist/agnostic in not doing so and theists should not claim otherwise). The problem however is that atheists are arguing for a much smaller probability than 50%. You might say you don't do this but that is the outcome of arguments like your Bayesian reasoning argument. And, if atheists don't have good reason for doing this but are painting an incorrect picture of what actually can be known using reason and science, this is detrimental to society and this is the part where all the debates should be focused. I'm out of space but I disagree with your point about using the Bayesian because this is something you use when you have previous data and no expectation of outcomes. If you found yourself in the middle of a desert, the fact that every step you have taken for miles leads to more sand is not an indication that this will always be the case since you expect that the desert will end eventually. You mentioned QFT as some sort of check-mate move when I've already addressed this repeatedly and you just ignore it. There is a clear distinction between God keeping things running and God creating things. We have no reason to expect ANY part of our universe to have a supernatural basis. This in no way implies that it wasn't originally created. Once created, the universe works fine on its own. 0 previous meaningful data to base Bayesian on.