It is better to believe in the God of the Bible than to be an Atheist

Rebuttal: Con claims that I start my resolution with an "arbitrary idea". Arbitrary according to who? There is a lot of historic evidence for Christianity so Christian belief did not result as a matter of chance or some random process. Perhaps Con should provide the evidence for his speculation. The absurdity here is to say Christianity came about because of chance when in fact it was based on the Hebrew Scriptures that are thousands of years old. Hardly a random process that originated just over 2000 years ago. It is not my belief that Allah is all merciful, it is a Muslim belief. My belief is that the Muslims and Quran contradicts itself on the issue of salvation or accountability if you will. The general statements made by Con that Christianity contradicts itself should be more specific to the debate. Perhaps Con can substantiate his argument from examples from the New Testament where it contradicts itself on salvation (Using a KJV of course). Keep in mind that a fulfillment in the New is not a contradiction of the Old when it was stated in the Old there would be a New "Testament". Again, I fail to see how "endless divisions between denominations within Protestantism" has anything to do with this debate. After all we are debating the Bible view versus the atheistic view. My opponent so far addressed issues pertaining to different religions and has yet to show why Atheism is better based on the resolution provided. What"s so bad about experiencing a life where suffering ceased as opposed to not existing and therefore not experiencing it? His examples are fruitless because he compares a God with another God when the actual resolution is God and accountability versus no God and no accountability. Two wrongs do not make a "right" but it seems Con thinks it can. It"s like saying it is acceptable for a husband to cheat on his wife when she is also cheating. No it is not, they are still both guilty of cheating. I have pointed it out already and respond the same based on Con"s rebuttal that if the Quran is true then no Christian or Atheist will go to a Muslim hell, therefore my argument stands that Con"s argument is irrelevant to the resolution. I understand Con"s reasoning behind the anti-god and my response was that it is illogical to reason for non existence but including accountability (in other words heaven or hell) in the same example. Con says: "There is no contradiction in the idea that God both exists and sends people who believe he exists to hell". This statement is not entirely correct. Within the Christian religion people may believe He exist but add or subtract from what is to be believed to gain eternal life. This is different from the resolution in this debate because the Atheist rejects belief entirely rather than arguing for belief specifics. Eternal life is conditional and not a matter of God overruling himself. If you do what God requires then He promises to be faithful to reward those who comply. As can be inferred I do not believe that this is true of Islam. The unknown anti-god or rather another God that may exist and have different conditions for rewarding people is again comparing a God with another God and do not apply to the resolution made. Jesus Christ is proof of God. The word "Christ" is a title given to denote God who came in the flesh. Jesus Christ means Jesus who is God. It was prophesied thousands of years before the actual event occurred in the OT that the Messiah would come and that He would fulfill certain things that will identify Him as such. Con"s answer regarding miracles is based on his perception to try and weaken the historic evidence for it. Since Con reason for evidence, let him then in this case, provide evidence of a historic nature that will counter the historic evidence we know of instead of giving his interpretation and speculation of what actually happened. Con states: "A miracle will always be a less likely explanation of the evidence than that the author was mistaken or lying." The usual explanation for the origin of the universe is the Big Bang. Something out of nothing is a very big miracle. All the laws of nature had to be disregarded and broken in order for the Big Bang to have taken place. So, are they lying about the Big Bang? I have argued against this before in Debates referring to Hume"s arguments and will leave it there for now. Finally, one sided interpretation is usually a fallacy. Why should we ALWAYS believe that "A miracle will always be a less likely explanation of the evidence"? Is there some universal absolute rule for this in the Atheistic mind set? Con states that I rely only on the Bible for historic evidence but this is not a true representation of what I said. We have testimonies from the Bible, Church Fathers and non-believers who attest that Jesus Christ lived. Notice that they refer to him usually as "Christ". The testimonies of believers and non believers make the usual wild speculation of a "conspiracy" quite improbable. I stated: "..Christian religion is supported by historical evidence and not some wild invention as is suggested", I never claimed that only the Bible was my source for historic information. As mentioned before, the aim of the resolution is to compare specific beliefs with each other to determine which belief is better to hold. You go by what is stated to determine what gives the best options to you or is more advantageous to you. Accountability is the cause that has two effects. Therefore the primary concern is regarding the probability and reasonableness of the proposed cause. My point here was that you seem to say that the effect was determining the cause which is not the case. It"s more a question of emphasis I suppose. In Pascal"s wager the emphasis is on someone who MUST wager. Although he believed in the Christian God he reasoned for a God in general where accountability based on specifics where not the emphasis. To compare this argument with another "Christian" view (for instance the Watchtower Society) the specifics will change a bit. To explore the reasonableness further of what Con propose let"s take the law as an example. Does going to jail or not determine the law or does the law determine whether you go to jail or not? Notice that the originator of the law is also not the emphasis. There is a threat of jail but that is quite reasonable and acceptable within all societies but when it comes to God somehow it becomes unreasonable. Usually the people who are guilty of transgressing the law and face the consequences will have a problem with the law but the law remains regardless. Is it logical to tell a Judge: Jail is a bad place therefore you should not have a law that can send people there? Is it logical to tell a Judge: A human made the law and all humans are not perfect therefore the law is also not perfect and should be discarded? The threat argument made by Con and many other Atheists all of the sudden seems to be very unreasonable. If no God exists, then sending someone to jail for life is the same as God sending people to hell for an eternity, but the Atheist apparently do not care about the fate of people who has to serve life sentences and will even agree they deserve it (depending on your moral standards of course). It is interesting how you word the negative atheism definition. Theist arguments are logical and hold merit because it complies with the rules of logical arguments. The actual structure however does not determine "successful". Based on individual perception the argument will be "successful" in convincing someone or not. I have stated that there is historical proof for God. This is quite different from philosophical and scientific arguments. The Debate resolution does not require me to prove God exists for the proposition to be more logical than the Atheist view because the argument recognizes that the Bible view could be wrong. However, keep in mind that the atheist has a 50/50 chance of escaping accountability where as the Bible believer is 100% safe whether right or wrong compared to the Atheists position. I believe in a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. However, I find that these concepts are usually differently defined by an Atheist than what I perceive it to be. It is definitely a Debate on its own and not applicable to the present resolution. Lastly, I would like Con to answer the following question to demonstrate the absurdity of his supposed problem of evil relative to existence. Here is the question: Since you believe God does not exist, then in the absence of God, why does evil exist?