[Deleted. Almost completely off-topic.]

Surely in the beginning of mankind's intellectual awareness, natural curiosity caused people to seek answers to the inexplicable, and to provide some potential explanations. It is also reasonable in those circumstances to "pray" or make offerings to contrived or "imagined" forces behind the elements, the seasons and the natural world.

Perhaps the answer to God's existence though, really lies within mankind, within the "miracle" of intellectual curiosity and ingenuity, of discovery and inventiveness; with offerings to "God" simply an expression of thankfulness for these "gifts".

From early beginnings it is clear that some leaders have sought to embellish, to give their followers hope, or explanation or reason for their decisions, rules or edicts - purportedly for the good of the group. It is clear that such embellishing has been taken to extraordinary lengths through mankind's history, and in some ways used and abused for selfish or protectionist reasons, with the inevitable result that "religion" has acquired an unholy reputation in some quarters. The best of intentions hijacked.

Religion should be a celebration of humanity, of being, of thankfulness, of community, and not a cause for division or divisiveness. Awareness, knowledge, material affluence and a high degree of future assurance has enabled many to cast off the inner intellectual connectedness with the greater community of mankind, and to focus only on the material world and on self. Where such preconditions do not exist, belief prevails, but sorely tainted by jealousy and covetousness. Corruption and material greed have displaced good intentions - the "God" of the cosmos replaced by the individual god, of self.

The "miracle" of our being, our Earth, and our universe may not be reason to believe in a creator, but surely to be thankful, and to express our gratitude for our good fortune by husbanding our environment and all its inhabitants including our fellow man. What purpose our abilities? To conquer? Or to serve? Selfish, or selfless?

Believing in some deity is not going to make us better people.If god does exist,why would he/she be bothered with such pathetic creatures as us, who wage war for profit and use a debt based monetary creation system to enslave and starve the planet.

The Catholic Church is said to worth over $ 200 trillion.Look at the injustices it has done in the name of god over the centuries.

GrahamY, Wednesday, 19 Oct, 3:24:36pm

Pls see my post @ 7:34:13am re Craig's ability to manipulate any argument ...

McReal, John Turner et al

Apart from the bus advertising issue in the UK which I accept, the fact that Dawkins argues that saying there is no God is also a position of faith, suggests that the answer is not definitive. I see that as a cop out. Religious leaders don't say there is 'probably' a God.

BTW 99.9% - show me how that number is worked out? Its simply ludicrous to quote a percentage.

It is my distinct impression that atheism is an attempt by some to alleviate their fear of a punishing God which is a primitive misinterpretation of religion.

I did see your post McReal, but it's a non-point. If that is what Craig does, then Dawkins should be able to make that abundantly obvious and therefore win the debate.

Mind you, I've only watched one video of Craig debating and he was honest and to the point about his position on creationism, so perhaps you could give us an example of how he has manipulated an argument.

Without that it could be just an unsupported assertion.