one under god,

I think we'll just have to agree to differ on some points, however I can't resist commenting--your statements are basically theological in nature. I cannot find common ground as, in my opinion, there is no proof that the object of study exists,you're still filling the gaps in our understanding of the Universe with a creator.I attended a Christian school for 5 years so I'm not unfamiliar with your arguments, I was sceptical then I'm sceptical now. Your statements down to the paragraph beginning with "Darwin" are simply credos and are not open to logical discussion. You like Trav, have missed the point, I'm not claiming that Darwin said anything in particular, but that he removed God from personally creating the separate species on earth. The diversity of life on earth was once considered proof of the existence of a creator god, no longer. As we learn more about the universe God becomes increasingly remote.

Dan S,

In reference to your first paragraph,Yes,it appears all "three" expire together, since we have no evidence to the contrary, the burden of proof still rests with you, the belief in life after death is yours not mine. There is no scientific evidence for survival after death, why believe it?

Second paragraph, I understand the distinction, however I'm not religious and I find it impossible to "believe"

Third "putting forth certain opinions or beliefs as a line of evidence is reasonable", precisely. Christian beliefs and opinions have been tested and found to be not supported by the evidence.

Reference to the authority of The New Testament is not valid for infidels, where is the independent evidence for the events described within that book?

Michael wrote: “In terms of evidence, I would have thought that the New Testament puts at least a few runs on the board for the opposition to chase. For those searching for proof, could I ask what would satisfy you in this situation?”

The burden of proof is always on the believer. Always!

If I claim that I have fairies in my garden, then it is up to me to prove this. I can’t make this claim to anyone and then expect that they be the one to prove to me that those fairies don’t exist. That would be rude to say the least.

Proving a negative is often impossible, and I suspect this is why it is asked of Atheists. If the religious can convince themselves that Atheists share at least some of the burden of proof, then the fact the existence of the supernatural can't actually be disproven would provide a small bit of comfort for them in a world where the gaps that gods fill are shrinking by the day.

Mac is correct when he/she says that the authority of the New Testament is not valid for infidels. How much weight would Christians place on the Qur’an if a Muslim was to start quoting from it?

"Hawking's isn't the only opinion,"

Correct, but he is at the forefront and was claiming to speak for most.

"also his comments have absolutely nothing to say in support of the existence of a creator god, "

Correct, I never stated otherwise.....

"it's simply a scientific statement, the Big Bang is not necessarily a point in time, as we understand time."

Yep- singularities etc etc. However, everything that we know and can gather from science began at that time. The fact is, the big bang suggests a beginning. No one really knows what came before, and attempts at explanation have generally been varied and unsuccessful, but that's irrelevant- the point is, there was a beginning.

"why not an uncreated Universe?".

Because physics tells us that things have a reaction. Everything has a cause- it's a common sense principle first and foremost, and one which is shown to be completely true by science.

Re fine tuning, as I've already explained, these fine tuning ideas have only been discovered recently. It's been advance in science, not ignorance of science which has led us to understand how ridiculously fine tuned this universe is. Filling the gaps would involve letting our ignorance point us towards a conclusion, which is clearly not the case here. There are over 100 constants, all improbably fine tuned. If any of them were different, life, or planets and stars even, wouldn't exist.

Re Jesus, How about the gospels for starters? We have 4 books written within a generation or two of Jesus' life, telling us all about him.

We also have non Christian references- Tacitus, Josephus (twice) for starters- two historians of the day who were non Christian.

Absence of evidence is only evidence of absence if we should expect to see more evidence in the case that X exists. Jesus was a teacher with a small but loyal group of followers, in one small part of the Middle East, and was only around for 3 years (doing anything significant) before he was crucified. Most of his miracles were pretty minor anyway, involving few people.

Trav,

"everthing has a cause,"then so must God be caused by something, where does it all end?

I think we've exhausted the fine- tuning argument, only time will tell. I knew you going to mention Tacitus and Josephus, everybody does because there's nothing else. If my memory is accurate, Tacitus was referring to Christian beliefs not to any historical account of Jesus wasn't he? The mention of Jesus in Josephus could be the result of later interpolations, it's very weak evidence. In reference to the New Testament as a historical document- it isn't history. I have the same comment as for Dan S, your sacred text has no validity for infidels like me, INDEPENDENT evidence is required.

Regarding fine tuning, we don't need an explanation for the explanation. I'm simply posing that the evidence of the fine tuning we see in the universe, and how ridiculously well balanced the universe is (given all our recent discoveries of the constants), suggests there is a hand at work. Nothing more, nothing less. We shouldn't abandon what the evidence points towards- a supernatural hand- simply because our finite minds can't explain the best explanation.

Regarding the bible- Fair enough, but you still haven't answered my question about the level of evidence you require.

Why would you possibly expect to see evidence elsewhere of everything, or most of the stuff, in the bible? I can't think of why on earth you could possibly hold that as a reasonable expectation given the nature of ancient writings, the lack of literature of the day, the way the bible was put together etc etc. But I'd love it if you could explain so I could understand where you are coming from there.

Also, you do realise that the New Testament Gospel Accounts are independent, right? The bible is a compilation of writings by many different authors, it isn't a single source.

John was written well after the other three gospels, but didn't use any of them as sources. Therefore, John is a completely independent book. Matthew, Mark and Luke probably used similar sources and were written earlier, but are all independent in the sense that they have different authors. So they're independent in terms of authorship but not necessarily source, whereas John is independent in both. John was written around 90-95 AD. With the other three, estimates vary from around 65-90AD, with Mark being written the earliest- the consensus there is around 65-75AD.

Therefore we have four independent books all written within a generation or two, 30-60 years, of Jesus. All 4 agree on all of the key aspects of Jesus life and ministry

In addition to the above, in Mark Roberts book "Can We Trust the Gospels?", there's a list of 33 seperate things about Jesus which can be found in ALL FOUR Gospels. Not bad for four independently authored books, all written within a generation or two of Jesus life.

Now, you also mention Tacitus and Josephus. I've been through Josephus stuff in the November 26 Brett Walker article, so won't go into too much detail, I'll just summarise- Josephus mentions Jesus twice. The second mention is an interpolation, but the vast majority of scholars who have studied the passage say that Josephus did mention Jesus here, just in less glowing language. There's a couple of lines in the passage which are obvious interpolations, but there's no good reasons to reject the passage in it's entirety.

Tacitus is a Roman historian, who writes of an evil superstition spreading around, which died down for a bit and then after a while it picked up in Judea- this agrees with the biblical story, where the disciples didn't start the movement till Jesus came back and laid the spirit on them. So basically this in an independent source, who writes with a Roman bias (his serious Roman bias is attested to by all who study his stuff) and yet confirms some basic details of the story of the early Christians.

So we have independent sources in the bible alongside Non Christian references which attest to some of the basic details- which is exactly what one would expect.