Peter.
The problem is that it is Christian law, the law of Abram. The basic abramic premise. We are God's lawyers on earth therefore we can do what we like to anyone at any time and remain free of sin because everything we do must be God's will.
This hands down to our abramic legal system that says we can do anything we like to anyone at any time and provided what we do is legal we remain free of sin.
And then the abramic system goes to the every day level of we can do anything we like to anyone at any time and provided we are right and they are wrong we remain free of sin.
It is not the lack of Christian law that it is the problem, it is that the curse of Christian law has permeated through our society.
Christian law takes away personal responsibility. You make the claims about God's law but never mention personal responsibility. Not surprising because like the Pharisees before you following the law without thinking is enough to give you your place in Paradise.
In the main debate I come down on the side of the Atheists because by and large the atheists leave me to enjoy my position as an agnostic. But those Christians are always trying to convert me, even though it has been known and documented from the beginning of Christianity that it cannot be true. Original sin fails or Jesus fails, both cannot be true at the same time. Therefore Christianity fails because Christianity relies on both being true at the same time.
But Christianity being a false position, (I did not say 'lie' so the Victorian cops should leave me alone) does not mean God does not exist in some unknowable form. I don't know.
To know if God exists or not will require certain conditions to be met.
1. We must be dead.
2. There must be life after death (if not we know nothing).
3. Who ever is on the 'other side' must know the answer.

Dear Otokonoko,

The word “perceive” is too subjective. What I should have said was that there is no objective evidence in the physical world to suggest even in the slightest that there is a God. Nothing.

As for “treating people like children”, I’ve heard all the arguments for religious belief and even used them myself when I was a believer. They’re all the same. But if you can offer me something different, then please do. Although I don’t think you can.

If people are going to think like children then I don’t see why they shouldn’t be treated like children. There is nothing mature about believing in magic.

Going back to my point about there being no evidence for a god, I noticed in your following post that you used the ‘God of the Gaps’ argument as one of the reasons for your belief. This argument is a logical fallacy. It assumes that our lack of knowledge is permanent. So I don’t believe that you’ve provided a very good case against the suggestion that the belief in god is irrational. As I see it, it still is.

When asked by Napoleon why he didn’t include god in his calculations for the orbiting of our Solar system’s planets, the French scientist Laplace simply replied: “I didn’t need to”. Science has never needed to implement a god, so there is no reason to believe that it ever will. What kind of a lazy and impotent god would create life using evolution? Why would a god put effort into nothing but making it appear as though they weren’t even there?

Either way, the existence of a god would raise far more questions than it would answer.

But if a god did exist, then its existence would be as plain as the nose on your face. It would be obvious to us all. And if the Bible really was the inerrant word of god, it wouldn’t have any other competing holy books. Nothing else would be able to compete. It would be a book like nothing we could imagine, and well beyond our comprehension.

Dear George,

There's no need to apologise. I didn’t mean to sound emotional, more bewildered. But even if there was some emotion there, it wouldn’t take anything away from the points that I made, which I believe are still entirely valid.

Thanks for your reply, AdamD.

I think it's best if we agree to disagree here. I don't think you have provided any objective evidence that there is no god, but by the same token I won't pretend to have any objective evidence that there is a god, either. It's kind of like the belief in extraterrestrial intelligence - there is absolutely no evidence that it exists; nor is there any evidence that they don't. Very intelligent and well-educated people offer differing views on the issue - neither is irrational.

As for assuming that our lack of knowledge is permanent, you'll note that I conceded that I am happy to change my understanding of the world as new knowledge arises.

I guess, at the end of the day, if God is a con (which I don't think he is, but others are more than entitled to), He is a very well-constructed con. Christianity - and Catholicism in particular - is built around the premise that God is beyond our comprehension. He has no physical body, He is invisible and inaudible and, as the saying goes, 'works in mysterious ways'. With that in mind, His existence is almost impossible to disprove. Christians can just put up the argument that 'we cannot possibly understand Him'. That in itself is almost condescending. While I can accept this type of God, it is certainly reasonable for others not to. I assume that human potential is finite (after all, my cat is no genius and never will be, and other animals show their limits, so why would we have unlimited capacity for understanding?) and there will always be things beyond our comprehension. Perhaps I'm just settling for mediocrity. Either way, you haven't convinced me that I am irrational but I have certainly enjoyed hearing your views and look forward to hearing more from you in the future.

Otokonoko, you have put your finger on that which I find most irritating about organised religion.
As you say:
"...is built around the premise that God is beyond our comprehension. He has no physical body, He is invisible and inaudible and, as the saying goes, 'works in mysterious ways'...Christians can just put up the argument that 'we cannot possibly understand Him'."
And then they go on to explain exactly what he wants from us, and exactly what we have to do to please him.

What most believers cannot conceive of is that most atheists are simply sceptics, i.e. they don’t believe in anything without reason.

They will choose to assign a measure of trust to systems that have a proven track record or a body of evidence to justify that trust. If there is a significant change or new evidence appears that contradicts the previous position, the sceptic will adjust his view point accordingly.

I would offer a comparison with global warming.

Initial predictions (1980s) of what would happen to the climate were wildly inaccurate and measurements differed considerably from predictions. The sceptics (me included) felt that there was insufficient information upon which to base life altering decisions. Lately as the science has improved, there is a considerable body of evidence that climate changing is occurring, and the models are getting more accurate. I have started altering my personal lifestyle and actions accordingly.

I don’t believe in the judges or lawyers as PTB asserts, rather I believe that while the system has flaws, it produces reasonable results. Christian or sharia legal systems have a history of producing ridiculous decisions.

Likewise, I don’t believe that JC and his cohort were evil. Based on the fact that the gospels were written generations after the death of JC, and that they differ substantially from each other and from history in general, I simply don’t credit them with any degree of accuracy.

The reason that people put their faith in science, is that the predictions of reality by religion have been shown to be substantially false again and again by scientists as their ability to measure reality has improved.

From Galileo onwards the church has consistently fought against the findings by scientists and have only modified their positions when they became patently ridiculous.

I don’t believe god exists, but will gladly change that position when faced with solid evidence.

I wish Sells and others would stop saying that I believe in science and the state. I only grant them some credibility based on their track record.