You are talking about First Cause. The "evidence" presented by those who favor "Creation science" starts from the premise that the one of the two Genesis Creation myths is "true" and then tortures all science and logic to try to make this happen. The same "reasoning" could be applied to any of the hundreds of other creation stories told by other cultures.

The God of Christianity and the Bible is an anthropomorphic God - the image beginning in the tribal stories of one of the first monotheistic religions and then modified for Gentile consumption by Paul's Hellenism.

The false choice presented by the believers is between an anthropomorphic God and Atheism - which in this argument always implies not as just a rejection of Theism - the God described in Biblical theology - but as a complete rejection of any transcendental reality and a reliance on an entirely materialistic view of the universe. That eliminates all kinds of shades of belief and really closes off religious experience outside of Biblical theology.

The question is not "is there a God". The question is what do you mean by "God""? The God created in man's image is so clearly essential to Christianity. The extremely tortured philosophical gymnastics that try to defend the idea of the Trinity while still claiming monotheism is intellectually and spiritually weak and hardly defensible to anyone who does not start with the presupposition that the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible. Anyone who knows anything at all about church history through and after the Council of Nicea knows the Trinity is about as convoluted an argument as could be imagined and has never been the subject of full agreement.

I am *very* familiar with the history of not only the Bible but especially Protestant and even Evangelical theology. I don't reject them out of a giggling ignorance but exactly because I've spent 50 years studying them - and other religions and philosophies - and find them to be very limiting spiritually and indefensible intellectually.

As to the fools preaching a 6000 year old universe I reference in the website below, and clowns and self-deluded charlatans like Pat Robertson and any number of End Times preachers, they are the ones who scare me as they are beyond both reason and any kind spiritual seeking. Surely you don't defend them?

Since you seem much more coherent than Rick, I would be curious about what Protestant tradition you accept. For some reason I would guess the Calvinist branch ...?

>>>After all, there is a 50% chance that God exists, since no proof exists for either belief.

That is simply ridiculous. That something cannot be proven empirically does not in any way imply equal weight to all possibilities. I've never seen you, but I don't think the odds of your being 10 feet tall are 50-50


>Independently on which side someone stands, the intellectual mind of humankind always strived to understand its purpose, its origin and the philosophical questions about eternity and God and how man is held responsible for their actions.
>And if someone believes in God or not, the question will always remain, how did everything begin? The famous "big bang" is not an answer because in itself it would only be a specific point in time, and not the beginning of time or matter itself. As long as someone is seeking and asking these question, I have more respect for that person than for someone who just dismisses everything, and just makes jokes about it for the lack of intellectual ability. It's like the kids that were giggling in school when the teacher discussed the biological differences between man and woman, only they are much older now and it does not seem to be so funny anymore.
>
>After all, there is a 50% chance that God exists, since no proof exists for either belief.
>
>>Since I have already been identified as deluded by Satan and his minions ( does this flying monkey look familiar?) I may as well go all in.
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>>I think those who haven't rubbed up against Christian fundamentalists a lot and only encounter them when Michele Bachman's head spins around or in wading through Rick's glossolalia about the End Times might not have an appreciation of just how deep batshit crazy goes. Internet to the rescue.
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>>Had to share this. Remember, these people get as many votes as you do.
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>>http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n1/world-born-4004-bc
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>>By the way, these folks think Pat Robertson is some kind of crazy liberal because he has been duped by Satan into believing the billions of years thing.
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>>Good website. One of thousands. Get into serious End Time Prophecy ( google a bit ) and there is stuff that makes this look like Scientific American.
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>>Put on your tinfoil hat and enjoy. I'm frankly tired of hanging back in the face of crazy.