diplomat1824, Uh... yes you can lose. What if Islam is right and you've wasted your life on Christianity?
bartdogg, I'll try to sift through the mountains of pseudoscience you're spouting, but you'll forgive me if I stumble because this is much like playing chess with someone who wants to play checkers.
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Astronomical observations indicate that the universe has not always existed but came into being apparently out of nothing. These observations match the teachings of the Bible that also indicate that God created the universe out of nothing (see Ps. 33:6; Heb. 11:3; Rev. 4:11)."
It's not that the universe came out of nothing. It's that whatever is outside or before the universe is unknowable and cannot affect us. I've already conceded that if you claimed to be a deist I could not refute you because it's a purely metaphysical claim, but I will say that I would prefer to not assume I know what created the universe and that it does not necessitate a God. Even conceding this point only allows for deism and has no room for the tapdancing you have to do to get to theism and then to Christianity.
"In addition, the fossil record which many evolutionists site as the strongest evidence for their theory is, in fact, one of its greatest weaknesses. While many extinct species can be seen in the fossil record, even evolutionists admit that there is little evidence of intermediately life forms. The fossil record has not supported the theory of evolution by providing evidence of gradual changes from one species to another. On the contrary, new species appear suddenly and fully formed in the fossil record. Far from disproving the existence of God, scientific discoveries have made belief in the existence of God more plausible."
I'm sorry to tell you this, but this is just a plain lie. I don't know how much biology you've learned but any biologist will tell you this is just completely wrong. The fossil record is full of "transitional" species, such as Archaeopteryx and Cetaceans. Of course there are holes, but it's our incredible luck that we even have an extensive fossil record because very few organisms undergo the conditions required for fossilization. Evolution predicts that when we find fossils they will fit into phylogenetic trees, it does not predict we will necessarily find these fossils, so if we are missing a sample it is only a testament to the improbability of fossils and not to the invalidation of evolution. No evolutionist would concede that we have few intermediates in the fossil record, if they ever said anything of the sort it would be along the lines that there is no such thing as an intermediate species because every organism is itself an evolved organism adapted to it's environment. Otherwise, we would all organisms today are all intermediate species as well.
"The more science learns about the complexity and sophistication of creation the harder it is to believe that it all happened by chance. For example, science has discovered that one strand of DNA can carry the same amount of information as a volume of an encyclopedia. No one coming upon an encyclopedia volume in a forest would assume that random forces and elements had produced it by chance. Such a conclusion would be rejected as totally implausible. Yet, the atheists offer the same kind of implausible conclusion when they are confronted with the amount of information contained in one DNA molecule. Belief in the existence of God requires faith, but recent scientific discoveries have revealed that theism does not require as much faith as atheism."
First, I'm not sure where that number comes from, but I'll give it to you, because I don't need to know if it's right to show you that you're using a logical fallacy. This is just a variation upon the Watch and Watchmaker argument. I would not claim that an encyclopedia was not written and occurred by random forces because I know that encyclopedia's are unnatural. I could take a rock and extract more information from it than an encyclopedia but I would not say the rock must have had a designer because the rock is naturally occurring and there are rocks everywhere. Similarly, the existence of DNA is not nearly as unlikely as finding a naturally formed encyclopedia, because you're ignoring the fact that DNA is not formed completely randomly but through chemical forces and enzymatic action, and that DNA has the amazing property of being self replicating so once it does form it becomes extremely prolific compared to non-replicating chemical matter. Scientists have already been able to naturally form complex amino acids and this in a far shorter time frame. Is it that hard to see that in half a billion years that DNA could emerge and proliferate?
Your last point is also just a lie. It is highly debatable amongst historians that Jesus ever existed. What is clear is that of the major Roman historians contemporary with Jesus and the miracles he supposedly performed, not one of the Roman historians ever made mention to him and the fantastic things he was to have done. In fact, the first written mention of Jesus was decades later and even then he was only referred to in passing and not as a divine being. The evidence for the existence of Jesus is relatively sparse and the evidence of the miracles he was to have performed are even more so.
Re: Re: Morality.
I did say that humans act in self interest. It's just that we all mutually benefit from co-operation far more than we do from competition. Therefore it is in our self interest to co-operate. Morality is the mechanism which eases this co-operation and allows for the continued co-existence and co-operation.
If everyone punched each other in the face whenever they felt like it we would not have a functioning society. The reason you can't punch me in the face because you think it's right is because most other people don't think it's right and will punish you for jeopardizing the coherence of our society. It's true that a biological compulsion to rape may exist, but in our society the cost of rape far outweighs the benefit to your genes. You get massive jail time. We don't view rape as moral because unwanted pregnancies are very costly to the individual and to the community. It's cost and benefit that guide our actions. Morality imposes benefit on good actions and cost on bad actions. All that religion does is impose supernatural benefits and costs that guide your actions. You don't punch me or rape someone because God will punish you if you do and you have a biological compulsion toward morality. I don't punch you or rape someone because the law will punish me and I have a biological compulsion toward morality.
On the metagame
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