When I first came upon the fact that ABC was going to have a show with the 2 groups debating, I got really excited. Being kinda on the fence, I looked forward to it. *its happening May 9th* However, when I found out Kirk Cameron and The rational response group were going to be the ones arguing, I became disappointed. Kirk's *regular cable* show is an in your face, your going to hell if you don't follow the bible kind of show. The Rational response squad, they are equally self-rightoues/stubborn/offensive. I mean, even if they are right about there being no God, getting people to purposely blast "the holy spirit" is wrong. I mean, I think it is just as wrong to do the same to some sun worshipper, who we know is wrong.

So, I think the show will just spark tensions. Neither one will really try to come to an agreed apon solution, instead, they will mock the other and call them delusional.

I was reading the message board up at ABC's nightline and liked two of the arguments. They nicely frame what I think. Here's the christian one *as they note, really from C.S. Lewis*:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him *Jesus*: "Im ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I dont accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic~on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg~or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to". CS Lewis, Mere Christianity. Your eternal destiny depends on what you do with Jesus."

And here's what an athesit *maybe agnostic* person said:

'Why are we here...??? How do we explain that we feel love, anger, joy and sorrow?' It is entirely possible there is no grand reason we are here. Even if there WAS a god.. the question is still valid however. God would, by definition KNOW everything that was going to happen. So why create us all, KNOWING I (for example) wouldn't accept Him, and would be eternally tormented in Hell? Joy can be explained by simple act of dopamine release. a simple neurochemical process. Anger.. simple.. sometimes we don't get what we want. If you get everything you want, chances are you will lack anger. Love ties into the dopamine factor. I am not saying there ISN'T a God. I don't have the hubris to say I know EVERYTHING. If there is a god, our three dimensional finite meat minds couldn't even COMPREHEND such an entity, let alone accurately ascertain what it wants. And how could a truly all-powerful being even WANT anything. I AM saying that all the gods (notice the lack of capitalization) created by man (Allah, Vishnu, Jehovah) ARE just that. Creations of man. We have piles of evidence to this effect. Not to mention that at BEST only one religion is accurate, and therefore the rest are incorrect. Do YOU have the hubris to assume YOURS is the correct one?

Where do I stand? I dunno. I'm lukewarm I suppose. And as Ray so lovingly pointed out, God would prefer me to be hot or cold. *some quote from the bible* I guess the concept there is that if you're hot, that's good. If you're cold, you can change that when exposed to the Truth. However, if you know better and you still are in between, its a lot harder to get the hot. I dunno...

If I am to be saved, it's probaly up to Ray. He is the only one that has the time to try and "save" me. I like talking to him because he isn't so, you know, like other christians, trying to impose what they "KNOW". I like to know that someone is willing to atleast listen to my doubts, not just flatly dismiss them because they are 100% sure. Its the whole 100% thing that actually makes me dismiss them. It is my belief that you can't be 100% sure. I think 99% is possible. But to think that out of the 100's of religions, that you landed in the right one. I mean, other people are 100% sure of thier stance, even its a completely different idea of what God is. And as psychological experiences show us, level of confidence in something has no correlation with being true.

Its too bad that no one can undoubtly prove the case. I mean, if there is nothing else, its not like the athesit will be able to raise the dead and tell them, hey, guess what, I was right, I'm just carbon molecues now. Though I think even then, the person couldn't admit it. I mean, I could undoubtly prove to a Hindi that the sun is not a god or some sort of angel from god, but just some super-heated hydrogen and helium and that solar flares are not god getting mad but just a predictible sequence that can be predicted. Still, they wouldn't all of a sudden change thier beliefs. That's my point, even with evidence to the contrary, faith withstands, for acknowledging otherwise would me they'd have to admit how lost they really were. The cognitive dissonance would led them to seek some sort of psychological shelter, going back to what was comfortable as oppossed to embracing the new circumstance.