Xianity has taught dualism borrowed from Plato and Zarathustra along with with a perspective that "reality" must be built from the "inside" out.

Accepting presuppositions which should be questioned vitiates discussions on religion and theology. Metaphysical dualism / moral dualism / mind-body dualism -- no wonder so many attempts to understand Nietzsche fail. "Beyond Good and Evil" and "Twilight of the Idols" deserve to be approached as radical attacks upon dualism. (Not as tracts for atheism, immorality, and materialism!)

Xianity is a syndrome caused by dualistic delusions. However, the mistaken respect accorded it must also be swept aside.

We've all got cracks, some are just more cracked than others.

However I don't mean to discourage, although it may be circular evangelism is important for many other reasons; I would just like to suggest that when you hear something like 'Beyond knowledge. Beyond proof' it may be time to switch strategies, I suggest the socratic method as always.

Too bad. I was willing to take you seriously up until this point. You’ve swallowed a whole dose of creationist/anti-evolutionist bunk. If you ever want to do something about that, pop over to Ebon’s site. We’ll leave a light on.

However, I am sure that, like you, in the end I will still feel that same way.

Well, at least you’re honest about it.
me responding
well said; my responce at nakedpastor.com read;
Actually, I can’t, in fairness leave it at that. You make an excellent point. My statement can only give the impression that I have closed my mind to any new ideas. So I reword it for fairness.
At this point in my life I am comfortable with my current conclusions and, barring any new earth shattering evidence or sound deliberation, I will stick to this and focus my time and energy on other disciplines and studies. As I stated before, I feel these debates are useless and they almost never result in the changing of anyone’s mind. I repost this over at ebon’s as well. Thanks for calling me out on that one!
(my other comments cam be seen over there as well. This is definitely one if the better debates I've seen. Well done to all!)

Indeed. This reminds me of Skeptico's fallacy of "appeal to other ways of knowing".

Anybody that expresses such thoughts can also be considered to be quite small-minded if they will not even attempt to discuss that which they have been taught is beyond them. Know your place, and do not argue!

And rock on Alex, great points as usual.

One point I'd like to make to "Heidi" when she says "It always amazes me how you can just go outside, look around and not believe in God. To think that all of this is random, to me, is completely illogical and senseless."

It's just the opposite in reality. It amazes me that YOU can just ASSUME that it was all just created by "something" or "someone". As I've always said, 2,000 years ago I could understand people believing that it was all just created. But to believe the same ideas today, with how much FACTUAL information we have about the world, is honestly completely ignorant. We KNOW where things have come from today and how they've evolved. In the end in comes down to the same fact, Atheists require evidence (which in terms of nature we have plenty of), Theists do not. I'm sorry but having blind faith is never a good thing, no matter the subject.

Your response was great. There have been more comments since and I've waded in with this:

Hello all,

Interesting discussion, I’m a bit late but I’ll wade in if that’s ok?

By Heidi: “The reason I said what I said is that I’ve always believed that even atheism requires a type of faith in order to believe that it is the true state of things. To clarify, I would define “faith” simply as believing in something to be true. In this case it would be believing that there is no God.”

I’m afraid that your definition of ‘faith’ is simply wrong. Faith is “Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim” (Wiktionary). Without proof. This is what makes atheism the default position. We are atheists because we have no evidence for any gods.

By TTM: “What if you die and discover that there is a God? What if He at that point finally manifests Himself to you supernaturally? What if He says He longed for you to have faith in Him and to share a personal relationship with Him and to spend eternity with Him? Do you feel, given this new knowledge, you would be able to say that living your earthly life according to atheistic standards was satisfactory?”

The question wasn’t addressed to me, but I’d like to answer it anyway, if you’ll be so kind. I would say to God, “If you wanted me to believe in you, why did you want me to have faith? Why didn’t you just present yourself and say, ‘hello’? Why all this faith business? You presented yourself to Moses, why not me? You’re the all powerful creator of the universe, and you know everything, so you knew when you created the universe that I wouldn’t believe in you, because that’s how you made me. Why didn’t you just create me to believe in you? And if you’re all powerful, why did you either cause or allow such horrific things to happen to your creations? Why did you let good people die of horrible diseases or be killed in earthquakes and hurricanes?” I would have more questions, than anything else.

And yes, I could say my life based on “atheistic standards” was more than satisfactory, because I based my beliefs on reason, logic and evidence, not faith, gut feelings, wishful thinking and guessing. I valued human beings in their own right, spoke out for their happiness and rights to freedom, and spoke out against their suffering.

I think a point that may be confusing is whether someone who declares himself to be atheist means 1) I am convinced beyond all doubt that god does not exist (strong atheism), or 2) I have yet to hear a convincing argument or see convincing evidence for the existence of god, & until such happens I will take the default position of assuming god doesn't exist (weak atheism).

I suspect Heidi assumes Ebonmuse is a strong atheist, while somewhere on his web pages I saw him explicitly state that he was a weak atheist.