new

"But Crazy, Dawkins, Provine and Ruse didn't SAY that there could be no moral values without God. "

You WISH they weren't saying what they are saying. and, thus far, you have provided no counterargument - just wishful thinking. And, it is delusional, because on atheism, the universe is just headed for a slow cold dark death, and nothing you do will matter in any ultimate moral sense.

'"you have NEVER - not even once - said why God is necessary."

Sure I did: without an Objective Moral Standard there can be no objective moral values or duties. It is quite simple, for those willing to listen.

"because God cannot be proven"

What?!? I have given you lots of arguments in favor of the God Hypothesis and you have given me no arguments, other than wanting to be your own "god" that He doesn't exist. In fact, merely the fact that you are spending so much time debating me on this subject is proof of God's existence: you are behaving as if your life has an objective purpose but such does not exist on atheism. (See slow cold dark death of universe.) You are actually denying your atheism, pretending that your life has an objective meaning - by evangelizing theists. :-)

"If I give you evidence and you don't believe it, it doesn't mean I haven't given you evidence. I have objective values and I have no God."

Merely saying that you have objective values is not proof that they exist, any more than my saying I have a billion dollars is proof that it exists in my bank account.

"Isn't that really your problem - you are so intent on telling me what I believe rather than actually listening to me that you can't handle the truth?"

I don't actually care what you believe. I care what is objectively true. What you believe is a measure of your feelings and psychological state - I am not interested in that - I am a theist, in search of truth, not feelings. That is a huge difference from my life as an atheist, I might add.

"Because we are human beings with c onsciences, empathy, a sense of belonging, a sense of place, a sense of purpose, a sense of how to co-exist with our fellow human beings, a sense of what works best for us all to live together harmoniously."

None of those things are objective, - they are ice cream flavors that vary across individuals. Some like Hitler, others like Ghandi. A sense of purpose is not any objective purpose - it is just a grand delusion, on atheism. How can anything objectively matter when there will be no one around to remember it or you for that matter?

"What a waste of a g ift this life is under that way of thinking."

Life IS a waste on atheism. It is a big accident which has no ultimate meaning. It is absurd. Look at the universe around you: if that is all there is, then it is a huge waste. And you are a speck of a dot of waste, on atheism. Why are you pretending your life means anything, other than whatever you want to make up out of thin air - to satisfy a fairy tale of yours?

"We are not insects. Next."

Nice try, but take it up with Darwin. He realized full well that we could be insects in a subjective moral sense if evolution had taken a different turn, and, BTW, aren't insects our cousins or something?!? :-) You have not answered the question as to why Darwinian evolution is not just one giant craps table, and due to that, there are no objective moral values and duties? Darwin understood.

"We are not other animals, either. Our brains don't work the same way."

That is twice it sounds as though you are distancing yourself from macro-evolution, do I have that right? I thought we were just animals evolved to a different species, no better or worse? It almost sounds like you are saying, twice, that human beings are supernaturally different from insects and lions, not merely physically different? Speaking of lions (scroll down for more good images):

http://www .powerlineblog .com/archives/2015/08/zebra-lives-matter.php

"I don't think it's intellectually honest of you to tell people who are living perfectly happy lives under s ecular humanism that they are miserable failures."

I never said that. I said that you are deluding yourself into thinking your life has objective moral value and purpose and meaning. (And, for some strange reason, 97% of atheists do not give the same consideration to the human in the womb.)

I know drunks and drug addicts who thought they were living perfectly happy lives too. They are as deluded as atheists. :-)

"All right, under the condition that you ditch the annoying smilies."

OK, but you didn't warn me before this, so that is why I have annoying smilies above. (Uuugh! I SO want to put an annoying smiley here!)

"Premise 1: You, the fundamentalist Christian, require a God in order to claim moral objectivity. Premise 2: The moral objectivity you claim is actually moral SUBJECTIVITY as laid out specifically by your God in your Bible. Premise 3: God's subjective commands can involve killing, torture, murder, and other unsavory and amoral things. Conclusion: You are amoral, subscribing to the whims of a cruel and jealous God."

It would be nice to have these in IF-Then form, but OK, I will consider this as a step-wise proof. I would probably reword Premise 1, but I will allow it.

Premise 2 is invalid. Even if you think that the Bible is a rule book (hint: it's not), then you would need to show that. How is it that God's Rule Book could pos sibly be subjective, since He is the Objective Moral Standard? Even if you believe that He is cruel and mean and all, how can that be subjective? What Higher Standard are you appealing to? Not God. Perhaps (yourself)?!?

Premise 3 is also invalid, since it includes "subjective" and it smuggles in you placing your objective moral values and duties above God's, which by the definition of "God" cannot be true. Same for the conclusion and, BTW, there are no rules of logic that would apply, even if Premises 1-3 were true, that would lead to the Conclusion. If I am wrong, please state the propositional logic rule that applies.

"I get morals from my family, my upbringing, and my developed sense of empathy."

Yes, but those are not objective. Hitler got his morals that way too, as did Stalin. Hitler had tremendous empathy for the Aryan race.

"Dawkins, Provine, Ruse and anyone else you'd care to name puts value on the loved ones in their lives."

Oh sure, but they are stealing from theism to do so. They are denying their atheism and pretending that their lives, and those of their loved ones, have objective moral value, purpose, and meaning. This is why atheism is totally unlivable. For the atheist to spend this much time debating a theist, he MUST believe that there is something objective about that purpose. But, on the slow cold dark death of the universe, such objectivity means nothing of course.

(attempting to prove God exists)

Kalam Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God:

Premise 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Premise 2. The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, the universe had a Cause.

God is the (first uncaused) Cause. We know that since space, time, and matter had a beginning at the Big Bang, this Cause MUST transcend space, time, and matter. In other words, the Cause must be spaceless, timeless, and non-material. We also know that this Cause MUST be immensely powerful, right, in order to create 100 billion galaxies out of (literally) nothing?!? We can also surmise that this Cause must be personal, in some sense, as It has chosen to create, and only personal agents can create, to our knowledge. Moreover, this Cause has chosen to create (or allow the creation of) persons (that's us!) - indicating strongly that It is personal.

This Cause is also self-existing, right? We know that either the universe (or multiverses, if they exist) are self-existing OR the Cause of same is self-existing. (Those are really the 2 options we have.) But, since the secular data points toward the universe having a beginning (and overwhelmingly so), then we must conclude that the First Uncaused Cause is self-existing.
There is also a way to argue that this Cause is immutable or changeless. Let's not get into that too much, but it's worth thinking about on your own, OK?

So, we have: spaceless, timeless, non-material, immensely powerful, personal free will, self-existing, changeless. That sounds a LOT like Yahweh, no? All we are really missing is omnispresent, omniscient, and holy. There are arguments there as well, particularly for the first two. In summary, we have e stablished, through metaphysical analysis only, many of the prime characteristics of the Judeo-Christian God (the Father in Christian theology) Yahweh. So, He was there in the Kalam argument all along.

Moral Argument for the Existence of God:

Premise 1: If there is no God, then objective moral values do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective evil exists.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, objective moral values DO exist.
Conclusion 2: Therefore, God exists.

Here are 3 more reasons to back up Premise 1:

1. Under naturalism, the only things that exist are those things described by and measured with science. Objective moral values do not apply. You cannot locate moral values in a test tube.

2. Why would human beings, under Darwinism, have any objective moral value? We are, in that view, just byproducts of macro-evolution and social conditioning - no objective moral values there. In fact, rewind the clock and play evolution over again, and you will, based on the randomness involved, get something entirely different:

“If — men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be any doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering.” Charles Darwin, “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” p. 100.

3. As for moral duties, we would have no more basis for them than any other animal. That means that, as in the animal kingdom, we can kill or rape for any reason whatsoever - animals are not restricted by some sort of "traffic cop" in doing so. There is no one saying "OK, Mr. Lion, you can take out that gazelle, but only if you eat all of him." :-)

Conclusion 1 is based on identity with Premise 2. If objective evil exists, then at least one objective moral value (evil) must exist. So, it is a restatement of Premise 2 based on the identity function of logic, perfectly acceptable. All we have to show Conclusion 1 is to find just one objective mor al value, and we did - objective evil.

Once we have Premise 1 and Conclusion 1, then by Modus Tollens, we necessarily have Conclusion 2. That's the second proof for God's existence.

Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God:

Premise 1: The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
Premise 2: It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is due to design.

Now, it must be noted that both Dawkins and Sir Martin Rees reject the possibility that it is due to physical necessity because the fine-tuning constants are independent of the physical laws of the universe. That is a key point: the G in the universal gravitational formula could, in theory, be anything - but if it were much different, no life whatsoever could exist - not just life as we know it, but no life.

Additionally, we would be forced, if what you say is true, to conclude that a life-prohibiting universe is a physical impossibility. That just seems to be a fantastic conclusion that would require some evidence. Why couldn't there exist a universe with no life whatsoever? Huge parts of our universe cannot support any kind of life. You would have to share some burden here yourself to provide a line of thought for why this might be true.

Even under M-theory, or superstring theory, the overwhelming number of possible universes are life-prohibiting. So, such a theory would seem to compound the need for showing physical necessity. It is an interesting line you are taking here, but I would like to see a little bit of evidence to support why that is true. I have provided several arguments against it, but I am open to your views in support of it.