Lance here.

Okay John, here's my problem with your last post: you seem to have concluded that there is no God because nobody's been able to convince you that there is a God. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with just taking a default position like that (my own is, to a degree, also a default position), but these are passive arguments. I'd like to hear some active arguments.

I can't say for sure that I have any active arguments in favor of Christianity - they're mostly just "why" questions that are only answered to my satisfaction by the existence of God, who made things the way they are. For example, why did the human race develop in one specific part of Africa (as we currently believe, anyway), but no where else? How could an animal species make such an enormous leap in ability in that place, at that time only, and at no other place and time? Why are there still monkeys?

Here's another example: according to the Bible, Jesus was dead, rose again, and then was taken into Heaven. The disciples continued to witness to this for the rest of their lives, even though they faced imprisonment, torture, death for it. If they were making it all up, or embellishing, or just trying to lure people into their cult, would they have undergone the danger and the pain that they did? None of them ended up rich.

I'm relying on the historical research of others for that paragraph, of course. I wonder if Steve can fill some of that in?

None of this proves anything, but it's enough to make me think, to make me realize I don't have all the answers, and to look around for those answers.

There are other questions to explore, of course, like why Christianity instead of Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism? Why Episcopalian instead of Lutheran? But maybe we should just stick to the bigger question of whether there's a God in the first place.