I am SO glad they finally uploaded this one. Absolutely fantastic information.

Gary Habermas you are fantastic at what you do! we can be sure in what we believe in historically reliable based on those facts, and the resurrection is the core of Christianity as well as the death of Christ, 1 Corinthians 15.

Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead is without a doubt the most historically grounded event in antiquity. We can indeed rejoice that our Lord and Saviour lives !!! Hallelujah !!!

One of the best presentations I have heard Gary give on the Resurrection...

2 Corinthians 11:24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; ...31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. Paul was willing not just to die for the gospel, but to continuously live in suffering to preach the gospel - an even greater sacrifice!

Great videos, thanks!

Accusing me of "presupposing" things is just your go-to dismissal. It has no more merit and I'm not taking it seriously anymore. Yes, I think the religious view is correct. That is why I hold it. If I thought it was incorrect, I wouldn't hold it. Thanks for the deep insight.

Thanks for the upload

Comment. Love this guy. Great delivery.

dont scroll down any further

Habermas has done better, but I love to hear him speak. A bad day for him is still excellent.

I've read you're exchange with the melodramatic ' Requiem To Innocence ' ( should be requiem FOR innocence , but perhaps that name was taken ) . Your responses and questions were articulate and well thought out . Bravo brother . Personally , I avoid the infidel if at all possible , as I find conversation with them pointless . However we need men like you , and for that I thank you .

Wow, thank you. Squabbling with Internet infidels certainly isn't for everybody. It is definitely a trial of one's patience.

Did this event held in one sitting?

I never said anything about our choices influencing the outcome to begin with, except that God's methods for achieving that outcome reflect His respect for our indiviudal volition. As you should have noticed, where I said it matters is on whether or not we will become involved in God's plan. The problem you're attempting to raise for volition is not a problem because it exists in every possible philosophical worldview...

What is more amazing, the historical writing passed down to us. or the fact we still talk about it 2013 years later and the impact Jesus has had on the world, on both athiest, Jews, and christian.

Actually, both you and Gnomefro are right. I am a committed Christian, so I am sincere here. Yes, we were and are currently persecuted and martyred around the world. But, it is also true that when the Church(Rome specifically) became the rulers, there was much bloodshed and evil perpetrated in our Lord's name. That's just history, pure and simple. We can't bury our heads in the sand and pretend that we were always the victims, that's just not the case. Blessings to you.

Wait ... what???? There's evidence for the resurrection? I'm familiar with some claim in an old book, but I'm not familiar with any evidence supporting that claim.

"You approach this not as a field of study, so God can't be known." That is nonsense. I do not approach my fiancé as a field of study either and I most certainly do know her. "Putting him in the place of a person merely anthropomorphizes a metaphysical concept and keeps it locked away in ignorance." On the contrary, approaching God as a person is the ONLY way to come to any kind of real understanding of Him or religious concepts...

There's always a lot of disrespect and hate towards God and believers.

Employers are engaged in an economic exchange. I'm not hiring God, or my parents, or my fiancé for a job, so I'm not going to be taking that approach with them. "The whole point I made about seeing people on other levels other than utility was completely ignored." You've yet to demonstrate that you meant any of that lipservice.

I'm glad you've finally admitted you have presupposed belief that is religiocentric and that despite criticisms that its the only correct view. This is why you want to take this on as a field of study not as a person, because when dealing with religious pluralism and different conceptions of this idea it makes no sense what so ever.

agreed!!!

...How can we claim to have free will when every possible choice we make ultimately ends in death? How can we claim to have free will if our choices do not change the phyiscal laws of the universe? How can we claim to have free will in a society full of laws and police and prisons? To insist that free will requires control over the consequences (or lack thereof) of our choices is to create a situation in which it is impossible by definition for free will to exist.

There is a difference between foreknowledge and predestination. Predestination would mean that God predetermined what someone would do. Foreknowledge is knowing what someone will do of their own volition.

That doesn't follow at all. Knowing an all-knowing being doesn't make ME all-knowing, any more than my knowing a really talented basketball player makes me a really talented basketball player. And like knowing a person, my relationship with this being is going to differ from another person's relationship. It may differ in ways that are complimentary, it may differ in ways that are not. But there is no reason whatsoever to assume that any relationship with this being is going to be total.

15 minutes in I'm left wondering when he'll ever get to evidence that a resurrection happened. Surely even believers must find it weird that someone would be off topic for so long on what should be the critical central point of his entire talk. (But seriously, can anyone provide a timestamp where any extrabiblical evidence of a resurrection is presented at all? And if no such evidence exists, can we just agree this isn't an idea worth believing? When you have all of reality on one side (showing us people don't come back from the dead) and one single book claiming the opposite with no supporting evidence, that's a problem.)

A lot to unpack here: 1) If you're not an atheist, what are you? 2) Actually God did instruct us in what we need to know to solve global problems. "The Christian ideal has not be tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." 3) I do think you have to be informed about a subject to have a valid opinion, yes. I make no apologies for not excusing ignorance.

Sheesh... 20 mins in and I haven't heard a key point yet. I hope he has improved since this video.

People are fundamentally incomprehensible, no matter how well you know them, because you cannot see and experience the world through their eyes. You will never experience life as I experience it, and that makes me incomprehensible to you (you've already expressed a few times now how flabbergasted you are that I don't share your view of the world). That doesn't mean we can't ever know someone else, just that we will never completely understand them...

Secular governments didn't come around till after the enlightenment. Theocracies played a major role in leadership in the past. Catholics and Protestants actually have been violent or hostile towards one another over who is more OG for centuries. This is one of the main problems I find with religion, its word always differs and changes across nations and time.

"Yes I know knowledge is gained by various deductive and inductive methods." Too bad that you apparently don't know about any of the other methods besides those. "the fact that you think only the Christian god could only ever be the right" Yes I do happen to think that the Christian understanding of God is correct. That is why I am a Christian. If I did not think it was correct, I would not be a Christian. Brilliant insights...

Neither do I in regard to free will, some have tried to change the meaning to mean freedom, freedom to make choices within our nature - compatibilism. If the plan is set, how will me making choices change that outcome? Do I have any freedom to change that plan? Freedom within a set plan is limited and becomes meaningless. It appears god wants us to think we are coming to him on our own volition, but how is that possible in this frame work when all paths have been already decided.

Species is defined - Biology a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. A computer program could be deemed as life - sentient life is all that matters, that which feels and reproduces. If you cannot define god how do you distinguish god from nature, where we don't understand how the universe came to be does theology answer that question or is science the best possible method we have to answer that?

"Might I also point out you can't have a relationship with a metaphysical concept" You might point that out, if you ironically want to repeat what I'VE been telling YOU. "You've taken a religiocentric view," Yes I have been taking the correct view. As opposed to what? The atheist-materialist view? Why would I want to take the view of people who don't know anything about the subject?...

...The ultimate goal is still set, but how God reaches that point has been adjusted from His original, independent desire by virtue of human volition. This distinction between antecedent and consequent will, I think, resolves the matter of God exercising His own sovereign will while still respecting the freedom and maturity that comes with the exercise of our own volition. One might argue that this places limitations on our volition, but so what? So does gravity. Volition was never absolute.

In everything else - science for example - such flexibility in opinion is considered a virtue. But in religion it is considered proof that we don't know what we're talking about. Except when we're all mindless sheep walking in goosestep with what we're told to think, right?

Assessing other people on their utility to you is dehumanizing and sociopathic.

Did you actually watch this video?

"If there is a god - purpose means a set faith that you cannot deviate from. Your path of meaning is predetermined. Can you pose a logical argument for free will with a all knowing, all powerful being who created you?" Because there is an all knowing, all powerful creator it does not follow that said creator would use those powers to stop one from acting freely. If one believes there is *Truth, the Truth may demand specific actions if one has specific goals relating to their existence.

Evidence for life of Jesus? Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Mara Bar Serapion, Tacitus etc.

The reason I don't believe is because I don't understand the proposition of "god" therefor I cannot say either way if I believe it. I cannot answer the question. Every definition of god is either a contradiction or there are no words to describe it. By definition, god appears to be unknowable. What is spirit? What is immaterial? What is it to be uncaused? This is what separates atheists from believers - lack of definition of god.

In a lot of ways, Paul had/has no credibility. He never is shown to have given accounts to the High Priest concerning the money given to him to finance his trip to Damascus and his reason for walking off the job and becoming an apostate to Judaism. It is my sense and my studies suggest to me that on returning to Jerusalem, Paul would have been arrested and hauled before the High priest and the Sanhedrin and tried. He never called on Gamaliel, his tutor and mentor, to gain credibility, validation of and support for what had happened to him. Though Paul acknowledged his former murderous ways, he never apologized to Peter and the other disciples about the things he had done in order to destroy them and their ministry. In fact, he never even made a plea to God asking for forgiveness for all the evil he had done. "Paul spent two weeks with Peter and James and it's a good bet they spoke about more than just the weather." Really? Not necessarily. Given Paul's history, I don't think for a minute that Peter trusted him. Those two weeks would have been pure hell for Jesus' disciples. Accordingly, Peter, would have had very little if anything to say to Paul. In response to any questions asked by Paul, the disciples' would have been short and terse. In conversations between them would during those two weeks would have been punctuated by uncomfortably long periods of silence. For his part, Paul would have felt out of place in the presence of the original disciples, who had claims to the fame of having been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry to the end thereof. This fact would have left the self-appointed Paul out in the cold and feeling woefully inadequate in their presence. One can see the threads of this feeling of inadequacy throughout Paul's epistles. Paul's standings rested solely on the unverifiable claims, which he himself generated and made. Given his past, he would have had absolutely no credibility with Peter at all. Jesus' disciples would have had little if any interest in what Paul was teaching to the gentiles. The disciples were there when Jesus stated the case that he did not come to the gentiles. They were there when Jesus, in effect, unaccountably called the gentile woman and all gentiles, "dogs". They were there when Jesus gave them the instructions to go not to the homes of the gentiles and they saw that Jesus kept his dealings with gentiles to the absolutely barest of minimums. Consequently, the disciples would have bent over backwards to agree with whatever Paul was teaching the gentiles in order to get him out of their presences.

Of course it doesn't make you all knowing, but if this thing existed it should theoretically be able to give you knowledge about numerous things and advance fields of knowledge exponentially ( but it doesn't). Also if this thing really does exist why would it allow massive confusion in its own texts and across cultures? The fact that we see this as a cultural conception means it is specifically rooted in ideology of cultures or in forming power systems.

I don't know if my qualms have been addressed further back in the comments. With the goal being to convince the least convinced "many scholarly sources" is not telling. Then his very vague answer to the first man who asked about non reliable sources Paul was incomplete, he should have freely shared non biblical sources for that bible based timeline of Paul if there are any. If this was so easy to prove there would be no doubt. Why is this man trying to use the bible to prove the resurrection?

No, I suppose you don't see anything wrong with assessing people based on their use to you.

You can think you have a relationship with an incomprehensible being, but the problem comes when actually proving this thing actually reveals anything. I find it even stranger you think people are incomprehensible. If this thing has properties that are not known then you ought not start giving it names or attributes especially to a singular cultural deity.

These questions have absolutely zero bearing on whether or not such an entity exists. Such an entity could have any number of reasons for allowing such confusion or for being able to impart all sorts of knowledge but choosing not to. To be honest, I've never understood why atheists appeal to moral arguments like this: God is confusing, and therefore God ought not to exist, and therefore God does not exist. From whence do you get the notion that only things that make sense to you ought to exist?

God would be defined as both, gods will and all knowing. God knows the choices we will make because we act according to gods plan and because of that it follows that god is therefor all knowing. To say all knowing means god knows what free choices we will make is a contradiction if our paths are determined.

This specific God claims to give miracles, raise the dead, provide divine revelation, and give out superpowers. How is that not like a vending machine? When I talk about value i'm talking about predictive power, if god can't be used to gain any form of knowledge or advance our studies and yet contains all knowledge then just how useful is this concept? How useful is it when thousands of cultures across time have no clear way of verifying which one is true?

Your stating that god didn't know whether we would choose autonomy or not? Therefor god at one point wasn't all knowing but now that we have used our ability to choose he is all knowing. Id ask - if Eve didnt eat of the apple god would remain unknowing and the human race would not be able to ever change that position? We therefor would have given up free-will and knowledge. If we have no knowledge, god doesn't need to be all knowing.

Not really, we have whole organizations that help us study other people from the science of anthropology, psychology, ect. We can typically find out a lot about other people and they usually aren't mysterious and incomprehensible. You may as well be ignoring the advancements in neurology, psychology, anthropology, social sciences, to keep this position you hold.

Those fields of studies would help us know who they are as well. Read a few anthropology books on the everyday lives of people from different countries and tell me that doesn't help you know who these different people are.

"Why do you continue to anthropomorphize a concept?" Why do you continue to abstract a being? The very fact that you asked this question demonstrates that you just completely ignored everything I told you about understanding the point of view of religious people. I am not forgetting about deists, et al. In fact, I quite understand why you bring them up as the only defensible religious position: it is a theistic view that conforms your impersonal view of God. Therefore it is also wrong.

"Because there is an all knowing, all powerful creator it does not follow that said creator would use those powers to stop one from acting freely." In order to be "all knowing" god must already know what choices we will make......how is there then "freewill" The attribute of all knowing cannot be switched off that is a contradiction, unless you wish to describe god as "sometimes all knowing" but that would mean god isn't the greatest possible being as god is also described as.

And the question of usefulness is wrongheaded and has no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether or not God exists. God is perfectly entitled to exist and not do what you think He ought to do.

How are you coming to that conclusion? I might be a doctor, a scientist, or a historian which would be of use to not only you but everyone else. Yes it is. You believe a metaphysical being exists, not only that a particular one to an ancient culture. You already have in mind the properties and aspects of this thing, but despite that its existence is in question and numerous other problems you've decided to think it is reality and not merely a hypothesis which would be more accurate.

We can not even define what a spices is. the definition of life is even hard to define. we define life as anything that eats, breaths and growing, fire meets all three of those criteria, yet its not considered living. and you're asking me to define God? I can prescieve God in science, nature and physics the only question that remains is how does this God communicate his self to us and how does it affect me. simply by asking and reasonable questions and learning is a good place to start.

Ah, clearly you understand this incomprehensible being. But in actuality if you have a useless concept then the question of its existence is indeed put into question. This is the whole point of ignosticism, which questions the assumptions made by everyone else about this belief. You have an all powerful being who knows everything but won't bother to share it, that is fantastic.

Disagreeing with you and being defensive are two different things. I will say it again, as simply as I can: what you think God ought to do is irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists. If God exists, He is perfectly entitled not to do what you think He ought to.

Those questions have nothing to do with whether God is a simple cultural conception, or even whether God exists, but whether any God that does exist is comprehensible. God absolutely could exist and be incomprehensible. What I find especially astonishing is that you're apparently deciding God's existence on the basis of His USE VALUE, which applies to no other thing in existence. You have no use to me, nor do I trust you, so should I then decide that you don't exist?

Population data give some broad strokes in terms of cultural information, but sampling Americans in general doesn't clarify much about my individual friends who live there. It is a terribly shallow view, and possibly even pathological, to treat other people as inanimate objects rather than as people.

You're taking the wrong view of how we are involved in God's plan. Our place in it is not to execute a final goal. That is God's to do. Our role is far more subordinate and qualitative. We are supposed to follow the teachings of Christ, to be as Christ in the world. Our role in the plan is not at all hidden from us: He came down here personally to tell it to us.

And now you're confusing antecedent and consequent will with whether God had knowledge of human choices beforehand. God's antecedent will does not mean that human volition and choices somehow took God by surprise. It is God's original DESIRE. That desire has never changed. God's ACTION is in the consequent mode because human volition exists. God had foreknowledge of the exercise of our volition, our choice for autonomy, and therefore has always acted in a consequent mode towards us...

The martyrdom of early Christain is a myth ? Have you ever studied the History of acient Rome ? Have you ever, read the apologetic ( Date in 1 century ) letters of early church fathers to Romen and Greeks emperors ?

...Let's pull this back from the big question of whether God exists and just look at understanding religion as a phenomena. The reality is that Christians do not look upon God as a scientific theory or a variable in an equation. We are not materialists and we do not look at the world, other people, or God, from a materialistic perspective as you do (both in terms of scientific materialism and capitalist materialism... you're guilty of both, and they go hand-in-hand)...

Actually they do, if gods are cultural conceptions of an ideological power system then that means thats all they are. If gods which hold all the cards don't bother telling other life forms knowledge then of what use are they?If a god is intentionally being confusing then just how trustworthy could it be? In any case if a being suffers from internal logical deficiencies then it can't exist like an all good being that commits evil acts.

In this day and age thats baseless, because people across the world can interact and still be of use to other people through the internet and other methods. Yes it is. You're predisposed to thinking this singular deity exists despite evidence to the contrary, despite the problems in religious pluralism, textual errors, and lack of god doing any sort of action in the world.

I brought up the question of usefulness because you have a god that knows everything but tells nothing, its people have no greater knowledge about the world than anyone else. This isn't something you'd expect from people who have a direct connection to the supposed creator of reality on a personal level.

...Predictive power would be an issue is God were a scientific theory, which He isn't. God is a person and must be approached AS a person. If you approach God as a scientific theory, then your comprehension of God or the phenomena of religion will be as fruitless as if you treated other people as scientific theories. When you go out on a date, do you assess the predictive power of your potential partner? Do you worry about how your family will advance your studies? Are your friends "useful"?

...And if that applies to regular people, how much more would that apply to God, who is Divine? I do know God, I have experienced Him, I worship Him and follow His will as best I can, but damned if I know what it's like to BE God. And I'll be damned (literally) if I ever reduced God to a cosmic vending machine the way you do. The use value of ANY living thing - especially the Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer of the universe - is a pretty shallow and capitalist way of looking at life.

Please just stop replying, the second I bring up the usefulness of an idea you get defensive. I gave a few examples, i'm not going to write out every single line of methodical thinking for you to get that I know there are different ways of thought or gaining knowledge.

Its not irrelevant, if you are presupposed to an idea with intense bias then debate is useless. I don't want to talk to you if you can't even criticize your own beliefs. Because i've talked to religious people before. I understand religion just fine, i'm just not interested in talking with you.

A lot of emotional objectors posting.

If you criticize or debate about a conception of God other than the Christian one, what are you doing on a video defending the Christian conception of God? If you want to criticize or debate the atheist conception of God, or whatever conception you have, then go to a website amongst people who share that conception. If you actually want to criticize and debate what *I* believe, as a Christian, then you are going to have to understand what my conception is. So yes, I can call you closed-minded.

You approach this not as a field of study, so God can't be known. Putting him in the place of a person merely anthropomorphizes a metaphysical concept and keeps it locked away in ignorance. Yes people do assess others on dates to see if they want to be with them, yes parents do generally help out in advancing students by helping them get degrees, and yes friends can be useful in all sorts of ways because they can be relied upon.

If God is a useless concept, then there isn't much reason to entertain its existence unless you want to use the concept for other purposes. I also don't see the problem in assessing people by utility, but clearly this is only one level of the way humans judge other people and does not entail the totality about the way I feel towards others. clearly there are emotional, psychological, and many other levels of experience which increase the value of them more so in different ways.

And you, evidently, mistook what *I* meant by incomprehensible. I wasn't talking about the laboratory study of human beings as material objects. Yes we do have a great deal of information about Homo sapiens as a set of data. But that doesn't mean that individual people are fully comprehensible to one another AS people. Every PERSON is ultimately a tremendous mystery to every other person. You are as mysterious to me as I am to you.

I'm already shaking my head. You've taken a religiocentric view, then presupposed that it could only ever be the Christian God, and now you're saying from what I see that god can't be studied. That despite having this concept, that it won't even allow itself to be tested. Might I also point out you can't have a relationship with a metaphysical concept

And here you are confusing human volition with the ability of human beings to decide (or escape) the consequences of using it. This is actually why I don't really like the term "free will," because our will is not "free." There are all sorts of limitations on it: I can choose to jump off a bridge, but I cannot choose to overcome gravity. I can choose to be a jerk to someone, but I cannot choose how they will react to that. So yes God's plan is set, our choice is how involved we wish to be.

A) No B) Irony, considering thats all you've done this whole entire conversation. Actual the usefulness of something does bear witness to its existence. The usefulness of dna helps us understand evolution and in general the field of biology. All of these concepts are useful because they have predictive, useful, influence on reality. This is why flagamagook is a pointless idea, but why say things like reasoning have usefulness in our understanding of the world.

Because it was a presupposition. I took no interest in it because i've heard it all before. Its like you're offended by the mere fact that God could be placed into a workable study. If god is a person then he ought to be able to be studied, humans can be studied so why can't metaphysical beings who supposedly interact with the world?

I'm not sure if your question makes much sense. I'm not at all impressed by the historical writings, I think it's just sad that we still have Christians(or other religions for that matter) and consider it a testament to human stupidity and I see no reason to credit Jesus with any aspect of Christianity. The magic Jesus in the bible simply never existed and if some properly downsized charlatan did, we have no way to reliably establish what he said given the outrageous lies being told about him.

One cannot find evidence for something that is not defined, what evidence would you need, where would you start? How is understanding a cell going to give me evidence for god? Say I think it is not chance, then is that evidence for god, meaning where lack of knowledge exists god is an answer? If one cannot define god wouldnt that answer be a non-answer, just more mystery.

Science explains or tries to explain behavior, substance, or interaction of matter. it can never answer how it come to exist or disappeared. science simply looks for answers about the unknown. in a way science needs faith or they would never expect to find an answer or cure. Try this, define whom you are completely in the allowed space of one reply, the best you can. the physical, emotional, personal, historical person you are , want to be in the future. they all have meaning just as you have

You're going to have bias regardless of what view you hold. But you showed your bias when you said god could only be the Christian god, you didn't even want to consider the other ideas or that it could be used as a hypothesis. Wrong, I said people could be viewed through utilitarian purposes because we assess people for various reasons. Also statistics.

Actually, what you deemed "anthropocentric" is common across the whole theistic spectrum. It's not isolated to just Christianity. However, you can't rightly complain about it since you're here on a video defending the resurrection of Jesus and talking about the existence of a singular deity. But yes, I am approaching this the right way, which is to see God as a person. The alternative is impersonally, which is the atheist view and therefore wrong.

Not to you. For a guy who complains about being generalized, mischaracterized, and misunderstood you really have no idea who I am. If I really wanted to talk to you I would've asked for your life story, but you replied to me. So do us both a favor and just stop replying.

Theology isn't the study of God per se. Theology is the study of faith. (and full disclosure, I have a graduate degree in theology) I also don't think that you are in any condition to complain about my holding a "singular" point of view when I INFORM you of how Christians specifically and religious people in general understand their faith. You are only getting bent out of shape because I am contradicting YOU and your assumptions about what God is and how God ought to be approached...

I am well aware of all of those things, but you are still missing the fundamental point, which actually explains a lot about your approach to God. Namely, if you approach other human beings as scientific problems rather than as people, then no wonder you approach God the same way. Having a scientific understanding of Homo sapiens in NO WAY WHATSOEVER clarifies individual persons AS persons. It tells you a lot about WHAT they are but not WHO they are. That is a critical difference.

No, the question of God's usefulness has no bearing on the question of God's existence, any more than the question of your usefulness has any bearing on the question of your existence. God is perfectly entitled to do what He wants and share as much as He deems worthwhile, without having to consult with you. As for ignosticism, it is a self-contradicting premise. Would that you were more ignostic about your ignosticism.

I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make thats why you're being so defensive. You have an all powerful being with a vast amount of knowledge, you say this thing does miracles and acts on the world, yet it fails to provide anyone with insights into gaining more knowledge about the universe, its steeped in ancient traditions, and despite having a following that following has no more greater knowledge about the universe than anyone else.

Well considering your bias I don't think your opinion would be of any use to me. You were the one that messaged me, if you didn't want to talk to me then you could've just ignored my posts. But seriously, you can't call me close minded when you think only the Christian god could ever be the right one or that it can't be criticized and debated about through other conceptions.

...So you can say "God is a failed hypothesis" all you want: my only reply is "of course He is, because He's not an hypothesis" & I will go on my merry way shaking my head at yet another clueless atheist. If you WANT to understand what we believe & why, then you have to have to wrestle with this key point that we conceive of God as a person with whom we have a love relationship. In our use, "faith" is a relational term, not an epistemological term. I have faith in my family, my fiancé & my God.

Then your basing this from a singular point and not really looking at it from other views. If you look at it as not a field of knowledge then you're ignoring the aforementioned others who believe different things, then you take the view that only you can be right, and god can only ever be a person. By not thinking of it as a field of knowledge then you pretty much eradicate the whole point of theology that gods can be studied.

If its incomprehensible then you couldn't have a relationship with it, if its not really definable and so vastly abstract then its not a very useful concept. Since God is a hypothesis I can judge its reality or in the very least its parsimony based on your idea about it. Unlike gods, humans do exist and you rely on them everyday for your continuing existence. Hence it would be unwise to think I don't exist when I in fact do act in the world like everyone else. Not a good comparison.

You defined the text book meaning of biology. I asked to define species as a whole. we have to classify them each in a different way, to even understand their relationship to each other. if you classify computer programs as life, we understandtheir was an creator, agent or God that gave it purpose and meaning that it did not happen by random chance. besides to you need hardwarefor the programs to any purpose. Science does not explain why something exist, only its existence property.

Science explains How, not Why. Why assumes purpose before the evidence shows that. Sure - if you want an in depth understanding of species follow the evolutionary tree. It will show you the HOW not the WHY, again Why asserts something before, you are working from a position unknown, best to work back to the source than from an assumed source that may not be there.

So religion isn't telling a story about reality? That makes no sense considering the amount of creation myths out there, more often than not religion is defined to a subset of culture. Didn't you do that when I brought up other levels in how we perceive others? You called it lip service.

If there is a god - purpose means a set faith that you cannot deviate from. Your path of meaning is predetermined. Can you pose a logical argument for free will with a all knowing, all powerful being who created you? Being materialistic has nothing to do with materialism - I am not materialistic, never have been, so that argument is fallacious.