You're very welcome.

You are welcome!

Thanks for watching!

Many thanks!

Thanks! Hope you enjoy it!

Glad it was helpful!

Well to be rational is to have intellect and will, and forced free will is a contradiction. If we are forced to choose something we are not free and therefore are neither rewarded nor punished for it. I understand what you mean - there have been "forced conversions" in most religions and it's been tried by some Catholics (usually for political reasons) - but it goes against what the Church teaches about faith.

Glad you think so!

Very Cartesian of you. ;)

And even then it isn't guaranteed that your senses are providing you with the correct data. You have to trust your senses, especially since the mind can become sick and sense what actually isn't there.

1st, you can't say "whatever that means to an individual" merely because there's literally tens of thousands of "Gods" worshipped and Christians say only one of those is worshipped. You have to start by defining what is meant by God, in the Christian sense, to defend the Christian claim. 2nd, the simplest description of that would be something like an all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal, and personal creator of the universe. A Christian would have to establish that as the properties of a God in reality. 3rd, a Christian would have to demonstrate that the God either wants humans to worship him, or doesn't care. You'd demonstrate that by pointing out how humans uniquely and specifically out of all the other species, have a strange need to worship something. Going back to cave paintings, stone carvings, whatever, humans of all cultures have expressed this need for worship. So if a creator made all things, including us, it made us with a desire to worship. It only follows that the creator gave us this so that we worship it 4th, since this creator gave us this desire, it also has to give us pretty strict and straightforward rules to do so. If it didn't, we would immediately start worshipping something else. It would also have to demonstrate that it is the true God greater and separate from every other false ones. If it didn't, we would not be able to maintain any sort of consistency with our worship of it. 5th, this means that God would have to step into history and reveal what he is to a specific person, people, or organization to maintain proper worship of this being. It couldn't rely on vague "once upon a time," sort of stories, but ritual formation of believers throughout the ages. 6th, out of all the religions that claim that are able to fit all of those requirements are solely the Israelites, as described in the Bible. Nobody else is able to make those claims about themselves. So it then narrows down to the specific claims within Judaism, as they witness, experience, and record their special relationship with that being. 7th, Those specific claims of relationship always include the coming of a messiah who is going to restore, fulfill, and perfect the customs, rituals and relationship of the Israelites to that entity. 8th, all of those prophecies have pointed to the person of Jesus Christ, and his specific claims about himself.

That's for episode 3 or 4. :) The short answer is that what God is can be proven philosophically and then that God can be compared to different religions. So it does not become a circular argument.

Joshua, you've laid out an interesting argument. I remain in the philosophy realm a bit longer and back up claim 6 with historical proofs. This will be fun!