I am a software developer who used to work with your brother, Peter.

Like you, I was raised in a Christian home. After completing college, I was agnostic, feeling unconvinced that I had good reason to believe in the existence of God. I read Mere Christianity and scribbled out arguments against Lewis’ points. But, in the end, I like to say Lewis won the argument. I didn’t think all his points were valid. But overall I thought he made a very compelling case. (And anyone who reads him can certainly tell he had a brilliant mind.) I’m not sure you accurately understood his argument, because it entail more than you summarized. You might consider re-reading the first part of the book.

From what I recall, one point I found particularly persuasive was the existence of morality, and that regardless of the details of any particular moral system, people instinctively know of and understand the concept of morality. Like most words, “morality” is a label for a thing we already know about “from the inside.”

If one denies that there is any basis for the idea that man “ought” to be moral, then it becomes pretty hard to make heads or tails of most of life. For instance, why does torture offend you? Why do you value living matter over non-living matter, or think that certain types of living matter has “rights,” and others don’t (e.g. humans vs. bacteria)?

This, as well as the intelligent design argument, make me conclude that some para-material realm does indeed exist. (The presence of minds and consciousness is an example of this.)

I would recommend to you the short book There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew.

I disagree with your mom in a sense. Many people use the word faith to mean blind faith, and view it as a virtue. I don’t see it that way. I have “faith” in theism in the sense that I trust it to be true because, after thinking about it, I have concluded that it is the most likely explanation for the way things are. You may have a similar “faith” in atheism. But I have seen that some people in both camps place their “faith” in one place or the other based upon a distaste for the implications of its opposite — for instance, feeling rebellious against the idea that morality (especially private morality), or social pressure against being outside of the church one grew up in. I don’t think I approached the question with a bias either way. I just wanted to know the truth about the way things really are.

And, at the risk of offending since I am a first time commenter, mom is always right.

Second, torture will not end democracy, well at least as we experience it in its current form. My prediction is we will enjoy the lap of luxury, fast food and unefficient transportation systems until we are long and gone. However, I have a bone to pick with the SEC, FTA, USDA, or any other 3 OR 4 letter government agency combo. What’s up with that anyway?)

Next, the appetizer wiki on waterboarding attempted but did not suceeed into the full course meal I had prepared myself for - the charted history of torture or executions carried out by US personnel during wartime without civil trial or military tribunal(UPDATE:or people shooting at the US military with IED, RPG, AK, or any other 2,3,4 letter abreviation with or without an organised army) This is a very complex discussion and deserves more attention than this text field will allow. Did I mentiin I am using my Treo phone for commenting? and they call this a qwerty keyboard. Well it does beat predictive text.

So now my thoughts in total perspective: desperate times call for desperate measures . Its so cliché. I know and I apologize.

An example, just ask any marine fighting in the Pacific during WWII. When Samuri wannabes thought it was a good idea to behead captured US soldiers, ok here it comes, after interrogation, after surrendering, and stick their heads on the bayonets of rifles pointing out of the ground, nobody cared. Why?

The enemy was scared shitless, that’s why. Coupled with the flamethrower, this created a powerful psycholgical force for the allies. Seriously, the Japanese soldiers, as well as isand inhabitants were setting themselves on fire, jumping off of cliffs after US victories. Subsequent occupation in these regions created fear the Japanese would have to deal with the wrath of the Americans after being captured. For the mostpart, there was no wrath. Even after the Bataan deathmarch, a beaten down imperialist soldier often enjoyed better conditions than provided by their own army.

The real blog should be understanding cultural dimensions of the combatants, how people deal with fear of loss of personal life, and not humiliation. Then methods should be applied to extract this time sensitive info from combatants with known ties to threats of national security, and apply pressure. The real mistke we have made is focusing on the latter and allowing jarheads to have camera phones in detention centers.

There is no court of law for this type of warfare. The UN SHOULD GET OFF OF ITS ASS and do something. But as history as shown, it takes some westerner to put theirs on the table and go get ‘em some!

Disclaimer: humor was attempted during this presentation.

Anyway I have never understood how an infinitely powerful and all knowing god could not be in control. If god creates a person and god knows that if god makes the person’s character a ceritan way then this person will be evil, but if god makes it another way the person will be good. How is god not responsible for all of the actions of the evil person.

Oh, and I really like how that the very next installment of this series was by a guy who does believe in god ( http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5016108 ).

Yeah, I wonder how many times that defense has held up in court. Or, in front of church elders.

You’ve read Penn Gillete’s NPR piece, right? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557

It’s good stuff.