> commiebat, I would not have thought it possible to miss something so completely. There's nothing circular about anything I've said in this thread. There would be if I tried to prove God exists by assuming God exists, but I am NOT trying to prove any such thing with these comments! I mean, really, where do you get a "therefore, God exists" out of anything I've posted in this conversation so far?
>

I'm sorry if I seem to be bickering or if I come off as irritating. That was not my intent. Had this been a purely philosophical discussion on religion, I probably would not have responded at all. I'm way past the point in my life where I feel I have to contradict anyone who proposes a logical argument about Christianity.

My intent was to point out that you're assuming God exists in order to explain the nature of Christianity to an atheist, and that such lines of discussion might be profoundly unsatisfactory to *him*, based on how I would have received it when I was going through the same sort of thing.

> What you seem to have a problem with is that Christians get to define what Christianity is, but isn't that what makes sense? Would it make sense for me to define what atheism is?

Of course Christians are entitled to define Christianity, but you can't present God as a fact (or assumption) to someone who hasn't already accepted God's existence and expect the next thing you say to be persuasive. If you had addressed your post to me when I was 17, I would have immediately rejected your entire post and I probably would have been suspicious of anything else you ever said to me on the subject. Right or wrong, that's how I was at the time. That's more of a question of knowing your audience than defining your religion.

^v^:)^v^
FB