@SerenaDante - wheedling and convincing... convince Christians of what?  that there is no God and that everything happened in some cosmological accident and we are all that there is and that there is nothing else out there?  that is what you're trying to convince Christians of?

now really consider that this same Richard Dawkins emphatically suggests that all of life here on earth came off the run-off of crystals or that all of life was planted here by some super powerful extra-terrestrial being(s)... yes the same atheist who believes that there IS NO GOD... believes that SCIENCE is all that there is... is emphatic about these 2 aforementioned points...

@SerenaDante - I would have thought that included in common sense was the fact that designed things need a designer and creation needs a creator. That to me is just common sense - actually so common that most people (to a greater or lesser extent) believe it!

@kenedwards5 - 

@SerenaDante - I have a degree in physics in which I studied cosmology. We must be very careful we don't take scientific speculations as fact. Always remember that science's evaluations are provisional and often have to do with scientific fashion and the belief of the scientist as much as the actual evidence. After all, we thought Newton's Laws were the last word in motion until Einstein came along. Modern science currently holds the following incompatible doctrines: Quantum theory on the micro level, Relativity theory on the macro, String theory that attempts unification through multidimensionality, Thermodynamics with its process of entropy, Evolution, Molecular Biology & its DNA codes plus the concept of Entanglement that connects quantum entities beyond time and space throughout the universe. Each one offers some insight into some limited area but they do not gel with one another. So let's not get carried away by some of this stuff - it's interesting and the mathematics are brilliant. But it's speculation. After all, who ever heard of a non-causal beginning anywhere else? Unless you've been reading Fred Hoyle?

@kenedwards5 - 

@SerenaDante - True, some religion is speculation. But Christianity stands or falls on a historical event - the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Science is trying to make sense of how matter does what it does. It has no bearing at all on answering the question why we are here or what the purpose of life is. Christianity actually claims to answer both questions! Worth considering?

@kenedwards5 - 

@SerenaDante - You say you don't believe in fairy tales? Have you been reading too much of Dawkins and Hitchens? They appear to have the same anti-theistic vitriol in their views. The problem is that in debate and in their books they show they present only a garbled caricature of Christianity - a straw man they put up to shoot down. To say to worship God is 'useless at best' shows you have no idea of what worshipping God is all about! And when you say, 'We live to be subservient to a vain god that was so bored with his own existence he had to create a bunch of human toys to mess around with and send to a fiery doom if they didn't do as he pleased' and find it to be depressing, I would agree - if it were true. The fact is, however, that it goes against every tenet of true Christianity.

@kenedwards5 - 

@SerenaDante - of course, I realise you are an atheist, Serena. Possibly like most atheists I know, you may have accepted the position with the same sort of blind faith - ie without examining the evidence - that you often accuse Christians of. Interesting that the great geneticist, Francis Collins, was also in this position. You can see his testimony of how he found faith on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nJl3dF7xKc

As for truth - if you are an atheist, there is no truth as we are just a random collection of molecules, the victims of a chance happenning. Or, if you believe Dawkins, the victims of our memes. I mean, if this is so, we can't even believe what our brains tell us, though Dawkins appears to be (illogically) very selective on this. As to purpose, as an atheist you know you come from nowhere, you are going nowhere and there is no purpose in life while you are here as there is no truth and you are just a chance happening.