"1) Pre-biotic Chemistry: the basic components of life (ribosomal peptide)have been made by simply giving mud an electric shock and leaving it over night. This has been tested in labs many times, and infact has been done for my chemistry class (in a Catholic Highschool)."


That for sure doesn't explain the whole thing.

1-Where did everything came from?

This question is based on the pre-assumption that "everything" was somewhere else and somehow moved to its present location. Since "everything" is "everywhere" is couldn't come form any place. This is a common question Christians ask, because in their minuscule minds the only possible answer is that God made "everything". I always answer that Everything didn't come from anyone, it was always here.

2-The Crusades...

I find estrange that he (The Christian) was the one bringing this up to the conversation. In any case, we all know all wars are fought over power and control of territory. The excuses (We fight for God, We fight for Democracy, blah, blah...) are just propaganda slogans for the consumption of the herd. Everyone wanted to control the commerce routes to the Orient, Christians and Arabs fought over this. That was the Crusades all about. There has never been a "religious war" in this world; it’s always about the money.

3-Science is a Religion.

If someone tells you that, you know he is too stupid to understand the simplest concepts, so maintaining the discussion is pointless. And boring! I recommend choosing "sports" or "which babe has the hottest ass" as more appropriate topics of discussion.

1) Research the Big Bang. Read Stephen Hawking and Stephen Jay Gould for elaboration. Heck, even research other creation myths. I remember I had a nice book as a child called "In the Beginning" that told various creation myths.

2) Your cousin is being a weasel, but his argument is common. Google gave me: http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/naturalism.html and http://www.egoplace.com/aristotle/aa-ethics.htm

If your cousin is going to play the game this way, I suggest you look to the New Testament for Jesus' assorted teachings...do unto others...love thy neighbor....what ye do to the least of your brethren you do to me....and so on and so forth. If you can go through the backdoor and prove that Jesus doesn't want you whacking people, period, you can potentially gain ground in the debate.

3) Your cousin is repeating baseless rhetoric. Science involves learning about the natural world through observation and systematic, procedural testing and re-testing. Religion is meant to answer metaphysical questions about our origin, our purpose, and our final destination.

In a sense, science can become a religion---meaning, it can be adopted by people as a way of acquiring a sense of ultimate purpose and direction---as can television or hockey or whatever. But, this is not the standard definition of religion, and you should be careful about bringing this up around your cousin because I know from personal experience that they LOVE to take this loophole and run with it.

3b) Scientology is totally different. Scientology is multi-million dollar scheme created by a clever science fiction author. Scientologists believe that our sad feelings are created by dead alien ghosts called thetans who were genocidally blown up by an evil alien overlord named Xenu several million years ago and then brainwashed, and then attached to us.

3c) I suggest you research evolution. Look for a hominid named Lucy. Read some Richard Dawkins. Look for a book called the Seven Daughters of Eve.

But, FYI, don't expect any miracles in the debate. It's practically impossible to pry a fundie, sheep, or idealogue from their paradigm, and they will try even the most absurd mental and physical flips and jumps in order to avoid giving up their point of view.

No, but its a start, if you can understand basic chemistry you can move on to bigger things. You start with more recent things and then move your way backwards.

You start with "how did life begin?" then you move to "How did the earth form?" (cosmic dust and gravitational pull) then "how did the particles come into exhistance?" then you would have to go into particle theory and how everything is made up of energy and nothing is actually solid. The you go back further and ask "where did that energy come from?" Then you have to go and look up quantum mechanics and read and learn a lot of math. Something to do with a great static nothingness with some kind of magnetic force caused a movement somewhere that was realy fast and spun to the point of creating a neutrino or a dozen.

The point is, there is no one simple answer to the ultimate question. The answer to the beggining of everything is a giant math equation waiting to be answered. (no Douglas Adams references please).

It is easier for these people to simply say "God did it" than to open up a book by Michio Kaku.

The next time he asks you where did everything come from, and then starts going off about God, ask him "where did God come from" and tell him to stop using religion to explain it, Christianity is a religion.

I appreciate your answer.

but see, christians have found a way to skip studies, they have gathered all in one word : God

Don't bother.

There is no point in debating christianity.

You won't change him anymore than he will change you.

I suggest debating who'll make it to the super bowl this year instead.

for your question #1, I have noticed that the big thing with the
Christians these days is geplacing "god" with "Jesus".

For instance, instead of "god created the universe" like they
used to, I hear: "The creator of the universe, Jesus Christ..."

The Christ-heads in my town use code-words such as
"science-types" and "darwinist" to mean non-Christians.

Ask your cousin if he believes that babys are delivered by,
storks and that god put dinosaurs into the fossil record just
to confuse us.

Then, like in the game gomoku, use his strategy against him;
surround him with logic and crush his puny mind into dust.

Or, just don't waste your precious time with dirtbag sheeple.

>>Just give up. a lot just need to believe because they are afraid to die.

Actually, Mr. Assabrah, I am bit afraid of death.

The difference is not fearing death, but seeking solutions to make death more rewarding.

The truth is that these nut-jobs are afraid of living.

Death... For me, I don't even think of fearing it now. For at least the past five years I've been working out ways to live forever, by statistics, I have another 49 to get things sorted, so I waste no time in this regard. But because I consider it of great importance to survive, and as a point of NLP / Lesser Magic I always focus on what I want rather than what I don't, I think a lot about immortality and very little about death, so fear grows very small and insignificant, as my knowledge and power grows.