To the TS and stupidissmart:
My understanding of how the universe cannot exist by itself:
1) Everything which has a beginning has a cause (hence Christians
assert that God is the uncaused cause because of Genesis 1:1 - In
the beginning, God...) e.g. to say before we had a beginning, God
was already there.
2) Universe has a beginning (Big Bang or whatever)
3) Therefore the universe has a cause.
I'm not intentionally trying to force God into the picture, but
even if Big Bang did happen, where did that come from?
Einsteins general relativity, which has much experimental support,
shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would
have begun along with matter and space.
Since God, by definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he
is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time
dimension He created, so has no beginning in timeGod is the high
and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity (Is. 57:15). Therefore He
doesnt have a cause.
My faith cannot be man's interpretation and creativity because the
very ideas it expounds are counter intuitive. Among the many others
which i will not expound further are THe Beatitudes, some thing i
believe if you are a serious investigator would have surely known
about.
Another thing is (we've to include the authority of the bible here;
something which i will discuss later) it would have been easier to
say that Jesus resurrected in the spirit and not in the body. It
would have been easier for the supposed person (s) manufacturing
Christianity to say that Jesus rose in the spirit, rather than to
say Jesus rose bodily. And guess what, people touched him and felt
him and saw his nail marks. So there, the claims of Jesus'
resurrection.
So, very briefly, i don't believe that man are stupid to create
this kind of story which would be so hard to convince.
Abt the other claims of other religions, we would have to analyse
and deconstruct carefully, and i dont thk i can answer to the best
of them. But what i know from the Protestant Christian pt of view,
i can share with you. Indulge me here, but i suspect Buddhism isnt
really religion about deities and gods, rather more of a
philosophy. Buddha certainly didnt claim to be the supreme
god.
The reasoned Christian faith doesnt boastfully claim (do i sound
like im boasting?), but truth, by definition, is non contradictory.
E.g. something cant be both purple and white at the same
time.
Evolution. U make a very bold stand that there is "NO evidence"
against evolution... care to back up your claim? 
The
burden of proof is also upon u since u jus made this claim, since
this is also something that "be seen or observed from a general
point of view".
And while ur at it, i shall state mine.
1) If everything evolved from something, what was the first thing?
And who put it there?
2) Evolution works on an assumption of millions of years for its
hypothesis to work. Without going into much details, isnt carbon
dating faulty in itself? And makes lots of assumptions?
My point is i dont think evolution has tons of evidence to suggest
it's true and that it is irrefutable. And of course, science, u
say, has not reached maturity, yet u claim to believe something
that is not conclusive, isnt that a faith then? Piltdown Hoax, as i
raised, was an example that science is just that, unable to define
truth and at the very very best, uncertain.
Ptolemy, this guy who lived in 2nd century and very much a
scientist, said the planets revolved around the earth. It took
mankind at least 11 centuries to refute that, when Copernicus and
Gailileo came along. Yes, science really hasnt reached
maturity.
stupidissmart, i think compared to Christianity, the atheistic
system IS out of the ordinary. Not until Darwin and Huxley came
along, did people formally refute the existence of God. Not until
the Bastille came down, was the roots of atheism formalized. So
compared to the study about the existence of GOd, atheism is the
new kid on the block.
