CIP

Any debate about atheism has to begin with a false presupposition.  The false presupposition is that as human beings we have the capacity to evaluate infinity.  How does a finite mind evaluate infinity?  We assume that we are adults lost in a forest and trying to find our way out - and that if we think hard enough and deep enough we can eventually find our way home.  CIP proposes that this is a false presuppostion.  CIP posits that we are, in fact, two year old children lost in an endless forest trying to find our way home, and we could search for eternity and never get there.  This is our true position (as best we can tell) and this is the premise that is our starting point.  And if Descartes will allow us to make this presupposition (one step beyond just knowing we exist) then the debate becomes meaningless.  It is no more meaningful (and often times laughable) than listening to the chatter of two year old children playing in a sandbox.  We can debate whether or not God can be known, that is legitimate.  But the question: "Is there a God" is simply beyond human comprehension and always will be, because we are finite creatures in an infinite universe.

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Isaiah Chapter 55 tells us that God's ways and thoughts are beyond our ways and thoughts as the heavens are beyond the earth.  And Romans 11:33 tells us "... how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"  So we have a delima.  We are trying to analyse a God who has already told us He is beyond our comprehension.

But even if we are only debating whether or not any God exists, we have the same delima.  A God (to be called God) would have to be infinite, and we have finite minds. 

But, if the God of Isaiah 55 exists, then we already disqualify the argument, because we are debating about a God who is beyond our comprehension.  But the atheist may insist that he does not believe in the God of Isaiah 55, and this is fine.  It should be everyones choice.  But the Christian may simply reply, but I do believe He exists and from my reality that means "His ways are past finding out".  Note that at this point the argument becomes moot (irrelevant).  Because of the different realities, there is no place for the argument to begin.

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But the atheist cries:  "That is a slight of hand so you do not have to face the facts.  It is a philosophical trick.  The Christian philosopher would simply reply: "Tell me this, is the universe (space) infinite?  Is knowledge infinite?"  And of course it is.  Then what I have told you is not a trick - it is as real as the chair you sit in.  You begin your arguement with a closed sense of reality - as though what we experience in everyday life is the only reality there is.  If infinity is real, which to the best of our knowledge it is, then your unspoken presupposition if false.  Reality is not a closed system.  It must be an open and infinite system, and where we stand and how we decide to think in this open system is simply a choice.  And from a human point of view any choice of reality is as valid (rational) as another.  Those facts then bring us to Existential Normalization.  Existential Normalizaton is the choices we make to structure a "normalized" life - a normalized bubble - a normalized fort from which we will live our lives and protect ourselves.

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So any debate about atheism is not really a debate about truth at all.  Or, more accuratly stated, it is a debate among two year olds in the sandbox.  The essence of the debate at a much deeper level is really about how we will choose to normalize our brief stay on this planet.  How do we deal with the fact of infinity and with the very strange ideas of stars, galaxies, trees, grass, animals, blue sky, snow capped mountains, the empty great plaines, the solitary suffering of a person in the middle of the night, or the solitary peeping of a frog in the spring, or the solitary call of the whip-poor-will in the mist of the night, or existential emptiness, and coming into existence (whatever that is) and then fading out of existence.  The atheist would normalize by saying ignore the instintive call of the soul that all this means something of eternal meaning and life.  He would say, don't feel things so deeply so you can hide in your normalized bubble and runout the clock.  The restless heart that is honestly looking for truth would say:  "Oh no, I will not!  As long as that clock ticks I will seek the singularity of this existence.  You go hide in your lifeless normalized world.  I move on."