> Exactly my point. Many assume they understand what/who God, what His plans are and how they are to be made manifest, and WHY all this suffering, but they never consider what the religious texts say - only the preconceived ideas of humans.

I've read the new and old testaments of the christian bible. I'm extremely limited because I haven't read the catholic books or the mormon books or the buddist texts (actually, I have read a little of those) or the hindu texts (actually, I've read a little of those too) but my point is:

How do we know whether those are 'what God says about himself' compared to what people have said about God?

> Even you are willing to debate the existance of God without any knowledge of Him whatsoever (in this instance, the Judeo-Christian God).

Have you read the Islamic texts to find out about what God says about himself? If you mean to imply that I haven't read the Bible then you are much mistaken.

> How can one possibly take your reasoning serious now that it is known your knowledge is so one-sided, at best, since you do not even know about the God to which you are attributing so much contradiction to?

Please don't jump to conclusions about me.

What do we do in the face of one religious text and another religious text contradicting each other? Do we decide that God's nature is contradictory or do we decide that one of the religious texts (the new testament say) is the *real* word of God and thus we can safely ignore the others?

What do we do in the face of falsehoods in the Bible:

(Leviticus) - Just picking one book here:

1. The bible says that hares and coneys are unclean because they "chew the cud" but do not part the hoof. But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not "chew the cud." 11:5-6

2. Bats are birds (they aren't birds they are mammals) 11:13, 19

3. Four-legged fowls are abominations (fowls don't have 4 legs) 11:20

4. Be sure to watch out for those "other flying creeping things which have four feet." 11:23 (insects don't have 4 legs)

What do we do in the face of contradictions in the Bible:

(I don't really need to provide examples - do I?)

Is his nature contradictory or are these religious texts what people have said about God after all?

P1) I know the Bible tells the truth because it was written by God.
______________________________________________________________
C) I know God exists because the Bible tells me God exists

Why could you accept P1 unless you believe in C already? This is called BEGGING THE QUESTION

> God is not limited by power being imposed from without (logic/mathematics) for He is the one who created logic, mathematics, etc. (We, as humans are only discovering this "pure" language, not creating it!).

So you are a Platonist rather than a constructionist about mathematical objects... Mathematicians tend to be Platonists about numbers because they like to reify their objects of study I guess... So you think it is possible for God to break the laws of logic?