Thank you, Rob, that means a lot.

I had begun to fear that rational discourse had been forsaken for soapboxes and megaphones.

It's not so much about who's right (I am!) and wrong (You are!). It's about listening to counter-arguments and at least being open to the possibility of changing your mind.

The true test of ones intellect is:
CAN YOU BE PERSUADED?

I was a properly skeptical Agnostic until 10:15 AM, November 15th, 2008 - when I changed my mind.

I had been an Objectivist for almost 30 years.
I still am.

I am referring to how I read and study the Bible as well as Ayn Rand's writings..
After being introduced to Ayn's thoughts, I realized that a vast intelligence might be telling stories and parables so that I would use my mind to see past the surface words and into the patterns of life.
Basically, I learned to "chew" on thoughts and words...and for that I am eternally grateful.

Waitaminnit... If it's not, then who is it throwing lightning bolts down at us on our flat earth, and banging his anvil and making all that racket at the same time?

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one...)

What surprises me - is that a thread can lay dormant for days, then be brought back... um... dead for 3 days and revived... hmmm... That sounds like a recurring theme from... somewhere... --giggling again--

Dialectically, all effects must have a cause, else these terms have no legitimate meaning. If a "Big Bang" led to the present-day universe, then all evidence of anything which existed before the Big Bang is destroyed beyond redemption---and it is useless to talk about it or to speculate.

Now, if the universe (all of existence) requires a cause, then the positing of a God as the cause merely pushes the question back another step: What, then, caused the God in question? Was there a still-earlier God who created the God which created the universe? Then we get pushed back farther, to an infinite regress, the very problem inventing a God is supposed to solve!

But once it is admitted that there must be something which has existed eternally, upon what grounds is it denied that the universe has existed eternally?

As in many philosophic discussions, the way a question is stated may be key to its solution. The supposition that existence itself REQUIRES a cause is the real problem. It does not. Why? Because if the cause exists, then it is part of existence; if it does not exist, then it cannot be a cause. To demand a cause for all of existence is to demand a contradiction. As Branden put it: "Causality presupposes existence; existence does not presuppose causality."

Your closing statement is merely a restatement of Pascal's Wager, and what one loses in that Wager is the only life one has. Besides, if one believes in God merely because one fears death, then one's belief is already corrupted.

Way to go dad! Head that young man in the right direction.

A healthy skepticism is always a good thing. When my son was young, I warned him not only about examining evidence presented to get him to believe something, but also to be especially careful (and critical) of those ideas in which he had a tendency to agree. Sometimes, I told him, we have a tendency to let our guard down when the argument is in favor of that with which we already would like to be the case.

Yes indeed -- experience has convinced me to be very suspicious when any explanation becomes complex. To be sure, the explanation may well be complex but the suspicious approach helps me allocate my time.

Yes indeed -- complicated makes me suspicious.

All theories (properly understood) must account for and explain the observations; otherwise, they are mere hypotheses, or worse, baseless conjecture and warrantless assumption. There was a time, after all, when the heliocentric model of the universe was the accepted knowledge, just as an Earth-centric before that. It took some rather convoluted math to make it work, however. but in the context of those ancient ages, that was all anyone had to go on. Since all knowledge is contextual, that was good enough for them...and for then. Today, we have better instruments of both observation and measurement. According to Occam's Razor, the "correct" explanation is the one which accounts for all observations with the fewest terms possible.

True enough about the primacy of existence. But I made no claim that HIS consciousness preceded HIS existence.

I have an aquarium. and I sometimes grow brine shrimp. For all practical purposes I am the creator of their universe - at least that is how THEY would see ME.

There is no reason in the world that our universe can't be analogous to that example.

And again, if such a thing were to ever be proven - OBJism would not fail. Nor even fallter.

And again, my first point. I do not assert HIS consciousness preceded HIS existence so there is no logical violation.

Oh and by the way - I never mentioned FAITH.

William of Occam would agree with you!

Love and hate are emotional states of one's psychology, psychosomatic responses to some aspect of reality in respect oneself, to the thinking one has done (or failed to do), to the values one has chosen (or unquestioningly absorbed from the cultural milieu). Nothing mystical about love or hate (or fear). We feel love towards that which upholds and causes our values to flourish; hatred and/or fear towrads that which threatens those values.
Glad to be able to expand further. Oh, and that isn't particularly my definition. It is found in Lecture 3 of Branden's Basic Principles of Objectivism series, entitled "Logic and Mysticism". It is "mine" only by virtue of my understanding.