Before I answer your questions, I'd like to congratulate you on your desire to rigorously examine your beliefs. I firmly believe that everyone -- whether religious or not -- should examine their moral, ethical, metaphysical, and philosophical beliefs with great care. The world would be a better place if everyone acted as you are acting, even if we do not all reach the same conclusions after such study.

Now, addressing the points in your letter. I agree with you that there is a lot of "baloney" from every direction on the subject of religion. In my experience, there are far too many arguments, rants, and shows of pride or boast in the cloak of debate, and not enough honest discussions and attempts to understand other people's point of view. The Christian who preaches in a loud voice about damnation and calls honest inquiry the work of Satan will never challenge my beliefs. The atheist who delights in looking down on theists or "proving" ridiculous things by misstating the Bible just makes me embarrassed.

What can we do about this? We can discuss religion and atheism intelligently, respectfully, and politely and hope that it catches on.

You asked who posts to this site. I post the majority of the e-mail I receive that has interesting content (as opposed to simple complements or death threats), as well as my replies. I don't edit the letters sent to me, except to take out personally identifiable information and, in some cases, text that is meant only for me. All the e-mail conversations I have had since this site went live are here -- nothing has been removed.

Are these the best conversations I have had on these subjects? I'm guessing that you mean "best" in the sense of "best arguments for theism." In that case, no these aren't the best I have ever had. They are quite typical, though. I certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss proofs for the existence of God (for example), but so far there has been nothing here that I haven't heard and read many, many times before.

I have indeed had many conversations that caused me to think hard about these issues. The most important one to me occurred when I was in college. I was still going through the process of examining my beliefs, and during this time my best friend had some very bad things happen and turned to a fundamentalist Christian for comfort. She became very religious, and the change in her bothered me. The conversation I remember most was with this friend on the subject of the Bible. I was rereading the Bible with a critical eye and had many questions. During a phone conversation, I asked my friend some of these questions, and instead of answering them herself she would put down the phone and ask her fundamentalist friend for the answers. His answers were along the lines of, "that isn't a proper question," and "you shouldn't be reading the Bible that way."

Seeing my dear friend turn from a brilliant, thoughtful woman into someone who could not answer questions about her own beliefs really bothered me. This isn't what drew me to atheism, but it is what convinced me that there is great danger in allowing others to do your thinking for you.

I'm guessing that this isn't the kind of conversation you were really interested in. However, I think it's a very important one to keep in mind as you search for the truth.

Turning to worthwhile conversations purely about whether a certain religion is true or not, I would say that they fall into four categories.

First, there are scientific proofs. This is the kind of argument I hear the most. People argue that the universe shows signs of a creator, that laws of physics imply a god, or that evolution couldn't have happened and therefore God exists. I enjoy these conversations in that they are an opportunity to discuss scientific topics in which I am interested, but I think that all of them are pretty much doomed to failure.

The reason they are doomed is that they generally are either based on faulty science (e.g., "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics") or are invoking a "god of the gaps" (e.g., "we don't know what was there before the big bang, therefore God was there.") Moreover, I have never spoken with someone who says that science is what made them a Christian -- that is, if their scientific proof was shown to be false they would be an atheist. There are such individuals, but they are rare.

The only argument from science that I find potentially compelling is one that essentially states, "the universe is so complex that I don't see how it could exist without a creator, no matter what science discovers." This is a statement of personal feelings about scientific knowledge. I don't see how I could argue against someone's personal feelings, and so long as nobody is trying to condemn me for not sharing these feelings I see no reason to.

Second, there are appeals to pragmatism. These are arguments like, "if you're an atheist, you'll go to hell" and other incarnations of Pascal's wager. I hear this kind of thing all the time. This kind of argument is not compelling to me, but in my mind it highlights the need for better critical thinking skills in our society.

People who argue in this way often think that there are just two sides to the issue of theism -- for and against. They don't seem to realize that even if this argument convinced someone to believe in a god, it wouldn't necessarily convince them to believe in the speaker's God. They also don't seem to realize that the word "god" itself needs a great deal of clarification before we could even begin to discuss Pascal's wager. For example, religious people who believe in hell don't all agree on who would be sent there, and that needs to be cleared up long before threats of hell can be compelling arguments.

Those who use this argument also seem to believe that I could change my mind about metaphysics just to be pragmatic. Could I believe in God if not believing in God would get me punched in the face? No -- my mind doesn't work that way. Could a religious person stop believing in God if I'd give them a million dollars to do so? If they could, then I'd say that their belief in God wasn't all that strong in the first place. What bothers me here is that there are so many people who sincerely do believe that I could just choose to believe in God. It makes me wonder how many important issues these people are making choices about based on their feelings as opposed to their reasoning abilities.

The third type of worthwhile conversation is based on historical proof. These are much less common than the first two types of conversation, and they generally run like this: "I can prove the Bible is reliable, the Bible says my religion is true, therefore my religion is true." Another argument in this genre is that Jesus is so unique that he couldn't have been made up.

Discussions like this are generally interesting, in that they boil down to how much one can trust two-thousand-year-old witnesses and how much proof one needs to accept an extraordinary claim. I don't find these arguments compelling because I require extraordinary evidence before accepting extraordinary things as fact, and there are too many possible ways for the Bible to have been written for me to assume that it is essentially an eye-witness documentary. If I lower my standards of proof for the Bible, then I need to lower them equally in all areas of thought, and that opens the door for too many improbable things.

The fourth and last type of argument is the statement of faith. This would be something like, "I can feel in my heart that God exists," or "God has touched my life." I'd say that these are the best arguments for faith. Personal feelings are compelling to the person who has them, and they cannot be denied or argued against. If there's a down side to this, it's that personal feelings are also not compelling to others. Saying, "no amount of logic or science could convince me that there is no God because I feel so strongly that He exists" is a pure statement of faith, but it does nothing for those of us who do not share those feelings.

So long as a person with this kind of faith understands that it is not compelling, they should do well. But they must also tolerate those who have different beliefs based on the same sort of feelings -- and in my experience, they generally do not.

I'm sorry that there is no big "I had trouble dealing with this" argument anywhere in here. I would be very interested to hear something new about why one should have faith, but far too often I hear, "I have found irrefutable proof that God exists," followed by, "The second law of thermodynamics says..."

I suppose I could suggest some books that might be interesting for you to read, but I don't generally like to do that. Instead, I'm going to recommend that you try applying my two rules for personal philosophy to your beliefs (if you have not already done so) before going any farther with your studies.

The first rule states that you should not have any beliefs that contradict each other. Since you have studied religion, this shouldn't be a problem for you. However, I run into plenty of people who believe "God would never ask you to harm someone" and "God wanted (this person) to kill (that person) for a greater good." Or that God protects innocents but also sometimes kills innocents. Or that faith can cure any disease, but faith can't mend a bone or regrow a finger. Or that "God loves you more than you can possibly imagine" and that "If you don't share my religion, God will torture you horribly for eternity." Or that God has commanded us not to steal, but stealing from people who can afford it (or who will never find out or who deserve it) doesn't count.

The second rule states that you should not protest when others think as you do. This rule is violated even more than the first. For example, if someone believes that God commanded them to kill infidels, then they cannot protest if someone else believes God commanded them to kill infidels, even if they don't agree on who the infidels are. If someone bases their view of reality on how they feel, then they cannot condemn others for doing the same (even in the case of "I just know my son is innocent," or "I can sense your aura," or "it's a conspiracy -- I can feel it"). If someone believes that their religion should be made law, then they can't protest someone else wanting a different religion to be made law. If someone doesn't stop at stop signs, they can't protest when they run into someone else who does the same.

I would also suggest that you make sure you carefully define terms used in your philosophy. How do you know good from evil? Right from wrong? What exactly do you mean when you say "God"? What are God's qualities? You might be surprised how many people have difficulty answering these seemingly simple questions.

To be brutally honest (if a bit optimistic), I think that if everyone defined their terms and applied these two simple rules rigorously to their beliefs we'd have a lot more atheists in the world, and those who were not atheists would at least be more accepting and tolerant of the beliefs of others.

I hope that this lengthy answer has been of some help to you. Please let me know if there is a particular argument for religion you'd like my take on, a philosophy you'd like me to apply my two rules to, or anything you'd like me to clarify.