Joseph wrote many things. My responses follow, in roughly the order of the quotes from his last post:

"Patrick you said that "doubt should be the base state" – that seems to me to be contrary to human nature. Children believe naturally in lots of stuff. Monsters under the bed, fairies, the ability to fly, the all powerfulness of parents… " - I'm not sure what your point is. Children don't have doubt as a base state, so they believe in a lot of stuff that is not true. That doesn't seem like a result that is particularly desirable. Given that it is pretty much impossible to prove the non-existence of something, is it not a more useful standpoint to doubt something initially and ask for some evidence than to believe something initially and then look for some kind of evidence that it isn't true.

"If doubt is the basis then that instantly makes any sort of relationship based on trust very tricky. Surely you're always going to have to validate everything anyone says. " - It makes the first steps of a relationship based on trust tricky, as it should be. A relationship based on trust comes from learning that you can trust someone, not meeting someone and immediately deciding that you trust them. If you don't have doubt as a base state then you open yourself up to being easily fooled.

"I'm not gonna go through all the religious books you've listed and argue for each one, but responding with that question doesn't actually answer mine… Each of those books has reasons for people to believe in them, whether that's cultural relevance, a need to believe in something, or whatever. My question is – what about the bible? What do you think happened?" - My answer was a list of books that were all written by someone, believed initially by a group of people and are still believed by large groups of people today. Yet we agree that none of them represent the truth. My argument would be that any of the arguments against the divine origin of these books could be applied to the Bible. However, this is something I would be more interested to see (for example) a Christian and a Muslim debate, since I haven't got the technical knowledge of either religion to be able to come up with anything convincing.

Without knowing a lot more than I do about the early spread of Christianity I can't really address the exact question of the Bible's origins, but my response would be that it was similar to those other religious texts that I listed. There was some kind of cultural desire for a new spiritual direction and so when the tenets of Christianity appeared they appealed to enough to people to cause a religious shift in some sections of society. Through missionaries and particularly the adoption of Christianity by the Romans, the message was spread further out. Once the Bible (NT at least) was written down and began to be circulated, it was a century or two later (?) and Christianity had spread far enough by word of mouth to sustain itself.

*** Don't analyse any of that too thoroughly, I wrote it because it is the vague concept I have in my head as to how this kind of thing spreads, but you would need to ask a historian or sociologist to get an actual answer. For all I know everything I've written there is complete rubbish. ***

" I don't know what God's plan is for babies who die young, but I trust that it is just and fair and good" - Because you trust that God is fair and good? Does the Bible have anything to say about it? Do Christians in general have a consensus on what happens?

"But this is all down to the fall of man – not the fall of a man. We're in it together." The fall of man being when ONE man made ONE mistake? Surely it is about the fall of a man, Adam. We're in it together because God agrees with the logic of punishing the grandson of a Nazi for the actions of his grandfather during the war.

"In the Bible, faith, hope and love exist as a trio, and I think they sum up "what it is that makes us human" very well."- I don't have faith at the moment, so am I not human? Or just missing a third of my humanity? Do you mean 'faith, hope and love' in general or specifically 'faith, hope and love' in reference to God?

"Suppose I could convince you beyond any doubt (your "base state") that the God in which I believe is real. That knowledge would come with an awful lot of understanding and realisation about God that would just blow your mind." - Did it blow your mind? Or are you not convinced beyond any doubt?

"There is a very big difference between faith based on our experience of God, and the certain proof that you seem to be looking for." - I wouldn't say I'm looking for certain proof. I'm looking for whatever level of proof will convince me of His existence and allow me to have faith. I don't know what that level is, nor does anyone. Presumably He does though.

"And yet I am certain that God exists. That's faith." ... "Love is a voluntary action, and if you were certain that God existed, loving Him would not be voluntary, so would not be love. Maybe submission to an authority, but not love." - Contradiction? Are you certain that God exists or do you allow room for enough doubt that you are able to love?

"You said "Pity God doesn't let some people know he's there until it's too late." How do you know? Maybe He does. That's a fairly certain statement to make if you exist in a base state of doubt." - If He does let everyone know that he is there before they die then presumably no one goes to hell. This isn't a view I've heard a Christian put forward before, and as such I assumed that it wasn't one you would agree with. Do you agree with it?

Also, you didn't answer this point from last time: "at least if your assumption that everyone would choose God if they had the necessary knowledge is correct!" - do you think it is not? Why?

"Another point raised is balancing infinite justice and mercy. This is all tied up in A Student's questions about sacrifice. Justice means that the price must be paid for a wrong action – or a sin. Mercy means not having to pay the price." - Yes, but surely tied up in the idea of justice is the idea of having a scale for punishment. Would you suggest that having the death penalty for all crimes (even, e.g littering) would be a 'just' system? Assume that the judge is infallible if you need to.

"I anticipate an answer: but that's not infinite mercy cos it's only given to those who receive it. But it is infinite. In mathematics infinity isn't all encompassing, there's always more." - Are you saying that God's mercy is infinite, but could still be bigger?

"As for percentages of people who go to Hell… I don't know, and I don't think it's an important question to ask. I do know that it hurts God, and I do know that the reason Jesus has not come again yet is so that more people can be saved and go to Heaven. That's my focus. " - When you say more people can be saved, do you mean that from now up until Judgement at least one more person will be saved or that the number of people saved will be higher than those damned? Would God allow the world to continue for another year in order to save just one more soul? (and thus damn thousands more)

Also, I don't mind if you are just pulling a number out of thin air. Do you think more or less than 50% of people will have gone to Heaven, based on your knowledge of history and man in general. Again, I don't care if you can't really back it up, I'm just interested in what you say. If you say you don't know again, I'll stop asking.

"Creating a place where goodness, faith, hope and love can abound seems like a good idea to me." - For example just creating Heaven as it will be after Judgement with all the souls that will be there. Any particular reason for not doing that?

Did you read the article posted ages ago (post 112) about Hell not being a case of torture for eternity, but simply ceasing to exist. What did you think?