>Best regards,
>Adam
I once prayed, as a speaker at a CCC meeting, "My hope is, God, that you will help us to SEE the facts upon which our faith is based." I said this accepting the biblical defintion of faith with about a 5% confidence level. ("the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.") But I assure you, as one who has been there - "rational faith" is as much an oxymoron as is "effortless tension". There may be some human phenomena that these word symbols attempt to describe that reflect something of your own personal and subjective experience which you judge to be true, but I ask you to consider, "by their fruits you shall know them." Continue to read, study and examine all the evidence and facts of the christian impact on this world of time and space shared by believer and non-believer. Becareful not to confuse cause and effect. If you have eyes to see, and ears to hear ... you just might notice the fruit left on the ground by god's followers.
I put the faith down, and I suspect you will too someday. You seem to me to be honestly seeking in a fair minded manner. That's good, in my view. Results from my evalutation of "scientific knowing" against "faith knowledge", show the former is far more reliable and fruitful for mankind. If you "Render to god what is god's, and to ceasar what is ceasar's" you just might make it.
I was the fruit of my parents christian example and my life was miserable until I liberated myself from the fear based entanglements of "living by faith" at about the age of 25. (Separated the wheat from the shaft) I now experience the joy of human achievement, creativity, self-esteem, autonomy, romantic love. I'm a productive father of 4 (married 24 years so far). Fortunately my parents sense of life also taught me honesty, that I was a sovereign moral agent capable of choosing my fate. The difference was their orientation toward an alleged after life; mine is here and now. (I remember something about "putting away childish things ...")
The point is Adam, there are no facts, no rational substantive arguements that support the existance of god; nothing can serve as a foundation for the "true act of faith", or whatever "leap of logic" you have in mind. If you think you've found one then know that your faith is a fraud. Maybe you just succumbed to an ease seeking human nature. Blind faith, or any other primative form of epistemology, as a means of "knowing god" or anything else, is paradigm based on force; unverifiable claims by some alleged authority. What is, is. A revelation is a revelation. You're naked.
Your striving with atheists in the volitional relm of reason is self defeating and will only serve to undermine what little faith you still have. Knowledge crushes faith; reason the enemy of faith. Abandon hope, all who enter here. Run while you still can (as most Xians do), or leave the faith and be free from fear (opposite of hope in that they both inhibit action). You can't serve two masters; be brave and come down off the fence!
Regards, nth