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Originally Posted by Shades

If you ever taught about eternal damnation, an immortal soul, or the concept of a triune God from your pulpit, then there's really no point in attempting to discuss the Bible with you.

There's 30,000 Christian denominations, all have what they believe is Biblical support for their beliefs. You, like each of them, think they have the right of it and everyone else are "outright or ignorantly hypocrites".

You believe what you believe, if you want to argue about a triune God or eternal damnation then you can do so with Scoreface or Calgaryborn, both of whom would disagree with you.

Originally Posted by Shades

What exactly caused the shift to atheism?

Who said I was an atheist?

Originally Posted by Shades

Loss of loved one? The birth of a mentally or physically handicapped child? Abuse? Hypocrisy you saw within the Church? And "education" as an answer is a non-starter.

So if you've decided what answers are acceptable and are not acceptable, then why ask the question?

Education was part of it, the basic answer is what I've said before; a desire to understand why I believed what I believed, to get back to the foundations of my beliefs. In doing so, in reading the Bible more carefully and learning the history of it, I had to change my beliefs. And during the process I learned a lot of other things to influence my conclusions.

I think a change of beliefs due to a significant event is often an emotional response, not a rational one, and beliefs are irrational enough already.

Originally Posted by Shades

The are many scientists who believe in ID.

And there's many Christians who reject it. So?

And there aren't very many (a tiny percentage in relevant fields), and they may be scientists and they may believe in ID, but they don't actually do any science in ID (for some reason).

Originally Posted by Shades

And I'm not being hostile, just blunt. Whereas these comments are belittling and insulting without contributing any evidence or argument:

You're holding me responsible for what others say?

Originally Posted by Shades

So let's shift gears and just for fun, what if the Big Bang formed a God-like creature that created everything else?

What if it created a race of powerful aliens that created everything else?

Originally Posted by Shades

How would you feel about that?

Why should how I feel enter into evaluating the validity of a claim?

Originally Posted by Shades

Would we be considered Gods to any self-aware robots or life that we as humans created? What exactly would you define as "God" even?

Sure you can play around with definitions, but what's the point of this?

Originally Posted by Shades

And more on topic about Hawking, what if one day he came out and said he actually did believe in a God? Would that discredit all his earlier work or writings?

His science writings? Of course not, since the science is based on its scientific merit, not on Hawking's belief.

That's the difference between a real scientist and many ID proponents and creationists, ID proponents start with a conclusion and work backwards to find evidence to support their conclusion. Real science observes phenomenon and draws whatever conclusions fall out.