A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. You shouldn't expect that you are going to obliterate a lifetime of faith in the coarse of one spirited debate. It is a cumulative process, and there is no denial so strong outside of outright insanity that cannot be broken. Is it worth having the debate absolutely, because ideas lead to deeds. If you do not oppose bad thinking. Then in time it will lead to bad acts. Undermining a faith is the same as undermining the resolve of another, and without that they may not take that last bad step. The one where they put their ideas into practice. Such as enforcing bigotry, enslaving others, or exterminating others.

It is true that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. If you don't oppose a line of thought that dehumanizes others. Then the person putting forth that line of thought. Will take your silence as consent, or a confirmation that their ideas are right. Which in the end might lead that person to kill that person that they have dehumanized. They are undoubtedly responsible for their acts, but you are also responsible for their acts if you didn't do anything to prevent them from doing it in the first place.

Even if you have nudged them ever so slightly down the path to reason. That is still a great accomplishment. Not just for you, but for all of society. Imagine what might have been if someone had nudged a man like Hitler ever so slightly in his formative years. Tens of millions of people might not have died, and the world may even be a more prosperous place today, because the world would have spent its resources on something better then tools of war.

That there is why you should make the effort. As for making your efforts more successful. You are getting bogged down attacking a fortified defense. They expect you to expend a great deal of energy hitting targets that are intended to absorb attacks. You can still win, but it is a costly endeavor. There is a more sound strategy in bypassing the logic entirely, and engage them on a emotional level. Which is where faith resides anyway. Doing damage at a emotional level is a force multiplier. One they aren't prepared to defend their own behavior, and two it forces them into making concessions.

Lets use your prohibitions against homosexuality as a example. They are prepared to quote passages from dawn until dusk, but what do you suppose happens if you respond by saying something like. You have a close gay friend who has been the victim of some real physical violence, and the perpetrators said that to him before they knocked his teeth out. Once you go down to that level you can inflict massive wounds that leave scars that last for a lifetime. They can ignore the facts, but the faithful who are faithful, because of their feelings. Cannot ignore the fact that you have made them feel bad in regards to their faith, and that is something that they will have to struggle with.

I admit it is cheap, underhanded, and needlessly brutal, but the thing about blunt force weapons is they are effective. I have quite literally pulverized many a devout believer, and I have done so in a matter of days or weeks. Where simple logic would have taken years. If you want to do the job as fast as possible. Just go right for their heart. I used to use this strategy on chat rooms when I was much younger, and I was like fucking despised by the zealots. I would just ravage a fresh fish in short order, and those jerks even lied on me. As a goof one day I created a alt to talk to myself, and that alt got incredibly fucked up private messages from them. Things like he is Satan, or he is a Satanist, or he is a child molester. The best one was if you talk to him Jesus won't be able to hear your prayers anymore. I mean they were just terrified of me.

I got them back for that shit though. I planted a false profit in their group, and turned on them a couple weeks later. Which was like totally epic, because half a dozen of them left the community after that stunt.

Probably not needed to quote this post, but in the off chance the poster should ever come to his senses and delete or edit it I want to perserve this delightful irony for future entertainment.

I find that people's religious beliefs aren't remotely about what they believe to be true. That's why you can't argue them on that point. It's about social pressure from a young age, the need to belong to a group, or emotional protection from the concepts of death, or free morality, or the questions of our own existence. The best thing we can do regardless of the truth of religion is increased focus on education, so that people can think for themselves and escape the need to conform if they want to.

This, exactly.

You can't use scientific method to explain a philosophical concept. God is not empirical, therefore cannot be validated by the scientific method.

Some of the OPs arguments are rather weak. We know that Jesus existed. We know that the Bible is real, and all evidence points to a document that agrees with the vast majority of translations and copies that are available (moreso than any other document from the time period by huge margins).

The real question is simply that of faith: Do you believe that Jesus was, or was not the Son of God? That isn't a scientific argument, but spiritual. Applying science to it doesn't do the argument justice at all. Its comparing an apple to musical note. They're different concepts. You can try to use one to explain the other, but they're different realms of discussion.

If god is not empirical and cannot be observed, he should be treated as the non-entity he is.  IE: his fanclub should stay far away from any issue involving REAL people doing REAL things.  not fictional beings doing fictional things.  

God's fanclub?

Followers of an organised religion. It's a somewhat peculiar way of putting it, but it's not inaccurate or insulting.

I recommend mulling over the consequences of this stance for a minute or two. One possible angle of attack would for example be; what would this philosophy mean for law enforcement?

I disagree. That's all I'll say. Comparing belief in God to a fan club is absurd and offensive. And coming from a mod's mouth is all I need to hear to see where this website really stands on religion.

Well...of course religious arguments are going to be easy to knock down if you use straw men. Most of those points wouldn't even be necessary to justify opposition to gay marriage.

As an example, take point 1. Its not the case that they must prove that God believes homosexuals are bad, especially not by referencing Leviticus. What they have to show is that a teleological conception of the universe is compatible with the real world....a world in which things have a purpose and are intended for that purpose. I would actually suggest reading up on Stoicism for those interested, as it actually explicates this aspect of Christian philosophy better than a cursory reading of cherry-picked parts of the Bible.

Personally, I don't find any of the other points very convincing. The only relevant one left is point 8, which is the core of religious debates. Points 1-3 and 6-7 are solved by taking a non-literal meaning of the Bible. There are actually plenty of scholars who maintain the Bible was written by man, which pretty much bypasses the thrust of all of these points.

4 and 5 are largely irrelevant. As I said, they just have to show that a teleological conception of the universe is compatible with the world (granted, this funnels into point 8)....meaning they have to show that God created the universe with a purpose.....not that their religion is the most valid.