I want to vent my frustration at debating Christian apologists, and ask for help. About two years ago, I started a Facebook group called "The Great Debate" ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/448885198562613/ ), which was a family affair involving myself and my wife, both of us atheists, one brother-in-law, a fundamentalist evangelical, and another brother-in-law, a new age guru. It now has about 70 members with vociferous opinions from around the world (I don't know how that happened, but it is an open group).

It is (mostly) a respectful dialogue (though there are some trolls) involving questions such as objective morality and relativism, the question of free-will, consciousness, the mind-brain dualism, creationism, intelligent design, LGBT issues, abortion, the inerrancy of the Bible, and all the other arguments one would expect from an apologist's arsenal. From myself, I take an existentialist position on most subjects. Some days you do have to scroll through the mostly atheist memes...

But, there a few Christian apologists in the group who are very intelligent, very well versed in all the arguments for theism, are very well read in atheist literature and arguments, and arrogantly demand "evidence" for the non-existence of God. One of them has a master's degree in philosophy, and therefore demands extraordinary responses to his extraordinary claims. He, for example, has defined atheism as a world-view that is necessarily a belief system, with a burden of proof, requiring evidence similar to the evidence we atheists demand of theists. We cannot agree on terms, like a definition of atheism, even.

I will quote a typical argument I get when I state that religion ultimately requires a leap of faith beyond their logical arguments:

"You say that evidence only goes so far for the theist, but that is the case for all belief systems, including atheism. The question is whether one is justified in continuing to move in the direction the evidence is pointing or whether it is not strong enough to merit that.

So, we ask ourselves basic questions:
- Why does something exist rather than nothing at all? (Leibniz)
- How did the universe come into existence from nothing?
- How did life come from non-life?
- How does the universe exhibit such precise fine-tuning to support its existence as well as the existence of higher life forms?
- How are objective moral values and duties grounded?
- Why does consciousness exist?
- How does one have meaning in this world?

These and many other questions beg for answers. Which belief system has the best or any answer for these questions? I don't believe that atheism has any answer for many and certainly not adequate answers for any of them.

So, who is taking the "leap of faith"? I think it is the atheist who cannot answer these questions, yet continues to believe that existence, the universe, fine-tuning, the beginning of life, consciousness, objective moral values and duties, and meaning will be explained via some naturalistic process, when naturalistic processes clearly cannot explain many of these and is nowhere near an explanation for the rest. Yet, atheists continue to hold their worldview despite the lack of explanations and evidence."

Now, I have responded to all these questions at length, but hit a wall of philosophical stubbornness that drives me crazy. There are only so many hours of a day I can research philosophy and atheist thought, and respond to claims by intelligent theist apologists. For it is tiresome to constantly articulate a bullet-proof position on moral relativism, explain the mind-brain duality, the age of the earth, free-will, etc.

Maybe it is just my limited ability to debate some heavy-hitters, that I am not well enough versed in atheist argument, but I have reached a level of frustration that I wonder if others feel as well. Are there others out there who feel my pain? If so, what advice would you give an exhausted and frustrated atheist?