It is easy to be taken in by juvenilish affability, but I think it took Alex a long time to say very little, indeed, but that surely is pardonable!
Nothing on epistemology. How can an agnostic know that of which he is ignorant?! In order to prove that Alex’s imagined God [a given a priori, or one might as well disprove green elephants, or Dawkins’ flying spaghetti monster] does NOT exist [and I agree with him, though I am a Christian] one would have to be omniscient! I can comprehend the incomprehensible? Really? God in a box? Such a ‘god’ is, for sure, an idol, if I may paraphrase Ludwig Feuerbach. The existence of God does not depend on belief or unbelief! Neither do Alex’s thought immaterial thought processes! I am assuming that he agrees with me that matter does not think! Alex, I hope, won't mind if it matters!
The undeniable and regrettable abuses in terms of power have nothing to do with original (as in apostolic) Christianity, let alone its founder. The apostle Paul as well as Peter command, indeed, demand, submission to Nero!
Religion has always been used as a cloak for power as can be proved from the Tanakh, the Roman Empire, Roman Catholicism and Hitlerism, not to mention current events in the Middle East! Nothing surprising there; that's what one would expect in a fallen world, where love for one’s neighbour means nothing! But Alex fails to mention the atrocities committed by non-theistic regimes! One could provide an endless list, of course!
It's all explained in the Bible. I dare say that if the ten commandments were enshrined in our society we'd all be better off! Instead, it's now Romans 1:18ff. All downhill, with the brakes off, full steam head! Degradation, then disintegration! Then the eternal abyss!
The empirical method has some validity, of course, but it cannot explain the origin of the universe, let alone the meaning of our existence. R. Dawkins quotes Ecclesiastes as his favourite book, and ironically, when one views life from the vantage point of 'under the sun' (the key to unlocking this book) then nothing (as in nihilism) d o e s make sense, which means that the origin of life is 'fluke', the meaning of life is 'farce' and the destiny of life is 'fertiliser'. ‘F’ is the word!
For all the arguments, man is incurably religious, which, of course, points the human race beyond the realm of the material. Meanwhile, if one chooses to live, in the words of D. Bonhoeffer, 'without God before God' then an egocentric ‘Anythingism’ will be the creed of the day, with the survival of the fittest at the forefront (notwithstanding the extinction of dinosaurs and the existence of the corona virus).
I am with C.S. Lewis, of course, when it comes to the existence of God: “A man can no more diminish God’s glory [on full display for all to see in God’s creation] by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell (brackets mine / The Problem of Pain, in loc.)
Perhaps it is time for Alex to repent - that is to say, 'to think again' and enjoy life to the full, since the world offers so little fleeting pleasures but for a season! Reading the Bible prayerfully would be a good start, as opposed to wanting to “tie up the libertine in a field of feasts” and “keep his brain fuming” (Shakespeare). So, ‘tolle lege’! It transformed Augustine. Why not a lesser intellectual than Alex?!
Who is deluded? Time will tell – and eternity is just round the corner! But it’s better to know for certain, as there are only two days, ‘this day’ and ‘that day’!
