God and philosophy

One of the things that I find most frustrating when debating about religious issues, is trying to argue about religion from a philosophical perspective. I think that doing so is nothing more than an exercise in futility and leads to circular reasoning to no end. In my opinion, if you are going to argue about the existence of the biblical God then you must first define what God is and attempt to prove the possibility of his existence. Arguing about his attributes for instance, makes no sense at all since all you are doing is arguing not from known facts but rather from a theoretical basis.

 I have been involved in debates on online forums with theists who in an attempt to make their arguments for God coherent try to use philosophy as a means to an end. But when you analyze the content matter of their arguments you find that they are mostly baseless. One field of study which I loathe above all others is that of apologetics, simply because they try to make their faith rational when in fact religious belief is far from rational.

I have seen arguments about the attributes of the biblical God that go so far as to seem absurd. Some try to state that God exists outside of time and that time did not begin until he created the universe. Others say he exists in time and space as we know it and is eternal etc. etc. These arguments are mere window dressing and are a waste of time and energy to refute since they are all based on speculation. No one on the face of this Earth Christian or atheist can define what God or what is his nature since that information is not available. In these arguments they then turn to the game of semantics and try to define every word used from different perspectives that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter.