The circular reasoning position is a fallacy; and, therefore, illogical. Not everyone begins their arguments with it, or else they'd immediately be called out on it.
You are correct circular reasoning is a logical fallacy. However when you attempt to justify your allegation with:
"The circular reasoning of using biblical scripture proves nothing in relation to jesus being god or divine. The bible only has any merit if someone chooses to have religious faith in what is written in it, because reasonable minds know the difference between fiction and reality. The fact of the matter is that there is no way any religious individual can provide evidence for his religious faith, for if there was any evidence outside of a primitive book of fairy tales one would not need to rely upon religious faith to believe in its contents. The truth is that the bible is no more evidence for the divine than creationism is evidence of science."
You offer no demonstration of a circular argument. The circular argument would have to look something like:
The Bible says that God exists. God exists therefore the Bible is true.
The word of god is not an ultimate authority because the bible was written by men; there is no evidence that it was divinely inspired.
This is an A Priori argument which violates your stated ultimate standard of truth. A Priori - "based on theoretical deduction rather than empirical observation. relating to what can be known through an understanding of how certain things work rather than by observation"
The Word of God absolutely can be and is the final authority of knowledgeable Christians just as science can be and is your stated final authority.
There is internal evidence: "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;" 2 Timothy 3:16
If there cannot be an ultimate authority because "written by men" then where does that leave science which is wholly undertaken by men?
Theists claim many things in accordance with the bible, yet they can never provide the empirical evidence to back their claims because the bible is not evidence of anything except that men had imaginations even back then.
You have overlooked the entire fields of Archeology in excavations and manuscript evidence:
"There is more evidence for the Bible’s authenticity than for any literature of antiquity. Textual analysis begins with historical investigation, beginning with the latest documents and working backward. As evidence develops, the data is evaluated against other sources. The record is then checked for consistency of information, and the claims are analyzed as if it were a legal case, looking for credible testimony with cross-examination. There is an enormous amount of evidence for authenticity of the biblical manuscripts.
The New Testament was written in first century A.D. There are some 25,000 early manuscripts in existence, almost 6,000 of which (many being only recognizable fragments) are Greek texts and the others being early translations of the Greek New Testament. The earliest textual evidence we have was copied not long after the original. In contrast:
Caesar’s Gallic Wars was written in the first century B.C. There are only 10 manuscripts in existence. The earliest textual evidence we have was copied 1,000 years after the original.
Aristotle’s Poetics was written in the fourth century B.C. There are only 5 manuscripts in existence. The earliest textual evidence we have was copied 1,400 years after the original.
There are many more writings of the Church Fathers quoting sections of Scripture; we could reconstruct the entire New Testament from their writings alone. There were millions of man-hours spent in cross-checking the manuscripts. There remains only 1 percent of all New Testament words about which questions still exist; no questionable passage contradicts any Bible teaching." icr.org
Let's not forget that science, your final standard of truth, once determined as fact that leeches and bloodletting healed sickness by balancing "humours". Lobotomies cured mental illness. Phrenology was a science. The earth was the center of the universe. The sun revolved around the earth. The earth was flat. On this last one it must be noted that in the book of Isaiah ch.40 v.22 verifies that the earth was round:
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
And this was written 8th century B.C.
"And then come engineers. Thomas Edison (1847-1931), one of the greatest inventors of all time (electric light, phonograph, etc), reportedly insisted that alternating current would never work for the distribution of electricity (he was working on his own "dynamo" direct current system of electricity distribution). Turns out, this incredibly bright man was also incredibly wrong.
And who could ever forget the engineers of the early 1900s who confidently insisted that not even God Himself could sink the Titanic? And then sinking on its very first voyage.
Finally, the miscalculations of scientists would not be complete without a brief mention of evolutionists, who have—in their feverish efforts to fill in the cavernous Fossil Record—provided us a seemingly endless "Error Record" of frauds and embarrassments.
One of the latest incidents was the shameful case of so-called "Piltdown Chicken." The "chicken fossil"—proudly displayed by the National Geographic Society in 1999 as the elusive missing link between birds and dinosaurs—had been concocted by an enterprising Chinese farmer who, using all-too-familiar evolutionary reconstructive imagination, simply glued a bird fossil together with the remains of a nearby lizard tail.
Of course, the find was later revealed to be fraudulent, but not before experts had already dubbed the "chicken" Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, purchased it for $80,000, and insured it for an astounding $1.6 million."
Numerous bloopers have yet to teach scientists "lessons"—ReligiouslyIncorrect.org
Talk about imagination and fairy tales!
The process of science, according to the Christian worldview, is the discovery of the facts of the universe which verify that it was formed with the governing laws of nature. Laws, by the way, are immaterial, universal, transcendent, and unchanging. Including the Laws of Physics and the Laws of Logic - which we both try to keep. Laws cannot be accounted for in neither the "Scientific" explanation of the "Big Bang" or the "God Particle" beginning of the universe nor in Materialistic, Naturalistic, Darwinian Evolutionary theory of the existence of life.
Only the Christian worldview gives a rational account of what exists including moral absolutes.
To use the Word of God to support truth claims because Scripture is the Christian's final authority is no more fallacious than for an Atheist to use scientific evidence to support his truth claims because his final authority is science. No circular reasoning fallacy here. Funny thing is you offered no scientific evidence to support any of your assertions.
Science:
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
As an Atheist this is your stated ultimate authority and the method used for obtaining knowledge. For you to go outside of what you can observe and reproduce in the lab regarding what lies beyond the material universe you must borrow from my worldview to engage in a debate using the immaterial, universal, transcendent, and unchanging laws of logic. By necessarily borrowing from the Christian worldview you, unwittingly, confirm its validity.
