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What are the arguments for God?

 
 
 
another1 said:
What we consider to be the universe has to be the product of intention. Even if woman and mankind are inconsequential bacteria that have no purpose at all... they still come from an intelligence of sorts.

It is impossible for things to line up they way they have in this world.
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If the entire universe popped into existence as we know it now, you would have a point that such structure would be remarkably unlikely (though still possible if the universe existed for infinity). But life transitioned into the current form over the period of billions of years. A billion years is a long time. Let me give you a visual representation. Imagine if you strung 1 billion years in to a long chain, the chain would be about 1 billion years long. I know! Mind blowing stuff!

Something really sketchy happens in the way we go about trying to understanding that, too. Almost as if doubting God helps materialize it. Given enough centuries of arguments and prayer, ANY God could become real. The energies poured into those arguments and prayer are very powerful. You're aware of the experiments done with auditoriums full of people praying?
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Wow! I guess that does explain why Tinkerbell survived!

Religious fables of Virgin birth and turning wine into bread are not relevant to me when it comes to God. The fables can become true in afterthought, because thought is all there is. It could be that all Gods are real, even if they weren't born that way.
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New age theism.
 
Turning wine into bread? What a monster!
 
another1 said:
A paid educator told me the bacteria statistic in 2001. Maybe science has changed it's mind since then. They have the right to do that I guess. Constantly.
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In 2001 that would have been the scientific understanding, but it was an incomplete understanding. They had estimated the amount of bacteria in the human body correctly (as far as we know at this point), but research done in the past few years has led to the discovery that the number of human cells in the human body had been seriously underestimated. Science hinges on the realization that people are fallible, and they tend to get things wrong. Constantly. Religion operates on the notion that someone a long time ago was infallible, got everything right, and that rightness is not to be questioned. Ever.
 
another1 said:
What we consider to be the universe has to be the product of intention. Even if woman and mankind are inconsequential bacteria that have no purpose at all... they still come from an intelligence of sorts.
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Incorrect. There is absolutely no good reason to believe that.

another1 said:
It is impossible for things to line up they way they have in this world.
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It is impossible for things to have not lined up the way they have, given that they have lined up the way they have. Funny how that works, isn't it?

another1 said:
Something really sketchy happens in the way we go about trying to understanding that, too.
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Yeah, it's almost like some people just make up an understanding that seems likely at the time, make absolutely no effort to determine if that understanding is correct, and then try to get everyone else to believe the shit they just made up. Sketchy, indeed.

another1 said:
Almost as if doubting God helps materialize it. Given enough centuries of arguments and prayer, ANY God could become real. The energies poured into those arguments and prayer are very powerful. You're aware of the experiments done with auditoriums full of people praying?
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No. Perhaps you can enlighten us with some well sourced information on the topic. As another poster noted, scientific experiments have shown that prayer is ineffectual.

another1 said:
Religious fables of Virgin birth and turning wine into bread are not relevant to me when it comes to God. The fables can become true in afterthought, because thought is all there is. It could be that all Gods are real, even if they weren't born that way.
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You could probably turn wine into bread, but why would you want to? I have certainly had bread that was made from beer, but I would rather have just drunk the beer and had regular old non-beer based bread.
 
Apparently, it is the consensus among many theologians that the Cosmological arguments are the most successful arguments for the existence of God. The modern version, the Fine Tuning Argument sway believers to remain in the faith. The idea that the Universe as we see it and experience it can arise from non-intelligent natural forces is simply not believable to many people.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Apparently, it is the consensus among many theologians that the Cosmological arguments are the most successful arguments for the existence of God. The modern version, the Fine Tuning Argument sway believers to remain in the faith. The idea that the Universe as we see it and experience it can arise from non-intelligent natural forces is simply not believable to many people.
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The problem being that they then make a standing leap of several light-years, from 'An intelligence may be needed to set the starting conditions of the universe to the values we observe' to 'The King James Version of the Holy Bible is the inerrant word of God and is true in every particular'; or even just to 'Jesus died for our sins'; or even, for the less dishonest, to the mere 'And that intelligence still guides events in the universe today'.

Not even the last of these huge leaps is remotely justified, EVEN IF we were to accept the initial assessment that an intelligence was needed to set the starting conditions of the universe.

And, of course, that is itself just a guess born in pure ignorance.
 
Well, the problems with it don't matter. It's close enough to a rational argument that when they really, really want God to exist, they can feel not irrational when they pretend it's the basis of their belief.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Well, the problems with it don't matter. It's close enough to a rational argument that when they really, really want God to exist, they can feel not irrational when they pretend it's the basis of their belief.
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Yup. In the end, that's the only argument for god that matters.

Fairies are real because I wish fairies were real.
 
There are two aspects to
proving God's existence"

1. Proofs that work.
Aren't any really.

2. Proofs that are psychologically attractive and thus persuasive even if false.
These are the ones that really matter.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
There are two aspects to
proving God's existence"

1. Proofs that work.
Aren't any really.

2. Proofs that are psychologically attractive and thus persuasive even if false.
These are the ones that really matter.
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If fairies aren't real, then everyone will become criminals, therefore fairies are real! ;)
 
SLD said:
I wanted to start a thread that basically explains what are all of the philosophical arguments for god that have been made. I've been slowly plowing through a great history of philosophy, and there's obviously a lot of arguments made for god. More than I could count. So I thought it would make a good thread here where we just list and explain what the arguments are - but not critique them. Just explain them for understanding them deeper.

From my perspective they fall into several broad categories: first cause, design, ontological and those based on personal experience. But of course there are far more details and nuances. There is Anselm's Ontological argument, but also one from Spinoza. There's been Paley's design argument and now there is Kalaam's Cosmological Argument, which I don't really understand. I also understand that there are new ontological arguments based on modal logic. What in the world is that?

Also the book I am reading didn't really go into Aquinas's five ways much. So I don't really understand those very well.

SLD
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Maybe this will be of use to you, SLD. I have been following Bradley Bowen's "Geisler's Five ways". He starts :-

Bradley Bowen said:
Geisler’s Five Ways

Norman Geisler is a Thomist. His case for the existence of God is basically a simplified, clarified, and somewhat modified version of the case for God made by Thomas Aqinas in Summa Theologica. Geisler borrows the basic logical structure of the case for God made by Aquinas, as well as some of the specific sub-arguments of Aquinas.

The standard view of Aquinas has it that Aquinas presents Five Ways or five arguments for the existence of God. Geisler apparently accepts this standard view of Aquinas, and he is thus led to believe that his own case for God rests upon five arguments for the existence of God.

But the standard view of Aquinas is completely mistaken, and the Five Ways of Aquinas are NOT arguments for the existence of God. Similarly, Geisler mischaracterizes his own case for God as including five arguments for the existence of God. The truth of the matter, however, is that NONE of the five arguments presented by Geisler is an argument for the existence of God. Geisler literally does not know what he is doing.
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Read the article from which the above quote comes at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/10/16/geislers-five-ways/

To locate more of the series of articles by Bowen, on Geisler's Five Ways use Google . . .

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=...firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=MkwyWO7eCrHr8AfskLbICQ

. . . and look for "patheos geisler's five ways".

Bowen does a thoroughly critical analysis of the Aquinian position of Geisler, (  Norman Geisler).
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
The real question is, why does everybody want to believe in God, but not fairies?
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No, I think the real question is, "What does my god believe in?"

The religious crowd is all over the place in what they claim their god wants them to believe, even the ones who say they're for the same god. If I'm a Christian god I believe in my singularly unique self importance, that I should be worshipped, and that I can send people to hell.

That's a good start.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
There are two aspects to
proving God's existence"

1. Proofs that work.
Aren't any really.
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One of the things I hate most within apologetics for Christianity, Metacrock comes to mind. The nonintellectual use of grammar to try and create an "a-ha!" trap to prove god exists because grammar works that way.

A) Statement assumed as fact
B) Statement built off of A is assumed as much a fact as A
C) Statement built off A and B and assumed as undeniable fact
D) There God exists because the three previous statements sum up the entire universe quite conveniently!
 
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