The Most Difficult Question To A&A Members Ever..

Turtwig

"What, in your most sincere opinion, is the most VALID argument you have heard for the existence of God?"
I'm pretty sure the answer to that question by most atheists here would be there are none. The challenge here is to post one that you consider to be a good one.

I'm going to invoke a few thread rules though.
-You are not allowed to make multiple arguments. This thread is going to be somewhat esoteric focusing on the details of specific arguments rather than allowing shotgun like posts. One argument is all you are allowed to make per post, that it is it. If you list more than one reasons for the existence of God then your post will not be replied to.

-You are only allowed to make one rebuttal post and only one argument post per day. You cannot use your rebuttal post to respond to two or more posts. You must focus it on one specific post only.

-All posts must be written in your own words. Quotation of sources is allowed, but plagiarism of text isn't. No external links to videos or websites are allowed.

So, yes, theists, this is also your chance to post what you consider to be the BEST argument you have for God. Please remember to obey the thread rules though.

magicbastarder

the goldilocks effect.
i'm not aware of any current explanation of why the physical constants are as they are which does not delve into highly speculative theories.

cavedave

Related to magicbastarder but with the fine tuning that god mad the universe with a really slapstick sense of humour

A toast-based proof of a malevolent God (pdf)

This argument-by-design, therefore, not only conclusively demonstrates the existence of the Creator, but that he is a cantankerous old git who organised the Universe in this way to continually torment us with dirty toast.

For those not into maths the argument is in two stages.
1, Any creature between 1m and 2.5 metres tall dropping toast would always result in buttered side down toast.
2. All intelligent creatures must be within this size range

So God must have set up the fundamental constants of the universe just to annoy us. No I am not joking about this. I think there is some chance we are running in a simulation and if we are we probably want to be entertaining to whoever is running the simulation.

johnmcdnl

well when I was young I was told that there was this guy that lived 2000 years ago that sacrificed his life for my sins - (yes he knows I'm a sinner and a bad person and needed to give his life for me to be forgiven)

then 3 days later he rose from the dead and showed himself to a select few people - he didn't show himself to everyone because he wanted people to belief and have faith that he rose from the dead rather than just proving it...

this did a good job of convincing me for a few years when I was young because I was also told I was basically told I was going to burn in hell if I wasn't a good child... the whole thing about having to believe without a shred of evidence really had me for a long time..


then I started using my head

bleg

The Futurama theory... it might be there but it doesn't get involved in case it ****s things up... like Bender did when he was a god.


The god's debris explanation is also pretty good. What else would an omnipotent being do except kill itself... we're the result.

Turtwig

Hi bleg, you just provided two reasons. Please keep it to one per post.:)


@John that post is pretty much irrelevant here. It's only dealing with Jesus Christ.

Zombrex

Difficult question because, as you say, there really isn't any valid arguments for God. They are all either arguments from ignorance (we don't know so lets call it God) or non-sequiters (my religion says God made morality, morality exists, my God exists) or just stupid (I believe God exists, you can't show he doesn't, God exists).

The closest to a valid argument for the existence of a creator is, as magicbastarder says, the existence of the universe in its current state. We don't know why the universe exists, and there is something wrong with our current models because they say the universe should have annihilated itself in the first micro-seconds of existences. For some reason it didn't, and it formed into a structure that produces stars, galaxies, planets and eventually life.

It pains me to even write this, as it is such a poor argument for God (who says life was the goal, who says such an event requires intelligent decision, why would God supernaturally trick the universe into not destroying itself, why assign what we don't know to God), but it is "better" than other ones.

Tin Foil Hat

Malty_T wrote: »

"What, in your most sincere opinion, is the most VALID argument you have heard for the existence of God?"

God - with a capital 'G' - the specific charicter - the angry, needy psychopath from The Bible?
There's none. Nothing. Not a shred.

Rev Hellfire

I'd say there's very little (if any) credible reasons for believing in the anthropomorphic god(s) as proposed by 90% of the religious.

But it's still remains a fair question to ask what "lit the fuse", assuming something was required. And even assuming if there was why would we be bothered ?

johnmcdnl

Malty_T wrote: »

Hi bleg, you just provided two reasons. Please keep it to one per post.:)


@John that post is pretty much irrelevant here. It's only dealing with Jesus Christ.

but it's the only one I've had experience with the rest of the arguments for god i've come across since have been terrible... maybe because i used my head when thinking about them which invalided them in my mind who knows...

the jesus christ one is the the only argument I've ever had any time for at all - that because I was 5 years old and didn't think for myself

ThirdMan

Comment deleted.

Muppet Man

"What, in your most sincere opinion, is the most VALID argument you have heard for the existence of God?"

The Big Bang... where did it come from, who started it, what came before it. The lack of scientific answers around this is a problem for me. [in the sense that maybe something non-scientific might be answer]

Muppet Man

Dades

Something can't come from nothing (probably because I don't understand it)!
Note: again, nothing to do with the gods with human characteristics, but to do with a 'spark'.

In another life I'd be happy to be a deist if the word GOD wasn't always associated with the ridiculously human-like interventionist gods of religion.

MungBean

There is none. There is many unexplained things in the universe and some poeple make some good points when trying prove the existence of god.

But the belief in god was not born of science. It came from superstition and myth. So until I have a good reason to even ask myself whether a god exists or not then all arguments for the existence of god are absurd.

Rev Hellfire

Skunkle wrote: »

There is none. There is many unexplained things in the universe and some poeple make some good points when trying prove the existence of god.

But the belief in god was not born of science. It came from superstition and myth. So until I have a good reason to even ask myself whether a god exists or not then all arguments for the existence of god are absurd.

You do understand the game we're playing here ?

DoubleBogey

It's just a theory, but the multiverse theory has a lot of respect in the scientific world and theres a pissibility its even provable in the LHC. The theory would suggest that anything that could poosibly happen ,will happen. Is there a possibility that a being from a different universe has the intelligence to create his own universe and spark off a chain reaction th at would eventually create "life"?

mcmoustache

Bananas.

There's just no way that they could have developed by accident. They come in their own wrapper. They don't have large seeds that need to be spat out. They taste great. They're also nutritious and radioactive at the same time. They are a perfect fit for our hands and mouth.

You can't tell me that these weren't intelligently designed for us. If you think that they were bred by man, I must ask, who do you think created man? It would need to be someone at least as intelligent and complex as man himself. Then we can ask, who created this creator?

This leads to in infinite recursion which means that we must dismiss the "artificial selection by humans" hypothesis. We are left then with two possibilities.

1 - It's just a huge coincidence. This is highly improbable by definition.
2 - God did it. This is quite improbable.

Logically then, since "highly" > "quite", we must conclude that bananas must have been created by God. :cool:










Post is not serious - but my pidgin-logic and insane reasoning is a lot better than most arguments put forward by ID proponents.

MungBean

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

You do understand the game we're playing here ?

I do but I thought I'd point out that for me its a pointless game seeing as theres no valid reason for proposing the existence of god let alone trying to prove it. Anyway I dont wanna ruin your game so I'll refrain from posting any further in this thread.

strobe

The cosmological argument. The uncaused cause thing. It's the only argument for the possibility of the existance of 'god' that isn't so paper thin as to be barely worth wasting calories discussing imo.

Knasher

Tides come in, tides go out. You can't explain that.

flowers are pretty. therefore god exists.

Memnoch

Biology.

bnt

Happy Clappers. They're so Happy! It's not Natural to be that Happy, so it has to be because of something Supernatural! Ergo, God.

Gary L

Cosmological argument- Only one with any pop IMO

i.e Something cant come from nothing. Still paper thin as a god argument as a supreme being is less likely to pop out of nowhere than some little ball of hot dense proto matter.

Hell of a noggin scratcher though.

smokingman

The Polyfilla Argument...about as valid as any other but still doesn't make logical sense. I've tried to play the game Malty but it's kinda hard to stand up for magic.

Turtwig

smokingman wrote: »

I've tried to play the game Malty but it's kinda hard to stand up for magic.

There, there, smoky I never said it was going to be easy.You did your best.:)

Zombrex

Knasher wrote: »

Tides come in, tides go out. You can't explain that.

biko

Malty_T wrote: »

"What, in your most sincere opinion, is the most VALID argument you have heard for the existence of God?"

That even hardcore atheists still have a certain fatalistic viewpoint.
"It was meant to be"/"It was for the best".

Any fatalism means belief in determinism and therefore a higher power. imo.

strobe

biko wrote: »

That even hardcore atheists still have a certain fatalistic viewpoint.
"It was meant to be"/"It was for the best".

Any fatalism means belief in determinism and therefore a higher power. imo.

Determinism doesn't mean a (personified) higher power, says I. Kind of excludes a higher power with free will says I. Can a higher power exist sans free will asks I? Neigh(sc) says I.