Best and worst arguments for the existence of God
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  Best and worst arguments for the existence of God
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Author Topic: Best and worst arguments for the existence of God  (Read 5496 times)
Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #25 on: July 17, 2022, 03:01:17 AM »

There are many bad folk arguments for the existence of God that depend on bare assertion, but the worst of the classical arguments IMO is the argument from design. It seems obvious to me that the universe just isn't that intelligently designed as one would expect from a Creator. Plus we can explain too many of its features naturalistically now.

I mean, these "naturalistic" explanations aren't really the end of the story though, are they? Even if you take them at face value, they ultimately boil down to certain properties of the universe being set just right for all of these natural processes to occur. Tweak even one of the fundamental constants by a trivial amount, and suddenly the universe becomes a lot more... boring, so to speak. Now, plenty of scientists have criticized the idea that the fundamental constants are "fine-tuned" (or even that such a claim has any meaning given that we can't observe any other universe). Personally, I think the anthropic principle is more than sufficient to explain any otherwise freakish coincidence that allows for the existence of life in our universe on a theoretical level. But again, any argument for or against the existence of God is emotional in nature, and all these rebuttals to the fine-turning argument are emotionally uncompelling to someone who is seriously swayed by it. So in that light, I think being swayed into faith by it makes plenty of sense.

That's just the anthropic principle though.

...what?

I explicitly mentioned the anthropic principle in that post and I have no idea what you're responding to now
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #26 on: July 17, 2022, 08:57:05 AM »

Well we agree then
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #27 on: July 17, 2022, 09:17:48 AM »


Are you refusing on principle to engage with the actual point I made, or is there something in it that's genuinely not clicking to you? I honestly can't tell.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #28 on: July 17, 2022, 09:28:47 AM »

There is a Universe and it's called that in Buddhism and it has the same powers as GoD but it's a force of nature not a person because there is Evidence that Ancient Jews were buried in Ossuary boxes not only that, James on his Ossuary Box had son of Joseph brother of Jesus, not only that there were fragments of crucifixion of Christ skeleton found in the box and had nails going thru his ankles not thru feet, there were forgery but Bones can't be forged

Anyways Universe in Buddhism acts as a force of nature and cause and effect but religion puts a human face on GOD, but there hasn't been any rapture
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #29 on: July 17, 2022, 07:55:17 PM »

Uncaused cause is the best, logically speaking, and it follows from the general observation of a universe that obeys physical laws.   God of the Gaps is the worst.  The existence of natural law favors the existence of God, not unexplained chaos.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #30 on: July 17, 2022, 08:04:28 PM »

The strongest argument for a god is that the idea that the material universe would come into existence without an external cause violates every known law of said universe. The problem for most theists is that it’s a long way from this argument to belief in a specific revealed creed.

Even if the uncaused cause argument leaves open very generic possibilities like deism, the mere existence of universal physical laws would heavily favor monotheism, would it not?  Like we can logically rule out storms being caused by the gods of the greek pantheon duking it out! 
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The Smiling Face On Your TV
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« Reply #31 on: July 19, 2022, 07:20:23 PM »

Occam’s Razor dictates 90% of being a Philly sports fan is some malevolent cosmic entity tormenting me for my sins in a past life.
Since this post, galaxy brained Chuck Fletcher traded 3 mid rounders for a mid-pairing Dman from South Jersey who is a known white supremacist then GOT COLD FEET MOVING ONE FIRST ROUNDER SO WE COULDN’T SIGN THE SOUTH JERSEY NATIVE 40+ GOAL 100 POINT HART TROPHY CANDIDATE WHO OH YEAH, ISN’T A F___ING RACIST.

In short, Idk if God exists, but oh do I believe in the primordial chaos monster. Its name is Xfinity, and it’s hellbent on turning my local franchise, to me the manifestation of the sport, the activity I love playing almost as much life itself, into a nepotistic corporate alumni association.

Leviathan twisted the knife further into my people today. Johnny Hockey not only re-affirmed his regret at being unable to deliver salvation to the Phaithful by coming home, but did so while JET SKIING IN AVALON. Is that not a man who wants to be a f___ing Flyer? What entity could manifest such a tragedy via Chuck Fletcher's incompetence if not some Evil Sentient Cosmic Force? After all, The Curse of Billy Penn only lifted for the Phightins to win the WS once Comcast rightfully restored our Commonwealth's founder to the highest perch in the city.

In short, I can extrapolate the collective suffering of myself and friends to confirm a demon causing a crisis of faith. By Clarke, LeClair, Hartnell, and the holy Gagne goal against the Bruins, I smite thee! Sell. The. Team! Sell. The Team! Sell. The. Team! Sell. The. Team! Sell. The Team! Sell. The. Team!
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #32 on: July 19, 2022, 08:06:55 PM »

The strongest argument for a god is that the idea that the material universe would come into existence without an external cause violates every known law of said universe. The problem for most theists is that it’s a long way from this argument to belief in a specific revealed creed.

I’ve never found this notably more convincing than any of the others. By the same logic, God ought to have had a creator, and his creator a creator, and that creator a creator, and so on and so on forever. If you’re going to refuse to accept this infinite regression, why can only God be the prime mover, and not, say, the Big Bang?

Only something confined by the realm of time, as our Universe appears to be, would logically require a creator.  Any hypothetical creator would have created time itself and therefore the concept of a beginning and would not need a first cause.  That in and of itself isn’t an argument for God existing, but the “Well, who created God?” line of thinking doesn’t really make sense when we think of “God” as the creator of the Universe…
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Anzeigenhauptmeister
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« Reply #33 on: July 19, 2022, 08:10:31 PM »

Best: the DNA

Worst: genocides and the existence of the Antifa
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Aurelius
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« Reply #34 on: August 04, 2022, 10:48:12 AM »

I have something I call the "argument from existence" that is based on the fact that I am a conscious being and presumably you are all conscious beings too, and all of our individual consciousnesses are separate and discrete. I'm not convinced by any of the existing materialist theories of consciousness, and I can see how panpsychism would work with only one giant mind-meld consciousness, but not with separate discrete consciousnesses.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #35 on: August 04, 2022, 04:30:31 PM »

I have something I call the "argument from existence" that is based on the fact that I am a conscious being and presumably you are all conscious beings too, and all of our individual consciousnesses are separate and discrete. I'm not convinced by any of the existing materialist theories of consciousness, and I can see how panpsychism would work with only one giant mind-meld consciousness, but not with separate discrete consciousnesses.

That is a very strong argument. It's actually my argument for why a purely materialistic account of reality is necessarily incomplete and why we must accept that there are such things as metaphysical truths independent of it (even if we have no access to those truths). It's not really an argument for God as such, though, at least not for all but the loosest definitions of God.
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Aurelius
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« Reply #36 on: August 05, 2022, 11:01:09 AM »

I have something I call the "argument from existence" that is based on the fact that I am a conscious being and presumably you are all conscious beings too, and all of our individual consciousnesses are separate and discrete. I'm not convinced by any of the existing materialist theories of consciousness, and I can see how panpsychism would work with only one giant mind-meld consciousness, but not with separate discrete consciousnesses.

That is a very strong argument. It's actually my argument for why a purely materialistic account of reality is necessarily incomplete and why we must accept that there are such things as metaphysical truths independent of it (even if we have no access to those truths). It's not really an argument for God as such, though, at least not for all but the loosest definitions of God.

Yeah, of course it could be pure ~magic~, a simulation run by some entity in a world with different physics, or whatever. It simply requires there be some force beyond pure matter. I sometimes wonder if the simulation hypothesis grew out of attempts by materialists to grapple with the fact that there's nothing in the laws of physics that gives rise to consciousness and qualia.

Is there a name that people in the world of philosophy have for this argument? If there's any body of work on it I'm interested in reading more.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #37 on: August 05, 2022, 12:54:46 PM »

Is there a name that people in the world of philosophy have for this argument? If there's any body of work on it I'm interested in reading more.

I'm not aware of it having a specific name, but I have no doubt that many have written on it in some form or other. Personally, I got to it through the problem of other minds (which I really think is one of the most important questions in philosophy). So you might call it "reductio ad solipsismum" if you're feeling fancy.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #38 on: August 08, 2022, 12:25:02 AM »

The strongest argument for a god is that the idea that the material universe would come into existence without an external cause violates every known law of said universe. The problem for most theists is that it’s a long way from this argument to belief in a specific revealed creed.

     And naturally that is what makes that creed "revealed"; it cannot be deduced from first principles, but is made known to us. Some people try to argue that classical theism necessitates trinitarianism, but I think that link is very weak.

     To answer the topic question, I would say that the cosmological argument is the strongest, especially in the Kalam version. I would say the weakest is either the ontological argument or the morality argument. C.S. Lewis is an excellent writer, but I thought one of the weakest parts of Mere Christianity was when he expressed being convinced by the morality argument. It would have been very easy for someone to accept the alternative explanation that morality didn't matter and he was simply wrong to have moral convictions, or at least to believe that they represented an underlying truth (basically Nietzsche's position).
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« Reply #39 on: August 08, 2022, 07:52:01 AM »


Tired: Expecting a metaphysical deity to effectuate its faithful’s founding convenant.
Wired: Substituting fandom for civic religion as the Pantheon acknowledges its covenant with the Phaithful.
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #40 on: August 08, 2022, 10:56:26 AM »
« Edited: August 08, 2022, 11:01:18 AM by America Needs Dionysus »

Is there a name that people in the world of philosophy have for this argument? If there's any body of work on it I'm interested in reading more.

I'm not aware of it having a specific name, but I have no doubt that many have written on it in some form or other. Personally, I got to it through the problem of other minds (which I really think is one of the most important questions in philosophy). So you might call it "reductio ad solipsismum" if you're feeling fancy.

Eh, I’m not sure this is really true. Now it is certainly a foundational question, and has to be dealt with before you can really go on to investigate any other question in epistemology or metaphysics — hence why in many introductory philosophical texts, the problem of other minds and related questions over whether matter exists at all are contained in one of the very first chapters — but ultimately solipsism is a pretty fringe position among philosophers. The problem of other minds is not a very lively debate, because almost all philosophers believe that other minds and an external world do exist.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #41 on: August 08, 2022, 03:26:41 PM »

Is there a name that people in the world of philosophy have for this argument? If there's any body of work on it I'm interested in reading more.

I'm not aware of it having a specific name, but I have no doubt that many have written on it in some form or other. Personally, I got to it through the problem of other minds (which I really think is one of the most important questions in philosophy). So you might call it "reductio ad solipsismum" if you're feeling fancy.

Eh, I’m not sure this is really true. Now it is certainly a foundational question, and has to be dealt with before you can really go on to investigate any other question in epistemology or metaphysics — hence why in many introductory philosophical texts, the problem of other minds and related questions over whether matter exists at all are contained in one of the very first chapters — but ultimately solipsism is a pretty fringe position among philosophers. The problem of other minds is not a very lively debate, because almost all philosophers believe that other minds and an external world do exist.

I think I've elaborated on this extensively before, and I wish I could remember where it was and quote from it, but anyway. The problem of other minds to me is not really about believing other minds exist, since as you say almost everybody does (and besides, if someone is truly convinced by solipsism, they would have no reason to engage in meaningful discussions on the subject, so we're probably better off arguing among people who recognize each other as such). The problem is how to deal with the fact that we all accept that other minds are as real as our own even though we have no access to them and in fact they only appear to us as a projection of our own. What is it that makes us alike, allowing us to recognize each other as minds like our own, when our subjective perceptions irrevocably separate us? And based on this awareness, how are we to comport ourselves with each other? These are the fundamental questions at the heart of the entire fields of metaphysics and ethics respectively. Both of them directly stemming from our paradoxical relationship with other minds.
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HillGoose
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« Reply #42 on: August 09, 2022, 12:21:06 AM »

best argument for the existence of god is that life is pain and so that means god exists and is evil
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #43 on: August 13, 2022, 02:35:53 PM »

best argument for the existence of god is that life is pain and so that means god exists and is evil

.in Click God or Hades can be interpreted as the Death Angel, there is is sin in life, but there is a Grim Reaper not Devil
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SnowLabrador
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« Reply #44 on: September 10, 2022, 09:40:30 AM »

One thing I never understood: If God exists, why isn't this a lot more obvious? I want to believe there's something out there (I identify as agnostic), but why do we need such complex logical arguments to justify it if he's out there?
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The Smiling Face On Your TV
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« Reply #45 on: September 11, 2022, 11:10:10 PM »


Tired: Expecting a metaphysical deity to effectuate its faithful’s founding convenant.
Wired: Substituting fandom for civic religion as the Pantheon acknowledges its covenant with the Phaithful.

And on the promised Sabbath, our new patron delivered over 150 receiving yards on the road to victory despite Jonathan Gannon's best efforts to award AMON-RA St. Brown's squad the laurels of battle. For whether one is black, white, rich, poor, straight, queer, male, female, in-between, cop, civil liberties' activist, Democrat, Republican, Wawa supremacist, or Primo hoagies' enjoyer, we stand united behind One Team. One City. One Dream.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #46 on: September 13, 2022, 11:38:39 PM »

One thing I never understood: If God exists, why isn't this a lot more obvious? I want to believe there's something out there (I identify as agnostic), but why do we need such complex logical arguments to justify it if he's out there?

Because it is already obvious.  God has made himself manifest in the world not just generally in creation, but specifically in one person:  Jesus Christ.

Leaving aside the problem of God's holiness, if God personally appeared to everyone to tell them "I exist!" there is no reason to believe that it wouldn't be explained away in similar ways to the miraculous signs of Jesus (which eyewitnesses themselves often rejected.)
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Samof94
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« Reply #47 on: September 19, 2022, 05:39:49 PM »

The best argument for existence of God or artificial creation is the rate of black hole formation throughout the universe, which hints towards a universal consciousness or evolutionary mechanism aiming maximal fertile production of universes if one assumes black hole formation is basically the birth of a new universe.

That being said it is impossible to exclude or prove the existence of God itself, but it is hard to proof to why one religion is more valid than one other, even considering Abrahamic beliefs basically believe in the same God, just some other interpretations which is ironic since judaism, christianity and islam actually aren't that different from each other, and share the same foundation.

However it is also hard to prove why a cultist belief is a cult and a religion a religion, and considering religions might be cults that gathered millions & billions of followers throughout thousands of years, what makes a cult a cult and a religion and religion is an incredibly vague thin line, imo non-existent. But even if one considers a religion as a cult (or all), it still doesn't proof that God does not exist.

You can say anything and not be proven wrong because it is impossible to prove you were wrong on the subject.
Flying Spaghetti Monster is also just as valid as the one Christians believe in.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #48 on: September 29, 2022, 06:39:20 AM »

All the GODS were Zeus the God of Thunder either GOD, Christ, Moses,Thor or Odin anyways and Devil or Demons are Hades and Demons are a Halloween myth that Dead people comeback alive

It's all based on theology or mythology not based solely on science where back during before Darwin they thought world was flat and God were in the clouds but now space is Heaven not clouds

But, there is the theory about reincarnation so that it easiest Death to know your loved one is not actually Dead
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Diabolical Materialism
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« Reply #49 on: September 29, 2022, 05:38:31 PM »

Worst: Craig Keener's 100 Million Miracles
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