Open invitation: best arguments for God

[adam_grif]

In your opinion, what are the best arguments for the existence of God? I don't mean that you necessarily find them personally convincing (although if you do, then by all means, post them), but even if you don't find them convincing, which ones do you think are the most rhetorically effective?

I think I've spent too much time arguing with creationists. I've heard them all, and to me, they all sound equally stupid. But I doubt the general population feels that way; surely there are some arguments the average person finds more convincing than others.

1. Define supernatural as "not being subject to our natural laws".
2. Simulation argument.
3. People controlling simulation are "Gods".

[Teleros]

TBH I've never really found any arguments for the existence of God really convincing. In terms of the existence or not of something omnipotent (or near as damnit), the fact that it is omnipotent gives you some leeway with regards to insignificant little things like physics. Although I suppose this is more an argument that "you can't be absolutely, positively 100% dead certain of XYZ" than anything else, and my response to it is still "sure, but I'm still 99.9999...% certain it doesn't exist".

[Covenant]

TBH I've never really found any arguments for the existence of God really convincing.

Just to be clear, that's not what the thread is getting at, far as I can tell. If you've found any arguments for existence to be troublesome to debate against, however, that's what the thread is aiming at. Right?

Just in case people didn't know, my 'argument,' for example, doesn't convince me or make me think it's possible--it just makes it difficult to debate because you can't come up with good, easy-to-understand explanations. Therefore, because it forces me to mire the conversation down with difficult concepts, it's a rhetorically strong argument to make even if it doesn't bear up under close scrutiny. It's not about arguing about a fact, it's about communicating a message.

[Lagmonster]

The most likely answer to Mike's question is that there is no convincing logical argument for God. There are, however, highly convincing subjective experiences. Hallucinations, dreams, and any number of emotional and mental kinks can cause people to think they're experiencing tremendously supernatural encounters, complete with sights, sounds, sensations and smells. People who experience these kinds of 'religious moments' can be so strongly impacted by them that it literally defines their whole lives, perception of the world, etc., making them into untouchable 'true believers' (in religion, ghosts, UFOs, psychic events, New Age healing) who will even agree that, while the brain is capable of being deluded by incredibly convincing hallucinations, their own personal experience was so profoundly shocking that it is the exception.

If you don't think it could be convincing enough for you, think of how you react when you dream; if you're like the average person, you don't realize that you're dreaming, and react to whatever you're experiencing as though it were real. No questioning of the plausibility of the experience takes place; suddenly, we can fly, or we're in Bermuda, or a loved one is in jeaproady, or we're re-living a past period of our own lives. At which point we have to wait until our brains are up and running again for us to make the connection between fantasy and reality.

[Liberty]

Oh, oh, two more!

1. If there is no god, morals are subjective, and everyone determines their own right or wrong, and we can't have that! Therefore, god.

2. I know god exists because I feel his presence. He's there for me when I need him. He has changed my life, made a better person, etc. I couldn't live with out him, and I just know he exists.

Lovely.

[Surlethe]

Oh, oh, two more!

That's what your mother said last night.

2. I know god exists because I feel his presence. He's there for me when I need him. He has changed my life, made a better person, etc. I couldn't live with out him, and I just know he exists.

How do you tell someone he's wrong on this? Tell him to his face that he's deluded? It's not going to change his opinion, especially if he's like Lagmonster described, and it doesn't seem like it's going to score points with an audience either.

[Serafina]

Oh, oh, two more!

That's what your mother said last night.

2. I know god exists because I feel his presence. He's there for me when I need him. He has changed my life, made a better person, etc. I couldn't live with out him, and I just know he exists.

How do you tell someone he's wrong on this? Tell him to his face that he's deluded? It's not going to change his opinion, especially if he's like Lagmonster described, and it doesn't seem like it's going to score points with an audience either.

Oh, that's not that hard:
"YOU made that. You had the power to uplift yourself when your mood was crashed, you had the energy to change yourself into a better person and the love you feel for others is entirely because you are a good person.
Others do not need a god to do all that, and you don't need him either. You have your own free will, and you can be proud of yourself if you use it for something good."

You do not have to tell him that he is wrong, just show him the alternative.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, some people do try to maneuver you into a situation where you are forced to either back down or insult them or their beliefs. That's a rhetorical technique as well.

For example, this is one I've run into many times. "There are only two alternatives: either you accept that Jesus was divine, or you must think that he was lying or insane, and that all of his followers are delusional. Which is it?"

The person wants you to face a dilemma between offending people and backing down. The idea is that most people will back down when faced with that dilemma. Of course, I will do no such thing, and in fact, when I run into someone employing this tactic I tend to be even more aggressive from that point on, but I may be atypical.

PS. This is actually a rather clever rhetorical trick when you think about it. Most people won't abandon their entire argument of course, but they'll hem and haw and back off just a little bit, by trying to say that you don't have to choose between those alternatives, that Jesus could be wrong without necessarily being insane or a liar, that his followers could be really smart and logical but still be misled, etc. The result, however, is that you end up looking disingenuous, and he ends up looking like the guy who pulled your shirt over your head. The solution, naturally, is to refuse to fall for it. They are not expecting you to bluntly pick option #2 when they do that. You can always tell they're surprised when you unapologetically do it.

[hongi]

1) Universe exists. We can all agree on this.
2) The Universe began. We currently have no conception of how this could happen, and it would indeed provoke the feelings of awe, amazement, and beyond-the-beleivable to see the answer, that people associate with God.
3) Any cause, must therefore be God. Being a great pillar of fire on a mountain in the middle of the desert is not required. Water into wine is far less impressive than sunlight into wine, which is a result of this hypothesized 'God'.

Number two may or may not be true. Three does not follow.

I'll second the argument from personal revelation. None of the logical arguments are convincing once you'd looked at them, but a vision or message of God beamed into your head could be pretty persuasive.

[Rye]

In your opinion, what are the best arguments for the existence of God? I don't mean that you necessarily find them personally convincing (although if you do, then by all means, post them), but even if you don't find them convincing, which ones do you think are the most rhetorically effective?

Going by popularity, the various ones where ignorance of a phenomenon = God are the most ubiquitous in human history and therefore the most effective. That said, they're not convincing to anyone who's identified how they work. The most popular forms of these rely upon hiding gods behind horizons like the sky, then space, and now the big bang, shifting the goalposts as we visit such places.

The only one that's nigh-untouchable is the personal experience of God one. If they have, their conclusion is indeed rational, even if it's not convincing to anyone that's not experienced it. Beyond identifying psychological problems and superstition, it's difficult to dispute the experiences and contents of another person's mind, for obvious reasons.

[Ariphaos]

How liberal can we be with the idea of god? It's quite possible to describe a scenario in which some prankster this century decides they want to engineer the second coming of Christ complete with the heavens opening, Jesus descending from the Heavens with an army of angels, the 'souls of the dead' rising into Heaven, et. al. No one who died before the twentieth century would be capable of any alternate explanation. Does it count as God if it's a physical entity of our creation?

On another level, there is the consideration of our Universe being a simulation of some sort, and our idea of 'God' would be the manager(s) of said simulation. This shifts the debate, at least.

Ignoring various existentialist crap like 'God is all of us'.

[hongi]

Ignoring various existentialist crap like 'God is all of us'.

...do you know what existentialism is?

[Lagmonster]

How do you tell someone he's wrong on this? Tell him to his face that he's deluded? It's not going to change his opinion, especially if he's like Lagmonster described, and it doesn't seem like it's going to score points with an audience either.

I want to make a brief tangent here to explain that it's very easy for people who are skeptically-minded to underestimate how such untouchable True Believers spawn from such mundane events. Take new age healers - these people have based their lifestyle, spirituality, perception of biology and physics, and even their careers entirely on their own personal encounter with the placebo effect, and many cannot be swayed by any amount of evidence. Of course, it takes more than just the experience - the person also has to attribute the cause of the experience to something unnatural or supernatural, as opposed to seeking a rational explanation. So it's not like a skeptical person will have an intense waking dream and suddenly convert - you have to have the foundation of a person whose cultural folklore includes supernatural/unnatural phenomena, or who desperately wants to be a part of something profound and mystical rather than mundane.

In other words, the experience *was* the 'argument' that sealed the deal for the casual believer or weak-minded person to become an unwavering true believer.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, remember, like I said most of these arguments are rhetorically effective.

I feel that a rhetorically effective argument should at least stand up to a moment's reflection; it shouldn't fail the eight year old test.

It might not stand a minute's reflection, let alone an hour or a week's, but it should at least not blow over in the first stiff breeze.

Oh, oh, two more!

1. If there is no god, morals are subjective, and everyone determines their own right or wrong, and we can't have that! Therefore, god.

Bleh. That's just warmed-up leftovers from the ontological argument: "I can imagine something good, therefore it must exist," with "therefore, the alternative of it not existing is unthinkable and how dare you suggest it!" tacked on at the end.

I still like the argument from underlying natural order more, because it doesn't depend on thinking "I can imagine a better horse than the best horse that exists, therefore unicorns must be real!"

2. I know god exists because I feel his presence. He's there for me when I need him. He has changed my life, made a better person, etc. I couldn't live with out him, and I just know he exists.

Lovely.

This one is considerably better than (1), because it takes advantage of a long-standing precedent: We normally take an honest person's word for their own experiences, even their own improbable experiences. Someone tells you "a funny thing happened to me..." and regales you with the sort of bizarre story that only happens to the average person one day in five years, and you're likely to take their word for it.

Whether we can generalize that principle to cosmically unlikely experiences is, of course, another question...

[RedImperator]

Probably the one I find most interesting is the argument from design, specifically with regards to cosmology and number of physical constants that happen to fall within the narrow range necessary for intelligent life to exist. I think it's partly interesting because unlike arguments from biological design, there isn't a really satisfying answer to it. "Well, if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to observe it," is true, but it doesn't have much emotional resonance as an answer, and suggested explanations like multiple universes are (at present) untestable. The reason I'm an atheist, I suppose, is that I don't find "God did it" satisfying, either.

EDIT: Note that this would be an argument for some vague Deist metaphysical entity called "God" due to the influence of Western tradition. I've become convinced, by several pretty good philosophers, that the omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient Christian sky father is logically impossible; or, in other words, that the solution to the problem of evil is that God not only doesn't exist, but that he can't exist as described.

[Alyrium Denryle]

PS. This is actually a rather clever rhetorical trick when you think about it. Most people won't abandon their entire argument of course, but they'll hem and haw and back off just a little bit, by trying to say that you don't have to choose between those alternatives, that Jesus could be wrong without necessarily being insane or a liar, that his followers could be really smart and logical but still be misled, etc. The result, however, is that you end up looking disingenuous, and he ends up looking like the guy who pulled your shirt over your head. The solution, naturally, is to refuse to fall for it. They are not expecting you to bluntly pick option #2 when they do that. You can always tell they're surprised when you unapologetically do it.

I pick the same option as well. They tend to answer with "why would someone who is lying die for a lie?" or something to that effect. My usual response is to point out that suicide cultists generally die for their lies as well. Con artists repeat the same story often enough that they start to believe it themselves.

Of course, there is always the option that the Jesus they talk about is himself a lie.

[Akhlut]

For example northern populations of what was essentially a brown or black bear (I dont remember which) specialized to hunt on ice.

Almost certainly brown, as they do hybridize on occasion.

[Helo]

I'm with Surlethe. The thing that still pulls at me sometimes is the simple question "where did everything come from?" Evolution makes perfect sense, but - what made the matter? Something doesn't come out of nothing. Etc. On a gut level, that still doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe evolution makes perfect sence in your country but in mine I still come across many people who actually think it is stupid and I cant fight them because I dont know much about it myself. Do any off you know where a can find good definition and defence of evolution in simple English? It is my second lenguage and I still have some problems with bilological words.

[Oskuro]

I have trouble debating the already mentioned solipist-style "we don't know everything" arguments. When confronted with greater knowledge (and its not like I'm all that knowledgable, as my posting history here demonstrates) I find people resort rather quickly to dismissing whatever I say by claiming perfect knowledge is impossible. This is not only used to defend God, but essentially anything, and it's hard to refute because, in a sense, it is true that our knowledge is not perfect, and it could be true that out of the scope of our universe other set of rules (other unvierses) might exist and contain whatever wacky stuff they may. Then I point out that existance implies interaction with our universe, and the thing is derailed into a discussion on the meaning of existance, with them usually taking the "I can imagine it, so it must be possible" stance, no matter how many invisible pink unicorns living under pillows I throw at them.

when I run into someone employing this tactic I tend to be even more aggressive from that point on, but I may be atypical.

I'm taking that stance more often lately, and people get rollay pissed when I do. I'm becoming quite jaded at the massive amount of social manipulation that people do on a regular basis.

[Formless]

Ignoring various existentialist crap like 'God is all of us'.

That's pantheism, not existentialism. Besides, if they try pulling that you just tell them that they are now arguing for the Hindu god Brahma, not the Abrahamic god Yahweh.

Well, remember, like I said most of these arguments are rhetorically effective.

I feel that a rhetorically effective argument should at least stand up to a moment's reflection; it shouldn't fail the eight year old test.

It might not stand a minute's reflection, let alone an hour or a week's, but it should at least not blow over in the first stiff breeze.

The eight year old test only matters to someone who is dedicated to rational inquiry. These arguments aren't targeted at that kind of person, they're targeted at the already pious who are wavering in their faith and need some kind of moral booster to keep them willfully blind. So they are rhetorically effective because they can convince their intended audience, not because they actually hold up to scrutiny or baffle the guy they are arguing with.

when I run into someone employing this tactic I tend to be even more aggressive from that point on, but I may be atypical.

I'm taking that stance more often lately, and people get rollay pissed when I do. I'm becoming quite jaded at the massive amount of social manipulation that people do on a regular basis.

You can always take a third option: "actually, its the biblical authors who are liars. They can't even keep their story straight between one another; for all we know this Jesus fellow was nothing like the guy they describe. My guess is that he was just some rebel who died and later got called a god by his followers." Sure, it'll rile them up too, but you've avoided their false dichotomy, and your statements can be backed up with evidence they can easily understand.

[Invictus ChiKen]

By god do you mean the Christian one or any form of god or gods?

Actually, some people do try to maneuver you into a situation where you are forced to either back down or insult them or their beliefs. That's a rhetorical technique as well.

For example, this is one I've run into many times. "There are only two alternatives: either you accept that Jesus was divine, or you must think that he was lying or insane, and that all of his followers are delusional. Which is it?"

I got a Druid mate that said he was both divine and a liar.

[Liberty]

2. I know god exists because I feel his presence. He's there for me when I need him. He has changed my life, made a better person, etc. I couldn't live with out him, and I just know he exists.

Lovely.

This one is considerably better than (1), because it takes advantage of a long-standing precedent: We normally take an honest person's word for their own experiences, even their own improbable experiences. Someone tells you "a funny thing happened to me..." and regales you with the sort of bizarre story that only happens to the average person one day in five years, and you're likely to take their word for it.

Whether we can generalize that principle to cosmically unlikely experiences is, of course, another question...

So, yesterday Surlethe and I were discussing the health care bill. Actually, we were discussing exactly why the government is going to require people to buy insurance, and going over the various reasons. Then, while we were still discussing this, Surlethe's phone rang and he answered it. I heard him talking on the phone, explaining why the health care bill requires people to buy insurance. After he hung up, I asked who had called and why: "Oh, that was <insert friend's name here> calling to ask why the health care bill requires people to buy insurance." What the crap? If I'd still been a fundie, I would have decided that was the hand of god. After all, when my mother thought about an old friend one day, and later found out that was the day the friend's husband had committed suicide, and when my father received a donation while running for office, and that donation was exactly the amount he needed to finish paying for a mailing he wanted to send out, well, they determined that it was the hand of god at work. Introducing...the argument from coincidence!

For example, this is one I've run into many times. "There are only two alternatives: either you accept that Jesus was divine, or you must think that he was lying or insane, and that all of his followers are delusional. Which is it?"

The person wants you to face a dilemma between offending people and backing down. The idea is that most people will back down when faced with that dilemma. Of course, I will do no such thing, and in fact, when I run into someone employing this tactic I tend to be even more aggressive from that point on, but I may be atypical.

PS. This is actually a rather clever rhetorical trick when you think about it. Most people won't abandon their entire argument of course, but they'll hem and haw and back off just a little bit, by trying to say that you don't have to choose between those alternatives, that Jesus could be wrong without necessarily being insane or a liar, that his followers could be really smart and logical but still be misled, etc. The result, however, is that you end up looking disingenuous, and he ends up looking like the guy who pulled your shirt over your head. The solution, naturally, is to refuse to fall for it. They are not expecting you to bluntly pick option #2 when they do that. You can always tell they're surprised when you unapologetically do it.

Ah, Liar, Lord, or Lunatic. Gotta love it. How is it that they never realize there is a fourth option? Legend.

[Rye]

Ignoring various existentialist crap like 'God is all of us'.

That's pantheism, not existentialism. Besides, if they try pulling that you just tell them that they are now arguing for the Hindu god Brahma, not the Abrahamic god Yahweh.

All abrahamic faiths have had pantheistic philosophers at some point and not all pantheistic "classical" gods are Brahma. In fact, pantheism is even compatible with atheism, since a natural universe being the source of religious experience doesn't contradict atheism anywhere.

Probably the one I find most interesting is the argument from design, specifically with regards to cosmology and number of physical constants that happen to fall within the narrow range necessary for intelligent life to exist. I think it's partly interesting because unlike arguments from biological design, there isn't a really satisfying answer to it. "Well, if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to observe it," is true, but it doesn't have much emotional resonance as an answer, and suggested explanations like multiple universes are (at present) untestable.

I remember I liked that approach when I was religious, but when I contemplated it upon the rejection of religion, I couldn't give a single reason why the universe could or would be any different than it is right now. I mean, various scientists and theologians say stuff like "if the gravitational constant was only one fraction different..." (i.e. if things were different, they'd be different) but I don't know why they think it can be so different. They've only got one example universe, and a sample of one makes it really difficult for me to accept that things the way they are, are unlikely, that pushing one constant doesn't make another change sympathetically, (meaning intelligent life like ours can crop up in any universal configuration) or even artificial.

The other problem with it was that the universe seems a lot better at facilitating the existence of rocks, helium and hydrogen than it does in living things that it condemns to isolated futility and extinction. You'd be better off calling it the lithic principle rather than the anthropormorphic principle. Once I viewed the universe as a machine designed to produce rocks and stars with life as a coincidental lichen, the emotional impact of the question just sort of fizzled.

[Formless]

All abrahamic faiths have had pantheistic philosophers at some point and not all pantheistic "classical" gods are Brahma. In fact, pantheism is even compatible with atheism, since a natural universe being the source of religious experience doesn't contradict atheism anywhere.

I'd like to see how those philosophers reconcile the pantheistic definition of god with the narrative of the Torah/Bible/Koran which makes explicit that we're dealing with a single distinct entity. Also, out of curiosity, which other religions are pantheistic? Hinduism is the only one I can think of, so you ill pardon my ignorance. Lastly... if you believe in no God but believe the universe is god, you have a contradiction, so technically pantheism is compatible with the naturalist worldview, not the atheistic one. I don't care for pantheism myself, its too redundant to be worthwhile.

[Channel72]

Probably the one I find most interesting is the argument from design, specifically with regards to cosmology and number of physical constants that happen to fall within the narrow range necessary for intelligent life to exist. I think it's partly interesting because unlike arguments from biological design, there isn't a really satisfying answer to it. "Well, if they weren't, we wouldn't be here to observe it," is true, but it doesn't have much emotional resonance as an answer, and suggested explanations like multiple universes are (at present) untestable. The reason I'm an atheist, I suppose, is that I don't find "God did it" satisfying, either.

I agree; the "Cosmological Fine-Tuning Argument" is, at present, the best variation of the old Argument from Design. As you say, there's no equivalent of Darwin in the field of Cosmology to explain this, so all present explanations are somewhat unsatisfactory. One particular explanation is that we're not sure if the cosmological constants could have any other values, i.e. there might be some deeper principle which requires this. However, this isn't a rhetorically effective explanation either.

But even the "Cosmological Fine-Tuning Argument" can't escape from the fatal flaw inherent in all "Cosmic Designer" arguments: if complexity along with apparent function and purpose is reason enough to invoke a designer, than what designed the Designer itself?