For those of you who believe, what good arguments do you have that God exists? How do you know? The reason I ask is because I am 98% atheist and I want to exhaust either the 2% or the 98%. (Does that even make any sense? You know what I mean. ) I can't think of a single good argument that God exists. Because the bible says so is a horrible argument. I will never believe in any religion. I know some of you are general theists who don't subscribe to a religion. What is your justification that a God exists?

Ugh, I just realized that I totally derped the title. I meant to write: " "What good arguments are there that God exists." I've only had two beers tonight, I swear!

Can't add much to this obviously but here I'll list some of the things that would go a long way to proving God to me

- Extensive double-blind experiments showing the effectiveness of intercessory prayer (despite $5,000,000 per year being spent on these tests, no proof is evident)
- Numerous verified reports of spontaneous conversion to belief in a specific deity of which the subject had no previous knowledge i.e non-cultural revelation (none are recorded)
- Any verified demonstration of the laws of physics being suspended

This is a big one for me, too.

I've often pondered what would make me believe, and frankly, I'm not sure. Even if something incredible, something stupendously awesome happened, God's name being spontaneously carved in the moon, for instance, wouldn't the chance always be higher that it was of some other (extraterrestrial) origin?

Isn't the chance always higher that some alien race is just ****ing with us? I'm not sure.

This made me really lol. Not the kind of lol that most people post, (which is really just a smirk and a "heh") but a real lol.

You should make a thread entitled "What would be more plausible if "God" was suddenly inscribed on the moon, that God did it or aliens?"

People are much more likely to write their own name than someone else's so I'd say the probability is higher that it would be god.

BTW, the most common thing for people to write when doodling is "hello".

Wat? Joke I guess?

Alien usage of religion to control the masses, just like human usage of religion to control the masses, is infinitely more plausible than a magic sky king doing it.

In thread after thread, fervent atheists refer to God as "daddy sky god" or "magic sky king," and then they expect to be taken seriously by the theists. We are not really interested in arguing against your parodied caricatures. If you just really want to hi-five with other fundamentalist atheist types, then by all means, go ahead. It says something about the vulnerability of your position, that you have to blow air into these strawmen all day, post after post, doesn't it?

It says more that you are completely oblivious to the reasons we atheists make those jokes

Apologists have a collection of go-to arguments that they can recite (cosmological, teleological, objective morality etc). They also have their personal conversion stories. But in my limited experience, I have not seen much overlap in these reasons. You don't often hear of Christians claiming they converted after hearing the Kalam cosmological argument, for example! So if these arguments were not the ones that originally convinced them of their faith, why use them to try to convince others?

One aspect of Christianity I struggle with is how someone reaches the conclusion that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. It's an incredible claim, literally. The Christian might list their evidence for the Bible, but I have not heard anything that would convince someone who did not already believe it to be true (how archeology is considered proof of the scriptures is puzzling; since the Harry Potter stories took place in real locations, does that affect its fictional nature?).

So the interesting question to me is, how does someone first become convinced of their religion? The stuff that is fed to children during their early years can have long-lasting impact, so theists that hold their beliefs from indoctrination is not really interesting, to me. What I find much more fascinating are the reasons given by those that had sudden conversions when they held no strong belief beforehand. Does it happen after a traumatic personal event, for example?

As for asdfasdf32's Q "I've often pondered what would make me believe, and frankly, I'm not sure" - if an omnipotent entity existed, it should know exactly what kind of evidence would be convincing to each of us that feels this same way. Which leads me to another aspect of Christianity that I don't understand: why is it important to have a faith-based belief rather than a simple, easily achieved supernatural "wassup!!!" from upon high? In anticipation of the response "why should God prove himself to you?", in no way do I see this as God having to do something lowly or demeaning - in fact if God existed then isn't there an awful lot of cover-ups going on in modern times to keep God's presence hidden, compared to a few thousand years ago when God kept popping up all over the place?

Just because God's existence became common knowledge in no way would mean that everyone will just fall into line and start worshiping.

Jews.

*Grunch*

There aren't any that is why belief requires faith

I think the ontological arguments are, in potential, the strongest because the “how do we know?” is a priori. There are some issues with them, but here’s my attempt anyway:

1. The existence of God is either logically necessary or logically impossible.
2. The logically impossible is not conceivable. Thus,
   
   
3. If the existence of God is conceivable, then the existence of God is not logically impossible.
4. If the existence of God is not logically impossible, then (per 1) the existence of God is logically necessary.
5. The existence of God is conceivable.
6. Therefore, the existence of God is logically necessary.

"your parodied caricatures".

Actually, "magic sky king" is a fairly accurate description of the Christian God, in all seriousness. He's magic; routinely suspends the laws of physics, created everything that exists (in your world view, of course), he lives in the sky with all of his good followers, and he is a supernatural "king" - that is, his word is law, etc. etc. Obviously, it sounds like a derogatory comment, but there is a lot of truth to the nickname, IMO.

I'd have to take issue with the concept of something that is logically impossible not being conceivable. We can think of numerous things that aren't logically possible.

Even if we just limit it to gods, you are suggesting for example that Poseidon is not logically impossible, as he has been conceived, and therefore is logically necessary.

I don’t think we can really conceive of the logically impossible. I mean, sure, we can say “round square” or “married bachelor,” but I don’t think our minds are capable of conceiving round squares or married bachelors.
But I’m not suggesting Poseidon is logically impossible. What I’m implying is what theologians have been saying and arguing for a thousand years: only a being with the property of aseity is worthy of the name God.

I guess you're thinking along the lines of "if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory".

The kinds of things you're suggesting our minds aren't capable of, they absolutely are, just not to many people.

(1) is not true. And you've also proven the existence of unicorns and dragons. Congratulations.

Yeah, why can't God be possible but not necessary?

What if the universe was made by blind unguided forces, but that universe created a species that became sufficiently advanced that they could simulate a universe with a super powerful computer? That civilization is the God of the simulated universe but they themselves were not created by a sentient being. Is that not a scenario where a God is possible but not necessary?

Yeah, that's all sorts of wrong. At one point going to space wasn't logically possible. Now it is. In vitro fertilization, cars, hell, ever fire was at one point not logically possible.

If something is not feasible / inconceivable / beyond our technical abilities, that does not make it logically impossible. Sending a rocket into space did not break any laws of logic before it was possible to do so, did it?

I don't think this is about how capable some individual's minds might be, but about the general inability of the human mind to conceptualize the impossible:
You can conceptualize the idea "a square circle".
You cannot conceptualize an actual square circle.


To me, an entity that is described as infinitely powerful is just as inconceivable to the human mind as a square circle. While you can conceive of the notion, you cannot conceive of the thing itself. Atheists are often told that they just don't "know" God, so they cannot speak about God's nature or characteristics. I'm sure this is true - but if such an entity does exist, the theist is just as incapable of "knowing" it.

I think this one has been done a few times. The simulated universe idea is just unnecessary. It merely pushes the first cause problem to another universe.

So now to the blind unguided forces. Where did they come from? (Rhetorical question)

At some point, by necessity (since there are things):

1. there is something that always was and it contains everything or the ability to create everything.

2. this something came out of nothing and it was the first of anything

How can something be the first of anything while containing everything and always be? Idk but it's impossible for the first cause not to.

Something coming out of nothing is impossible.

The impossible happened. Therefore God.