debate-points, existence-of-godThere are various reasons that people give to justify their believe in God, and I’d like to know, which do you find most compelling (even though you may not be completely sold), and why? Additionally, one might consider arguments that are the most difficult to refute; which reasonable claims make for a difficult time arguing against?
Define ‘god’ first. There are 38,000 denominations of christianity let alone other faiths, all with differing concepts of a god. Then add personal concepts within each and every person and god is not so clearly defined. I can only go by what people say of their particular concept of a god.
I have not found any claim of a god to be compelling at all.
The major religions concepts of a deities properties (omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent etc) are logically impossible ones.
The deistic god appears to simply be a way of dealing with cognitive dissonance and thus leading to the creation of a concept that cannot be falsified. Most probably this is because of the overwhelming amount of theistic concepts humans are exposed too in their upbringing and society as answers that others have found to resolve the unknown, via supernatural explanations rather than acceptance that we do not know as yet, or may never know.
There are several:
Freewill
In a purely physical universe there is no provision for free will. Planets don’t have free will: they are bounded utterly by the laws of physics. Likewise things on planets. Rocks, water, air…obviously lacking in free will. Living things? They’re just physical stuff, no different at all from the rest. So clearly they don’t have free will.
This argument is so telling that otherwise intelligent philosophers have written whole books trying to save freewill from atheism. I think it’s misguided at heart, because I don’t believe in free will. Free will is an inherently religious argument which came about due to the need to explain the problem of evil to people who believed in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god. Take away god, and the whole idea becomes absurd. It’s a Wittgensteinian language game, an incoherent idea.
Objective Morality
Self-explanatory. You need god to have objective right and wrong. Otherwise we’re just a bunch of meat arguing about it. Pretty self-evident that we are a bunch of meat arguing about it, but this is one of the arguments that will come up.
Origin of the Universe/Creationism
I’m sure everyone knows these. As we usually see them, they’re bullshit. Obviously life on earth evolved, and most people are too limited in viewpoint to take a step back.
The problem is that, if you take a step back, the arguments become more plausible. Abiogenesis? Not explained by evolution. Theories like panspermia are almost comically religious already.
And take it back a step farther to the big bang, and you stand at the primal cusp of the universe. Hard to argue away a first cause or unmoved mover at that point. And before the bang? Impossible to say.
immortality of spirit.
We all want to believe we continue as ourselves after death. Fear of death is a powerful goad. Physicalism can offer nothing here, because the physical part is obviously the part that dies.
So for this to be the case there must be an immortal soul, yes? Whence commeth the immortal soul? The immortal creator.
This argument has no logical basis, but it doesn’t really need one to be powerful. Feeds on fear.
Anselms Proof
See here. It’s bullshit, but deductively it’s sound. You need to recognize that you’re not bound to agree with his premises.
The most compelling for me are the arguments for an uninvolved, uncaring creator. This seems to be the most defensible, but again only because it cannot be proven or dis-proven. As soon as you attribute any quality to the “God” of your choosing, it can be falsified by fact, or will be able to be as we learn more about the physical properties of this universe.
Pre-darwin, I think the greatest argument in favor was simply the lack of a plausible naturalistic explanation for the world around us. Yes, that’s a god-of-the-gaps argument, and yes, no explanation is better than a bad one, but it was, I think, a particularly compelling non-explanation.
Now, in the presence of adequate hypotheses about the origin and development of life, and of the universe itself, I don’t think there are any hugely compelling arguments for the existence of god. All the arguments people make tend to devolve into either arguments from personal incredulity, or their simple desire for there to be a creator.
The best argument for theism is, and has always been, some variation of the "Argument from Design." The modern incarnation of this argument is the cosmological "fine-tuning" argument, which notes the unlikely alignment of various fundamental physical constants, which allows interesting things like galaxies, stars, and human beings to exist.
Of course, all arguments of this sort suffer from the same inherent problem: they attempt to explain complexity by invoking further complexity. But despite this major flaw, "design" arguments are intuitively very compelling.
I've spoken to many religious people over the years, and the most common reason they give for their belief in the existence of God, and the one they find most compelling, is the experience of the numinous; the awe inspiring sense of the presence of God.
I don't find it compelling because while I've also had such experiences, my knowledge of natural physical, physiological and psychological processes provide me with much better explanations for such experiences than, "It's God." See also The Four Horsemen on reclaiming the numinous in nature.
However, I suspect that if I had had such an experience in a religious context before I learned much about the world as it is, I may have been more inclined to accept my Catholic upbringing, and I may have come to believe in God.
You’ll get to see your loved ones again. It’s a nice thought, though not very convincing.
For me the most compelling argument is the one that creationists can’t use because they don’t accept it. The existence of the principle of natural selection is so incredibly elegant that that’s were I almost succumb to an “intelligent design” hypothesis. It’s pretty clear that natural selection suffices for explaining the diversity of life. What almost seems like it needs a designer is natural selection itself.
Of course this is just a god-of-the-gaps argument and holds no validity whatsoever. How could the universe possibly behave in any other way?
Many of my religious friends will readily admit that they don’t think God actually exists. It’s not about wether he’s actually there or not, it’s about the social aspect of the church, and the support system in place there. The morals and lessons taught through reading the bible, etc.
I will admit this is not the best analogy, but please, bear with me:
God is just like any other invisible friend, only, instead of the standard invisible friend, lots of people share the same invisible friend. A many-to-one invisible friend if you would. It doesn’t matter that he’s an invisible friend, what matters is that you can easily make friends with other people because you already have the common ground of having the same invisible friend.
The most compelling argument I’ve heard is the first cause argument. Basically, since every effect has a cause, the cause of the universe is god.
I’ve found 2 common arguments that almost always come up in a discussion on religion.
One is the argument that “There would be no morals without religion.”
The other is “Religions give comfort and satisfaction.”
Both seem to be compelling to many people, although they are not actually valid. When emotions and feelings count for more than sound arguments, I have found it very hard to argue on the opposite side of these statements.
The most compelling argument for me is as follows:
You could define “god(s)” in one of two ways: a natural ultra-powerful being, or a super-natural being, unlike all natural beings.
Most religions seem to go the “super-natural” route, and I have not once seen a compelling1 argument for those kinds of gods. In fact, I think these don’t exist by definition, since “super-natural” pretty much means “impossible in nature”.
If you go the “natural” route, however, then it’s very compelling that such ultra-powerful beings could exist. We might call them aliens. Indeed, modern humans probably fit the bill of ancient Greek gods2. Hence we already have one real, existing example of such ultra-powerful beings, in a relative way to the believers, and I find this rather compelling.
The only thing to remember is that the “natural” route is pretty much incompatible with acts typically attributed to gods, like creating humans, not in that it’s impossible (it is perfectly possible), but in that we have plenty of evidence to be rather certain it didn’t happen that way.
1Compelling to me; there are plenty of arguments compelling to others.
2Not my idea, but unfortunately I don’t remember whose it was.
Hate to sound as though I’m simply piling-on, but I have come across not a single one that manages to hold up (at all) under the light of careful scrutiny (at least to my satisfaction).
I would like to, however, clarify that I have indeed seriously considered a great number of them (some initially appeared plausible - others, not so much), due to the fact that as Pascal’s Wager (BTW - a rather poor argument IMHO) would seem to imply - a great deal apparently depends on my decision regarding this matter - that coupled with my Catholic indoctrination inspired desire to believe IF the arguments or evidence warranted it.
I have found that there are a few worth mentioning - only with regards to their difficulty in answering to those steeped in the mindset and unwilling (or unable) to think outside their own box and actually exercise a different perspective.
1) source/standardization of morality
2) design/complexity explanations
3) why is there something rather than nothing?
4) isn’t faith in science equally unjustifiable?
5) coincidences that are “too” coincidental (miracle?)
I know not a single one.
EDIT: When the Egyptian Pharaohs were building graves for their afterlife, they found out that the laborers worked much harder when they, too, were promised a glorious afterlife. Thus, organized religion was born and never left us.
There’s no arguments. Just the fear that if you defy Him, you’ll be punished.
If you define “God” properly you’ll come to the conclusion that God must be the most important entity in existence, without whom nothing would exist.
It is possible to also come to a conclusion that this single most important entity has to be yourself.
Best of all, you would not have to believe – because you would know that you exist by definition.
Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum, sum ergo Deus est. ;)
That God is Nature.
Not really an argument for God you say? Exactly, so the arguer probably won’t come right out and say it. Spinoza took a few volumes to say it. Bultmann pointed out that back when we understood less about the whole of reality, we came up with the word ‘God’ to help with that understanding. Modern believers will take these ideas and play with them. You can’t argue that reality doesn’t exists, and they will agree that a bearded man in the sky doesn’t exist, but they will just be slippery on anything in between.
If religion actually adopted this, even if they still had rituals and painted pictures of spirits in the sky or even had days to celebrate prophets, I don’t think atheists would really care or feel a need to discuss it. As long as they weren’t fighting over which prophet was better.
Humanity of the God
A lot of Christian will talk about the good willing and the love of God, which I feel like is just a summary of the good virtues coming from all human. And when there is bad things, it will be either Satan or God’s will that cannot be explained to human now. If there is a God, I would most likely to see it as a set of physical rules which all beens must obey, and there is no space for love/hate/emotional stuff.
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