Question:
Can anyone refute my arguments for god?
?
2011-07-13 16:25:37 UTC
There is no "evidence" for the existence of god in the sense that someone has taken a picture of him.
But there are good reasons why people have faith. I will list several for you.

Kalams cosmological argument- Everything that begins to exist has a cause. There is over whelming evidence that the universe began to exist (second law of thermodynamics, universal expansion etc) You would call this the big bang. Therefore there must be a cause. It follows logically then that there was either an abstract cause or a mind behind it. Given the next argument it follows more logically that there was a mind behind it.

The teleological arguement- has come roaring back into prominence in recent years. The explanatory adequacy of neo-darwinian mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection with respect to observed biological complexity has been sharply challenged, as advances in microbiology have served to disclose the breathtaking complexity of the micro machinery of a single cell, not to speak of higher organisms.

Spiritual experience- I have personally experienced god in my own life. God is there for anyone with an open mind to experience. Although there are many people who claim to have this experience with different gods, this does not explicitly make ALL of the claims false.

The historicity of the life and resurrection of Jesus christ- Taking a minimalist approach the vast majority of new testament scholars will agree to these few facts. Jesus was a historical person. He was crucified. He was burred by joseph of Arimethia. The tomb was found empty. Jesus disciples believed that jesus had risen from the dead despite having every disposition not to.

These, I believe are compelling arguments, although definitely not empirical EVIDENCE
Twelve answers:
?
2011-07-13 16:34:15 UTC
You're ignoring the fact that the supposed creator didn't need a cause. That's being intellectually dishonest. You're saying the world needed a creator but the creator didn't. You can't make special exceptions unless you just want to believe what you want to believe.



Even if evolution was disproved right now, it wouldn't make "god" the default answer until this could be proven.



That's based on your own opinion. My guess is that you've never tried living without the concept of god. I was a Christian and when I became an atheist, I didn't notice any difference. I understood that life is what it is. I was TAUGHT to believe that certain things were god. Most people don't give examples of these experiences because they are very easily refuted. Your explanation of the things that are god is probably based on something you didn't think would happen. A matter of chance. Perhaps not, but I would love to know what your personal experiences are and I can almost guarantee you that this is not exclusive to you.



That's false. Many scholars actually doubt that he ever existed and if he did, he wasn't divine. There is no secular proof of anything claimed about Jesus outside of the bible. No one wrote anything of his miracles or the kind of pain he was to the people in power.



Your entire argument is based on personal beliefs.
anonymous
2011-07-13 16:35:52 UTC
There is conclusive evidence, as in the Casimir experiment, that some things that begin to exist do not have a cause. The whole field of quantum mechanics makes this clear. The whole universe may have begun to exist as a quantum fluctuation.



Your so-called "teleological argument" is not an argument at all, at least not the way that you presented it. In essence, you say that creationists challenge the theory of evolution. How is that an argument?



The fact that people with different Gods have a spiritual experience does not constitute evidence that even one of the experiences are factual. Also, many people who have had spirtual experiences are atheists. I am one of them.



What is your definition of a New Testament scholar? Some scholars believe that Jesus was not a historical person.
Raven Slight
2011-07-13 16:58:29 UTC
1) Kalam does not demand it to be a god, let alone your specific god of your specific religion; it could be HAJjksejfikjhfkhfkjasjfdsdhfkasjfaskjefnkadsfjjkasdfhanksdfj, who doesn't want to be worshiped or believed in at all. Also quantum physics rejects the first premise. And modern cosmology (which is called upon as the basis of the second premise) tends against the second premise.



2) 'Complexity' is explained by evolutionary mechanisms: change of what exists through addition and/or specification of components. The eye, the brain, blood systems, flagella in cells...



3) I have experienced Odin, Thor, Aphrodite, Artemis, Apollo, Zeus, Heracles, Pluto, Mickey Mouse, Hitler, Harry Potter, Bruce Lee, Ra, Osiris, Horus, Anubis, Allah, Jesus, Yahweh, Confucius, Sun Tzu, Beowulf, and countless others through "spiritual experiences". By your own logic, these all must exist. By science, however...They are all the imaginings of a person's mind.

And keep in mind that in every society, the pantheon is claimed not only through spiritual experiences but physical experiences. So your logic predates your god by several dozen different groups of gods.



4) "The tomb was found empty" And tomb robbers can't have done it? Hell, how would we know that it was Jesus' tomb to begin with? Or that he was ever put into it? For all we know Jesus was put in John Everybody's tomb. Hell, they could have even looked through the WRONG Jesus' tomb because "Jesus" was for the most part the equivalent of the modern "John" in Israeli/Hebrew civilization at the time.

"Jesus disciples believed that jesus had risen from the dead despite having every disposition not to." And Bill Clinton did not have sex with that girl. Casey Anthony did not kill her daughter. OJ Simpson did not do it despite publishing a book that described every detail specifically as the experts determined that it happened.

Hell, Plato gave his life for his beliefs before Jesus. Plato was also born of a virgin, according to the available 'records'. And he preached much more peaceful ideas than Jesus.



Your arguments are not compelling except to idiots.
Patrick
2014-01-26 11:18:59 UTC
Everything that begins to exist has a cause



This is an unsupported assertion. How can you possibly know that EVERYTHING which begins to exist has a cause. Have you seen EVERYTHING in the universe? Furthermore, It does not follow logically that just because something exists, that it had a cause. It is entirely possible, logically speaking, that something could begin to exist without a cause. There is no logical contradiction in asserting this. In fact, we have pretty good evidence from quantum mechanics that certain particles flash in and out of existence without any cause whatsoever. So we also have direct evidence that things can exist without a cause, in addition to the fact that there is no logical contradiction which would make it impossible for something to exist without a cause.



There is overwhelming evidence that the universe began to exist



Okay let's break this statement down some. When we say that something "began to exist," this automatically implies the following: a period of time before the thing existed, a period of time during which the thing is coming not existence, and the period of time during which the thing exists. Now, scientists have said that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe. But what is the universe? The universe, according to these same scientists, is the space-time continuum. That is, space and time are inseparable. The Big Bang was the beginning of both physical space AND the beginning of time. Therefore there was no time during which the universe did not exist. Therefore, the universe did not "begin to exist," because it ha existed at every point in time. Even if we accept that the universe "began to exist," it does not follow that it had a cause- see my reply to "everything that begins to exist has a cause."



and natural selection with respect to observed biological complexity has been sharply challenged



By who? 99.9 percent of scientists believe in evolution, no exaggeration.



Spiritual experience - you might as well say "subjective experience," which never counts as evidence for anything. Why? Because individuals are unreliable. Only by comparing evidence with others can we ever come to a justified conclusion about anything. So we can dismiss this argument immediately. But I do want to offer an alternative explanation for the cause of so called religious experiences.



Your own religious experience was the product of chemical reactions occurring in your brain. These chemical reactions seem to occur spontaneously in some individuals, but its been demonstrated that working oneself into a religious fervor can stimulate parts of the brain that lead to the so called "religious experience." Psychologists who have studied this phenomena have noted that the religious experience can be obtained in a number of ways. The most direct is to ingest psychedelic mushrooms or LSD. In one study they asked individuals who has taken LSD to record their experiences. They then compared these written accounts with the written accounts of those who had "authentic" religious experiences without the use of drugs. They then asked people to see if they could identify which account were written by those who had taken LSD and which accounts were written by those who had "authentic" experiences. The result? No one could tell the difference between the two groups- the accounts were indistinguishable from each other. Psychologists have speculated that religious experiences are caused by parts of the brain misfiring. It has also been noted that religious experiences (talking to God, angels, demons, etc.) are common among those who suffer from psychosis and/or schizophrenia.



the vast majority of new testament scholars will agree to these few facts



Yeah. Totally unbiased source, right? What about the vast majority of historians in general. The only real facts are that there was a person named Jesus, probably NOT born in Nazareth as it was a graveyard with a single house. Everything else is pure unsupported speculation.



There is actually good evidence that the entire story of Jesus was made up. Study the myth of Isis and Osiris, Persian Mithra, Horus, Hindu Krishna, etc. there are several stories, some thousands of years older than the Jesus story, which tell essentially the same story - demigod born of a virgin who is killed and then resurrected, travels around healing the sick, the blind, etc. it's a story that's been around for thousands of years prior to Jesus. The Jesus story is just one of the most recent iterations of this myth. People recycle this story because its a good story and it inspires people. But the fact that the same story existed thousands of years prior to Jesus cast doubt on the historical accuracy of the Jesus story.



Source: I'm a philosopher and have studied philosophy of religion. I've read the best arguments that christians have to offer from people like Craig and Plantiga and have found their arguments to be inadequate.
Skeptikitten
2011-07-13 16:45:28 UTC
The Cosmological argument is based on a Bare Assertion fallacy- there is no logical reason why everything must have a "cause" to exist, necessarily. Quantum mechanics proves this. Not to mention that it commits the Special Pleading fallacy as well- if everything that exists must have a cause, then so too does your god. To claim otherwise is special pleading. If you claim it is possible for your god to have always existed, why can this not apply to the energy that expanded in the big bang? Why do you make the illogical jump from "cause" to "god", when there is no reason or evidence to do so?



The teleological argument has only returned to prominence because our society is scientifically uneducated and ignorant. All so-called "challenges" to the complexity issue have been soundly and easily debunked. Behe's "irreducible complexity" and Dembski's "specified complexity" rely completely on the Argument from Ignorance fallacy, the bare assertion fallacy, and incorrect knowledge of the mechanisms involved (since neither is a biologist). As a microbiologist, I find it amusing when people who have no training in my field attempt to claim that it somehow disproves naturalistic evolution.



As for experience- that isn't evidence at all because it is completely subjective. Every person in the WORLD who has a religion makes the same claims that you do about the existence of their god(s). While it of course does not automatically make all of them false, it also does not automatically make all or even some of them true.



Historicity of Jesus- This one's just silly. There is no primary evidence for the existence of Jesus at all. Not a single line was written about him until two generations after his supposed death, by a man who says he never met "the Christ" (not a person, but a title) and was attempting to secure TITHING for an offshoot of Judaism. There were around two dozen known historians in and around Jerusalem at the time of the events in question, and not a single one mentioned Jesus. The Romans had nothing, despite numerous references to other claimed "Messiah" figures of the time like Appolonius of Tyana.

It is not, in fact, "known" that Jesus was a historical person who was crucified- the only evidence is long after the fact and third-hand at best. Your claims of the empty tomb, the witnesses, and his disciples are all third-hand heresay accounts written many DECADES later by people who were never there and weren't even born at the time. Even theologians admit that there is no contemporaneous evidence.



None of these arguments are compelling. In fact, these are all quite old and oft-debunked arguments. The Cosmological Argument in particular is quite tired and illogical.
Chris
2011-07-13 16:42:32 UTC
1: Stop referencing the 2nd law of thermodynamics in creationists arguments. It has no place within them and only makes you look stupid.



2: Science has, thus far, proven evolution. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.



3: This is not an argument, it is a delusion.



4: Where are the records? Where are historical records of existence (excluding the bible, because that is not a historical record)? If he existed, there would be some solid proof of his existence, there is not.



People have attempted for thousands of years, in a countless number of religions, to prove that their god is logical and is proven through compelling, comprehensive evidence. As you may notice looking around, they have all failed. You will fail as well because you cannot prove something that doesn't exist.
umwut?
2011-07-13 16:42:51 UTC
Everything that begins has to have a cause. So, does your god have a cause? Or is it exempt from ever beginning? It has always existed, right? Gotcha. So has the universe, in one form or another.



I don't agree with your last premise that Jesus' ressurection is proof. Why? There's no proof of his ressurection outside of the bible. In fact, there's really no proof of his existence outside of the bible.
anonymous
2011-07-13 16:43:28 UTC
i don't appreciate you implying that i don't have an open mind simply because i don't believe in the god you think you just made a valid 'argument' over.

the way i see it you are one step away from being an atheist since you apparently rejected all the other gazillion gods but the one you believe.
punch
2011-07-13 16:27:42 UTC
You experience god with your own brain silly. And yes, I agree there was a cause. There is no proof that this "cause", was a god. And there is nothing that says the cause has to be a god. You just think it is.
anonymous
2011-07-13 16:37:22 UTC
You can't expect anyone to believe personal experiences.



As for 'micro' that just means smaller, so 'macro' is the same thing over a longer period. You can't have one without the other.
?
2011-07-13 16:29:44 UTC
1 Corinthians 2:14

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.



It's probably the best way to answer your question. You should read the whole chapter.
?
2011-07-13 16:31:13 UTC
Hello,

Faith is not the possession of all people, naturally.

You are correct, of course, apart from 'the cross'.

Kind regards, Günter


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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