Objective moral standards do not exist. Every being on earth have inherent bias and predispositions and prejudice. That is the way of the world; every species for oneself through self-situating in every case of choice. Free will is also a contested term nowadays, and it seems that synapses in your brain have started transmitting and guiding your body into action before you have actually decided to take action. Rationality; what a strange connection to make in proving God, since rationality is the first thing to forego when believing in a celestial, all knowing, omnipresent being.

The fine tuned universe exists thorugh a series of cosmic events that have spread and made life viable on a few planets, and evolution is the most probable (and indeed the only proven) benefactor of fine tuning. Of course; in christian lore, evolution is a non issue, but then we're back at the rationality point again... If you see a situation or scene in front of you with unknown events having lead up to it, you have a couple of possible scenarios to pick and choose from if you're not very knowledegable about the subject that this situation or scene may concern; a plausible and tangible solution involving physics and basic natural discourses or; a far fetched theory that it was all orchestrated and planned by some supreme being. Many devout christians accuse non-christians or indeed anyone non religious of being close minded, while they themselves are actually openly and conciously opposing and fighting the most logical, rational and tangible solution to a given point.

The best about God is his nature; unable to be proven or disproven, existing perpetually as a figment of some ancient tome's mythology that remains untouchable and immune to ratiolazation or scientific methods with the all-encompassing; "God works in mysterious ways". Way to cover all bases...

I'll never convert a religious person with my views through reasoning or logical deduction of the prime tenets of faith, but I'll be damned if one of them ever converts me, I feel to intelligent for that to happen!

llewdebkram said: Komodo said: The only thing that could convince me there is a God if if I met one. HI, pleased to meet you!

Same here I would refuse to accept god exists until I met him face to face and it was live on
TV as well so I didn't know I was crazy. Also if all the gods in the world were real how many gods would there be? my bet would be well over 10,000 seperate gods

you know if we take the bible serious it is only the year 6000
= i don't think so

and why do you assume it is god that made us and not some alien or is god a alien?
but are there some more aliens then?
but then again the bible say somehing like : i'm the only one
and how can god exist before there was a universe if there was nothing before??

EDIT first part is an assumption just like the OP made some assumptions

Yawn... If you think 'god' exists then thats your issue lol

Two words:

Watch Dogma.

Quick refutation of the (fairly standard, and debunked hundreds of times) arguments in the OP:

1) Your first premise is prima-facie unsound, because it contains the phrase, "that we know the origin of." We know the origin of DNA; it comes from basic organic compounds that formed during Earth's primordial phase. DNA is one "language, code, protocol, and encoding/decoding mechanism" that we know comes not from a mind, but from a certain set of conditions existing on Earth at a certain point in time. The premise, therefore, is only sound if you assume the very thing you're trying to prove.

2) An absurd non-sequitur. "Moral relativism is wrong. In a universe where God exists, moral relativism is right. Therefore, God exists." Reduce this to symbolic logic, and you have, "Not A. If B, then not A. Therefore, B." If you can't see why this is wrong, then I suggest you take a basic logic course and then come back.

3) Again, a non-sequitur. "Several prominent evolutionary biologists doubt that the mind is made up purely of matter. Therefore, God exists." I know that's probably not what you were trying to say, but that's all I could glean from that mess. Also, those quotes from Darwin and Haldane are horribly out of context - the first quote likely refers to the fact that energy processes in the brain are largely responsible for the existence of thought, and the second is a valid evolutionary question, not a representation of doubt over naturalism.

4) More begging the question and out-of-context quotes. You assume that the soul exists straightaway without providing any proof for that assertion. In addition, all of your arguments rely upon twisting and reading into quotes to an absurd extent. The quote from Habermas and Moreland is so meaningless outside of its original context that you could interpret it to mean anything. The quote from Nagel supposes that all the knowledge in the world cannot tell you the same thing as experience, which says nothing of the soul or materialism. Finally, your last point addresses the question of compatibility of determinism and free will, which I've taken an entire semester's worth of classes on. On that subject, I'll just say that there are very strong and convincing arguments for their compatibility.

5) This is just one of Aquinas' old arguments for the existence of God. It's unsound because premise (a) is false. Of the universes we know of, we have only a sample size of one: this one. And, because of that, we do not know how whether all universes' beginnings have a cause. Therefore, not all beginnings of universes necessarily have a cause.

6) This one displays a profound ignorance toward the concept of the anthropic principle. The anthropic principle actually evidences the non-existence of God. According to anthropic reasoning, we only see the sort of universe that supports life because we can only EXIST in the sort of universe that supports life. We therefore have a confirmation bias toward a universe that appears to be "designed." Anything else - including supposing the existence of an intelligent designer - would be extraneous, and should be "shaved" away via the principle of Occam's razor.

Furthermore, the universe is not fine-tuned. From what we know if it, it's actually an extremely chaotic place, given to black holes, supernovas, spontaneous creation and destruction of all sorts. If God exists, he must not have been a very "intelligent" designer to have put forth such a hostile place.

So, to conclude: Take a few classes on logic and check your arguments to see if they've been debunked before (chances are they have) before you try to spout them off as conclusive. Philosophers have been trying to prove the existence of God for millenniums. The chances of you - or someone else with no background in logic - doing so on a message board is infinitesimally small.

I shall sum up this entire thread and all the arguments therein:

"SEE!? I'm able to point out minor flaws in your arguments, thus you don't know what you're talking about, therefor the answer you think is right must be wrong, whereas MY erroneous logic proves that my answer is obviously correct and indisputable!"








Arguing against the existence of God is like trying to argue that the parachute we packed won't open after we've already jumped out of the plane. So what? We're supposed to toss it then? Flap our arms really hard? Just wait for the end without attempting anything? Thanks, but I'll keep the parachute.

Man, by nature is imperfect, but must also strive towards perfection. Even if somehow, however impossible it is, man is the source of God, by accepting this view, God is no longer a source of perfection and man loses a critical incorruptible role model that is necessary for society to flourish.

So on one side, you have the fact that God does exist, and thus it should be accepted that he exists, and on the other side, whether god exists or not he NEEDS to exist, and thus is should be accepted that he exists.

I haven't see anyone in this thread tell me why The Transcendental Argument is not proof for the existence of God. 

Because by teh transendental argument, LIGHT wouldn't exist either.

Hold on, misunderstood what angle this was going from. But there are a few basic flaws in things, such as law of absolutes like being dead is either true or false with no middle ground, whereas there are middle grounds that are disputed, as well as timesframes.

Other issue is that really, most of these are postulates, and things that must be accepted for logic to work at all. But the assumption of the aethiest is that all of that stems from the human mind anyway, and that the universe only is perceived as having organization.

Basically, "God exists" is the postulate of humanity and society.