Is there any sound argument for God's existence? Things like the cosmological argument, the design argument, the argument from miracles, the argument from religious experience, the moral argument, the "five ways", and so on?
In continental philosophy, it is widely assumed that the attempt to argue for God's existence is pointless and has been ruled out since Kant. But in analytic philosophy, the debate goes on with increasingly technical arguments...
Your thoughts, please.
In order to prove god's existence you simply have to define the meaning of those three words and their relationship with each other.
Proof, or to "prove" is to present irrefutable facts which can be accepted as evidence. The problem with "proof" is, what I view as an irrefutable fact and evidence may be completely different than what you would view. For instance, when Einstein viewed Newton's Law of Motion, he did not accept it as irrefutable fact. He challenged that with his own theory of relativity. Even though Einstein's theory prevailed, it didn't necessarily negate Newton's theory or render it invalid. Still, had Einstein simply accepted Newton's theory and never challenged it, he would have never formed the Theory of Relativity.
"God" can be imagined to mean all kinds of things. In the most simple form, it is the intangible which is greater than self. It may not be a "thing" or a "something" at all, it may be an energy or more specifically, a spirit. In any respect, it denotes some form of hierarchy greater than the human self. If you have imagined "God" as a "being" or "magical invisible person" who lives on a cloud and speaks with a Charlton Heston voice, then it's easy to consider this thing doesn't actually have a physical existence because it would defy any understanding of physical logic. However, if you can do as Einstein and challenge conventional wisdom, you may be able to consider "God" as some form of cosmic energy that man can't really explain or rationalize with science. We do know there are many phenomenon in the universe that science is inadequate to explain at this time.
This brings us to "exist" or "existence." What does that mean? Humans rationalize "existence" through verification by our five senses. We can see, taste, smell, hear or touch it. If we can't, we cannot logically deduce that it "exists." Or can we? If we had never observed black holes in our universe, would they "exist?" If humanity suddenly lost all five senses, would anything "exist?" It would in that we know that it does, but how would we ever confirm this without our senses?
Now, we have the five senses mentioned, but we can look around us in nature and find examples of living organisms which are able to sense things we humans can't. In fact, in every one of our five senses, there are animals which have a keener ability than humans. We're not superior in vision, hearing, taste, smell or touch. Not to mention the whole array of senses we simply can't relate to which we sometimes define as "instinct" or "intuition." Therefore it is arrogant of mankind to presume that our five very limited senses are all there is and nothing else can confirm any other form of existence.
If we can open our minds enough to accept that God is a non-physical (spiritual) entity which our five limited sense may not be able to detect, perhaps we can better rationalize the "existence" of "God?" I would argue the most incredible evidence for this is life itself. Life is a process. An organized and mechanical series of happening which performs in a predictable manner repeatedly all around us. Nothing about a random and circumstantial universe can logically explain this phenomenon. A process is not chaotic or random.
When we objectively inspect the billions of life forms on Earth, how they interact with each other and depend on one another, each with it's own contribution to the overall process, the circle of life, the interdependent balance in nature, existing in an environment that must conform to particular criteria to even enable the process to work... it's hard to conclude this is not the product of something greater than random chance. All the billions of things which had to happen in precise order, just for life to occur. Yet this is explained away by people who have closed their minds to any possibility of something greater than man. It is indeed an absurd conclusion to draw regardless of how intellectually you approach it.
For God to exist, does not require some physical confirmation of our senses, nor does it require that God conform to one of the many man-made constructs of religious incarnation. Religion is simply man's way of rationalizing a power it doesn't understand and cannot comprehend. In order to relate to this entity, man has developed an image of God. Since we can't relate, we have assumed humanistic attributes for God, like a God of Compassion or a God who becomes angry at sin, etc. These man-made characteristics of God do not have to apply in order for God to exist, in fact, it would surprise me if they did. Still, many people find it easier to accept a God they can relate to and understand, so we have religion for that purpose.
While our five limited senses are inadequate at confirming presence of God, humans do seem to have a sense that something greater exists. Even accounting for all the Atheists in the world, nearly 96% of humans do believe in something greater than self. Curiously, this statistic follows mankind back to his very origins. We've unearthed the most ancient human civilizations to find they conducted ritual spiritual ceremonies, so they did believe in something. It is the single most unique defining attribute of the human species, spirituality.
We hear the argument that humans created spirituality to cope with fears of death and explain the unexplained. This is an irrational explanation to me. We see no evidence in nature of any other living thing, having to "cope with fears of death" the way humans have. It would seem, if this were a legitimate explanation, at least some of the upper primates would have exhibited similar attributes, but we find absolutely no evidence to support it. Nothing else has to worship a higher power to cope with it's fear of death. As for the unexplained, we also see no evidence that other living things require explanation. They survive and thrive perfectly fine without demand for explanation.
I would argue that it is through mankind's spirituality and understanding of something greater than self, that humans developed methods of explaining the unexplained universe around us, hence: Science. Yes, the very thing that humans often revert to in order to refute God's existence, was developed out of mankind's understanding that God does exist.
