Is There One Sound/valid Syllogistic Argument For The Existence Of God?

[Pennywise]

I am agnostic because although I cannot perceive the possibility of a God, I can also not fathom the workings of the universe as being a random series of blips and explosions. If nothing else, carbon and all other elements exist, they are real. If you can't tell me from whence they sprang, you cannot possibly proclaim a higher power does not exist.

 

[newpolitics]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

The flaw in your approach is that you're tackling an issue, faith, and asking the faithful to enter your realm and provide logical proof. If they had logic, then they wouldn't need faith.

Secondly, you're overlooking the issue of absence of evidence not being evidence of absence.

I'm not looking for evidence either, since I don't need to assert a counter-claim for your positive claim to fall short.

I didn't make a claim, I pointed out some issues. I'm an Atheist.

You take issue with asking that people support their own claims?

Personally I find it pointless to engage a person who putting forth a faith-based proposition and demanding that he provide evidence in support of his faith. Such an encounter is operating at two different levels. I learned this after about 6 months of arguing with Religious Believers and then I tired of beating my head against the wall.

On the other hand though, we all get different needs met by engaging in debate. Go with what works.

Essentially, I agree with you, that due to the nature of the claim of the existence of a metaphysical being that is

Another intellectually challenged atheist demanding physical proof of a spiritual existence. Why bother, he's never gonna understand it anyway (not that he really wants to). You're either smart enough to be able to think outside the box or you're not, and NP obviously isn't.

So you admit you have nothing. Just a belief.

 

[BreezeWood]

.

atheism does not answer what caused the emergence of life or the perimeters for its existence any more than any other belief and so is simply another ship on the oceans floor, for those answers in pursuit of the Everlasting.

.

 

[S.J.]

The flaw in your approach is that you're tackling an issue, faith, and asking the faithful to enter your realm and provide logical proof. If they had logic, then they wouldn't need faith.

Secondly, you're overlooking the issue of absence of evidence not being evidence of absence.

I'm not looking for evidence either, since I don't need to assert a counter-claim for your positive claim to fall short.

I didn't make a claim, I pointed out some issues. I'm an Atheist.

You take issue with asking that people support their own claims?

Personally I find it pointless to engage a person who putting forth a faith-based proposition and demanding that he provide evidence in support of his faith. Such an encounter is operating at two different levels. I learned this after about 6 months of arguing with Religious Believers and then I tired of beating my head against the wall.

On the other hand though, we all get different needs met by engaging in debate. Go with what works.

Essentially, I agree with you, that due to the nature of the claim of the existence of a metaphysical being that is

Another intellectually challenged atheist demanding physical proof of a spiritual existence. Why bother, he's never gonna understand it anyway (not that he really wants to). You're either smart enough to be able to think outside the box or you're not, and NP obviously isn't.

So you admit you have nothing. Just a belief.

Nothing that your one dimensional mind would be able to grasp.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

God exists. But maybe what 'God' is isn't as religionists describe it being? Or,

The ancients had incontrovertible proof of Gods' existence. The Jews fleeing Egypt had God with them. They had no doubts at all it existed. Yet they sought more and more from God. More food, more water, more favors. So having proof didn't do them much good.

God is wise. God knows if He provided us with proof of its' existence we'd sit back and expect God to take care of every little thing. Our species would stagnate, cease innovation, as we relied more and more on God to fix all our problems. We'd likely still have numerous religions argueing over minutia. The world would be very different. Probably no global economy as business practices would be regulated by divine laws. Many would die from sheer neglect as leaders reasoned if they were worthy God would save them.

God's existence remains an open question despite millenia of debate with no victors due to the above reaosns and many more. If we knew God existed as surely as we do the Sun does, we'd suffer, not prosper. The ancient Greeks were fairly convinced their pantheon existed yet still made war with one another. Being convinced of gods existing doesn't make things any better than they were prior. Adam and Eve knew God existed, didn't do them much good either.

Simplest most elegant proof of God existing I've discovered is the complete lack of evidence. Comparing this utter void of empiricism against the billions talking about God suggests to me at least that God does in fact exist, but is wise enough to conceal it. It used to prove itself, and we factionalized and made war with one another just as we do now without proof. So if nothing changes for the better with such proof, why prove it?

God does test the faithful.

3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Deuteronomy 13

The test we all must take involves whether we obey divine law even absent a single ounce of proof that that deity exists.

 

[BreezeWood]

The test we all must take involves whether we obey divine law even absent a single ounce of proof that that deity exists.

generically speaking is the test obeying laws or accomplishing goals, the latter being discoveries prior to death enabling a future existence ... such that atheism is only a half equation empty of substantive resolution but a direction away from worship to goals and accomplishments - God being only relevant to a final result ?

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Behold the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.​

This observation serves as the jumping off point in grasping the actual nature of the irrefutably sound transcendental argument for God's existence. Make no mistake about it: the atheist merely misapprehends the nature of logic's ontological origin and, consequently, its eternal immutability. He tricks himself when he imagines that logic is a created thing, when in fact the essence of perfect logic is God Himself. For those who may still be scratching their heads, I'd be more than happy to show why the atheist's allegation does not hold up from first principles, though it would be a much simpler matter for newpolitics to begin by telling us why he thinks the transcendental argument fails.

Also, let us all understand what the atheist is actually doing when he alleges that the classical arguments (or their more scientific forms, for example, the Kalam cosmological argument) for God's existence fail. He's merely equates his subjective experience of not being convinced via his alleged defeaters with the issue of dialectical soundness in spite of the various arguments' powerful counter-defeaters. In my experience, the atheist habitually misapprehends the defeater-structure of rational discourse as he conflates the essence of logical proofs with the concerns of empirical demonstrations due to his unwitting presupposition—or is it his unwitting superimposition?—of metaphysical naturalism, i.e., his scientifically unfalsifiable apriority.

Who thinks I can't demonstrate the rather obvious fallacy in the following critique of Dr. Craig's argument? Hint: straw man.




In the meantime, know this: the problem of the infinite regression of origin (a variation of the ontological argument, akin to what newpolitics may have in mind regarding "the modal ontological argument") does not merely demonstrate the possibility of God's existence. It demonstrates the rationally untenable assertion that atheism given the fact that the atheist necessarily concedes the ontologically independent existence of the construct of God in his very denial that their be any substance behind it: Prufrock s Cave.

In the light of the infinite regression of origin, the honest intellect should concede that the assertion of atheism defies the conventions of standard logic, while the assertion of theism is not inherently contradictory, whether it be, objectively speaking, ultimately true or not.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

God exists. But maybe what 'God' is isn't as religionists describe it being? Or,

The ancients had incontrovertible proof of Gods' existence. The Jews fleeing Egypt had God with them. They had no doubts at all it existed. Yet they sought more and more from God. More food, more water, more favors. So having proof didn't do them much good.

God is wise. God knows if He provided us with proof of its' existence we'd sit back and expect God to take care of every little thing. Our species would stagnate, cease innovation, as we relied more and more on God to fix all our problems. We'd likely still have numerous religions argueing over minutia. The world would be very different. Probably no global economy as business practices would be regulated by divine laws. Many would die from sheer neglect as leaders reasoned if they were worthy God would save them.

God's existence remains an open question despite millenia of debate with no victors due to the above reaosns and many more. If we knew God existed as surely as we do the Sun does, we'd suffer, not prosper. The ancient Greeks were fairly convinced their pantheon existed yet still made war with one another. Being convinced of gods existing doesn't make things any better than they were prior. Adam and Eve knew God existed, didn't do them much good either.

Simplest most elegant proof of God existing I've discovered is the complete lack of evidence. Comparing this utter void of empiricism against the billions talking about God suggests to me at least that God does in fact exist, but is wise enough to conceal it. It used to prove itself, and we factionalized and made war with one another just as we do now without proof. So if nothing changes for the better with such proof, why prove it?

God does test the faithful.

3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
- Deuteronomy 13

The test we all must take involves whether we obey divine law even absent a single ounce of proof that that deity exists.

Nonsense. I see that your mind is still as closed as a slammed-shut door, unwilling to rid itself of irrelevancies obscuring the readily self-evident implications of first principles, which overwhelmingly favor the conclusion that God must be.

For powerfully sound reasons the overwhelming majority of humanity has held and will always hold that God exists. Enough of this crap that humanity has not decisively asserted which of the two alternatives has the stronger case. LOL!

No proof? Logical proofs and the concerns empirical demonstration are not the same thing, and sentient beings do not experience reality in terms of sensory phenomena alone. Ultimately, sentient beings process reality in accordance to the absolute rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness . . . in spite of the fact that some behave as if they were congenital slogan spouters rather than unexamined lives.

 

[Big Black Dog]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

I'm thinking that you will know that God exists very shortly after you die.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

The flaw in your approach is that you're tackling an issue, faith, and asking the faithful to enter your realm and provide logical proof. If they had logic, then they wouldn't need faith.

Secondly, you're overlooking the issue of absence of evidence not being evidence of absence.

I'm not looking for evidence either, since I don't need to assert a counter-claim for your positive claim to fall short.

I didn't make a claim, I pointed out some issues. I'm an Atheist.

You take issue with asking that people support their own claims?

Personally I find it pointless to engage a person who is putting forth a faith-based proposition and demanding that he provide evidence in support of his faith. Such an encounter is operating at two different levels. I learned this after about 6 months of arguing with Religious Believers and then I tired of beating my head against the wall.

On the other hand though, we all get different needs met by engaging in debate. Go with what works.

Indeed, in my experience it's pointless to engage the sloganeering of the atheist's purely faith-based notion, unless he actually steps out and attempts to make a real argument. In that case, it becomes a worthwhile exercise, an opportunity to demonstrate just how full of it the new atheism really is.

Rikurzhen, theism is not a faith-based assertion. That's nonsense. It doesn't take any faith to recognize that God must be or to believe that God is. Theism rests on reason. It's a rational assertion predicated on universally self-evident first principles. Faith arises at the moment of committing to any given system of thought regarding the intent/purpose of existence relative to divinity, not before.

If you think the new atheism's allegation that the classical arguments for God's existence asserted by history's greatest philosophical, theological and scientific minds have been overthrown, then you've been playing in the post-modern, pseudointellectual world of make believe. You've been consorting with straw men and have never faced the real thing in terms of rebuttal.

Once again, I'm laying down the gauntlet for those of you who think the new atheism has overthrown these arguments to step into the ring. Tell me all about how the new atheism has raised startlingly new objections never considered or anticipated by the great theistic apologists of history and watch what I do to your straw men, more at, watch what a learned apologist does to your logical fallacies and misapprehensions of things.

I'm not holding my breath, though, for all I've ever gotten on this forum from atheists is sloganeering, but perhaps newpolitics has something more than just the bald assertions that the various arguments fail. The fact that you're still operating under the impression that theism is a faith-based assertion demonstrates that you've never beat your head against anything but amateur hour.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

The flaw in your approach is that you're tackling an issue, faith, and asking the faithful to enter your realm and provide logical proof. If they had logic, then they wouldn't need faith.

Secondly, you're overlooking the issue of absence of evidence not being evidence of absence.

And while the statement in bold is partially on the mark, you're making the mistake of thinking that theism is based on faith, when in fact it is based on reason.

Enter his realm?

That would be a change in pace, i.e., an atheist on this forum entering into the realm of logic against the actualities of the classical arguments for God's existence so that a real apologist might disabuse him of his misapprehensions.

I've been waiting for an atheist to back his guff with something more than platitudes for years on this forum. It's his OP. He's the one making the claim that these arguments fail in the face of logic or reason or evidence or whatever, and then tells Mohamed that he need not justify his alleged refutation of the teleological argument beyond what is in fact nothing more than a counter teleological argument unwittingly predicated on an empirically indemonstrable apriority. But frankly the cosmological, ontological and transcendental arguments are more interesting and more powerful.

Faith, not Logic?! LOL! We're not talking about any given theological system of thought, my friend. We're not talking about Delta4's irrelevancies, for example. We're talking about the first principles of being. You think I can't demolish newpolitics' yet to be heard justifications for the bald claims in his OP? Think again. It's the atheist who is spouting logically errant and empirically indemonstrable rubbish.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Flying Spaghetti Monster - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[PratchettFan]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Behold the inherently contradictory, self-negating irrationally of relativism: there are no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute assertion that there are no absolutes is absolutely false. No crash and burn there. That brick never even gets off the ground. In other words, even the relativist can't explain how two diametrically opposed propositions could possibly be true at the same time, in the same way, within the same frame of reference.​

This observation serves as the jumping off point in grasping the actual nature of the irrefutably sound transcendental argument for God's existence. Make no mistake about it: the atheist merely misapprehends the nature of logic's ontological origin and, consequently, its eternal immutability. He tricks himself when he imagines that logic is a created thing, when in fact the essence of perfect logic is God Himself. For those who may still be scratching their heads, I'd be more than happy to show why the atheist's allegation does not hold up from first principles, though it would be a much simpler matter for newpolitics to begin by telling us why he thinks the transcendental argument fails.

Also, let us all understand what the atheist is actually doing when he alleges that the classical arguments (or their more scientific forms, for example, the Kalam cosmological argument) for God's existence fail. He's merely equates his subjective experience of not being convinced via his alleged defeaters with the issue of dialectical soundness in spite of the various arguments' powerful counter-defeaters. In my experience, the atheist habitually misapprehends the defeater-structure of rational discourse as he conflates the essence of logical proofs with the concerns of empirical demonstrations due to his unwitting presupposition—or is it his unwitting superimposition?—of metaphysical naturalism, i.e., his scientifically unfalsifiable apriority.

Who thinks I can't demonstrate the rather obvious fallacy in the following critique of Dr. Craig's argument? Hint: straw man.




In the meantime, know this: the problem of the infinite regression of origin (a variation of the ontological argument, akin to what newpolitics may have in mind regarding "the modal ontological argument") does not merely demonstrate the possibility of God's existence. It demonstrates the rationally untenable assertion that atheism given the fact that the atheist necessarily concedes the ontologically independent existence of the construct of God in his very denial that their be any substance behind it: Prufrock s Cave.

In the light of the infinite regression of origin, the honest intellect should concede that the assertion of atheism defies the conventions of standard logic, while the assertion of theism is not inherently contradictory, whether it be, objectively speaking, ultimately true or not.

The problem is that both sides of this issue are attempting to demonstrate their position with logic alone. Logic is like a hammer without nails or wood, a good tool but useless under the conditions. The statement "Humans have large, fluffy ears. I am a human. Therefore I have large, fluffy ears" is perfect logic but it only takes a glance in the mirror to demonstrate the maxim "Garbage in. Garbage out." In this particular discussion you can change that to "Nothing in. Nothing out."

We are operating in a total informational vacuum. There is no evidence to support either side. All we have is belief and assumption. You apply your unsupported assumptions to logic to demonstrate your point, they apply their unsupported assumptions to demonstrate theirs. What you end up with is lots of words and not a single supported conclusion.

 

[asaratis]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Since the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, if Atheism is justified, then so is belief in God.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The problem is that both sides of this issue are attempting to demonstrate their position with logic alone. Logic is like a hammer without nails or wood, a good tool but useless under the conditions. The statement "Humans have large, fluffy ears. I am a human. Therefore I have large, fluffy ears" is perfect logic but it only takes a glance in the mirror to demonstrate the maxim "Garbage in. Garbage out." In this particular discussion you can change that to "Nothing in. Nothing out."

We are operating in a total informational vacuum. There is no evidence to support either side. All we have is belief and assumption. You apply your unsupported assumptions to logic to demonstrate your point, they apply their unsupported assumptions to demonstrate theirs. What you end up with is lots of words and not a single supported conclusion.

You're saying there's no evidence of God's existence?

 

[PratchettFan]

The problem is that both sides of this issue are attempting to demonstrate their position with logic alone. Logic is like a hammer without nails or wood, a good tool but useless under the conditions. The statement "Humans have large, fluffy ears. I am a human. Therefore I have large, fluffy ears" is perfect logic but it only takes a glance in the mirror to demonstrate the maxim "Garbage in. Garbage out." In this particular discussion you can change that to "Nothing in. Nothing out."

We are operating in a total informational vacuum. There is no evidence to support either side. All we have is belief and assumption. You apply your unsupported assumptions to logic to demonstrate your point, they apply their unsupported assumptions to demonstrate theirs. What you end up with is lots of words and not a single supported conclusion.

You're saying there's no evidence of God's existence?

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. There is only belief, conjecture and unsupported assumption. I would love for someone to prove me wrong, but so far no one has.

 

[PratchettFan]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Since the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, if Atheism is justified, then so is belief in God.

Absolutely. In the absence of information, any guess is as good as another.

 

[asaratis]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Since the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, if Atheism is justified, then so is belief in God.

Absolutely. In the absence of information, any guess is as good as another.

That is why any argument regarding the existence of God is futile. It may be enlightening in regard to practicing one's debating skills and may change the minds of some readers but it will never prove one way or the other.

Whether or not Atheism is a religion is another story. There just has to be agreement on the definitions of words.

 

[PratchettFan]

Title is pretty self-explanatory. Go.

The Cosmological argument fails.
The kalam fails.
The ontological argument fails.
The modal ontological argument only proves the possibility of god, by virtue of modal logic and axiom S5.
The teleological argument fails.
The transcendental argument fails.
...

ARE THERE ANY? For the past three thousand years, the smartest minds have been unable to provide a single syllogism that conclusively demonstrates god's existence.

Yet, all of these supremely arrogant theists run their mouth against atheism, as if they have an epistemological leg to stand on, when they don't.

Any day now! We are waiting for your argument, and until then, atheism is justified.

Since the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, if Atheism is justified, then so is belief in God.

Absolutely. In the absence of information, any guess is as good as another.

That is why any argument regarding the existence of God is futile. It may be enlightening in regard to practicing one's debating skills and may change the minds of so readers but it will never prove one way or the other.

Whether or not Atheism is a religion is another story. There just has to be agreement on the definitions of words.

It's why I never debate the existence of God. I fully concede your guess is as good as mine, but I don't concede it's better than mine.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The problem is that both sides of this issue are attempting to demonstrate their position with logic alone. Logic is like a hammer without nails or wood, a good tool but useless under the conditions. The statement "Humans have large, fluffy ears. I am a human. Therefore I have large, fluffy ears" is perfect logic but it only takes a glance in the mirror to demonstrate the maxim "Garbage in. Garbage out." In this particular discussion you can change that to "Nothing in. Nothing out."

We are operating in a total informational vacuum. There is no evidence to support either side. All we have is belief and assumption. You apply your unsupported assumptions to logic to demonstrate your point, they apply their unsupported assumptions to demonstrate theirs. What you end up with is lots of words and not a single supported conclusion.

You're saying there's no evidence of God's existence?

Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. There is only belief, conjecture and unsupported assumption. I would love for someone to prove me wrong, but so far no one has.

Oh, you've been proven wrong, alright. You just haven't gotten beyond the slogans of brain freeze and properly beheld the obvious. The existence of the universe and sentience is the evidence, and the inherent, readily self-evident implications of the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness which compel the theist conclusion are not the stuff mere conjecture, let alone the stuff of unsupported assumptions. Indeed, calling the evidence and the impressions of first principles unsupported assumptions is ridiculous. You're unwitting imposition of materialism on the facts of existence on which theism is predicated is obscuring the actuality of the issue.

Notwithstanding, I have no power to convince anyone that God exists. My only interest here is setting the record straight as to what theism is actually based on. It's not based on the ethereal mumbo jumbo alleged by those who are simply not cognizant of the pertinent facts of existence.