Evidence for God's Existence

[WinePusher]

When I first joined this forum I remember McCulloch was creating a series of topics devoted to the various arguments for God's existence. I'd like to explore those issues in this thread and for the purpose of this thread God will be defined as a deistic, supernatural intelligent designer. We will not be using any theistic definition of God.

Teleological arguments prove God's existence based on the design and precise structure of the universe. The universe is structured in an improbable and an unlikely way. The physical laws that govern the universe are fine tuned to an extremely unlikely numerical value, and had these laws been set at any other parameter life could not exist. Statistically speaking, chance/coincidence is not an appropriate explanation, therefore a fine tuner/intelligent designer designed the universe.

Ontological arguments prove God's existence based on the definition of God. God is defined as a maximally great being, meaning that God can have no defects. Nonexistence is a defect, therefore God must exist. First of all, this argument pretty much destroys the ignostic position. Yes, I realize ignostics are willingly ignorant of all the philosophical scholarship surrounding God, but the fact is that the concept of God is pretty well defined. Therefore, the ignostics usergroup should be abolished.

Cosmological arguments prove God's existence based on the fact that the universe began to exist. Meaning, at one point in the distant past, the universe did not exist at all. The universe is itself contingent. Mathematically speaking, it is impossible for the chain of causes to regress backwards infinitely. Therefore, a non contingent first cause must exist. This cause supernatural, in the sense that it must be spaceless and timeless since space and time are bound by the universe.

Moral arguments prove God's existence based on the existence of objective morality. By objective morality I mean a moral statement or declaration. Something like 'killing is an innocent person for fun is wrong.' This is a moral declaration that is objectively true, regardless of any individuals personal opinion. Since an objective moral law exists, there must be a moral law giver. Another version of the moral argument would be the fact that the world would be morally absurd and irrational absent a moral law giver.


Questions:
1) Are these arguments logically valid and sound?

2) In light of these four philosophical arguments, will atheists please stop making the false, disingenuous claim that there is no evidence for God?

3) Are there any arguments against the existence of God?

[10CC]

Again, refer to the article. We are not talking about one single universe. We are talking about many various forces, laws and constants that all happen to be set to the numerical value that permits life.

The universe doesn't exist to permit your life, your life exists as a result of universes existence. If the universe was different, then perhaps you wouldn't exist it does not follow that life would not exist. Your claim assumes that the carbon based life extant on planet earth are the only possible life forms in the entire universe, an unsupportable assumption I think and/or that there are millions of planets identical to earth with identical life forms all over the universe.

[WinePusher]

I think with all that, the main point is that 'Arguments are not evidence'.

Wow, this is such a ridiculous statement. Arguments use evidence. Arguments and evidence are essentially different sides of the same coin. An argument cannot exist without evidence, and whereas an argument attempts to persuade, the purpose of evidence is to prove. Argumentation is the process by which evidence is collected and organized. All these arguments, many of which were developed by Medieval thinkers, used evidence to prove their conclusions. Your statement is completely absurd.

No WP... you are the one in the wrong here I am afraid. A. Argumentation does not equal Evidence, otherwise there would be absolutely no point to having an argument.

I never said that arguments are completely identical with evidence. However, the distinction you and Goat are raising is false, and to make matters worse you are trying to make it seem as if philosophical argumentation is inappropriate for this discussion when in fact it is appropriate.

B: Arguments do not not necessarily require evidence - though the soundness of the conclusions I am arguing for may waiver in the case of a lack of evidence, I can after all make an argument that is neither valid or sound... otherwise, what is the point of the rules of logic anyway?

Depends what kind of argument you're talking about. I'm not sure about this and I've asked for Haven's opinion, but I don't think a priori arguments or analogy arguments require empirical evidence. But they do require other things, and the point is that you cannot have an argument without drawing upon things in the real world.

I would go back and review the definitions for both the terms "evidence" and "argument" before you dismiss another's statement as being completely absurd.

No thanks. Goat's statement made no sense, plain and simple. Evidence refers to real, physical, observable, things that can be used to prove a hypothesis/proposition. Arguments obviously don't exist in reality, arguments are nontangible thought processes by which evidence is brought together with a proposition to justify a conclusion.

[TheJoshAbideth]

[Replying to post 22 by WinePusher]


Mine and Goats point is that you cannot use an argument in place of evidence as it seems you are suggesting. Just because you make an argument for something does not make it evidence of that thing, this is because if I were to to take your argument as evidence for that thing I would also be making a statement regarding how sound or valid your argument is... now isn't that the point of the rules of logic??? to determine the validity and soundness of an argument?

This is not to say that an argument cannot provide evidence towards one conclusion or another, but to say that you can use them interchangeably is simply and plainly wrong.

Goats statement was clear as a bell - and fully supported by the very definitions of the terms he was using.

Also - let me add here, the only things absolutely required to make an argument are a premise, and a conclusion. evidence only comes in to play when determining the soundness of the premises, and really has very little to do with the ability to formulate an argument in the first place.

[Jax Agnesson]

When I first joined this forum I remember McCulloch was creating a series of topics devoted to the various arguments for God's existence. I'd like to explore those issues in this thread and for the purpose of this thread God will be defined as a deistic, supernatural intelligent designer. We will not be using any theistic definition of God.

Teleological arguments prove God's existence based on the design and precise structure of the universe. The universe is structured in an improbable and an unlikely way. The physical laws that govern the universe are fine tuned to an extremely unlikely numerical value, and had these laws been set at any other parameter life could not exist.

How do you defend this argument against the weak anthropic principle?
If conscious beings look out to see what sort of world they live in, it will be the sort of world in which it is possible for conscious beings to exist. This is true, no matter how 'improbable' the conscious beings think a world like theirs is, compared to (what they beleive to be) all possible worlds.

Statistically speaking, chance/coincidence is not an appropriate explanation, therefore a fine tuner/intelligent designer designed the universe.

What does 'appropriate' mean, in this context? If there are a zillion possible universes, and only six of them allow conscious life to develop, then a conscious life-form can pick from several possible narratives:
1. Ours is the only universe that ever happened, and we're just incredibly lucky to exist at all.
2. Zillions of universes might have happened, for all we know, and some of them might include intelligences like ours.
3. God did it.
4. Your guess is as good as mine.
5. Of all the combinations of forces and particle-values that are thinkable, only a very few could exist for any significant length of time. So this is one of only a few possible universes.
6, etc.. Roll your own

(Reminds me of the two stoned hippies philosophising:
Hippy 1: Isn't the world strange?
Hippy 2. Compared to what?

Ontological arguments prove God's existence based on the definition of God. God is defined as a maximally great being, meaning that God can have no defects. Nonexistence is a defect, therefore God must exist.

I suggest that 'non-existence' is not a possible state; no entity could even theoretically have the quality of nonexistence. . Therefore it can not be a defect.

Cosmological arguments prove God's existence based on the fact that the universe began to exist. Meaning, at one point in the distant past, the universe did not exist at all. The universe is itself contingent. Mathematically speaking, it is impossible for the chain of causes to regress backwards infinitely. Therefore, a non contingent first cause must exist. This cause supernatural, in the sense that it must be spaceless and timeless since space and time are bound by the universe.

If something had to cause the universe, then either
1 This cause did not require our kind of space-time. Or
2. something analogous to our spacetime exists outside of our universe.

Consider the following:
1. Everything that exists had a beginning.
2. God didn't have a beginning.
3. God doesn't exist.
This argument is valid, (I think) in that the premises are not internally incoherent, and the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises; but it is is not sound. An atheist can challenge either or both of the premises, and thereby show that the argument is not sound, without weakening his own argument for the nonexistence of God. (For example, I can point out that 1 can not be shown to be true).
.
For proponents of the Kalam, (or its modern variants) destroying this argument is not so simple... The difficulty is that you cannot claim that 1 is false, except by special pleading; 'everything that exists has a beginning, except God'. This introduces God's existence into the first premise of an argument for God's existence. Or you can challenge 1 without introducing God, but that just admits that some thing(s) could exist without a beginning, which again undermines your argument for God.
Any atheist, or agnostic, can challenge premise 2 with equal ease; eg I have heard of plenty of Gods that have beginnings.

Moral arguments prove God's existence based on the existence of objective morality. ]By objective morality I mean a moral statement or declaration. Something like 'killing is an innocent person for fun is wrong.' This is a moral declaration that is objectively true, regardless of any individuals personal opinion. Since an objective moral law exists, there must be a moral law giver. Another version of the moral argument would be the fact that the world would be morally absurd and irrational absent a moral law giver.

Show that objective morality exists. Distinguish this from
a. universal morality (ie moral ideas that everyone holds in common) and b. absolute morality (eg the opinion that rape is always wrong, with no exceptions).


Questions:
1) Are these arguments logically valid and sound? [/quote] I challenge each one of them.

2) In light of these four philosophical arguments, will atheists please stop making the false, disingenuous claim that there is no evidence for God?

If I thought they were sound, I would agree with them.

3) Are there any arguments against the existence of God?

Yes.

[olavisjo]

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Mine and Goats point is that you cannot use an argument in place of evidence as it seems you are suggesting. Just because you make an argument for something does not make it evidence of that thing, this is because if I were to to take your argument as evidence for that thing I would also be making a statement regarding how sound or valid your argument is... now isn't that the point of the rules of logic??? to determine the validity and soundness of an argument?

You are right an argument is not evidence, an argument is the logic that allows for a conclusion based on the given evidence.

The cosmological argument is not evidence, but the fact that the universe began to exist is.
The teleological argument is not evidence, but the fact that the universe is fine tuned is.
The moral argument is not evidence, but the fact that morality does exist is.

[olavisjo]

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How do you defend this argument against the weak anthropic principle?
If conscious beings look out to see what sort of world they live in, it will be the sort of world in which it is possible for conscious beings to exist. This is true, no matter how 'improbable' the conscious beings think a world like theirs is, compared to (what they beleive to be) all possible worlds.

I will pretend you did not know the answer to your question before you asked.

• In response to this objection, defenders of the argument from fine-tuning often make use of a story involving a firing-squad devised by John Leslie. You are to be executed by a firing-squad of a hundred trained marksmen, the story goes. You hear the command to open fire, and the sound of the guns, and then silence; you are not dead, you hear silence. All of the marksmen missed! Pondering, you realise that had the marksmen not missed you would not have been able to reflect on the attempted execution, that only a failed execution would have allowed you to be here now, listening to the silence. However, you do not infer from this that the fact that the marksmen missed is unsurprising. You remain astonished that one hundred trained marksmen could all miss simultaneously.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/th ... principle/

[10CC]

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How do you defend this argument against the weak anthropic principle?
If conscious beings look out to see what sort of world they live in, it will be the sort of world in which it is possible for conscious beings to exist. This is true, no matter how 'improbable' the conscious beings think a world like theirs is, compared to (what they beleive to be) all possible worlds.

I will pretend you did not know the answer to your question before you asked.

• In response to this objection, defenders of the argument from fine-tuning often make use of a story involving a firing-squad devised by John Leslie. You are to be executed by a firing-squad of a hundred trained marksmen, the story goes. You hear the command to open fire, and the sound of the guns, and then silence; you are not dead, you hear silence. All of the marksmen missed! Pondering, you realise that had the marksmen not missed you would not have been able to reflect on the attempted execution, that only a failed execution would have allowed you to be here now, listening to the silence. However, you do not infer from this that the fact that the marksmen missed is unsurprising. You remain astonished that one hundred trained marksmen could all miss simultaneously.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/th ... principle/

You exist not because the universe is fine tuned for your existence but because you are fine tuned for the universes existence. Are you certain that non carbon based life forms do not exist in the universe, because if they do then the universe by your estimation must have been fine tuned for their existence also. How many different and conflicting fine tunings are possible in even one universe?

[FarWanderer]

The term supernatural is simply the negation of the concept of naturalism, which asserts that the natural, physical world is all that exists. To use crude terms, another 'dimension' or 'reality' would exist beyond the universe.

Would you then call other universes that exist in the multiverse theory "supernatural"?

Physicists including Stephen Hawking agree that the universe is structured in an improbable way.

"Improbable" is your word, not Hawking's. Hawking actually believes that the past is subject to present conditions.

Statistically speaking, we have a sample size of one. This means that we can't extract any meaningful statistics.

Uh no. As I already explained, the sample would contain every single law, constant and physical force that was finely tuned for life.

The point is that we've never seen a universe with different constants, so we have no evidence that different constants are even possible.

It began to exist. This is a scientific fact. If the universe were necessary (the opposite of contingency) then it would by definition have existed eternally.

Surely you've heard of the B theory of time.

[olavisjo]

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Are you certain that non carbon based life forms do not exist in the universe, because if they do then the universe by your estimation must have been fine tuned for their existence also.

We do know of germanium and silicon based life forms. That is why I think fine tuning is a slam dunk proof of a creator.

[10CC]

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Are you certain that non carbon based life forms do not exist in the universe, because if they do then the universe by your estimation must have been fine tuned for their existence also.

We do know of germanium and silicon based life forms. That is why I think fine tuning is a slam dunk proof of a creator.

So because this universe is capable of supporting an infinite number of different lifeforms that proves it was "fine tuned" for life? I'm sorry but that doesn't sound at all like fine tuning.