(January 20, 2015 at 11:05 pm)JesusHChrist Wrote: We're talking solely about these great thinkers and their specific arguments for the Christian God.

Ok, then I misread.

(January 20, 2015 at 9:10 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: The worst ones in my opinion, are the philosophical arguments.

The cosmological argument, ontological argument, teleological argument, TAG all make the perpetrator of them sound real deep an intellectual, yet they are all flawed. Not one of them are both valid and sound. And no amount of pointing out the fallacies will do anything to dissuade believers from using them.

On top of that, they are intellectually dishonest arguments.

Right... I almost forgot the Kalaamity, where the counterargument can be summarized in two letters.

The absolute worst in my book: Religion is needed to instill morals and/or ethics.

Pascal's wager is one of the stupidest. Betting your eternal soul in a game of roulette and assuming whatever God exists is so stupid as to take this faked belief to be sincere.

I'm not sure if this counts as an argument, but there was this guy (forgot his name) who said his faith was so strong that even if he was taken back in time and saw that nothing in the bible actually happened, he would still believe in Christianity.

(January 20, 2015 at 9:10 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: The worst ones in my opinion, are the philosophical arguments.

The cosmological argument, ontological argument, teleological argument, TAG all make the perpetrator of them sound real deep an intellectual, yet they are all flawed. Not one of them are both valid and sound. And no amount of pointing out the fallacies will do anything to dissuade believers from using them.

On top of that, they are intellectually dishonest arguments.

Yeah, cosmological arguments at best just prove a vague first/final cause exists not a personal god. However even then they are questionable since they are based on medieval metaphysics based ancient Greek metaphysics which are based on ancient Greek folk physics.
The ontological argument is just Christians trying to define god into exist. God is by definition the greatest being, which is by definition a being with all the great making properties: Omi-this, omi-that, is the Christian God, and exists. So you see! God exists by definition! *Snuffs glue.*
Teleological arguments just beg the question and are a joke.

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(January 21, 2015 at 2:01 am)robvalue Wrote: I'm not sure if this counts as an argument, but there was this guy (forgot his name) who said his faith was so strong that even if he was taken back in time and saw that nothing in the bible actually happened, he would still believe in Christianity.

I think that was William Lane Craig.

(January 21, 2015 at 2:21 am)Pizz-atheist Wrote:

(January 20, 2015 at 9:10 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: The worst ones in my opinion, are the philosophical arguments.

The cosmological argument, ontological argument, teleological argument, TAG all make the perpetrator of them sound real deep an intellectual, yet they are all flawed. Not one of them are both valid and sound. And no amount of pointing out the fallacies will do anything to dissuade believers from using them.

On top of that, they are intellectually dishonest arguments.

Yeah, cosmological arguments at best just prove a vague first/final cause exists not a personal god. However even then they are questionable since they are based on medieval metaphysics based ancient Greek metaphysics which are based on ancient Greek folk physics.

They are based on the willingness of the authors to compromise the stringency of their thinking as a show of piety.

Quote:The ontological argument is just Christians trying to define god into exist. God is by definition the greatest being, which is by a being with all the great making properties: Omi-this, omi-that, is the Christian God, and exists. So you see! God exists by definition! *Snuffs glue.*

Good summary.

Quote:Teleological arguments just beg the question and are a joke.

The only valid use of "begging the question" I've seen in decades.

Quote:

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(January 21, 2015 at 2:01 am)robvalue Wrote: I'm not sure if this counts as an argument, but there was this guy (forgot his name) who said his faith was so strong that even if he was taken back in time and saw that nothing in the bible actually happened, he would still believe in Christianity.

I think that was William Lane Craig.

William Lane Craig would also strangle fluffy bunnies with his bare hands just for fun.

Yeah, the arguments which get you to some sort of creator, weak as they are, still pale in comparison to the utter non-sequitur of claiming correlation with a character in your favourite story book. I mean, that's not even an argument. It's an appeal to.... I don't even know what you would call it. An appeal to the familiar? An appeal to what my mummy taught me?

(January 21, 2015 at 2:26 am)Alex K Wrote:

(January 21, 2015 at 2:21 am)Pizz-atheist Wrote:

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I think that was William Lane Craig.

William Lane Craig would also strangle fluffy bunnies with his bare hands just for fun.

If he thought it would convert people to Christianity he'd do it.

Analogical arguments like the Watchmaker analogy are weak. Apologists just compare universe to a watch or something man-made, list maybe one similarity, and ignore all dissimilarities. That's the definition of a weak analogy. The more dissimilarities you have and the less similarities you have the weaker the argument is. Obviously the universe is more vast and complex than a watch or anything man made.
Fine tuning argument just bold face assumes the the universe was designed for life and fail victim to the same criticism of other teleological arguments. But really does a universe in which life exists need explanation? Why can't it be just a brute fact?
Unlikely things happen all the time like winning the lottery! I'm just going to quote someone else who explains this better than I could.

Quote:So, the fact that it was extremely unlikely that Jim would win the lottery is no argument that the lottery was rigged, since it's always extremely unlikely that the winner wins, whoever it happens to be. Similarly for the fine-tuning argument: assuming that the fundamental physical constants of the universe were set randomly, any given setting is extraordinarily unlikely. However, given that there is a physical universe at all―and we know that there is―those constants must have some particular values. Therefore, something extraordinarily unlikely was bound to happen. It just so happens that those values made it possible for us to come into existence, but that's no argument that the lottery was rigged.

-From http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive012009.html#01202009

Matt D asserts that no one really believes because of any of these dumb arguments, nor have they converted anyone remotely sceptical. The real reasons for belief are rarely described, usually because they are even more stupid. These arguments are used as rationalizations to make the person feel better, and to try and assume some sort of basis for their belief other than faith.