What are the best Atheistic Arguments?

[Edwardo Piet]

If the universe doesn't need an explanation, then why does anything need an explanation? - That IS a really good one.

Well basically I mean that, if the universe has an explanation, then whatever explains the universe needs one, and so on..infinite regress.

So either there's an infinity of a line of explanations, or something always existed right from the beginning. Something simple enough to not need such a big explanation right from the outset. Something ultimately simple.

If the universe does need an explanation, then God, by the same logic, does too. And God is much more complex than a big bang singularity, because of what he is capable of can't just be "just there" without an explanation. Just as it wouldn't make sense that something as sophisticated as the human brain could be there without an explanation. And God is more sophisticated than that.

And if God doesn't need an explanation, then by the same logic the universe doesn't, the universe (or the big bang singularity or whatever sparked off the universe, that was simple, and not "God") could have just been there from the start, and God is a much more complex and improbable alternative. As I said, he's much more sophisticated than the human brain, and the human brain certainly just doesn't come out of no where! That would be ridiculously improbable, miraculous to say the least, and God would be an even bigger miracle, and even more improbable than that.

God is the ultimate miracle. Or rather, he would be, if he existed. He almost certainly doesn't:If he did, that would be miraculous.

EvF

[fr0d0]

Hitchens has spoken of religion as man's first, and consequently worst, attempts at science and philosophy, and I think that just about nails it....

And I think that's missing the mark so much it'd only possible if you really wanted to.

[Eilonnwy]

Hitchens has spoken of religion as man's first, and consequently worst, attempts at science and philosophy, and I think that just about nails it....

And I think that's missing the mark so much it'd only possible if you really wanted to.

Of course it's not missing the mark. Think about older religions, how elemental things were attributed to gods. Anything was attributed to god that could not be explained. What is lighting?Well it's something Zeus throws down at you. How does the sun move? Apollo's chariot carries it from one end to another. Now that science has replaced most of these faulty superstitions, god has escaped to be "transcendent" and ultimately unfalsifiable bullshit.

[Edwardo Piet]

I gotta tell ya,

100% spot on Elionnwy. And Kudos +1

EvF

[fr0d0]

Nonsense Evie. You underestimate our ancestors by mixing up superstition with rational thought. Apparently they were the primitive ones.. go figure.

[Edwardo Piet]

So lighting really is Thor angry huh? It's not superstition?

EvF

[Eilonnwy]

Are you claiming that our ancestors trying to figure out this world, albeit incorrectly, is not an attempt at rational thought?

[Edwardo Piet]

I assume you were speaking to fr0d0 and not me?

EvF

[littlegrimlin1]

Was there a time where early humans didn't have a concious? Just like any other animals? did the humans' concious grow as evolution progressed? and did the devolopment of a concious also create the development of rational though? just due to seeing ordinary animals, I see no rational though, just instinct.

Yo:

[theblindferrengi]

Hmm, never thought of that before, I think early humans were hardly humans yet when they gained sentience, and stopped making decisions based purely on outside stimuli. Not sure how we gained this trait, it would have to have been a very rapid mutation for it to be useful and give that specimen an advantage; if sentience were to have occured very rapidly as opposed to very slowly like most mutations then it would have been favoured by evloution. Once you have sentience, emotion doesen't fall far behind, and then language (not necacarily oral) somewhere in there, and that is the recipie for tribal god images.