Atheists, what do you believe is the best argument for the existence of a deity?

[fr0d0]

It's somewhat awkward in trying to reduce the concept to a sentence, but as far as the example is concerned would you generally agree with that?

Strange I posted a reply to this 8 hours ago. Shegone!

I would call that misplaced faith. Belief is based on false premise in those cases.

Could you contrast it with an argument you believe is stronger?

Belief in God is the most positive and productive world view.

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IOW I could enter this discussion at the same level as non believers because there is no difference in my position to yours. But maybe you're right... at this current moment in time I would find a scientific study of God to be absurd. There really is no need to go beyond what science already proposes.

By and large I would too,

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aside from studying the supposed health effects of prayer.

As we cannot know the answer to prayer the study of it is also absurd.

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Assuming dysteleology (no purpose or goal) is a metaphysical position and not subject to observation or scientific demonstration. When a divine hand cannot be observed through scientific methods, that is insufficient reason to conclude that a divine hand does not exist or is not active. A scientific viewpoint therefore shouldn't draw dysteleological conclusions. (paraphrase of John H Walton - The Lost World of Genesis One.)

How exactly is any of that relevant? I am talking about possible explanations for the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, some of which do not propose any telos. That quote would be applicable if I had stated that 'any scientific propositions in which telos is not necessary necessarily has no telos' (which would be analogous to saying that 'because bumper stickers are not necessary parts of a car, cars necessarily have no bumper stickers'), but I suggested nothing at all like that - What I said put simply is "God is a possible explanation for the apparent fine-tuning of the universe but because there are many other possible explanations for this phenomenon we cannot conclude that God is the cause"

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Fine tuning then from a purely material POV. Correctly abstaining from teleology. But the subject of the thread is to propose a best argument for the existence of a deity??