Theists: What is the most compelling argument you have heard for Atheism?

[Harry Nevis]

I still don't see the evidence that the FTA refers to.

The evidence is the fine-tuning. The argument discusses what we can infer from the evidence.

I disagree.  Fine tuning is an interpretation of the data.  It can't be evidence for itself.

[Pat Mustard]

That's fine, but a far cry from saying I am not justified in inferring a designer. You are simply avoiding the question, while I am asking the question and backing it up with science and math.

Steve you are not justified in inferring a designer from the simple fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that a designer is either needed or present. Until you bring evidence to the contrary, your inferral is simply an unjustified and unevidenced assertion.

[Brian37]

The evidence is the fine-tuning. The argument discusses what we can infer from the evidence.

I disagree.  Fine tuning is an interpretation of the data.  It can't be evidence for itself.

NO, it isn't even an interpretation of any real data, it is made up bullshit. If it were neutral data you wouldn't have multiple religions trying to use that argument. It is pseudo science, nothing more. Theists got caught in a lie, and rather than admit they got it wrong, they try to make sciencey sounding crap up to prop up their god of the gaps. 

"fine tuning" is a con, just like a perpetual motion machine. Made up bullshit.

[Pat Mustard]

I still don't see the evidence that the FTA refers to.

The evidence is the fine-tuning. The argument discusses what we can infer from the evidence.

What evidence is there of fine tuning? All we have to go in fine tuning's existence is a presupposition made by certain people that the universe exists as it is is because humanity has to exist, an unjustifiable assertion.

[Brian37]

Here is what theists cannot do. 





Total unrelated aside to this clip, my older sister was an extra in this movie, no lie.

[RoadRunner79]

How is this god person supposed to set the physics?
what process did it use,?did it punch them into its celestial computer or are the theists just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default?

god is not the answer to how god is not the answer to anything as far as I can tell.

This isn't a God of the gaps type of argument.  (I'm starting to think that many don't understand, and do not address what is being said).

There is a gap in our knowledge and you have filled it with god. How is this not a god of the gaps argument.

What the fine tuning argument is saying; is that the evidence shows that something capable of choice and direction is responsible for what is being seen.  It also makes the notion that there is no purpose or intention behind what we see as difficult.

No it doesn't, what it says is that these are what is seen as the physics needed for life. It has nothing to say on how the physics came to be like that. This is classic god of the gaps.

"just assuming that if no one knows, god did it is the default" is a strawman, whether from ignorance, or it is intentional.

What I said is not a strawman but a factual description of what you said.

Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument.  If you want to contend the reasons of the argument, fine..... however, you cannot just label it "god of the gaps", and accurately reflect the position.

[SteveII]

Augustine 1700 years ago did not take the Genesis account as a literal 6 days. If you think you are making a point, it is a tired-out one with no real meaning. Congrats.

Well, who ever told you that was lying. For example here is Aquinas discussing the reality of paradise, the abode of Adam and Eve, in Summa Theologica. Responding to the words of his predecessor Saint Augustine, Aquinas shows how historical truth trumps metaphor:

Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. viii, 1): "Three general opinions prevail about paradise. Some understand a place merely corporeal; others a place entirely spiritual; while others, whose opinion, I confess, pleases me, hold that paradise was both corporeal and spiritual."
I answer that, As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 21): "Nothing prevents us from holding, within proper limits, a spiritual paradise; so long as we believe in the truth of the events narrated as having there occurred." For whatever Scripture tells us about paradise is set down as matter of history; and wherever Scripture makes use of this method, we must hold to the historical truth of the narrative as a foundation of whatever spiritual explanation we may offer.

Aquinas believed not only in paradise, but also in the instantaneous creation of species and of Adam and Eve as humanity’s ancestors, as well as in a young Earth (less than six thousand years old) and the literal existence of Noah and his great flood. Further, Aquinas was obsessed with angels. Not only did he see them as real but devoted a large section of the Summa Theologica ("Treatise on the Angels") to their existence, number, nature, how they move, what they know, and what they want.

Or what about Saint Augustine of Hippo, who commented extensively on Genesis, was quite explicit that the text, though it had a spiritual message, was based on historical events:

The narrative indeed in these books is not cast in the figurative kind of language you find in the Song of Songs, but quite simply tells of things that happened, as in the books of the Kingdoms and others like them. But there are things being said with which ordinary human life has made us quite familiar, and so it is not difficult, indeed, it is the obvious thing to do, to take them first in the literal sense, and then chisel out from them what future realities the actual events described may figuratively stand for.

Augustine was also a literalist about many things later refuted by science: a young Earth, instantaneous creation, the historical reality of Adam and Eve, paradise, and Noah and his Ark.

Not to mention that still 4 in 10 Americans Believe God Created Earth 10,000 Years Ago I mean where did they get that idea when according to you Christians sobered up from that stupidity long time ago?

Or what about Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis:

When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism [our descent from ancestors beyond Adam and Eve], the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

You're confusing a literal Adam with a 6-day creation--they are not the same thing and can be considered separately. I believe there was a literal Adam at some point in the past. I don't know how that worked, I was not there and I was not told.

[Brian37]

Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument.  If you want to contend the reasons of the argument, fine..... however, you cannot just label it "god of the gaps", and accurately reflect the position.

Nope sorry, it is still a gap argument.

See if you can spot the pattern.

"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore God exists"
"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore Allah exists"
"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore Yahweh exists"
"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore Hindu God Brahma exists"
"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore hurricanes prove Poseidon's existence"
"Disagreement with the inference does not make it a gaps argument=Therefore lightening existing makes Thor real".

Your problem is you ignore people with other god of the gaps guesses believe both in the past and present of all religions as passionately as you do about yours. You are still stuck with the same problem they do, "which one".

It is still a naked assertion and a presumption just like all the rest. You like what you believe and that is where you lose all objectivity. You are not going where the evidence leads, you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole after the fact to make science suit your pet belief. Neutral science does not favor one pet deity claim over others. It is why a plane will fly both in Iran and in America. It is why a flu vaccine will work in Japan and China and Mexico. 

You like every other religion are all stuck in the same boat, get in line, take a number.

[SteveII]

The evidence is the fine-tuning. The argument discusses what we can infer from the evidence.

I disagree.  Fine tuning is an interpretation of the data.  It can't be evidence for itself.

No, fine tuning is not an interpretation. It is a fact, that the initial constants had to be in a mind-boggling narrow band of values for the universe to hold together, elements to form, galaxies to form, etc. See here for a another basic list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned...e#Examples

If you think this is just a fringe opinion, here is the bio of the guy who created the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees

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The evidence is the fine-tuning. The argument discusses what we can infer from the evidence.

What evidence is there of fine tuning? All we have to go in fine tuning's existence is a presupposition made by certain people that the universe exists as it is is because humanity has to exist, an unjustifiable assertion.

This has been all gone over earlier in the thread. You are wrong about how we arrive at the conclusion: 

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to physical necessity or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to design.

[The Grand Nudger]

In order for my conclusion to be irrational, you would need to provide alternative reasons for landing the winning ticket despite the odds having enough zeros as the molecules in the universe (or half that, of halve that again--I don't care--it does not matter).

......lol, no, I wouldn't.  I don't have to do anything in order for some nonsense you believe in to be irrational.  You're handling that all by yourself.

If you say, "I don't know" then my reasoning that it was fixed is better than that. At least I have math providing good evidence that it was.

You didn't do any reasoning, or math....? You believed, and so sought out what you thought was a rational argument. It wasn't, and not only that it's truth was unacceptable to you. So here you are, pages later, still bullshitting us.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either design, chance, or physical necessity.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to design or chance.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to physical necessity.

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either design, physical necessity, or chance.
2. The fine-tuning of the universe is not due to design or physical necessity.
3. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is due to chance.

Are these, in your estimation, rational arguments against your god?