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

[theVOID]

Are you using faith and belief as synonyms? If that is the case I have to reject your notion.

Always do, there being no difference between them. And confidence and trust. The question is not if there is a difference between faith/confidence/trust/belief... it is simply 'how much' faith/confidence/trust/belief one has in something.

The words are interchangeable in many contexts, that doesn't mean they have the same use in all contexts, for instance;

Believing in someone, as in saying to someone who is facing a challenge "I believe in you" is the same as saying "I have confidence you can do this", it's not the same as saying "I believe you exist".

Asking a theist "why do you believe in God?" and getting the response "Because I have faith" would be a tautology if they were identical in meaning, the same as "Why do you believe in god?" and getting back "Because I believe in god" - The word Faith is trying to answer the why, the word believe is stating a matter of fact, this makes it clear that the word 'faith' is attempting to convey a different concept than the word 'believe'.

I could give dozens more examples, but these two are sufficient to demonstrate these words are not synonyms, even though they may be colloquially interchangeable in certain contexts.

Many people use faith alternately as God(s)-specific beliefs or belief in spite of a lack of evidence obtained by the scientific method. I don't bother

That's sort of more along the lines I was thinking, but not quite. It's hard to pin it down. This is precisely why I'm a big fan on the principle "replace the label with the concept", it makes arguing about definitions irrelevant - If we discuss what we mean when we say 'faith' and one of us means 'to believe in and trust something with responsibility' and the other means 'belief without evidence' we are talking about two different things, we may as well give them new labels.

So you don't believe in Metaphysical Naturalism... you accept it as a working explanation. You are waiting for a better one because it does not click right with you

No, it "clicks" with me just fine, I just don't see whether or not a concept clicks with me as being in any way relevant. Working explanation is sort of right, but I'm not waiting for a better explanation, I don't see it as being in any way insufficient or lacking as an explanation, It's simply one possible metaphysical position and happens to be the one I believe is most likely true.

I seriously question how it changes one knowledge in a thing to have that knowledge be correct or not. It's the same method, it's the same process, it's the same object... only difference is that one boils down to not be correct and the other quite so. Or rather never correct

I think the Agnostic/Gnostic distinction plays heavily in my definition of knowledge.

For instance, I believe I know (Gnosticism) that there is a Convenience store around the corner, I can only be said to truly know this if I am in fact correct, The difference between my actually Knowing or Believing is independent of my subjective experience, it depends on whether or not the Convenience store exists in objective reality. In contrast I believe in the multiverse but I do not claim to know this (Agnosticism), even if it turns out that the multiverse does exist I still did not have knowledge of it at the time.

This essentially places certain knowledge out of our reach with regard to anything but logical necessity, It's a rigid and rather extreme definition, but all other definitions of knowledge are so problematic that I'm willing to go out to the edge in order to have a term that I consider actually usable. I guess if you made a distinction between 'presumed knowledge' and 'true knowledge' you would get the same result.

No... not really. Brane theory is presented in such a way that it might be given some credence simply because of the big words used that make it sound somewhat credible. And a computer simulation seems too sensible to me: I practically live in the things as it is.

Brane theory has credence far beyond it's use of 'big words', You should look into a phenomenon known as 'dark flow', a great many galaxies seem to be attracted to the edge of the universe and there is a ton of data to suggest that unlike the rest of the universe in which galaxies are expanding away from each other, in one region they appear to be moving towards the same region - The most likely explanation for this at the present I believe is that there is another universe that has a gravitational influence on ours, there is also the fact that such a phenomenon was predicted by string theorists before the data was uncovered - This does lend credence to the idea of Brane theory and is unexpected given an alternative 'inflationary' multiverse. There is no currently proposed single-universe explanation for this phenomenon.

Indeed. The seagulls were playing with me today though... Playing. With. Me. I was throwing rocks at them, and they were having fun dodging them. And then I was having fun throwing them too.

This universe is so absurd. I still hate pigeons.

LOL.

[Violet]

The words are interchangeable in many contexts, that doesn't mean they have the same use in all contexts, for instance;

Believing in someone, as in saying to someone who is facing a challenge "I believe in you" is the same as saying "I have confidence you can do this", it's not the same as saying "I believe you exist".

Asking a theist "why do you believe in God?" and getting the response "Because I have faith" would be a tautology if they were identical in meaning, the same as "Why do you believe in god?" and getting back "Because I believe in god" - The word Faith is trying to answer the why, the word believe is stating a matter of fact, this makes it clear that the word 'faith' is attempting to convey a different concept than the word 'believe'.

I could give dozens more examples, but these two are sufficient to demonstrate these words are not synonyms, even though they may be colloquially interchangeable in certain contexts.

I agree that although they essentially mean the same thing: they are often used to say it in a different way. One can use 'big' 'huge' and 'colossal' to describe a building... but though they all boil down to the same thing: the feeling of the word completely changes.

They are infact synonyms. But they are used to convey very slight differences in a statement.

That's sort of more along the lines I was thinking, but not quite. It's hard to pin it down. This is precisely why I'm a big fan on the principle "replace the label with the concept", it makes arguing about definitions irrelevant - If we discuss what we mean when we say 'faith' and one of us means 'to believe in and trust something with responsibility' and the other means 'belief without evidence' we are talking about two different things, we may as well give them new labels.

Agreed. Even though I pretend to be a pedant about definition: the goal of language is to communicate. It's therefore not about 'whatever the dictionary says'... it's about what the person is saying.

No, it "clicks" with me just fine, I just don't see whether or not a concept clicks with me as being in any way relevant. Working explanation is sort of right, but I'm not waiting for a better explanation, I don't see it as being in any way insufficient or lacking as an explanation, It's simply one possible metaphysical position and happens to be the one I believe is most likely true.

So we're back to you accepting it as the case (for now) but not believing it to be the case?

I think the Agnostic/Gnostic distinction plays heavily in my definition of knowledge.

For instance, I believe I know (Gnosticism) that there is a Convenience store around the corner, I can only be said to truly know this if I am in fact correct, The difference between my actually Knowing or Believing is independent of my subjective experience, it depends on whether or not the Convenience store exists in objective reality. In contrast I believe in the multiverse but I do not claim to know this (Agnosticism), even if it turns out that the multiverse does exist I still did not have knowledge of it at the time.

This essentially places certain knowledge out of our reach with regard to anything but logical necessity, It's a rigid and rather extreme definition, but all other definitions of knowledge are so problematic that I'm willing to go out to the edge in order to have a term that I consider actually usable. I guess if you made a distinction between 'presumed knowledge' and 'true knowledge' you would get the same result.

Objectivity... it's messed up. So much so that if one can only know by being correct in relation to an objective state: we know nothing.

What is "true" knowledge anyway? I think it's just nonsense No True Scotsman

Brane theory has credence far beyond it's use of 'big words', You should look into a phenomenon known as 'dark flow', a great many galaxies seem to be attracted to the edge of the universe and there is a ton of data to suggest that unlike the rest of the universe in which galaxies are expanding away from each other, in one region they appear to be moving towards the same region - The most likely explanation for this at the present I believe is that there is another universe that has a gravitational influence on ours, there is also the fact that such a phenomenon was predicted by string theorists before the data was uncovered - This does lend credence to the idea of Brane theory and is unexpected given an alternative 'inflationary' multiverse. There is no currently proposed single-universe explanation for this phenomenon.

Sounds interesting. I am rather apathetic towards deep-space science right now. Seems more useful to focus on that which is at hand (nearer space).

[fr0d0]

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

You should install the 'Lazarus - Form Recovery' extension for Chrome or Firefox

D/l'ded this time

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

So what belief wouldn't you consider faith? It seems to me that you're just using belief and faith as synonyms... What is the difference?

hmm yeah doesn't seem clear. Misplaced trust perhaps, leading to faith held on false premise. Howzat?

I believe though faith. Faith built on trust. yadayadayada...

Frankly I couldn't care less, it has nothing to do with an argument for the truth of the claim

The truth for me is in the validity of any premise. Productivity, the result of positivity trumps everything. Even though everything might be drawn to neutrality.

How exactly is your belief in God 'productive'?

If it's positive then positivity usually produces rather than destroys.

Would you say that people who pray to be healed are more likely to be healed?

You cannot know what the answer would be, so to assume a "yes" answer would be to assume that God would always want to heal, when we can clearly prove that he does not.

You consistently raise this "material POV' line, what exactly is it you mean by this?

Our modern [material] worldview is informed by science, I would suggest, as we are saturated with scientific knowledge > that directs our thinking in that direction. This is a relatively recent occurance, where the primary language of the metaphysical references we refer to are authored by cultures without that bias.

One last curve ball...
The existence of God is his essence.

[Epimethean]

That's not a curve ball: It's just a ball.

[The Magic Pudding]

That's not a curve ball: It's just a ball.

No it's not, it is the nothing ejected when you do a pretend throw to send your dog in the wrong direction.

[Justtristo]

At the moment the best argument for myself for the existence of a deity are the fine tuning ones. Although that could change once I read Victor J Stengers latest book The Fallacy of Fine Tuning

[Rainydays]

I don't think any arguments are any good. It's a lot like, ''well this is kind of complicated, so I'm going to say God did it.''

[Ace Otana]

'Goddidit' has ALWAYS been the answer that mankind jumps to when they don't know something. We didn't know anything about the sun, we called it apollo (god). We didn't know anything about the oceans, god again. We didn't know about the weather, god yet again!

We've never really reached a point in time when we would be rational and just fucking admit to not knowing something, until today that is, thanks to science. Though still, religious nuts can't handle the 'don't know' answer. So they make up shit like they always have. That's why they're always wrong.
I think they're afraid of the unknown. Afraid to see reality for what it really is. A world without a god, heaven or hell.

[reverendjeremiah]

I would say the best argument for the existence of a deity (any deity) is the argument from authority.

Any student of history will clearly see that arguments from authority have convinced people that a god exists, regardless of said god or goddesses, monotheism or polytheism... when a theism becomes attached and accepted by a powerful dictator or leader, the chances that said belief will florish with the majority is outstanding. Guilt, tradition, social laws, economic laws, and most everything else will be influenced and controled by the beliefs of the leaders, and those subordinate of them will have no choice than to accept them or be outcast.

To simplify: The best way to "prove the existence" of a god is to force the people to comply by making the belief system dominate all facets of society: public, and private.


As far as PHYSICALLY proving a gods existence.... there is not a single convincing argument for it. Therefore the belief must be forced upon the scientists as they will be expected to put "god talk" in with their findings so that they will be socially accepted and not outcast.

[annatar]

I believe there is no best argument for the existence of a deity, because none of them are backed with any evidence.There is however, a type of deity which I imagined and found reasonable: The god is not an omnipotent being and he/she didn't completed creating us. Our lives is just a process to create intelligent beings, and there was no other way. And he cannot interfere this process, because he is not able to. We should not harm each other. Because when we are complete, we, as highly intelligent beings, will sorely regret that behaviors and it will be unbearable.(better than hell thing, right?) And of course god is not a supernatural being, he is strictly bound to natural laws that we haven't discovered, or have yet to discover(maybe could never discover due to our current physical setbacks). How he is formed, could be similar to evolutionary process.(which is the main problem for a deity for me. Because If we don't have any explanation to how god formed, than we need not to invent one!) That is a kind of deity I can settle with. But of course since all of these are not backed with real evidence and just my imagination, I see no reason to believe in. But you'll have to admit that its better then most of the current religions if not all...