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What, in your opinion, is the best or most effective argument FOR the existence of god?

I was so curious as to the opinions of others about this question, that I had to come back on here and ask (I have been gone from here for about a month and a half or so, have been extremely sidetracked and disillusioned; I keep jumping from different activities as my mainstays, so there for a while I was on here for 6 hours a day, then I got burned out and went to reading for several hours a day).

So what is the best or most effective argument for the existence of god? I would have to say that, in my opinion, I think it would have be the teleological argument, or the argument from design. Even with the challenge of having to explain *against* natural mechanisms of self-structuring (like Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking that Victor Stenger talks about in God: The Failed Hypothesis), or all of the flaws, errors, and irregularities in the "creation" itself, and its seeming randomness and majority lack of order. (I always find myself wondering about what we know must exist way out there in space; why create that?) This seems to go hand in hand with the constants argument (I know there must be some other name for it), you know, where they talk about the dials being just so that we're in a Goldilocks zone.

Anyways, what's your take on this?

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Permalink Reply by Langston on October 9, 2009 at 10:05am

I do understand that how we define or conceptualize a certain thing will determine how it can be and will be seen.

But I do get irritated when people say "that depends on how you define god(s)" (I didn't used to get irritated, but have gotten that way).

I know this is more or less true, but the concept of a deity is supernatural. I don't think anyone denies that, even though semantically you have gods that exist in the form of what people may worship or deify (e.g. COFFEE is my god). But actual supernatural beings with intelligence (or if not intelligence, then having a motive, purposive, etc.) of a sort, that's the base definition here, and that, I feel, can be assumed. They may be totemic gods or gods of nature or planetary gods or what have you. But it seems to me that anyone starts with a base assumption that includes the supernatural. No matter how many forms this idea may take, you still have a base there, so it doesn't matter which form you want to argue. The question is essentially which argument or evidence or line of reasoning, etc., has been or is most effective at getting people to truly believe (or even at least SAY they do, i.e. nominally) that something like this even exists?

Doesn't matter if the form is the deist god or Buddhist transcendence (Absolute Unitary Being, I believe it's been called). What best convinces them that something like this actually exists?

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Permalink Reply by urizen9 on October 9, 2009 at 10:46am

This g.. shmear is one of the best conversation starters in the world. Sports were similar. Needless to say what amount of energy went into discussing, witnessing, keeping statistics, excitement etc for "sports."
Religion used to be like that and whoever wasn't interested kept his peace
Now religion got too big for its breeches and we'll have to bring it down a few notches?

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Permalink Reply by urizen9 on October 10, 2009 at 1:52am

the goal is quite clear. We will be god. That's where the concept comes from: a deep seated psychological determination that given the path we traveled and what we lay before us is the evolution to godhead.
Clearly not the dumb, passionate, childish one the republicans talk about in their impatience, the one who plays with anthills and things in its own image but much inferior.

No. A real god - always compared to where we are now.

Or if you prefer the flipping of the time continuum (which you have a perfect right to do) then we can look back from what we decomposed into this and further in the past.

Either way it makes no difference.

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Permalink Reply by Vitus on October 10, 2009 at 3:20am

Of course! Cows are ignorant and happy as effect

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Permalink Reply by Alex McCullie on October 9, 2009 at 4:41pm

'What do you mean by god?' is the big question. Teleological and cosmological arguments only seem to show, if proved, that something supernatural orders or creates reality, as we know it. They don't demonstrate the classical definition of god - unlimited conscious power, knowledge and goodness.

Or, perhaps, it should be the ontological argument as it's hard to refute by argument. Of course to most people it's plain word-magic.

Alex
Alex's Heresies - Embracing a Physical Reality

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Permalink Reply by Vitus on October 10, 2009 at 2:33am

Are you serious? What are you mean by 'argument'? God is not a geometrical sum. There are no need in wuxi-pusi arguments. Believe it without proofs...moreover 'Credo quia absurdum est'... So what arguments are u need?

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Permalink Reply by Martin Allen on October 10, 2009 at 3:22am

so there's this god, right. he looks like a human being, and that's why we're so special because he made us all look a bit like him, while he also made other things like mosquitoes that don't look anything like him. Imagine if god that looked like a mosquito - that would be so funny! No, god looks just like us, really. Anyway, this god decided to make us and when he made us, what he really, really wanted us all to do most is to believe in him, the one who made us. That's why he made us. It sounds like he was very clever but a little bit insecure too. But mostly clever. Anyway, he made a bit of a mistake and made us capable of not believing in him - though it wasn't a mistake because it's really what he wanted to do. He wanted us to be capable of not believing in him, but still to believe in him, see, because it was a really clever idea. And all the people that he made who do not believe in him, well, he will punish them really badly for not doing what he wanted. So when we do believe in him, which is what he wants, he then wants us to spend a lot of time singing to him and talking to him and telling him how good he is and how lucky we are that he chose to make us, and if we don't do this then he'll punish us really badly and make us spend all of time in a really yukky place that you would never want to be in. And he wants us all to tell those people who don't believe in him how silly they are being and to come and join us when we sing songs saying how great god is. So god made us, and he made everything else too, like the beautiful hills and seas and the weather, so we should all remember when we are talking to him and singing to him to thank him and praise him for being so clever. He was so clever that he even made some bad weather, like earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes, that can kill a lot of us. Though that's a good thing because even though it's really naughty of us if we ever feel unhappy and say we want to die - because then we would be being really ungrateful to him for making us - we're really lucky if and when we do die because that means that, even though this world that he made is so good and incredibly clever, it's even better when we get to leave it when we die and go to live with god forever and ever amen. But it's ok to be sad when god decides to send an earthquake or something to kill lots of people. Though we must also remember to be happy and praise god and know that ony he can help us all at that terrible time that he has just decided to create.

that sounds like the best argument to me

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Permalink Reply by Vitus on October 10, 2009 at 4:25am

Hm. Christianity is easy!
Death and suffering are good! Really good. Our souls are sublimate under pressure of pain. The more pain the better purification level. It is holy physics.
So, cry havoc and let slip the angels of heavens!