What do think about these five arguments for Gods existence? I DID NOT WRITE THESE ARGUMENTS BUT ONLY COPIED THEM.

I think what you wrote is too long for anyone to bother reading. Most of us don't care to read books on this site.

1) As you found out yourself, there is a limited length for description texts on Answerbag. I had a look at your own answer, which gives all the contents you wanted to present: http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/9698188 A more complete overview of the classical arguments for God's existence, as presented by the writer on Roman Catholic apologetics Peter Kreeft, can be found there: http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kreeft 2) My view is that all those arguments relies on some kind of fallacy or tautology at one stage. Like: assuming what you want to prove. This kind of arguments have had some historical interest, in the sense that they have been proposed - and refuted - at some time. As long as not one of them really holds, their mere number does not make any of them or their conclusion more convincing. Please notice that here and in the Peter Kreeft reference that I found, only the arguments for the existence of God are presented. Also, in most cases, only the presentation of those arguments is done, none of their weak points are discussed. 3) For a more complete discussion of the arguments for and against the existence of God, I would suggest this Wikipedia article as a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God All the arguments presented in your answer and also in the Peter Kreeft reference are discussed. Also, there is a presentation and a discussion of the arguments against God's existence. 4) My personal view is that God's existence could only be proven for an extremely abstract and probably useless definition of God. At that level, it does not play much a role if you accept it or not. On the other hand, the non existence of a God fulfilling some specific criteria could be (and has been) scientifically proven. This includes the "design" argument.

Are you sure that's all?

*yawn* Peter needs to work on his brevity if he ever hopes to communicate his ideas. On the other hand if Peter just likes to hear the sounds of his own thoughts, like background noise supplied by the endless drip, drip, drip of the leaky lavatory sink, I'd say he is a smashing success.

Well firstly you seem to think that atheism has some kind of rules or arguments it follows which is false. An atheist is merely someone who lacks a belief in a deity, that is the one and only thing all atheists have in common. It is not about claiming god doesn't exist, it is not about scientific evidence, but merely that lack of belief in a deity. So there is no atheist position to present or even argue. Secondly, all the points made assume that if somethign is inexplicable then a god must have done, not true. Simply because we may not have the answers to everythign doesn't mean a god did it. In the end, there is no proof, only what some choose to beleive were done by a god because they don't understand it. Really it is no different to a caveman not understanding the sun and so claiming it must be a god and praying to it.

tl;dr

Do you really think that anyone will read that? Everyone knows what they want to think about God already.

My apologiese. These are five arguments out of twenty he proposes. He also has written 20 arguments for atheism. I should have and if asked will write out the other 15 and do feel that I should have but with so much to digest in these that I felt it may discourage others to read. If asked by one person I will write the others and break them down as I see fit to avoid what I have stated above..I have not done the atheists for reasons being this site is rather atheistic at times or at least in answers to respective questions. If asked I will also do this. They all begin with empirical data, not specific things like a planet or a person but general features of the whole universe like time and change and then they argue that if there is no God then these features are unexplainable. That god is the only sufficient reason or adequate explanation for these data. So the method of the argument is essentially scientific. Test hypotheses by data and choose the hypothesis that best explains all the data. Not one of these arguments claims to prove all that religious people mean by god. Each argument claims to prove only that some being exists that has at least one uniquely divine attribute. One perfection that by definition only God can have. The unmoved mover, the uncaused cause, the necessary being, the intelligence behind design. But that would be enough to disprove atheism. I think at least some of the popular arguments for theism are not just weak but simply fallacious. I think some of the arguments for atheism are fallacious too. But only one argument is needed for either side. If either side can put out a single argument with no ambiguous terms, false premises and no logical fallacy then its conclusion would be proved to be true. The Atheist argues that all the theists arguments have at least one of these mistakes and can be answered and that at least one of the atheists arguments is unanswerable, probably the argument from evil. The theists argues that all the atheists arguments are answerable and at least one of the theists arguments is unanswerable. It takes only one certain finger print or one certain piece of DNA to prove the presence of a suspect. 1)The argument from change. The most universal feature of all our experience is time. Even our mind is in time even though it is not in space like our body. It takes time to think. Everything both matter and mind changes whether quickly or slowly. Either there is or there is not some real being that does not change. That would be a divine attribute. That is a pretty slim slice of God so to speak but it would be enough to disprove atheism and prove some sort of god. Some eternal unchangeable being that is not part of the universe because everything in the universe changes, moves in some way. This unchanging being could be the cause of all change, the explanation for all change and nothing else could. The argument is simple. The first premise is, if there is no unmoved mover no unchanged changer then there could not be any second movers or any movement at all. The second premise is there is movement so the conclusion is therefore there must be this first mover. Know one denys the second premise so it’s the first one that the atheist will deny. How can the theist try to prove that if there is no unmoved mover there cant be any moved movers. By the fact that change works by the principle of cause and effect. Each change requires a changer, a cause. Imagine a long row of dominos each one knocking the next one down. Each event is a cause and effect relationship. The knocker is the cause and knockdown is the effect. No domino can knock itself down. The potentiality or possibility of being knocked down resides in each domino and also the potentiality or possibility of standing upright and not being knocked down. Something has to determine which of those two possibilities becomes actual and that’s the other domino which causes the knockdown, thereby making actual the change that was only potential before it was knocked down. No matter how many dominos are in the row and no matter how long it takes from the first event to the last that’s the way causality works. If there is no cause, there is no effect. And if the second event is the effect of the first event there can be no second without a first and no third or fourth or anything else. In other words no change anywhere without an absolutely first changer, first mover. But an absolute first mover would not be another domino which had to be first pushed by a domino before it and only then could it push down the next domino. That would not make it the first domino. So a first mover would have to be outside the first chain like the finger that pushes the first domino down. Its not another domino but another kind of being outside the chain of dominos but that chain of dominos is the whole universe so the first mover must be outside the universe. Now of course it cant be literally outside the universe in some place outside the universe because the universe is the sum total of all places in all space as well as all time. So this being would have to be more than the universe and not in space and time at all. But why couldn’t the chain be infinitely long with no first domino at all because then nothing could begin. Change is not like the number series there can be an infinite regress of negative numbers just as much as an infinite progress of positive numbers. But there cant an infinite regress of causes of change with no first event. Even thought there could be an infinite progress into the future with no last event. Even before big bang cosmology proved that time is finite and has an absolute beginning about 15billion years ago. Philosophers came to the same conclusion by an analysis of the essential meaning of change. Numbers are timeless concepts there not events in time but concrete events happen in time in chains of causal dependence. If no first event, no second no matter how many seconds there may be. If there is no locomotive, the train doesn’t move no matter how many cars are in the train. If the first event has no cause at all. If the big bang has no big banger then we have something utterly unscientific as well as irrational. The whole universe popped into existence out of nothing for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Nothing caused that event it just happened. Nothing could be more unscientific than that. Lets call that the pop theory that something can just pop into existence without any cause or reason at all. If we believe that we just say thunder happens and not look for any cause of it. That would be far more irrational than believing that thunder is caused by an angry, irrational god name Zeus whom no one can see. It’s a silly answer but its at lease some cause which could be checked out and argued about and disproved and that would help us to find a better answer like electrical storms. So even believe in Zeus is more scientific than the pop theory. This old argument has been made stronger by two developments in science. Astrophysics which has proved that the universe has a beginning that the amount of time is finite and Einsteinium relativity which has proved that there is no Newtonian absolute time but that time is relative to matter in motion so there can be no time before the big bang, the first event. But every event needs a cause and the cause must be adequate to produce the effect. A little banger cannot bang out a big bang and that cause cant be just some abstraction like a mathematical equation or some theory like string theory or chaos theory. You need more than a pattern or formula or theory to prove actual concrete events. Road maps arent enough to explain accidents you need cars or trains. Ethics isnt enough to explain saints or sinners you need people making moral choices. The principles of economics aren’t enough to explain why money comes to me from my investments, unless I or somebody else puts actual money in iam not going to get any actual money out. So if the first event has a cause it must be real, adequate to explain the effect but the effect is all the motion in the universe, all the knockdowns in that domino chain. So what kind of cause could that be? What could pull the whole train? Not just another car but a locomotive. Not a caused cause, a moved mover a changed changer another domino. That would be part of the universe part of the chain. And just as much in need of explanation as anything else in the chain. So the first cause of all change must itself be unchanged and this being has to be real it cant be something like a platonic idea or an essence or a concept. These things are unchanging but are not things, so they cant cause motion. They have essence but not existence. So the cause of actual existing things must actually exist. The main weakness in this argument I think is not in its premise but in its conclusion. Obviously change is real but what does the argument prove, does it prove that its god that causes change or that theres just some sort of something or another that is unchanged that causes change. If the latter, thats a very slim slice of God and pretty far from the god of religion. 2)This argument is similar to the first but begins not with change but with the very existence of things in the universe. There are two kinds of causality. One kind changes its effect like pushing down a domino. The other kind brings something new into existence like manufacturing a domino or conceiving a baby. Both kinds of causality follow the principle that you cant have an effect without an adequate cause, no pop theory. Neither new changes nor new beings simply happen, they have to be caused. So what could cause the existence of everything in the universe. What could be the adequate cause for the very existence of the universe. Nothing can cause itself to come into existence, not even god. That is a logical contradiction. You cant cause yourself to begin to exist because you have to exist first before you could do anything so you would have to exist before you existed. That is you would have to exist when you didn’t exist which is a self contradiction. So the cause of all existing things must be an uncaused being. A being that has existence by its own essence. Think of existence as gift passed down the chain of possible beings to make each one actual. Suppose I promise to give you a gift, lets say a certain book. But I first had to get it from my wife before I passed it on to you and she had to get it from the librarian before she could give it to me and the librarian had to get it from another library, well, unless someone actually has the book. That book will never be passed down the chain and you will never get it.But you did get existence, you exist. Why? Because something else that exists, your parents, gave you the gift of existence. Why do they have existence? Not by their own essence buy by a gift from outside from their parents. Trace this chain back through evolution, back through the history of the universe untill you come to, what? If you don’t come to a being that has existence by its own essence and doesn’t have to borrow it from another being. If you don’t come to something that exists necessarily and eternally, rather than being caused to exist by something else. If you don’t have such a being then you don’t have an explanation of why the gift of existence is getting passed down the chain right now. So the first argument was essentially. A squirrel is chasing a nut, therefore god exists. The second one is essentially a nut exists, therefore god exists. 3)The third argument begins with the opposite datum, not that things begin but that they end. Everything eventually dies, even the stars. Everything is mortal. Everything can lose its existence. Everything has the possibility of not-existing as well as existing. Now if there is no God, there is no being that could never die and if there is no god there is no creator, no absolute beginning. Therefore time would have to be infinite. So there would already have to have been an infinite amount of time. But in an infinite amount of time every possibility would eventually be realized. If I have 1,000 marbles in a jar, some black and some white and I shake them all up, endlessly combining and recombining them in all possible patterns. It will probably take something like a year before you see a simple pattern like the letters SOS and if the jar were much larger, say million marbles, would take more time for a more complex pattern to appear. Lets say the first the first sentence of Hamlet. But eventually it will appear, after lets say a trillion years. Anything that is possible will become actual if there is infinite time and only a finite amount of matter. A finite number of possible patterns or combinations of possibilities. One of those possibilities for everything in the universe is that it ceases to be and any group of things has the possibility that at any given time all the members of that group cease to be. Well the universe is the largest group of groups of things. The biggest jar with the most marbles. And in an infinite amount of time every possibility will be realized, including the possibility of death not just for one being but for every being and not just sequentially but simultaneously but once that point is reached where every being is not existent, nothing can ever happen. Once everything ceases to exist, nothing can begin to exist. So if there is no necessary being which has to exist and can never cease to exist then everything would have ceased and nothing would now exist but something does exist, therefore there must be a necessary being, a being whose existence is eternal and not losable. Once again the slice of god so to speak that this proof comes up with is rather slim and not personnel and not religious but it would seem to be enough to refute the atheist. 4)This argument begins with the observation that not all things in nature are equal. Some are better more perfect, in longevity or health or strength or beauty or intelligence or moral goodness. Moral goodness is only one kind of goodness. So things are better or worse. Things can be compared as better or worse only by a standard. Better means closest to the best. More perfect means closer to absolutely perfect and really better things mean things closer to the really best. If the standard is not real, not objectively real. Then our judgment cannot be objectively true. I like dogs better than cats doesn’t prove dogs are better than cats. If our standard is only subjective then we are not really measuring real degrees of perfection at all, only our subjective degree of satisfaction. But if there are really better things and if really better implies really best then there must be a really best. If degrees of perfection are real then perfection is real. But that is another name for god, a really perfect being. 5) Begins with the observation that the universe is orderly. The more we learn about the universe through all the sciences, especially astrophysics, genetics, brain physiology and cell biology. The more perfectly calibrated it looks. Many many different things and parts and dimensions, events and laws all work together to produce a single ordered result. Take the human brain, which is to the worlds best computer what that computer is to an abacus or take a single human cell which stores more information than all the books in the library of congress. Molecular biologists tend to be theists because the complexity of the design they find there is staggering. Each cell is something like a micro computer. It almost seems to have a label on it saying, made by superhuman intelligence. And so does the universe. It looks like a giant incubator or a giant womb exactly calibrated to produce human life. Life could never evolve if any one of THOUSANDS of extremely narrow windows of opportunity had closed. For instance if the temperature of the primeval fireball three seconds after the big bang had been a trillionth of a degree hotter or colder it would have been impossible for the universe ever to produce the carbon molecule. Which is the bases for all life. Or if our planet were slightly farther from the sun or slightly nearer or if its axis were tipped a little less or a little more. If there were a little more or less of any one of the wavelengths of light in sunlight, mammals could never evolve. There are hundreds of such variables all of which together have to be just so or else we are not so. The probability of all this happening by chance is far far less than the probability of the same one out of a billion betters winning every single one of a billion lotterys every single day for a billion years. It doesn’t take faith to believe the game is fixed. It would seem to take much more faith to believe that it isn’t. But it didn’t take modern science to convince people that the universe is full of order. The regularity of the seasons, generations , the heavens, even primitive chemistry and physics and astronomy and biology sees order in the universe. Whats meant by order? The working together of many different parts, each of which has its own nature and its own natural action to work together for a common end. As the soul or life force or whatever you would like to call it makes all the organs in your body work together for the health of the whole body. When you die all the atoms and molecules will still be there but they will no longer work together for the whole cell or cells for their organs or their organs for the body. Each part would fall back in to acting simply for itself, like soldiers going AWOL. This argument from order or design is probably the single most popular argument for god. You find it among the most primitive tribes and among the most sophisticated scientists. Order requires an orderer. Intelligent order requires an intelligent orderer. Very very intelligent order requires a very very intelligent orderer. Order sometimes does arise accidentally. Once in a million years the wind and the waves carve out a perfect SOS on a beach. A million monkeys typing at random for a million years on a million type writers will eventually produce Hamlet. As one famous atheist argued. Actually a mathematician calculated that it would take something like a thousand trillion years to produce the first page of Hamlet. But it could happen. But nobody ever gives that astronomically improbable explanation for anything except for the universe to avoid god. The instrument you are thinking with right now, your brain, is that chunk of matter which has more complexity and design and order in it than anything else in the universe. Its like a super super mini mini computer and that can provide evidence for perhaps an even stronger versions of this argument from design. If there is no god, then no divine mind planned and designed you and your brain evolved merely by chance. Intelligence is a late comer to the universe and its causes were unintelligent. So your brain is like a computer programmed randomly by throwing marbles at the keyboard. But do you have any reason to trust it then. Do you trust a computer programmed by chance? Imagine you are one a airplane and the public address system announces that both the pilots are dead but the autopilot is flying the plane and is no cause for alarm because this autopilot is a very sophisticated computer which has been programmed by a random fall of hailstones on its keyboard which was left outside last night in a hail storm. Do you accept that and trust the autopilot and feel quiet calm? But that plane is what your brain is right now. If there is no design in it. If there is no computer programmer. If the forces of evolution don’t have behind them some intelligence. If I think as I do merely because the electrical signals in my brain have been caused to move in a certain way by a long large chain of events that do not include intelligence. A chain that does not go back to an intelligent creator or designer. Then it seems I have no good reason to trust my brain. Even when it tells me about itself and its electrical signals. These five arguments all began with premises that almost everyone admits to be true. Things change, things come into existence, things die, things are more or less perfect and things are ordered. Atheists usually admit these premises with the possible exception of the fifth one, order. But they deny that they logically prove the conclusion of God. By Peter Kreeft

1) Hold on here cowboy- if this divine being cannot change, creating something would cause it to change. 2) Nonethe less, where did God come from? Did he create himself? Or did he evolve from manhood similiar to what the Mormons believe? The argument still fails the test of answering a god. 3)Including the notion of other gods, or less than infinite gods. Still not a sound argument. 4) perfect in what way? What you call perfect is another man's notion of imperfect. 5) The universe is hardly orderly. In fact it is downright chaotic. Mr. Kreeft uses a lot of words, but it still boils down to one thing- imperfect logic. It's something that every religious wacko uses. They've decided that God exists, and only follow their logic as far as they feel it proves their god exists, but they don't follow their logic to it's final full conclusion. Mr. Kreeft has assumed many things to be a certain way- and they are not.