Mark Thomas has collected in one place 667 (and counting) proofs of god’s existence. I linked to this website back in 2007 when the number of proofs was a mere five hundred or so, so clearly the case for god’s existence is growing stronger by the day.
I must say that Mark pretty accurately captures the essence of sophisticated theology such as the ontological argument or the apophatic theology of people like Karen Armstrong, exposing their vacuity.
3. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) I define God to be X.
(2) Since I can conceive of X, X must exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
4. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) I can conceive of a perfect God.
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
5. MODAL ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) God is either necessary or unnecessary.
(2) God is not unnecessary, therefore God must be necessary.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
620 ARGUMENT FROM ILLOGICAL RATIONALISM, a.k.a. ARGUMENT FROM UNKNOWABLE, INEFFABLE, INCOMPREHENSIBLE, TRANSCENDENT, AND SUPERNATURAL
(1) God is beyond the limits of logic.
(2) Therefore you cannot use logic to disprove God.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
KAREN ARMSTRONG’S ARGUMENT FROM SOPHISTICATED THEOLOGY
(1) All the new critiques of religion are unsophisticated, facile, theologically incompetent, and misunderstand religion.
(2) Mocking the angry, cruel, unjust god of the Old Testament has little effect on sophisticated moderates.
(3) Religion isn’t about the absurdity or implausibility of so many religious beliefs.
(4) Rather, living a certain sort of life makes a person religious.
(5) Therefore, God exists.
638 KAREN ARMSTRONG’S ARGUMENT FROM APOPHATICISM (II)
(1) Apophaticism shows that God is ineffable.
(2) Thus talk about God literally has no content at all.
(3) Thus God transcends all human attempts at understanding.
(4) God as a powerful creator, supernatural personality realistically understood and rationally demonstrable — is a recent phenomenon.
(5) The idea of God is actually a symbol of indescribable transcendence.
(6) Many people experience indescribable transcendence.
(7) Therefore, God exists.
The funny part is that faithful have had 2000+ years to prove god’s existence and the best they can do is to keep coming up with the same crap, which has been demolished over and over and over. Imagine if scientists argued for the phlogiston theory and kept ignoring contrary evidence, and just kept piling on more and more of the same arguments for phlogiston… Wow, that’d be stupid. But we put up with it from the faithful. Admittedly, their tendency to get violent has something to do with it.
All the arguments I’ve seen boil down to “I really, really want there to be a God, therefore God exists. Now I will put my fingers in my ears and hum loudly”.
Philosophy -- when reality refuses to cooperate.
Mano: Have to chastise you for using the word “proof” in your post, when what you offer are not proofs but arguments.
As the fine folks at acquinas.org point out, arguments are not proofs, for the simple reason that they can be “argued”.
There are lots and lots and lots of arguments for the existence of god (all of them crappy), but not one proof (and using the word in the non-mathematical sense, so all you other pedants can fuck off).
If there were a single proof for god’s existence, there would be no need for arguments.
I always loved this one:
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
Okay, but then surely a logical, consistent God whose will can only be interpreted in only one clear way and has a bunch of evidence for existing… that’s WAY more perfect. So if God _does_ exist, it sure isn’t the one in the Bible.
“Thus God transcends all human attempts at understanding”
I attend AA meetings weekly (for the fellowship, not the dogma) and I hear this all the time when I express my lack of belief. But moments later the same person is telling the group that god helped him find a missing tool, or god put some person in his life. “There are no coincidences” they all love to say. So the mystery of god seems to vary with the situation.
He should have left it at 666 proofs
For the record, here’s #666:
666. ARGUMENT FROM ASSUMPTION
(1) God exists
(2) Therefore, God exists.
Not sure why he bothered with all the others.
666. ARGUMENT FROM ASSUMPTION
The Blessed Virgin Mary’s favorite argument.
“Thus God transcends all human attempts at understanding”
Now, let me tell you EXACTLY what he wants you to do…
busterggi @3:
Pseudo-philosophy.
(AKA theology)
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
That has yet to be demonstrated. Can anyone show me a perfect thing that has existence among its other demonstrable qualities?
Philosophy – when reality refuses to cooperate.
And theology -- when philosophy refuses to cooperate.
And something else called “theodicy” -- when even theology refuses to cooperate.
Thus God transcends all human attempts at understanding
Something to remember whenever some self-important asshole claims to know what God wants.
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
But, nothing is perfect!! Therefore one of the qualities of perfection is non-existence!
“One of the qualities of perfection is existence.”
Does not compute.
One can add logically anything to the first part:
one of the qualities of perfection is non existence
one of the qualities of perfection is chocolate
one of the qualities of perfection is having a dog
one of the qualities of perfection is a blowjob
You guys know that this collection of ‘proofs’ is actually an encapsulation of the idiocy regularly trotted out by apologists, presented in an intentionally sardonic manner to demonstrate their shallowness, right? That it is not actually an attempt to present logical argumentation?
Holms @16, you’re funny.
(But congratulations on independently getting the OP’s entire point, even if you suspect other respondents didn’t)