What is the best argument to prove the existence of God to Atheists?

[Russell_SA]

Yes, just like there is evidence that gravity waves exist now and while prior to 2015, I didn’t believe that they existed. Einstein mathematically concluded that they should exist, but we did not teach that they actually existed until we found them through falsifiable tests. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I don’t know what that proof would be since I have no idea what markers of the supernatural are for indicating it’s existence. Just like no one knows what markers there are for spells from Harry Potter to indicate that magic was used in scenario A verse unknown natural cause for scenario A. However, your deity should know this and should be able to provide this to me and to every one else that is skeptical of the current claims of the supernatural. We are not cynical that there are none, just the current level of evidence is soo bad that it’s not helpful at all at this point.

 

[Russell_SA]

We only know our logic works in the reality that we experience. That is why it is logical to make conclusions about our reality since our logic is the basic universal descriptors of our experienced reality. Our logic first came from observing what is possible in our experienced reality and then making universal observations that appear to never be violated. I will not presuppose that our logic in this reality works before the big bang. We are already finding things that are violating the laws of logic in our reality, such as small particles existing in two places at once. So all I go with for people’s logical arguments for the existence of an entirely different realm, is to say, “That’s interesting, now how do you demonstrate your conclusion?” because we are always found to be logically correct and still factually wrong. Reality is the reference point for what is possible, not our logic. Our logic is powerful for helping us narrow down and going to look for answers to our logical conclusions so that we don’t spend more time on solving our problems than we have to. However, magicians and charlatans all prey on our belief in our abilities to infer and deduce conclusions. Now to your points:

The First Way: Argument from Motion

First cause argument just points to a first cause, not a deity. Also, assumes the logic of this reality applies to the reality before the big bang. We don’t know how that reality operates. Imagine all you know of reality is the affect of snowflakes forming from cold temperatures. Are you able to assume all the rest of the reality based on that limited understanding of that one aspect of study? That is the ego of humanity. Stop and wait to make assertions about something until you have actually studied it and let it tell you what is possible instead of the other way around.

The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes

• We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
• Nothing exists prior to itself.

Not justified to conclude since we have never had an example of “nothing” to see what is possible with nothing. We can infer this, but its up to testing reality to see if that is justified to hold. Since we have never had an example of true “nothing” to examine, we are not justified to make truth statements about what is actually possible in reality to do with “nothing”. Also, there never was a “nothing” since your deity always existed anyways right? The same way your deity “poofed” the universe into existence before it was there could be some other natural event that “poofed” our universe into its existence.

 

[Russell_SA]

The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)

First cause argument again.

The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being

Ideas of perfection are subjective to the person assigning that. Same with all adjectives, good, evil, big, small, etc. The perfect example of an equation with Pi for a mathematician is to use 22/7, but to a scientist, the perfect value of pie is just 3.14 since that was all she needed to solve the problem she was addressing.

The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

• We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.

Correct, evolutionary forces direct us towards succeeding in the environment we find ourselves in. Which is why bacteria will thrive in environments where humans would die out for example.

But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.

False - living things that thrive in their environment and succeed did so through evolutionary forces, not through directed intelligence. If you want to call the advancement of DNA through evolutionary forces that helps build a better being for that environment, then okay, that’s directed intelligence.

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end;

False, no reason to assume it is a being. It is the data retention process of DNA via natural evolution and how DNA updates the entity it is apart of to better advance that being to survive in its environment over others. The beings that couldn’t adapt to the environment to thrive died off and the ones that did adapt are the victors.

 

[sevenswords]

What i’m saying to you now is you go and pray to the Hulk or any other sci fi character thought up by Freemasons to make you think God is not real and come back when you have a cure.
do you see how unreasonable your argument is?
The church uses secular scientists not hand picked people who will look to manipulate the evidence we are not bought and payed for to fiddle with the data and if you think this is not the norm in modern science then you really are blind.
To sum this up, there is a mountain of proof that you refuse to look at and I understand it I do because I was an Atheist for 30 years before I got my Miracle, I know how it all seems ridiculous and you can’t figure out why people would believe such ancient things, but here’s what you don’t know when you open to God when you repent and try to stop sinning you receive Graces just as it is told you would and those graces lead you deeper in Christ and when your deep enough you can talk to God and you can see his hand in your life, that believe me is a whole lot better than the Atheist life and you get to know Love and the source of Love and you at times get special graces just like every saint wrote about and you then know beyond doubt that you are part of a creation built for you and your destiny after this time of trail is eternity with the God who loves you. Thats why millions of men and woman have gave up everything to follow him. That’s why we are here to try to encourage you to see to open up to the truth of reality and stop buying in to the bulls–t that the enlightenment movement are selling, their fruits are death untold suicides every year murder untold deaths of babies by the state order and deep depression drug abuse, I know your world and it is dark and dank and your swimming in a sea of filth I recommend you read the prodigal son and see your self in the pig muck and I hope like that lad who went as low as he could you will wake up and come to your senses and go back to God who will forgive and forget and lead you to faith and love.
I know it all sounds rubbish but you even you have to admit that there are many people who do not live in reality so what makes you think that your reality is the right one? you have false science and angry atheists leading you, we have centuries of saints who laid their lives down to bring us the faith and in doing so taught the world that we should love one another help one another and live good lives and they taught this with power and miracles all of which are documented in the vaults of our Church. so I find no reason in you I find you have no cause to defend and I find that your lost in your world of hopelessness, so when ever your ready God is waiting to take you back and change your life for the better, I suggest reading the divine mercy and going to confession if you want personal proof and Jesus has told us he will come like a flood into your life if you do this so take up his challenge and then if he does not change you at least you will have a defence in judgement day.
I will keep you in my prayers.

 

[Curious11]

Love is also irrelevant to the question of God

 

[Curious11]

Use none of those. They won’t work.

Go about finding proof of God in a way that can be replicated, documented scientifically and offer an exposition of facts such that if anyone saw the evidence they would reach the same conclusion. I see no other way.

 

[Unnamed]

We only know our logic works in the reality that we experience. That is why it is logical to make conclusions about our reality since our logic is the basic universal descriptors of our experienced reality. Our logic first came from observing what is possible in our experienced reality and then making universal observations that appear to never be violated. I will not presuppose that our logic in this reality works before the big bang. We are already finding things that are violating the laws of logic in our reality, such as small particles existing in two places at once. So all I go with for people’s logical arguments for the existence of an entirely different realm, is to say, “That’s interesting, now how do you demonstrate your conclusion?” because we are always found to be logically correct and still factually wrong.

So you can say that you can use science until you get to the problem of something coming from nothing (i.e., the big bang?) Its funny science is so strict until it comes to the beginning of the universe and then it says well the laws of nature no longer apply.

First cause argument just points to a first cause, not a deity.

Please explain how the first cause could be something other than a deity. Two simple rules from science

=> A rock cannot make itself (big bang out of nothing)
=> A fire cannot burn forever (time cannot go infinitely in the past and energy runs out)

Also, assumes the logic of this reality applies to the reality before the big bang. We don’t know how that reality operates

There’s your magical science again that you are referring to where the laws of science are no longer required.

Are you able to assume all the rest of the reality based on that limited understanding of that one aspect of study? That is the ego of humanity. Stop and wait to make assertions about something until you have actually studied it and let it tell you what is possible instead of the other way around.

Science says that until we are proven otherwise science states that the universe is predictable, intelligible, and obeys laws. You are not using science for the cause of the existence of the universe but using flying spaghetti science to come up with new laws contrary to science to get what you need to happen which is the big bang.

I’ll grant that maybe God created the universe via the big bang, but there was an engine that generated the matter and the energy to make that happen then.

 

[Unnamed]

Not justified to conclude since we have never had an example of “nothing” to see what is possible with nothing. We can infer this, but its up to testing reality to see if that is justified to hold. Since we have never had an example of true “nothing” to examine, we are not justified to make truth statements about what is actually possible in reality to do with “nothing”. Also, there never was a “nothing” since your deity always existed anyways right? The same way your deity “poofed” the universe into existence before it was there could be some other natural event that “poofed” our universe into its existence.

An example of nothing would be an empty bowl. Apples do not appear out of an empty bowl. Strange that science cannot define nothing for some reason. Nothing if you need a definition is zero matter (in all its forms) zero laws of physics and zero energy.

Again, God is a spirit. It is through him that the universe exists. Someone said that God hums the universe as an analogy. The big issue is that matter cannot make itself. Science has shown that for years, I am not sure why science stops being used when it comes to the beginning of the universe.

False - living things that thrive in their environment and succeed did so through evolutionary forces, not through directed intelligence. If you want to call the advancement of DNA through evolutionary forces that helps build a better being for that environment, then okay, that’s directed intelligence.

Ok great; evolution is a whole other animal. Not going to take it on here. Let me just say that I have never seen a transitional fossil in my entire life in person. I am not sure where they are all? I am not a young earther, but just struggle to see how we have any evidence of macro evolution other than a few sketchy bone fragments and artists drawings of what these transitional fossils look like in their minds. I do not want to go down the evolutionary path but just wanted to throw some of that out there.

 

[kill051]

JohnPaulCabral1:

i am still confused as to which one i should use?

They all pale in comparison to living a life that is full of love to all so that it is worthy of emulation. If you are not doing that, then no amount of words will convince anyone. If you are doing that, then words will be rarely necessary.

Brilliant. Thank you so much for redirecting the focus where it really should be. I feel the same way about evangelisation: unless the example of a loving Catholic life well-lived is evident, then the words of the Gospel will ring hollow and mean little to the potential convert. He must see that we ‘walk the walk’, as the saying goes.

 

[Russell_SA]

So you can say that you can use science until you get to the problem of something coming from nothing (i.e., the big bang?)

No I did not say that. I said that we created logic by first observing our reality and then coming up with conclusions that appear to never break in our observed reality, those “logical” conclusions work in our observed reality. That is all. I am not asserting that our logic in this observed reality works in the reality before the big bang. That’s all I am saying there. My basic problem with religious conclusions is that they assume their logical conclusions are valid every where at all times and are just as concrete as if you actually were able to study the area of conversation they are making conclusions on. IE: your logical conclusions about the supernatural are just as valid as if you were actually able to study the supernatural. I don’t take that leap since we have a long record of being logically correct and then found to be factually wrong about reality once we were able to actually study that part of reality that we were making logical conclusions about. Until we can actually study the supernatural, that is when we can make grounded foundational truth statements about what the supernatural actually is, what it can actually do and not do, what it’s markers are when we find it interacting with our reality, etc. Right now, all your logical conclusions do is point us into how to begin the process of trying to build a testable model to begin to study the supernatural. That’s all I’m talking about here.

Its funny science is so strict until it comes to the beginning of the universe and then it says well the laws of nature no longer apply

No, the process of science still applies, just the tools to study this reality may not work in studying the supernatural. Since this is an entirely different realm of existence, where mater and time don’t exist according to you, we have to go back to our very basic assumptions and start over. We can’t assume what logically works in our reality works there as well.

 

[Russell_SA]

Please explain how the first cause could be something other than a deity.

Argument from ignorance - because you imagined something to have the power to solve your problem and we don’t have any actual data on the question you are trying to answer, your imagined idea is the best most probable solution then? No, that is not how we do science / have justified conclusions about reality. We look at what data we have and then make links from that data. If there is missing data, we stop and don’t make assertions after that point on what happened with no data. There is currently zero data about the supernatural at this point to justify concluding your imagined idea. It’s no different than saying, “Magic did it unless you can come up with a better idea or why magic doesn’t work.” Since we can not investigate magic at all at this point, it’s no different than an imagined idea, and therefore, not allowed as a valid explanation to the problem at all. it’s not even allowed on the list of possibilities. Until you can demonstrate the existence of your imagined idea, then it is allowed on the list of possibilities. Otherwise you open up your process to have to investigate every imagined idea out there, regardless of the fact that some idea actually have data for their existence and other ideas have no data for their existence.

A rock cannot make itself (big bang out of nothing)

Again, you assume that there is “nothing” before the big bang and that has not been determined yet. Also, we’ve never had a “nothing” to study, so we can not be justified in making absolute statements about what a “nothing” can or can not do when something acts upon it. Also, there never was a “nothing” from your world view either since your deity always existed. So since you can postulate your deity was always around to “poof” our universe into existence, I can postulate that it was something natural outside of our universe that “poofed” it into existence as well.

 

[Russell_SA]

A fire cannot burn forever (time cannot go infinitely in the past and energy runs out)

In a closed system as far as we understand it. We don’t know how universes are made or how they operate with the realm before their existence that brought the universe into existence.

There’s your magical science again that you are referring to where the laws of science are no longer required.

Science is a process. There are not hard set laws. It’s just the best philosophical process we have for coming to justified conclusions about our experienced reality. If we go to investigate a reality where the laws of that reality are different from ours, like not having time, not having material existence, etc. then yes, we have to come up with a new philosophical process that works for that reality because it is fundamentally different from ours. You are assuming that the logical rules of a reality where there is time and material existence will work in a realm where there is no time and physical existence. I don’t make that assumption since we haven’t studied that realm yet and don’t know what it can and can not do.

Science says that until we are proven otherwise science states that the universe is predictable, intelligible, and obeys laws. You are not using science for the cause of the existence of the universe but using flying spaghetti science to come up with new laws contrary to science to get what you need to happen which is the big bang.

Within this reality that we have studied. We have not studied the reality before the big bang, so we can not assume what happens here works there. For example, what does it mean to have a “causal” event in a realm with no time. There is no idea of “before” in a realm with no time.

I’ll grant that maybe God created the universe via the big bang, but there was an engine that generated the matter and the energy to make that happen then.

No idea if it was an engine, deity, some natural process, etc. No one knows. That’s the honest response. Unknowns show us where to go look and study, not to invent a solution that we can not justify through investigation.

 

[Unnamed]

Please explain how the first cause could be something other than a deity.

You did not answer the question

 

[meltzerboy2]

Then don’t use any of them. Just treat them with kindness and respect and talk about other things which you are both interested in.

 

[ASC]

St. Thomas Aquainus’s five proofs of God’s existance. If you’re not familiar with them, look it up.

 

[SalamKhan]

Keep in mind, that the masses are generally only familiar with their senses (both external and internal) rather than the intellect, so simple proofs such as the argument from design should suffice. Just be careful of some ‘atheists’ who attempt to counter by using enthymemes and strawman arguments.

 

[Russell_SA]

An example of nothing would be an empty bowl.

No there is still low background radiation, low level atomic energy. At the atomic level, subatomic particles are coming into and out of existence within that bowl all the time. I’m talking about true “nothing”, not just an absence of mater.

Strange that science cannot define nothing for some reason.

Philosophy can define a “nothing”. Science is just the best philosophical process for studying the true nature of a “nothing” for what it can and can not do in reality. See you can make philosophical conclusions about something in reality, but it is studying the actual thing in reality that will justify your conclusions about it, not just your philosophical conclusions. Example: I make a valid argument for this fake sugar pill to cure your cancer vs a demonstrated medical cure for cancer. According to your position, the philosophical argument for the sugar pill is just as valid as the demonstrated medical cure.

Again, God is a spirit.

No idea what a spirit is. People always describe it by what it isn’t instead of the positive descriptive aspects of what they are. Such as, spirits are “immaterial”, that’s an example of what it isn’t. Tell me what it actually is.

It is through him that the universe exists.

Demonstrate that the supernatural exists first, then what it can and can not do, then the causal link that it actually created this reality. Otherwise its all just asserting its “magic”.

Science has shown that for years, I am not sure why science stops being used when it comes to the beginning of the universe.

Russell_SA:

Because we can not study what happened before the beginning of the universe. That is science being intellectually honest. It stops where it can not be used any more since we can not investigate beyond that point.

Ok great; evolution is a whole other animal.

I’m not a biologist either. But I will to the fallacy of appealing to experts and group con consensus since the process they all used to justify this is accessible to everyone, regardless of political or ideological agenda. Just like we can all demonstrate that 2+2=4 regardless of our agenda, we can all repeat the processes that the science community has taken to land on the idea of “evolution”. It’s all open sourced and peer reviewed and it actually makes predictive conclusions about reality. That’s why our medicines work and why they fail after time for example.

 

[Russell_SA]

Because you didn’t demonstrate that your imagined idea is a valid one. It is not allowed as a possible solution at all because it has yet to be demonstrated that your idea of the supernatural is any different than an imagined idea of the supernatural. They are indistinguishable. Until you can demonstrate your idea of the supernatural is actually part of reality, then we can start having that conversation for why it can or can not be the reason for the existence of the universe.
Example: Problem A is solved by my assertion of a genie. Well why is that not a valid response? Genies have not been demonstrated to be in our reality at all. So I can’t claim a genie can do anything without first demonstrating that genies actually exist in the first place.

 

[Unnamed]

Because you didn’t demonstrate that your imagined idea is a valid one.

I am trying to demonstrate that science cannot currently answer how we got here from a purely materialistic starting point which would lead some credence to the idea that the universe was fashioned by an intelligent being.

It is not allowed as a possible solution at all because it has yet to be demonstrated that your idea of the supernatural is any different than an imagined idea of the supernatural.

You keep attacking the supernatural and mocking it, but you have yet to come up with a plausible materialistic origin of the universe.

Until you can demonstrate your idea of the supernatural is actually part of reality, then we can start having that conversation for why it can or can not be the reason for the existence of the universe.

God is not part of the physical universe and therefore can be the uncaused cause. Good conversation. Thanks for the replies and the time you have put into this.

 

[Cruciferi]

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