Theism is a state of mind that has no logical or reasonable foundation. Incredulity is not a logical argument. There are many illogical arguments for the existence of a creator. The following are a few of the more popular.
| Argument Type | Core Claim |
| Cosmological | The universe needs a cause. |
| Teleological | Design suggests a Designer. |
| Ontological | The concept of God implies His existence. |
| Moral | Real morality requires a Lawgiver. |
| Consciousness | Conscious minds suggest a divine Mind. |
| Religious Experience | Personal encounters with God are evidence. |
The failure of each of these illogical arguments can be summed up with two words – Unsupported assumptions.
The cosmological argument relies on multiple weak assumption and out right logical fallacies. It is probably the most popular argument, though it falls apart at the slightest hint of honest scrutiny.
The Teleological argument design suggests a designer except you haven’t demonstrated design and can’t. In point of fact, when design is in question, the method we use most effectively to determine design, is to contrast it with nature. It seems like this wouldn’t work if everything was designed.
The Ontological argument is exceptionally stupid in my opinion. I’ve never actually heard anyone argue that if God’s existence is possible, then He must exist necessarily. Or any other variation, it is mentioned in lists like this fairly often, but that’s about it. Does anyone think this is a good argument and want to take a stab at it? This is the only one that I don’t think I could argue either side.
The moral argument is a misunderstanding of reality mixed with wishful thinking.
Consciousness… “Conscious minds suggest a divine Mind.” Of course it doesn’t, and in fact it such a weird claim that I could be accused of a strawman if it wasn’t a quote. Consciousness as an argument for God, is nothing more than God of the gaps. It is true that we don’t fully know how it arises, but this doesn’t suggest a divine mind at all.
Religious experience is the only valid argument on this list. I accept that you experienced something. In a sense that is evidence for you. But as a logical argument it is absolutely worthless to anyone else. It seems to be an experience you can’t explain… and then you proceed to explain it. But in any case, it’s personal, good for you, nothing for anyone else.
Can we stop lying about the validity of these extremely illogical arguments for a creator?
Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem mathematically proves that the universe is geodesically past incomplete. It says absolutely nothing about “a universe from nothing”. It indicates that an expanding universe must have started expanding at some point in the past. nothing more. It doesn’t exclude any multiverse theory, it merely states that if there were a multi verse, then any expanding universe within it, would be subject to the same principle. It doesn’t exclude string theory, why would it. And it doesn’t in any way exclude a cyclic universe, not at all, not even a little bit. It mathematically proves that an expanding universe can’t have been expanding past eternal. It does not prove that the universe came from nothing, it doesn’t even imply this as a possibility because that’s not what the theorem is about.
Can we agree that anyone who continues to spread this nonsense, that science has definitively determined that the universe came from nothing, is outright lying? Seriously, we have to be able to get past this one at least. The universe may have come from nothing, it may not have, we don’t know… deal with it
If someone needs the universe to have come from nothing, for their argument to work, then their argument doesn’t work. We simply don’t know that answer. There is some evidence that time and space came into existence at the point of expansion. But there is absolutely no evidence that there was ever “nothing”. It’s speculation, and please everyone speculate as much as you possibly can, but it works best when you use it to ask questions, not when you pretend to know the answers.
Can you accept that inserting unsupported assumptions into the absence of knowledge is an extremely unreliable path to finding out what is true?
Can you accept that – even if we were to accept a cause there is still absolutely no reason whatsoever, to think that cause is your god?
Which one of these arguments is your favorite, and can you articulate why you think it holds up?
If you’re not interested in any of this, I don’t blame you. Why do you think so many theists are, when God obviously can’t be proven like this, and ultimately it must be taken on faith?