as i said, i've not seen the responces. maybe i can shed new light on old topics.

Nice, I always appreciate your humour! I'm reading it now, but I had to make a nod to this.

I'm sorry to do this so ruthlessly but here goes... 

Cosmological argument: Sorry, but in a bet between the laws of physics and God, bet on the laws of physics. New data from the WMAP probe has calculated to a precise degree the physical unification that occured less than a Planck second after Time Zero. The inflationist theory of universal essentially dictates the Multiverse proposition, whereby our universe is one of infinite parallel universes. The process by which they form them, is budding off one another through rapid expansion. the expanision is so fast that within nanoseconds it can achieve a rate of almost 10 the power of 50 (note: This does not violate the C-limit because empty space can travel faster than light). Therefore, the formation of the universes is infinite and eternal. A single universe arising from ex nihilo is impossible.

Thus, in axiology, no one has ever established that infinite regress is not an achievable mathematical function.

 William Paley had a nice little anecdote about a watch. Imagine you have lived on a deserted island all your life. You are aware other people exist, but have no desire to find them. And one day a working (lets say analogue) watch washes up on the beach. You find this watch, open up the back, and see all the cogs and whatever else is inside a watch. It soon becomes quite clear that if any one of these cogs were not in exactly the right place, the watch would not work.

This is an example of irreducible complexity. It is a mechanical relationiship which does not exist in biology. Therefore, this is an incoherent argument. Nothing of biological life has this function you would describe ie Irreducibility. Paley knew nothing about biology, as he lived 300 years ago. As such, this is an argument from wonder fallacy.

 Which are you more likely to assume? That this devise was designed, by a watch designer/maker, or this devise was formed by the earth, and was created by a rock falling into the sea in a different place, and the movement of the sea’s and coincidentally

This is a false dichotomy because the evolution of life is not about coincidence and chance. It is a ruthlessly controlled mathematical process from which higher life life directly results. Theists often invoke this error, and it shows no appreciation for probability functions, because the false dichotomy they set up assumes that If no God=Random chance.

 Which is more complex; a watch, or the whole universe? Can you see where I’m going with this? If something as relatively simple as a watch needs a designer, why shouldn’t the complex universe? Why am I using so many rhetorical questions?

To state that the watch needed a designer would be presuppositionalist anyway, and it not a valid argument. In any case, it does not matter because life does have a designer. Evolution.

So, we’ve established that there is a force outside the universe that designed it, what is that if not god? But which?

 No you haven't. Outside of the universe is epistemilogically incoherent. It has no meaning in describing reality. You have also not shown that design is a requisite, considering that all the "order" in the universe can be explained by the laws of physics and chemistry, and the Anthropic principles.

As to religious experience, we have large neurological focus on that, and have established the link between immunological response and physical health (has to do with metabolic activiation of T-Cell lymphocytes. Religious experiences set up another false dichotomy anyway because Muslims see Allah, Hindus see Krishna, (Muhammed saw Jibreel, Christians see Jesus etc. I've never heard of a trans-religious experience.

 I have heard of people who have died for 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 90 minutes, each with similar experiences. Can you explain that away using logic?

Neurological studies into NDEs have confirmed what we alrady should have known. the apoptosis and cellular transduction of the brain shutting down produces hallucinatory effects. The storms of transduction molecules from bursting neurons produces a cascading effect which causes intense audiovisual hallucinations, much similiar to taking drugs. The intense change in the VGIC (Voltage gated ion channell) across the neuro-membranes has the identical effect of an acid trip or any other hallucinogen.

To postulate NDEs as being due to a "soul" is incoherent because the notion of vitalism is not coherent. 

Hmmm... Interesting ideas. In what year was your science textbook printed? Or, my bad... is it a 5th grade text?

So, I take it you're not familiar with the idea of vacuum fluctuation theory. Or the pretty much universal acceptance that the universe did not "begin" with the big bang. In fact, let me go out on a limb here. You've never read Stephen Hawking, one of the foremost cosmologists on the planet, have you?

So... logically, god doesn't need a cause?

So... logically, it was an uncaused entity...

Wasn't Thomas Aquinas the guy who thought that a menstrating woman's eyes would fuck up a mirror? Ah, it's neither here nor there. I'm really sorry you can't see that this paragraph is nonsense. It does not follow. In fact, it CANNOT follow because the words "beyond this universe" provide no universe of discourse, and therefore describe nothing. Good ol' Tommy Boy, even if he'd been correct up to this point, would have proved conclusively that God CANNOT EXIST!

Once again, kiddo, I'm guessing that you've never studied logic. Maybe I'm wrong. I suppose you might have skipped the day where you were to learn about "begging the question."

Here's a handy link to learn all about it.

Logical Fallacies!

I'm done, because I have better things to do than go through the rest of this post and say what thousands of others have said, beginning about twenty minutes after the first skeptic read Aquinas.

[Edit: Please people, close your font tags]

Wow, the long awaited proof turns out to be...two really old really common arguments refuted centuries ago and subjective anecdotal stories.

The cosmological argument fails because it is special pleading. Why can god be an uncaused cause but the universe cannot? There's no reason that the universe needs a beginning. I would also point out that Tomas Aquinas did not come up with this argument; It is generally attributed to Aristotle (Yes, that's right, not even a Christian).

The design argument? Please. Evolution, obviously. Theists really need some newer arguments.

Both of these things have been discussed at length on these forums and all over the place. If you want a challenge, try reading some of those threads, and giving it some real consideration.

As for the rest, unverified anecdotes. I consider those sorts of claims false until prooven otherwise. There are rewards offered, substantial ones, for proof of a supernatural event under controlled conditions, but no one has ever been able to collect. When this sort of stuff is scrutinized, it seems to evaporate.

Cosmological arguments have been dead for decades. 

Fallacy of composition. 

"Beyond this universe" is an incoherent reference, unless you are refering to a parallel universe.

You might want to read the 1000 years of philosophy since Aquinas, where numerous philosophers took turns ripping his arguments into shreds. 

Design arguments beg the question that the universe is an artifact.

Design also is self refuting when used to argue for an omnipotent being. Design speaks to contrivance, contrivance speaks to limitation, limitation contradicts omnipotence.

Check mate. 

And David Hume demonstrated that his anecdote committed the fallacy of begging the question more than 200 years ago.

The last ploy of the truly desparate. 

I swear, I could do this in my sleep... 

*SIGH*

Next time someone comes here and say that they can prove the existence of god logically, I think we should take a pool on which of the 13 arguments they're going to use.  the winner should get a toaster or something...

I was thinking more like a trans-orbital lobotomy for the poster...cause icepicks are sexy as medical instruments.

Stumpy, the color combination on your original post is almost impossible to read (at least it is using FireFox on a Mac).

To respond to your witnessing, there has already been a long thread with many comments here.  

I'll take the time to take all your argument apart, dark_stumpy. And I'm only going to do that through simple logic.

"Right! Let’s start with the cosmological argument. The universe exists. This is nothing new, especially since it’s the oldest thing we know of (assuming you don’t believe in god, of course). There is a fundamental law in this universe, which is the basis of all other laws. This is the law of ‘cause and effect’. That’s the one where basically, everything is an effect, but it needs a cause to exist. Let me give you an example. Pick a pen up off your desk. Drop it on the floor. What happened? It fell to the ground. Why did this happen. Well, because I told you to drop it, but gravity did all the work. But the chain doesn’t stop there. Of course it doesn’t. Why would it? Although we don’t know what gravity actually is, (there’s a theory about gravitons and the like), we do know it’s caused by the earth. Or, more specifically any amount of mass. Thus, gravity is both a cause AND and effect. But the earth is similar. It was caused by the forming of the sun, and so on and so forth right back to the formation of the universe. The most widely excepted theory about this is the Big Bang. But here’s where it gets interesting. In a universe based on the laws of cause and effect, the beginning of that universe must also have had a cause. Simple logic. No matter how you spin it, everything in this universe needs a cause. So even when the universe consisted of a small ball of matter, or energy, or whatever the hell it was, it still needed a cause to exist in the 1^st place. Thus, it follows that the original cause of the universe must have been beyond this universe, and hence beyond the laws of cause and effect, ergo it needs no beginning and with no beginning it can have no end."

Accepting that the "original cause" of the Universe is beyond the Universe itself, from where exactly did you conclude that it is not subject to cause and effect?

To explain: If we have a group of entities, generally called B, that is included in a wider group, generally called A, and if all the members of group B have a certain property c, does that mean that no other entity from group A can have that property? If you told that to your Mathematics professor, getting an F would have a 99% probability.

"See? Simple! I would like to take this opportunity to thank St. Thomas Aquinas for his work on this argument, since he thought of it. Thanks Tom!"

Do learn to filter your arguments before presenting them. Thomas Aquinas isn't exactly known as one to put forth very logical arguments.

"Now, for some, St. Tom included, this is more than enough for them to believe in god. They have no problem believing in a divine being, and that this being is the 1^st cause, and that this being is god. But this argument only shows that there is something outside the universe that can effect what is here. "

While this works just well for a deist god, I am here to ask you: which god is it? Yahweh? Allah? Krishna? Odin? Zeus?

Thomas Aquinas' argument(s) suffered greatly from the plurality problem. Of course, not knowing of any other god(s) than your own, as most of the common people in the times of Thomas Aquinas, his arguments would have worked out pretty well. Unfortunately for you, this is not the case today.

"The 1^st and shorter way is a quote from Sir Isaac Newton, ‘in the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of god’s existence’. You guessed it; this is the ‘Design’ argument!!"

So essentially you are invoking a "god of the gaps". Let me ask you something: Newton invoked the design argument for stars and planets too. Why does nobody quote THAT out of him? Well, it's because we KNOW how stars and planets can form now, so this gap has essentially been filled.

"William Paley had a nice little anecdote about a watch. Imagine you have lived on a deserted island all your life. You are aware other people exist, but have no desire to find them. And one day a working (lets say analogue) watch washes up on the beach. You find this watch, open up the back, and see all the cogs and whatever else is inside a watch. It soon becomes quite clear that if any one of these cogs were not in exactly the right place, the watch would not work. Which are you more likely to assume? That this devise was designed, by a watch designer/maker, or this devise was formed by the earth, and was created by a rock falling into the sea in a different place, and the movement of the sea’s and coincidentally just created a working gadget. Assuming a life of solidarity hadn’t driven you insane; you would choose the 1^st option. Now let’s take this to a new level. Which is more complex; a watch, or the whole universe? Can you see where I’m going with this? If something as relatively simple as a watch needs a designer, why shouldn’t the complex universe? Why am I using so many rhetorical questions?"

William Paley's argument, if actually applied, suffers from a very severe problem: that of double standard. You say that complexity implies design. In order for something to have designed this universe, I presume you would agree that it is as least as complex as the human body. However, if it is at least that complex, it has the attribute of complexity. Therefore, we imply it needs a designer. Understand where I'm going?

William Paley's argument also suffers from the problem of plurality: OK, so who was the designer? Yahweh? Allah? Vishnu or Shiva? Ra, or perhaps Osiris?

"So, we’ve established that there is a force outside the universe that designed it, what is that if not god? But which?"

Let's presume, for the sake of argument, that your logic was flawless until now. You have correctly identified plurality as a problem, as I pointed out twice before. Your answer, however, is this:

"For this, we must go to religious experiences. I personally know a guy who in the name of god was able to heal an old woman’s terrible eyesight. It was so bad she needed help to walk up to him, and had perfect vision when she left. So, it could be one of those ‘she was healed because she believed she would be’. But I know of an atheist who was healed by the same god. Twice. Admittedly, she was a Christian the second time, but it’s the 1^st time that disproves your ‘she was healed because she believed she would be’ theory. And as far as I can see, physical problems aren’t healed because people think they will. Yet I know a third person who was healed, her and her mother and sister. And the mother and sister didn’t even know they we being prayed for. And the 1^st girl was seen to grow in front of a crowd of people (that was part of the problem). I have heard of people who have died for 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 90 minutes, each with similar experiences. Can you explain that away using logic? Each and every one of these people were Christians."

If I were an alien, completely neutral to a religion vs. non-religion debate, asked only to arbitrate, and you put forth this argument, I'd probably chop down at least half the positive points you scored until now.

Let's take it slowly:

- you know a guy who healed granny's eyesight; did you witness that? do you know the granny? Because I also know a guy who claims to have negociated Romania's national treasury with the Russian part... and the stories he tells are really coherent and according to real events, it's just that, contrary to his claims, he didn't take part in any of them

- next cases are a waste of time on my behalf, since yo didn't give any names or references,in short nothing that would help one actually check your claim

For your Christian-only miracles, here's the reply:

- Buddhist miracles: http://www.mcn.org/1/Miracles/buddha.html http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gamini.perera/buddhist.html

- Muslim miracles: there's a whole website dedicated to them: http://www.miraclesofislam.com/ - you will notice they're not very different from most Christian "miracles"

- also, if you think Christianity is the sole one to have "faith healers", try Googling "Islamic faith healers", like so: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-US&q=Islamic+faith+healers and see what you can find

Now... obviously all the people you know to have experienced "miracles" were Christians... you live in a Christian-majoritary country...

Also, bringing up this type of "proof" should lead a religion-neutral psychologist to the conclusion that you have already set up a mental blocade against alternatives. And a proof to that would be that you didn't do just as much as to search the net for miracles of other religions.

"So, there we have it. It took me all night to do it, but it’s done. It’s probable you’ve already seen this stuff, but I haven’t seen your responses. I’m looking forward to it."

That was a complete waste of time... You'd have been better off sleeping.