My attempt with this post is to provoke thought.  I’m just trying to get people to maintain and opened and an unbiased view in some since, which I know is virtually impossible but just try to bare with me here.  I try to disassociate myself from religion or any thing that encompasses  its rituals, behaviors or ideologies! I do however believe that there are a lot of good moralities and possible inspirations that can be attained from some of the literature. I don’t agree with it but there can be some good taken from it.  

Let me first start off by saying that its my opinion religion is nothing more then a system of social control. Its bigotry and constant realms of hypocrisy are endless. Being religious automatically sets up separation between people.  Religious segregation has lead to millions of murders ,deaths, injustices and unmoral behavior for 100‘s of years.  All of these actions and inhumane acts are justified how?
 “ God told me to do it.”

I have searched the website for articles in response to the Kalam, Leibnizian, or even Thomist cosmological arguments, but I haven't found any. So I will ask you guys, how would you guys respond to these 2 arguments for the existence of God?

Kalam argument:

A: Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its beginning to exist

B: The Universe began to exist

Conclusion: Therefore the universe has a cause.

Leibnizian argument:

A: Whatever exists has an explanation for its existence, either by an external explanation or by the necessity of its own nature

B: If the universe exists, then its explanation is God

C: The Universe exists

Therefore God exists.

The reason that these give evidence for God is because whatever caused the universe (let's remember that this term can be interchangeably used with "Temporal existence" or "temporality) cannot exist spatially or temporally. There are 3 lines of evidence that the cause is therefore God

1: Richard Swinburne points out that there are 2 types of causal explanations, personal and scientific. Since something which exists atemporally and non-spatially is out of the realm of science, it therefore follows by induction that the cause of the universe is a personal cause

Ok, I will make an attempt to discuss the existence of god here + finish off citing some Miracles from the Quran which lend credibility to the existence of god and the truth of Islam.
I will try to organize my thoughts for you guys to effectively respond to them.

1. Let's have a look at the different phenomena in the world. The phenomena at hand here is life and existence as a whole, the most puzzling and magnification phenomena, one that is yet to be fully understood or comprehended ( even by believers in God ).

2. The Answer or explanation to this phenomenon is God, God is the engineer of this universe, though his exact methods are unknown to us his tools can be explained and understood through science ( as God himself orders humans to ponder at his creations and try to grasp how they work ), The existence of God as an overseer and creator of the universe answers countless questions that many have been thriving to answer for ages, the purpose of the universe, the meaning of life and the meaning of death, the afterlife, what is good and what is evil ... etc etc.

Hi everybody. First of all, I would like to introduce myself as a new member on here. I am a theist, a Muslim to be specific and I look forward to having fruitful discussions here.

So I was browsing the forums and came upon the topic that desertwolf9 started regarding the logic behind god's existence.

Link: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/16094

However, since the rules were that no theists besides him were allowed in that topic, I felt I needed to start a new topic to respond to something that Nigel said which I found odd.

Link: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/16094#comment-210603

Here's the specific quote:

I couldn't resist starting a discussion after reading this, didn't expect to hear something like that from you Nigel, cause that statement of the universe being coherent, consistent and fits together like a puzzle is the argument always used by the creationists ( those who believe god created everything ) against the evolutionists ( those who believe everything just spontaneously evolved or existed ).

Ciarin, we can continue our discourse here.

Now then:

You've explained that you believe that your deities (I'll be referring to them by their original Norse titles - I'm aware you disagree, but frankly, I don't really care) control natural phenomena, and are literally existent entities. Thor, for example, commands thunder and lightning.

What evidence do you have to substantiate this claim?

What would it take to make any one of you believe in God?

If you are going to say "scientific evidence," then go into specifics.  What kind of physical evidence would you look for?

 Can we please put an end to the belief that one can equate two uses of the word "religiously" and make any valid points?

A religion is by definition an unscientific view of some part of the universe.  That is, a religion is a system or code of faith in an unscientific precept.  This all goes back to the idea of faith.  Science is the opposite of faith.  It is the systematic elimination of the unexplained and unjustified.  Religion is the presevervation of faith through devotion to the unfalsifiable.

Ok, when we say that someone "religiously" does something, we tend to mean that they do it with great fervor or devotion, and we often mean "irrationally devoted."  This is NOT the same as doing something out of faith.  Devotion to an act or cause is NOT the same as believing in the unfalsiviable.  

In fact, we seldom use the word "religiously" to mean "with noncontingent faith."  The word, "religiously" does not mean "religious."

A scientist could religiously adhere to the fundamentals of the scientific method, and it would not mean that science was even remotely like a religion.  It would just mean that the scientist was devoted -- perhaps even irrationally devoted in some sense -- to a particular part of science, which is NOT religion.

[/RANT OFF]

This is something I had to prove for my philosophy class.

First, some assumptions:

A1. Let us assume for the sake of argument that there is no rational basis to believe in God. What I mean by this is that we will assume that all of the rational arguments for God's existence fail (Cosmological Argument, Ontological Argument, Kalam's Cosmological Argument, etc.) I will not go into detail on why these fail, but I will assume it for the sake of argument.

* It follows from A1 that belief in God can only come through faith.

A2. Let us also assume that faith is not rational. We will assume that arguments to prove that faith is rational (Pascal's Wager, etc.) all fail, and that the Problem of Evil is a real problem. This shows that faith is not in one's self interest, or in line with reason. Again, I won't be proving these statements, but it is necessary to assume them for the sake of argument.

**It follows from A2 and A1 that belief in God is irrational.

Kierkegaard says this is a good thing. Nietzche says it is lamentable. Many theists revel in the irrationality of their belief, and claim it is good BECAUSE it is irrational. Many atheists are horrified by this.

Now for the argument:

BEFORE YOU POST, PLEASE READ: THIS IS ONLY FOR A DEBATE BETWEEN ME AND ATHEISTS. NO FELLOW THEISTS ALLOWED HERE. I AM CONFIDENT THAT I CAN COMPLETELY DEMOLISH ATHEIST BIGOTRY IN THIS THREAD AND I DO NOT NEED ANY HELP. 2 OF MY THREADS GOT DERAILED ALREADY AND HAVE SUBSEQUENTLY LET ATHEISTS OFF THE HOOK FROM ANSWERING MY ARGUMENTS. PLEASE, ONLY PARTICIPATE IN THIS THREAD IF YOU ARE AN ATHEIST THAT WISHES TO ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE. NO THEISTS EXCEPT MYSELF ALLOWED! I DO NOT LIKE MY THREADS DERAILED!!!

Ok, to start off, this is not a topic about the existence of god. Rather, I am throwing out a challenge to all atheists out there to PROVE TO ME that my belief in god is illogical (or for that matter any more illogical than the big bang or whatnot).

I am particularly interested in what bobspence has to say.

Ok, first of all.

1) Some of you atheists do not believe in a prime mover or "beginning". However, as far as I know, the universe had a beginning (the big bang), a middle (right now), and it will definitely have an end (as far as usable energy energy is concerned). Given this, explain to me why is the belief in a prime mover/beginning illogical?

I don't believe the universe can infinitely exist re-collapsing upon itsself forever because theres too much energy loss to the environment for this to continue.

 A high school girl came to school earlier this week in Mississippi supposedly speaking in tongues as well as predicting doom and evil for her classmates.

See Here.

The brilliant school authorities hooked her up with the school counselors and a youth pastor. Sounds to me like she needs a psych ward.