Christians will often say, "The universe cannot possibly have been created in exactly this way without intelligent design."  The most common way to refute this is to trot out the anthropic principle, which essentially points out that our existence only proves that our existence is possible.  For whatever reason, this refutation, though perfectly sound logically, seems to come up short on emotional impact.

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

(Caution may contain irony).

I think my personal favourites are:

ARGUMENT FROM RESPECT
(1) You have to respect my right to believe that God exists.
(2) You also have to respect my right to believe that I don't have to respect your right to believe that God doesn't exist.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

 
ARGUMENT FROM SALEM WITCH TRIALS
1 The bible says "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".
2 So we killed them.
3 Therefore god exists.

ARGUMENT FROM YOUTH GROUP MINISTER
(1) God is awesome!
(2) Like, totally, dude!
(3) Therefore, God, like, exists and stuff.
 

ARGUMENT FROM NAZIISM (INVERSE-GODWIN)
(1) Hitler didn't establish a Christian theocracy.
(2) Therefore, Hitler was an Atheist.
(3) Hitler was the worst leader possible.
(4) Therefore, all Atheists are bad people.
(5) Therefore, God exists

 Have you ever seen birds kill, steal, rape to such an excess that they destroyed themselves such as mankind would without religion?  I haven't seen any animal species treat its own kind to extinction, have you?  Why do dogs go in wild groups looking out for each other and looking up to the alpha male?  What's with that?  These "animals" aren't so immoral after all, well, some can be disgusting (praying mantis anyone?) but they don't seem to destroy themselves or cause doom.

The moral code is the core of this debate.  The debate of whether or not religion is needed.  I feel that there are thousands of closet atheists arguing with atheists about morals.  The reason is because I once did, and if Idid, someone else had to!  If that doesn't convince you, many people (including agnostics) feel that religion is necessary.  I think that somewhere deep inside there is a desire for a religion of some sort.  I think that not only are memes goping around, but that people are wired be religious!  Religious about someihing right?  

I go to the gym on a relguar baiss, and have bnen for a little over a year.  One thing I noticed is that many people have different philosphies on how they maintain their body or bulk up!  Some people do whol,e body workouts, some people swear by a 4 day splitt, some people just do cardio, etc, etc.

How could you possibly put so much faith in him?

If you look around the shop you may find a book like this:





Automotive THEORY?!?!?


Would you really trust your life to Automotive theory and not Automotive fact?

During the show, Deism came up and people thought it was a rather wishy-washy position, as in Deist just don't want to admit the God does not exist. And also that those who are not evangelical are "pussies" along with people who don't talk about God, that think he kinda sorta exists etc...


My initial reaction of course, was what's wrong with not being sure? But aside from that, I think that perhaps 2-3 on Dawkin's scale would be a sufficent position.  I would argue that that is a much better position than evangelicals since the evangelicals seemed to just take this idea of God than ran with it.


I'm sure the references to Russels teapot or the FSM, will come flowing in, but I don't think that Deism is completly unfalsifiable.


The conformation of the Many Worlds Interputation of QM ( not to be confused with the multi-verse theory..), for example would at the very least make me seriously question my beliefs, or most likely make me discard them.



As for the point that people who vehemently argue for God, that's seems to be reasonable for an agnostic position.

Finally, as a student of nature, I actually do constantly question my beliefs,  more so when new data comes in, in fact, I am waiting eagerly for a conformation on the Theory of Everything.

The Times

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God

Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset

I've been reading about the teleological argument recently and I've watched several people attempt to refute it. While the argument sucks and just about any argument used against it is fine, there is something I had never heard said, or at least worded in this way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQOo1LLB_-s

I apologize for video quality. I thought I could get away with a smaller file size than I actually could.

Yo,

First post for me on this forum and really glad I found a place where I can discuss these things openly. Please excuse my bad English, I'm from Holland. (I know explains a lot)

 I think a lot about religion and think it's fine for people to believe in what they want, as long as it's not a danger to other people. (they can believe in JRR Tolkien's work for all I care) As long as it helps them become better people it's fine with me.

That said I always wondered why all the holy scripts were all written by humans... I mean, god created this world right? So how come he left out an instruction manual. Shouldn't be too hard for him being all mighty an' all (he shoud've created a global language aswell so anyone could read it)... Instead we got these (contradicting) texts which tell us what to do written by humans. If god was so aware and did exist, why the hell did he allow so many different prophets to roam the world? Maybe he was screwing with their minds and hoping people would grow to believe different things so he could have a laugh at the jihad's and the crusades. It's like a child putting different bugs together making 'em fight. God I think you are toying with us... (It's pretty weird being a human criticizing on god, I think he reached a whole new level)

One of the best and most concise explanations of skeptical inquiry, an extract from The Demon-Haunted World  by Carl Sagan:

This is an excerpt from Carl Sagan's book "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark."

I'm posting it because it does such a fantastic job of explaining the skeptical point of view.