30 August, 2013

Can Apologists Create a New Argument for God, Please?

I've seen a lot of apologists recently, as I enjoy hearing the arguments they come up with for proving their deity's existence. There aren't any that really bring a good argument to the table, though not for lack of trying. It seems that no one is even trying to come up with new ones, because I only seem to find the same ones over and over. The points in the argument vary from person to person, but the structuring of the arguments are really all the same. The "Prime Cause" seems to be the primary go to, but it leads to infinite regression; the "Ontological Argument" and "Cosmological Argument" both often lead back to the "Prime Cause" after any/all of the points made are refuted; the "Morality Argument" fails time and again, having poor examples of immorality associated (often inaccurately) with atheism. These are the arguments I see the most, in many different styles, and sometimes even combined with each other in an attempt to create a super-argument.

Are theist apologists really so uncreative that they cannot conceive of a completely new argument to provide evidence for their stance on the existence of their imaginary friends? I would say yes, having spent hundreds of hours listening to debates, apologist videos, and reading apologist literature, recently. All of the evidence that is provided is anecdotal, at best, or the Bible, at least. William Lane Craig tries to use a single study in his argument, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin study (linked as a pdf here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0110012v2.pdf ), but he removes any context from the factoids he uses that he might as well have made them up himself. Cherry-picking information is intellectually dishonest, we all know this, but is it really the best tactic to formulate a "well thought out" (more like faulty) argument to prove any point?

Until a completely new argument comes from the apologists, they've lost. Sorry, even if they come up with a fresh, untested argument for their proof, they've still lost.

Show me some of the best arguments you have encountered, I'd like to see them. By best, I don't necessarily mean the most reasonably presented. I like the funny ones as well as the serious, show them all to me. The best ones will get acknowledgement in a future posting.

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