Over Three Hundred Proofs of God's Existence

A funny take on theistic argumentation.

Some highlights:

ARGUMENT FROM CREATION
(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God exists.
(2) Evolution can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be uncomfortable
(3) Therefore, God exists.

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
(2) I say the universe must have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) I can conceive of a perfect God.
(2) One of the qualities of perfection is existence.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (I)
(1) Check out the world/universe/giraffe. Isn't it complex?
(2) Only God could have made them so complex.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM BEAUTY, aka TELEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) Isn't that baby/sunset/flower/tree beautiful?
(2) Only God could have made them so beautiful.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES
(1) My aunt had cancer.
(2) The doctors gave her all these horrible treatments.
(3) My aunt prayed to God and now she doesn't have cancer.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

MORAL ARGUMENT (II)
(1) In my younger days I was a cursing, drinking, smoking, gambling, child-molesting, thieving, murdering, bed-wetting bastard.
(2) That all changed once I became religious.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM UNINTELLIGENCE
(1) Okay, I don't pretend to be as intelligent as you guys -- you're obviously very well read. But I read the Bible, and nothing you say can convince me that God does not exist. I feel him in my heart, and you can feel him too, if you'll just ask him into your life. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son into the world, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish from the earth." John 3:16.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INTIMIDATION
(1) See this bonfire?
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPREHENSIBILITY
(1) Flabble glurk zoom boink blubba snurgleschnortz ping!
(2) No one has ever refuted (1).
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM AMERICAN EVANGELISM
(1) Telling people that God exists makes me filthy rich.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM FALLIBILITY
(1) Human reasoning is inherently flawed.
(2) Therefore, there is no reasonable way to challenge a proposition.
(3) I propose that God exists.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM MANIFESTATIONS
(1) If you turn your head sideways and squint a little, you can see an image of a bearded face in that tortilla.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INCOMPLETE DEVASTATION
(1) A plane crashed killing 143 passengers and crew.
(2) But one child survived with only third-degree burns.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM POSSIBLE WORLDS
(1) If things had been different, then things would be different.
(2) That would be bad.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM UPPERCASE ASSERTION
(1) GOD EXISTS! GET USED TO IT!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM INFINITE REGRESS
(1) Ask Atheists what caused the Big Bang.
(2) Regardless of their answer, ask how they know this.
(3) Continue process until the Atheist admits he doesn't know the answer to one of your questions.
(4) You win!
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM CREATIVE INTERPRETATION
(1) God is:
(a) The feeling you have when you look at a newborn baby.
(b) The love of a mother for her child.
(c) That little still voice in your heart.
(d) Humankind's potential to overcome their difficulties.
(e) How I feel when I look at a sunset.
(f) The taste of ice cream on a hot day.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM PERFECTION
(1) If there are absolute moral standards, then God exists.
(2) Atheists say that there are no absolute moral standards.
(3) But that's because they don't want to admit to being sinners.
(4) Therefore, there are absolute moral standards.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM POSTMODERNISM
(1) I'm going to prove to you that God exists.
(2) [Insert any of the other arguments on this page in here.]
(3) [Atheist refutes argument.]
(4) I cannot prove there is a God anymore than anyone of us can prove we really exist in a tangible world.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM EXODUS
(1) If the Exodus story has any basis in historical fact, then God exists.
(2) Some guy found some chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea.
(3) There is absolutely no other way that chariots could get to the bottom of the Red Sea.
(4) This means the Exodus story is true.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF DISPROOF
(1) You can't prove God doesn't exist!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM MULTIPLICITY (I), aka METACROCK'S ARGUMENT
(1) I have a large number of arguments for God.
(2) One of them is probably true.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

Ushpizin: A Review

I recently saw Ushpizin, a movie about a Hasidic couple in Jerusalem. I thought it was outstanding. The actors who play the couple are married in real life, and their on-screen relationship has a sense of reality to it that you rarely see in movies. (It's also refreshing to see a movie with an overweight, female romantic lead.) Ushpizin gives you a feeling of what it must be like to really believe in the Breslov tradition of Judaism. The protagonists see God's hand in every event in their lives and, since it's a fictional world, even us atheists can perhaps see God's hand in their lives. (Indeed works of fiction often take place in worlds with much more evidence for Divine Intervention than I believe we see in our own -- fiction wouldn't be compelling without some order and meaning to things, while reality simply is what it is. However, that's a topic for another post.)

Watching the movie, I got to experience a different kind of Judaism from the modern Orthodoxy in which I was raised. Even when I was religious, I would never have thought that eating fish would make one likely to have a son, that God was purposely testing me with a difficult situation, or that if I prayed hard enough, God would intervene directly in my life. Mine was a more abstract monotheism, more suited to my world than to this movie's. I can barely imagine what it would be like to be constantly looking for signs from God. If I get in a car accident, should I worry that God's warning me? If I'm narrowly missed by a car, was it God looking out for me? When an escaped prisoner shows up at my door, has God sent him to me?

Such a life would be very interesting, and it has a kind of beauty. It also seems like it would be pretty exhausting, emotionally.

Rush Limbaugh Calls Intelligent Design Pushers 'Disingenous'

I know why they're doing it, but I still think that [Intelligent Design] is a little bit disingenuous. Let's make no mistake. The people pushing intelligent design believe in the biblical version of creation. Intelligent design is a way, I think, to sneak it into the curriculum and make it less offensive to the liberals because it ostensibly does not involve religious overtones, that there is just some intelligent being far greater than anything any of us can even imagine that's responsible for all this, and of course I don't have any doubt of that. But I think that they're sort of pussyfooting around when they call it intelligent design.

Call it what it is. You believe God created the world, and you think that it's warranted that this kind of theory for the explanation for all that is be taught.

Holy crap. Even Rush Limbaugh, who opposed the Dover decision, admits that ID is a fraud.

Incidentally, Judge John E. Jones III, who ruled against ID in the Dover case had this to say about ID:

It is our view that a reasonable, objective observer would, after reviewing both the voluminous record in this case, and our narrative, reach the inescapable conclusion that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science. (p. 89)

Quotes of the Day: James Baldwin

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

James Baldwin. If you haven't read his novels, I recommend you do so. That man could write.

Abortion is All But Gone in South Dakota

Until I read this article in today's Washington Post, I had no idea how successful opponents to abortion have already been in some states.

South Dakota, those on both sides of the abortion debate agree, has become one of the hardest states in the country in which to obtain an abortion. One of three states in the country to have only one abortion provider -- North Dakota and Mississippi are the others -- South Dakota, largely because of a strong antiabortion lobby, is also becoming a leading national laboratory for testing the limits of state laws restricting abortion, both opponents and advocates of abortion rights say.

I understand people's opposition to abortion. I really do. I understand that they don't differentiate between a fetus and a baby and so, to them, abortion is murder. I disagree with them, but I understand. However, they're in the distinct minority when it comes to cases where the woman has been raped or is in mortal danger, yet they are succeeding in preventing abortions in those cases as well:

South Dakota is home to some of the poorest counties in the country, including the poorest, Buffalo County, seat of the Crow Creek Sioux reservation. State law forbids any public funding for the $450 procedure, even in the case of rape or incest. Beyond cost, there is the distance. It's a long slog here from places like Rapid City, about 350 miles away in the western part of the state. For some women, the only way to do it -- and not pay for a hotel room -- is to make the 700-mile trip in one day...

Even women in a medical or life-threatening emergency have only one hospital to go to that will perform an emergency abortion, she added. "One hospital. In the entire state, again in Sioux Falls."

In addition to have many laws limiting abortion in South Dakota, there is a tremendous stigma on doctors performing abortion:

Looby, whose father is an obstetrician-gynecologist, said she has talked to many doctors in South Dakota who say they have no personal objection to performing abortions but cannot risk their careers and community standing by offering the procedure.

If you oppose abortion, perhaps you can agree with me that it should be available in emergencies and for cases of rape. If you support a woman's right to choose, you should realize that opponents may not need to overturn Roe v. Wade to effectively eliminate almost all legal abortion.