This has been a central question for humankind since the beginning of our capacity for thought. And, historically, the answer has been yes. Of course, the question then became "which God(s) exist(s)?", the answer being dictated by whichever of the myriad of religions, cults and sects that the answerer happened to belong to.
Over the last two centuries, however, the nature of the God question has changed. The human race has advanced the frontiers of knowledge far beyond anything our ancestors could have dreamed possible. Human understanding has probed areas of thought beyond the pale of the material world; things once thought spiritual and mysterious are now understood to the point of prediction. While there remains a vast amount left to learn (enough that we may never fully understand it all - and I should think that the questions that face us today regarding quantum mechanics and probability theory are far more wonderous than anything theology ever presented us with!), we can safely determine that the world we live in doesn't require gods, spirits, demons or angels to promulgate the chain of cause and effect. Nature is beholden to an objective set of laws, laws that not only explain the how but often the why as well. Science has provided us the tools by which we as a species can overcome our superstitous past. The transition, however, is proving to be anything but smooth.
One of the earliest forms of the First Cause argument appears with Aristotle:
Our present position, then, is this: We have argued that there always was motion and always will be motion throughout all time, and we have explained what is the first principle of this eternal motion: we have explained further which is the primary motion and which is the only motion that can be eternal: and we have pronounced the first movement [or: "Prime Mover"] to be unmoved
Aristotle, Physics, Book VIII, chapter 9
Aristotle's concept of a "Prime Mover" is a fundamental component behind the cosmological arguments for the existence of some sort of god. His basic idea was that everything that happens is caused by something else. For example, if a patch of ice causes you to slip and fall, what caused the ice to form? Obviously a combination of excessive moisture in the air and cold temperatures - but what caused the humidity? What caused the temperature to drop?
The questions can go on and on - everything that causes something is in turn caused by something else. We can trace this chain of causes back as far as we want, but Aristotle thought that eventually we have to reach a first cause that just was - causing but itself uncaused. This is Aristotle's "Prime Mover."
It is worth noting an important context: Aristotle began his arguments with the attempt to show that the ideas of Parmenides and Zeno were circular. Those two argued from the premise that whatever is simply is - but Aristotle regarded this as a tautology because it ignores the fact that there are many different types of being and existence. We will return to this shortly.
The most common type of the cosmological argument, postulating a god as a "First Cause," can be summarized thusly:
Everything that exists or begins to exist has a cause. The universe exists and began to exist.
The universe must have a cause.
The cause of the universe is God.
It has been objected that the universe might be eternal, thus eliminating the need for a cause. Yet few people today still regard the universe as eternal because they have accepted the Big Bang Theory, so this objection has fallen out of favor.
However, it is worth pointing out that time is an aspect of the universe - without the universe, there is no time. Thus, it is possible to say that the universe has existed at every point in time and that at no point in time has there been no universe. That is just about as close to "eternal" as we're going to get.
Another objection is that the argument concludes that a "god" exists, but if so, then this god must have a cause (according to the same argument). This would result in an infinite regress of causes (gods) unacceptable to the theist, so most believers make an exception for their god, asserting that it doesn't need a cause.
Unfortunately, there is no obvious reason why this exception cannot be applied to the universe, too. If a god "just is," why can't the universe "just be?" Aristotle didn't like the idea of simply accepting that some things simply are, but even he had to resort to this when it came to his Prime Mover.
For this reason, many using the argument say "everything that begins to exist has a cause" - asserting that their god never "began" and, hence, needs no cause. The problem here is that there is no support offered for the idea that their god must be "eternal."
Another difficulty is that since time is an aspect of the universe, it is hard to see how it can be said to have a "beginning" in the way the word is normally used. The concept of a "beginning" normally assumes a "time before" at which the object did not exist - but there was no "time before" the universe.
The second example of the Cosmological Argument, which suggests that the existence of order in the universe requires a god as an explanation, also has many objections.
For one thing, the concept of "order" is rarely defined sufficiently to say that the universe has too much of it not to require a god as an explanation. And what would a universe without "order" look like? To exist means to exist with specific boundaries and a specific nature - thus resulting in order. For this reason it is possible to argue that mere existence itself results in order without any need to refer to gods.
Another issue is the "order" of this god itself. If, as believers say, order cannot come from disorder, then this god must be highly ordered rather than chaotic. Therefore, this god requires another god as an explanation. Of course, this once again drops us into an infinite regress of gods. If the believer wishes to exempt an ordered god from requiring explanation, then they will have to demonstrate that the universe cannot also get such an exemption.
A final objection to both types can be offered: even if a "First Cause" is probable or a cause to the order in the universe reasonably concluded, this does not mean that we have proven that a god exists.
A mere "First Cause" which has apparently done nothing more than cause the Big Bang or allow for the development of natural laws which form order hardly seems to warrant the label "God." It certainly isn't necessarily worth worshipping, revering, or even giving much thought to.
Moreover, it doesn't necessarily have the qualities normally ascribed to God by the people who offer the argument: Christians, Jews, Muslims and others. Such qualities include omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and more.
The Cosmological Argument, if effective, also doesn't mean that this god must be alone - a committee is equally believable. And it doesn't even mean that this god is still "alive" or still "exists." So even if successful, the Cosmological Argument is a failure as an argument for believing in any sort of god worth worrying about.
Instead, what is required is an argument to design - the person attempting to prove a god must first give just cause why anyone should believe that something called "design" can be discerned in the natural world. Only then can an argument from that design and to a god be attempted.
Sometimes the Argument to Design focuses less on alleged design in the universe and more on alleged purpose in the universe. Purpose, of course, is the point of design - and the Teleological Argument (teleo = purpose) is a type of Design Argument.
William Paley, writing in his influential book Natural Theology, offers a succinct and widely quoted summary of the Design Argument:
There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement without anything capable of arranging; subservience and relation to a purpose without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end without ever having been contemplated or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subservience of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use imply the presence of intelligence and mind.
Paley is particularly famous for drawing an analogy from human watches. His classic Watch Agument states that if someone found a watch on a beach they would never conclude that it had been produced by some means other than intelligent design and purpose. After all, the watch parts are carefully integrated in order to operate in conjunction and produce and deliberate goal.
It is difficult to provide a more understandable explanation of the Design Argument because of its primary weakness: it relies heavily upon personal, subjective interpretation. When looking at aspects of nature, some people reach the conclusion that they could only have come about through the designs and purposes of some intelligence. But this conclusion is not logically necessary.
This weakness seriously undermines the ability of the Argument to Design to achieve much. It cannot be merely asserted that design exists. Pointing to order isn't enough because order does not logically imply design - although that is just what so many theists using this argument seem to assume. And argument from analogy - like Paley's Watch Argument - don't go very far unless you are already inclined to believe that the universe and nature are deliberately designed.
In order to reasonably argue that something is designed, it needs to be argued that it has some purpose, for it is in discovering purpose that we can discover design. This argument for purpose in nature is where we find the Teleological Argument. Unfortunately, this doesn't go very far either - too often it seems to be assumed that we humans are somehow the "purpose" of the universe. At no point, however, is this assumption substantively supported. This planet could just has easily been "designed" for the purpose of having ants or bacteria, with humans being an irrelevant by-product.
It should be noted that design and teleological arguments are fairly common in debates about creationism and evolution. Pretty much the entire rationale behind creationist attacks on evolution is that life as we see it could not have achieved diversity through natural means and so instead requires supernatural means: a supernatural designer.
Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was one of the most influential proponents of this argument, and phrased it so:
We have a concept of a Perfect Being:
Such a Perfect Being must necessarily exist.
Why? If he did not exist, then he would not be perfect.
Somewhat more difficult to understand, he also wrote:
Assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.
Buried within all of that philosophical double-talk is the argument that in order for a being to qualify as "Greatest" (i.e., no "greater" being can be conceived of), it must have the quality of "existence." If this "Greatest" being were simply an idea in people's minds, then it would not have its own existence and, hence, wouldn't really qualify as "Greatest" anymore.
If you find that to be nonsense, then you aren't alone. Even one of Anselm's contemporaries, a monk named Gaunilo, noted that argument allowed for satirical copy-cats like:
We have a concept of a Perfect Island:
Such a Perfect Island must necessarily exist.
Why? If it did not exist, then it would not be Perfect.
Basically, the rebuttal here suggests that if the Ontological Argument is valid, then absolutely every perfect thing we can think of must also simultaneously exist in reality - but we know that that isn't true. Therefore, there must be some flaw in the argument itself.
Anselm and those who accept his argument do not agree with this critique. First, they argue that a "Perfect Island" is not really a concept but merely an imaginary idea - but this just begs the question of why their "God" is not also just an imaginary idea.
Second, they argue that the idea of a "Perfect Being" is more valid because it is universal among human beings. Unfortunately, that is more assertion than substance. No proof is offered of it and contrary evidence certainly exists. But of course, even if it is true that the idea of a "Perfect Being" were reasonably universal, how does that demonstrate that the concept is more valid? That resorts to the logical fallacy that anything which is popular is more likely true.
And besides, there are other ideas which have as much or nearly as much universality as the idea of a "Perfect Being" allegedly has. What about the concept of the "Perfect Meal" or the "Perfect Spouse?"
Other Ontological Arguments have been offered on the basis of mathematics, logic and other sciences. The arguments here state that the existence of perfect relationships in those fields points to the existence of a perfect being.
This does not really amount to much, however, since perfect relationships do not really exist in the way human beings and rocks do. Instead, they are concepts in our minds - if the analogy is really to be used, then it should be accepted that a Perfect God is also just a concept in our minds. This is a conclusion few atheists will disagree with.
A final example of an Ontological Argument was offered by Descartes, who suggested that we all have within us the idea of a perfect, infinite Being. But since we ourselves are neither perfect nor infinite, then this idea could not have come from within us. Instead, it must have come from outside of us - from a real perfect, infinite being. In his own words:
For though the idea of substance be in my mind owing to this, that I myself am a substance, I should not, however, have the idea of an infinite substance, seeing I am a finite being, unless it were given me by some substance in reality infinite.
The first objection to the Cartesian Ontological Argument is something already mentioned: it can merely be asserted that all humans have an innate idea of a perfect, infinite Being. It cannot be proven and there does exist real contrary evidence.
Although it can be shown that some sort of religion appears to have existed in all cultures, it is not true that religion and theism are logically connected, much less religion and the sort of theism assumed here - one can occur without the other. Nevertheless, many religious groups and many theologians continue to accept this assumption, thus keeping this argument on artificial life-support long after the plug should have mercifully been pulled.
According to the Argument from Values, there exist universal human values and ideals - things like goodness, beauty, truth, justice, etc. (and "The American Way," if you happen to be a member of the American Religious Right). These ideas are not simply experienced subjectively within the human mind but instead really exist - and are creations by a god.
This argument is more quickly dealt with because the idea that such things exist outside our minds is more assertion than argument. No matter how common or popular they are, it would be a logical fallacy to use that fact to conclude that the concepts are more then human creations. Perhaps that is why more time and energy is invested in promoting the Moral Argument.
According to the Moral Argument, all humans face moral choices in their lives and, in making those choices, they must rely upon their sense of moral obligations and moral ideals. There is thus a universality of human "moral conscience" which, although differing in actual content, nevertheless suggests basic human commonalities.
Theists using the Moral Argument assert then that the existence of this universal "moral conscience" can only be explained by the existence of a Moral God who created us (thus also touching on the Design and Teleological Arguments). Here we can read John Henry Newman's explanation from his book The Grammar of Assent:
"The wicked flees, when no one pursueth;" then why does he flee? whence his terror? who is it that sees in solitude, in darkness, the hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is directed must be Supernatural and Divine; and thus the phenomena of Conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress the imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive, and is the creative principle of religion, as the Moral Sense is the principle of ethics.
Unfortunately for this argument, it is not true that all humans have a "moral conscience" - some are diagnosed without any such quality and are labeled sociopaths or psychopaths. But they appear to be at least somewhat aberrant, and so it can be granted that some sort of "moral conscience" is rather universal among humans.
But it is not true that the existence of a moral god is the best explanation for this. The idea that a "moral conscience" is evolutionarily beneficial is a strong contender, especially in light of animal behavior which is highly suggestive of a rudimentary "moral conscience."
It has, for example, been observed that chimpanzees can exhibit what appears to be fear and shame when they do something that violates the rules of its group. Should it be assumed that the chimpanzee fears God? Or is it instead more likely that such feelings should develop in social animals?
Another version of the Moral Argument which is common with popular apologists, but not so common with professional theologians any more, is the idea that if people did not believe in a god, then they would not have any reason to be moral. If this does not serve to make the existence of a god any more probable, then at least it is supposed to offer a practical reason to believe in a god.
Unfortunately for this argument, the factual premise that better morality is a consequence of believing in a god is doubtful at best. There is certainly no good evidence for it and abundant evidence to the contrary: that theism is irrelevant to morality at best. There is certainly no data that atheists commit more violent crimes than do theists, and countries with more theists do not appear to have higher crime rates than countries where the population is more atheistic.
Moreover, even if it were true that theism made one more moral, that is no reason to actually think that a god more likely exists than not. The mere fact that a belief is useful on practical grounds has no automatic bearing on it being factual.
A more sophisticated version which is often encountered is the idea that the existence of a god is the only explanation for objective morals and values. Thus atheists, even if they do not realize it, by denying a god also deny objective morality. Hastings Rashdall expressed this argument so:
On a non-theistic view of the Universe...the moral law cannot well be thought of as having any actual existence. The objective validity of the moral law can indeed be and no doubt is asserted, believed in and acted upon without reference to any theological creed; but it cannot be defended or fully justified without the presupposition of Theism.
This view is not unique to theistic apologists - even some influential atheists, like J. L. Mackie, have agreed that if moral laws or ethical properties were objective facts, then this would be a puzzling occurrence which would require some sort of supernatural explanation.
This version of the Moral Argument can be rejected on a number of bases. For one thing, it has not been shown that ethical statements can only be objective if you presume theism. There have been a number of attempts to create naturalistic theories of ethics which in no way rely upon gods.
But even if that previous premise were true, it has not been shown that moral laws or ethical properties are absolute and objective. Maybe they are - but this cannot simply be assumed without argument.
Moreover, what if they aren't absolute and objective? For one thing, that does not automatically mean that we will or should descend into moral anarchy as a result. Once again, we have what is at best a practical reason to believe in a god regardless of the actual truth value of theism.
This argument starts from the premise that all our knowledge of the world essentially relied upon experience. As a result, religious experiences should be accorded the same basic validity as other sorts of experience. Thus, people claiming to have experienced god, angels, miracles, etc. should be believed. Based upon this evidence, the existence of a god is made, at the very least, quite likely. The fact that such beliefs and experiences have been found in most, if not all, human cultures is used to further bolster the argument.
A good example of someone making this argument would be William James in his influential Varieties of Religious Experience. Here he purports that all normal persons have religious experience and, since experience is the final arbiter of truth, then God - as the object of those religious experiences - must be accepted as factually true.
James elaborated on this point by further observing that the religious experiences in question tend to have a profound affect on the lives of the people who report them. His implication here is that such effects cannot reasonably be attributed to hallucinations. Instead, genuine events must be responsible.
He further goes on and argues that not only have religious experiences had profound affects on individual humans, but the course of whole societies have been significantly altered. Once again, to attribute such effects to anything like a hallucination would be, in his mind, an error.
Fundamentally, it is argued that it is much more reasonable to believe that an existent God is responsible for religious experiences than to attribute the profound effects of those experiences to a mere imaginary being.
The first problem to note is in James' assertion that "all normal people" have "religious experiences." It is uncertain what exactly he means by this, but it is certainly a much easier assertion to make than to support, much less prove.
If he means experiences of the supernatural - gods, angels, etc. - then he is quite simply wrong. If, however, he means something much more vague, like that everyone has experienced awe when contemplating the universe - then he might be right, but he isn't supporting his claim.
As previously indicated, a fundamental flaw in the Argument from Religious Experiences is the wide diversity of possible gods and beings which can be argued from it. Not all of these gods and beings can exist, at the very least because so many of them are mutually and logically contradictory.
Therefore, it is logically necessary to conclude that at least some religious experiences are somehow in error. Either some people really are having religious experiences but are attributing them to the wrong god/being, or they are not actually having "religious" experiences (experiences of something supernatural) and are instead having experiences stemming from some other cause.
In either case, the basic fact which we have to accept is that, when it comes to religious experiences, some people have to be wrong. So even if we also assume that some are actually right about the experiences they report, how can we possibly differentiate between the two groups? What criteria do we use to separate the genuine experiences from false or flawed experiences - not only in the reports of others, but in ourselves?
There is no such set of criteria which does not also rely upon the validity of some religious system. For example, some will argue that a religious experience which does not agree with the Bible is flawed or false. But since this ultimately assumes the truth of what is supposed to be proven, such criteria are unacceptable.
For this reason, we must conclude that the Argument from Religious Experience only "proves" one thing: that people have profound experiences which have significant effects in their lives and, sometimes, these experiences are attributed to outside, supernatural sources. The extreme conflicts in the nature of the alleged supernatural sources, combined with the existence of testable, alternative explanations, means that the mere fact of religious experiences do not make the alleged objects of those experiences any more likely than not.
So why even bring it up? Aside from its historical importance, it has nevertheless remained popular among amateur and popular religious apologists. It certainly has a nice sound, and John Stuart Mill observed that it probably has had more influence on more people than other, more logically sound arguments.
The basic version argues that belief in some sort of god is innate or instinctive and has existed consciously in nearly the whole of humanity throughout history. The best way to explain this, or so the argument goes, is to assume that some sort of god really does exist after all. Belief in a god wouldn't be so popular or pervasive if some god didn't exist, therefore some god must exist.
The first objection is one which has been brought up in other places, like the Ontological Argument: there is no good, factual basis to assume that belief in a god is indeed innate and instinctive. It cannot be innate in the sense that it is present in our minds at birth, since some people manage never to believe in any gods. And it cannot be innate in the sense that it is a belief that we are predisposed to acquire, because there is no reason to think that all children will automatically acquire it without specific instruction or indoctrination.
The second objection is to the idea that there is any necessary logical connection between the widespread existence of a belief and in the existence of the object of that belief. Just because trillions of people believe a thing doesn't make it true - this is the logical fallacy mentioned earlier. Truth is not decided by majority vote. Besides, it is possible to explain the persistence of theism without the existence of a god - for example, by arguing that it has had survival value for the human species.
The Argument from Common Consent also appears in a slightly different version, with the premise that there exists not an innate belief in some sort of god, but instead an innate yearning for a god. Since there cannot be an innate desire for something without there also being an object for that desire, then the object of this desire - God - must exist. An analogous example often provided is an infant's innate desire for food.
Once again, much the same objections can be offered - there is not, for example, any clear evidence that there exists in humans an innate yearning for a god which is not actually created by instruction and/or indoctrination later in life. The idea that there is an innate yearning for a god certainly does not explain the existence of millions of atheists who exhibit no such yearning.
The idea that we all "really" have such a yearning but simply deny it won't work. This is similar to the common Christian claim that an atheist "really" believes in a god, but is in denial. No one not intimately familiar with a person can reasonably claim that that person is "in denial" of anything, much less of something as significant as a god. To try and claim this anyway is one of the most arrogant and presumptuous attitudes that atheists have to deal with.
Moreover, even if such an innate yearning existed, that does not automatically mean that a real object of that yearning must exist. Once again, this yearning might have evolutionary survival value regardless of the truth of the matter. Or perhaps there is instead a yearning for security or justice which can indeed exist, but we transfer this yearning to an all-encompassing god which does not exist. The claim that a yearning logically necessitates an object for that yearning is invalid - it is an assumption, and an unsupported one at that.
Thus we see that the Argument from Common Consent fails to make the existence of a god more likely or the belief in a god more reasonable. The premises upon which it relies are questionable at best and often incorrect. The conclusions it attempts to draw do not follow necessarily from the premises, even if they were true.
It isn't too hard to see why this argument isn't offered by more sophisticated apologists and professional theologians. Like so many of the theistic arguments addressed so far, it's basic factual premise is highly doubtful. In this case, there is no clear reason to believe that theists are in fact any happier than atheists.
Indeed, one of the fundamental problems for theists which regularly comes up and is often a source of doubt is the fact that bad things happen to good people. In his best-selling book of the same name, Harold Kushner admits:
These misfortunes of good people are not only a problem to the people who suffer and their family. They are a problem to everyone who wants to believe in a just and fair and livable world. They inevitably raise questions about the goodness, the kindness, and even the existence of God.
So not only is the first factual premise of this argument highly dubious, but not even all theists really believe it. Of course, even if we were to accept that the factual premise were true, that does not mean that we also need to ascribe the cause to a god. Probably Michael Scriven put it best:
It is easy to see that there might be another and more natural explanation for this supposed effect, namely, that the mere belief makes them happier, just as the belief of members of a football team that their team is the best in the country may make them feel and play better even if it does not make the team the best, i.e., even though it is not true.
For these reasons, the Argument from Reward fails to provide a rational basis for believing that any sort of god actually exists.
The argument continues by suggesting that the balance of justice must be achieved somewhere and at some time - and that since this does not occur here, then it must occur after we die. There simply must be a future life where the good are rewarded and the wicked are punished in ways commensurate with their actual deeds.
Unfortunately, there is no good reason to assume that justice must, in the end, balance out in our universe. The assumption of cosmic justice is at least as questionable as the assumption that a god exists - and so it certainly cannot be used to prove that a god exists.
In fact, humanists and many other atheists point to the fact that the lack of any such cosmic balance of justice means that the responsibility is ours to do all that we can to ensure that justice is done here and now. If we don't do it, no one else will do it for us.
Belief that there will be cosmic justice eventually - whether accurate or not - may be very appealing because it allows us to think that, regardless of what happens here, good will triumph. However, this removes from us some of the responsibility to get things right here and now. After all, what's the big deal if a few murderers go free or a few innocent people are executed if everything will be perfectly balanced later on?
And even if there is a system of perfect cosmic justice, there is no reason to simply assume that there exists a single, perfect god in charge of it all. Perhaps there are committees of gods who do the work. Or perhaps there are laws of cosmic justice which work like laws of gravity - something akin to the Hindu and Buddhist concepts of karma.
Thus we can see not only that the basic premise of this argument is faulty, but that even if it were true, it fails to necessitate the conclusion theists seek. In fact, believing it may have unfortunate social consequences, even if it is psychologically appealing. For these reasons, it fails to offer a rational basis for theism.
Richard Swineburne is a well known apologist who uses this argument, stating that it is impossible to reduce mental events or properties to physical events or properties and that any attempt to do so would face serious problems. His conclusion is that certain psychological and physical events correlate with each other simply because God chose for them to correlate - nothing more, nothing less. In his own words:
"How could brain-states vary except in their physical composition and the speed and direction of their electro-chemical interaction, and how could there be a natural connection between variations in these respects and variations in the kind of respects in which intentions differ - say, the difference between intending to sign a cheque, intending to square a circle, and intending to lecture for half an hour? There does not seem to be the beginning of a prospect of a simple scientific theory of this kind and so of having established laws of mind-body interaction as opposed to lots of diverse correlations."
There are a number of problems with this argument. The most obvious is that people like Swineburne are creating what is essentially a complex Argument from Ignorance: since we don't know how it works, we'll never know how it works - and thus, there is no natural explanation. The Argument from Ignorance is a logical fallacy. The mere fact that we do not know how something works does not mean that we never will and it certainly does not mean that there is no natural explanation.
This argument is also open to easy parody. One could just as effectively argue that it is not possible to reduce digestive events or properties to physical events or properties - and thus conclude that digestion has no natural explanation. But that is absurd - digestion does not occur in one place and with one event. Digestion is a process involving many different body parts. It is not localizable in one place or in one natural law.
Similarly, consciousness and mental activity is a process - it happens all over and is simply the expression of what is going on. The fact that we cannot reduce it to a single place or a single event is no more a problem here than it is with digestion!
The deliberate opposition to naturalism in this argument is also problematic. Naturalism is the belief that all objects, events, and even values can be fully explained in terms of factual and/or causal claims about the natural world. Supernaturalism is just the opposite - the belief that events and values require supernatural powers or authority for their explanation. Natural explanations may be reliable on an immediate level, but they in turn must eventually require a supernatural cause.
Unfortunately, even for theists naturalism is prior supernaturalism. In any debate or discussion, there are a few basic presuppositions which all must share: the validity of logic, the existence of other minds, the existence of a common world, and the stability of that common world.
All of these premises are naturalistic, not supernaturalistic - and hence naturalism is prior to supernaturalism with the latter being an extra addition to a person's assumptions. Without assuming naturalism and the continuity of the observable world - and that you both share much the same experience of that world - how can you possibly succeed in having any discussion with someone?
The answer is that you can't. The answer is that you do have to assume naturalism rather than supernaturalism first - but the Argument from Consciousness attempts to deny this and, hence, deny the basis for having a rational argument in the first place.
What is a miracle? Definitions vary, but two of the main ones I have seen are: first, something that is not naturally possible and so must have occurred because of supernatural intervention; and, second, anything caused by supernatural intervention (even if it is naturally possible).
Both definitions are problematic - the first because it is practically impossible to demonstrate that something in particular cannot occur because of natural means, and the second, because it is practically impossible to distinguish between a natural and a supernatural event when both look identical.
Before anyone attempts to use the Argument from Miracles, you should get them to explain what they think a 'miracle' is and why. If they cannot explain how it can be proven that a natural cause for an event is impossible, their argument won't work. Or, if they cannot explain how to distinguish between rainfall that occurred naturally and rainfall that occurred due to supernatural intervention, their argument is equally ineffective.
Even if we grant that a "miraculous" event is indeed exceptional enough to warrant an exceptional explanation, it cannot be assumed that this supports theism. We could, for example, postulate that the event was caused by the incredible powers of human minds rather than the incredible powers of a god's mind. This explanation is no less credible and in fact has the advantage that we know that humans minds exist, whereas the existence of a god's mind is questionable.
The point is, if someone is going to advance one supernatural, paranormal, or unusual explanation for an exceptional event, they have to be willing to consider every other supernatural, paranormal, or unusual explanation. The question which thus faces the believer is: how can one possibly compare all these different explanations? How on earth can one reasonably support the idea that something occurred because of a god rather than human telepathy or ghosts?
I'm not sure that you can - but unless the believer is able to show why their supernatural explanation is preferable to all the others, their claims fall flat. This cuts to the very nature of what a valid explanation is. When you can't show why your attempted explanation does a better job then mine, then you reveal that what you are saying does not really explain anything at all. It does not lead us to better understand the nature of the event and of our universe in general.
One problem for the Argument from Miracles is something which afflicts so many arguments for the existence of a god: it does nothing to support the likely existence of any particular god. Although this is a problem for many arguments, it does not immediately appear to be the case here - although any god might have created the universe, it seems that only the Christian God would likely be causing miraculous healings in Lourdes.
The difficulty here lies in the fact referenced above: every religion seems to make claims of miraculous events. If one religion's claims are right and that religion's god exists, what is the explanation for all the other miracles in other religions? It seems unlikely that the Christian God was causing miraculous healings in the name of ancient Greek gods at one time.
Unfortunately, any attempt to rationally explain away the miracle claims in other religions opens the door for similar explains in the first religion. And any attempt to explain away other miracles as the work of Satan simply begs the question - namely, the truth of the religion in question.
Another important matter to consider is how we judge the likelihood of a reported event. When someone tells us that something happened, we need to weigh three general possibilities against each other: that the event happened exactly as reported; that some event happened, but the report is somehow inaccurate; or that we are being lied to.
Without knowing anything about the reporter, we have to make our judgements based upon two things: the importance of the claim and the likelihood of the claim happening. When claims aren't very important, our standards don't need to be as high. The same is true when the reported event is very mundane. This can be illustrated by three similar examples.
Imagine that I told you that I visited Canada last month. How likely is it that you would doubt my story? Probably not very - lots of people visit Canada all the time, so it's not too hard to think that I did so as well. And what if I didn't - does it really matter? In such a case, my word is enough to believe.
Imagine, however, that I am a suspect in a murder investigation and I report that I couldn't have committed the crime because I was visiting Canada at the time. Once again, how likely is it that you would doubt my story? Doubts would come easier this time - although it is still hardly unusual to imagine me in Canada, the consequence of error are much more serious.
Thus, you'll need more than just my say-so to believe my story and will request more proof - like tickets and such. The stronger the other evidence is against me as a suspect, the stronger the evidence you will demand for my alibi. In this instance, we can see how the increasing importance of an event causes our standards for believing to grow stricter.
Finally, imagine that I am once again just claiming to have visited Canada - but instead of taking normal transportation, I claim that I levitated to get there. Unlike with our second example, the mere fact that I was in Canada isn't so important and it is still very believable. But while the importance of the claim being true is low, the likelihood is as well. Because of this, you are justified in demanding quite a bit more than just my word before believing me.
Of course, there is a tangential issue of importance, too. While the immediate claim might not be important itself, the implications that levitation is possible are important because it would reveal fundamental flaws in our understanding of physics. This only adds to how strict our standards for belief of this claim must be.
So we can see that we are justified in approaching different claims with differing standards of evidence. Where to miracles fall into this spectrum? According to David Hume, they fall way out at the end of the unlikely and the unbelievable.
In fact, according to him, reports of miracles are never believable because the possibility of a miracle actually having happened is always lower than the possibility either that the reporter is somehow mistaken or that the reporter is just lying. Because of this, we should always assume that one of the two latter options are more likely true.
Although he may be going too far is suggesting that miracle claims are never believable, he makes a good case that the likelihood of a miracle claim being true is vastly inferior to the likelihood of the other two options. In light of this, anyone claiming the truth of a miracle has a significant burden of proof to overcome.
We can thus see that the Argument from Miracles fails to offer a solid and rational basis for theism. First, the very definition of a miracle makes it almost impossible to demonstrate that a miracle claim is credible. Second, miracles are so unlikely in comparison to the alternatives that accepting the truth of a miracle would require a miraculous amount of evidence. Indeed, the truth of a miracle is so unlikely that, if one turned out to be true, that itself would be a miracle.
Another example is that they might try and argue that these ancient texts have made predictions about science or events which turned out to be true - without supernatural help, such predictions would not be possible. Finally, they might try to argue that their scriptures are somehow "perfect" - they are without flaws, without errors, or are written in such a perfect style that they cannot be imitated by mere mortal humans.
The strength of these arguments is minimal at best. The argument that relies upon scriptural miracles is simply a repackaging of the Argument from Miracles, and so suffers from all the same problems - and more, considering the age of the reports. The argument that relies upon the influence of the scriptures suffers from problems similar to those in the Argument from Religious Experience.
After all, just because an idea or book influences people does not mean that it is even necessarily true, much less of supernatural origin. Witness, for example, the influence of the book Mein Kampf and the ideas contained therein. A good example to use with conservative evangelicals making this argument would be the influence of Karl Marx's books and ideas - is such influence in any way indicative of the truth of Marxism?
The question of predictions in ancient scriptures is thorny. Although it is often claimed that such predictions cannot be found, advocates fail to demonstrate clearly that the predictions in question were definitely made before the events they were supposed to predict. Quite often, the alleged "prediction" is grossly ambiguous, applicable to a wide range of possible events.
And there is always the problem that "true" predictions can be retained in the records while "false" predictions can simply be deleted - and prophets with poor track records are just forgotten. If the only prophets and prophecies which have survived are the vaguely successful ones while all the poor ones were simply forgotten, what kind of argument is that for the supernatural origin of scriptures?
As to the idea that some set of scriptures are more "perfect" than is possible without divine aid... well, that is at best a matter of personal interpretation. It certainly cannot be empirically argued that a written work is beyond human capability to produce, and it has not been demonstrated that any set of scriptures from any religion is error-free.
One final version of the Argument from Scriptures which might appear is the idea that all of the holy books from all the major religions agree on substantial, important points. It isn't the minor details that matter, but the big issues, like the existence of a creator-god. Since they agree, it is more likely that they are accurate on these points of agreement than that they are not.
The factual premise that all the holy books of the major religions agree is doubtful at best. There is certainly good reason to say that it is false - for example, the holy writings of Buddhist and Jains don't even appear to share with other major religions the basic premise that there is a god. If there is no agreement on that issue, then other points of possible agreement are not nearly so interesting or persuasive.
But even if it were true that the holy books all agreed on major points, that would not by itself be reason to think that they were also accurate on those points. As with the Argument from Consensus, truth is not determined by majority vote. The mere existence of agreement does not automatically confer any higher degree of accuracy.
The first problem lies in the implicit yet unstated assumption that we already know which god we should believe in. That assumption, however, is not necessary to the argument, and thus the argument itself does not explain which religion a person should follow. This can be described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" dilemma. If you happen to follow the right religion, you may indeed "go to heaven and avoid hell." However, if you choose the wrong religion, you'll still go to hell.
The thing missed by so many who use this argument is that you cannot "bet" on the general concept of "theism." You have to pick specific doctrines. Theism is just a broad construct which includes all possible god-beliefs and, as such, does not exist absent specific theologies. If you are going to really believe in a god, you have to believe in something - which means picking something. If you pick nothing, then your "belief" is literally empty and you remain an atheist. So, a person who picks risks picking the wrong god and avoiding the wrong hell.
A second problem is that it isn't actually true that the person who bets loses nothing. If a person bets on the wrong god, then the True God (tm) just might punish them for their foolish behavior. What's more, the True God (tm) might not mind that people don't bother believing in it when they use rational reasons - thus, not picking at all might be the safest bet. You just cannot know.
Also, some choices do indeed come with large risks. Many have died because they trusted in prayer rather than medicine. Others have perished due to the handling of poisonous snakes and the drinking of lethal liquids because Jesus said they would be able to do so without harm. Thus, the choice of pseudoscientific and mystical beliefs can carry very negative consequences.
A third problem is the unstated premise that the two choices presented are equally likely. It is only when two choices are equal in probability that it makes sense to go with the allegedly "safe bet." However, if the choice of a god is revealed to be a great deal less likely than the choice of no god, then god ceases to be the "safe bet." Or, if both are equally likely, then neither is actually a "safe bet."
One final problem is the conclusion of the argument, where a person decides to believe in a god because it is the choice that offers the most benefits and least dangers. However, this requires that the god in question not mind that you believe in it merely in order to gain entrance to heaven and/or to avoid punishment in hell.
But this means that this god isn't actually a just or fair god, since a person's eternal fate is not being decided upon based on their actions, but merely on their decision to make a pragmatic and selfish choice. I don't know about you, but that certainly isn't the sort of god I would ever consider worshipping.
Whatever anyone tells you, atheism is not a 100% sure thing. I know this because it is a logical fact that you cannot prove a universal negative. I would go on to point out that this is the very reason such a thing as "burden of proof" exists. It is not the atheist's burden to prove that God does not exist. It is the theist's burden to prove that God does exist. This is reasonable because it IS possible to prove a positive proposition. Hence, Mr. Cline's words are not meant as proof, as such. Rather, they are demonstrations that theists have a long way to go before their case is proven - or likely.
