What Evidence is there that Atheism is the best explanation for our existence ?

Arguing with fundegelicals...



They just never get it.

Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?

The cause must be personal because an impersonal force would be deterministic and mechanistic, not possessing free will. A mechanistic being only operates according to the programming it received from something else. But if the cause of the universe received programming from something else, then we have again not provided the answer to the cause of the universe. We have just found a middle-man. The cause had to make a choice to create and only beings who are personal can make choices.

Wow, wow wow , this is the definition if circular logic, holy shit Baaaaaaat man...
Why does there have to be a mechanistic and as you term PERSONAL CAUSE, what has happened too you that everything is personal?
What on earth makes you think ""We have just found a middle-man."" What middle man?

Why should fluke/chance/whatever be termed personal just because creation beyond the thought of personal is beyond your dictionary.
I am convincinced because of lack of all, and I mean all evidence to the contrary there never has been a god, God,


2. The universe is finely tuned to permit life on our planet.

No no no, life has developed to match the criteria, you have the cart brfore the horse.
There would no universe exist at all without fine tuning.....as already shown, the Big Bang was alreade finely tunde to a razors edge.


Fine tuned, tuned fine, okay round and round, lets skip 2 for now.

3. Life. Abiogenesis has not been able to explain the existence of life on earth.

Science is beginning to explain this, as I stated before they have discovered spontaneous organic reproduction of the building blocks of DNA.
thats not the information i have.

May you have a other one ?

I will look this up

weakest and saddest argument.

IS
there couldn’t be such a thing as morality without God; to use the words that Sartre attributed to Dostoyevsky, “If there is no God, then everything is permissible.”
That there are moral laws, then, that not everything is permissible, proves that God exists.


mor al

–adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.
2.
expressing or conveying truths or counsel as to right conduct, as a speaker or a literary work; moralizing: a moral novel.
3.
founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom: moral obligations.

or perhaps

morals
1. A lesson, esp. one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.
2. A person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.

or MAYBE

mor·al (môrl, mr-)adj.
1. Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
2. Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
3. Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
4. Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
5. Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
6. Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.
n.
1. The lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event.
2. A concisely expressed precept or general truth; a maxim.
3. morals Rules or habits of conduct, especially of sexual conduct, with reference to standards of right and wrong: a person of loose morals; a decline in the public morals.

Morals have nothing to do with god, at all, or cats or holy shit Paris. You believe comments like """"This is because moral facts aren’t descriptive, they’re prescriptive; moral facts have the form of commands.""". Jerimoth, what does this mean, to you?


Commands Imply a Commander

Sorry, what commands, from whom? Jerimoth, please tell us you are not speaking with someone directly?...
Morals are nothing more than rules for groups to live by, no big boss needed!!


5. Without God, life has no reason to be, there is no ultimate goal
If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life? Does it really matter whether he ever existed at all? It might be said that his life was important because it influenced others or affected the course of history. But this only shows a relative significance to his life, not an ultimate significance. His life may be important relative to certain other events, but what is the ultimate significance of any of those events? If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them? Ultimately it makes no difference.

Yes, in the blink of an eye, which is the life span of a mammal, in the grand scheme is short. what ultimate meaning can be given to a short life? Just passing on life, was, is a good reason. One couple begats a few , etc, etc. So yes success makes a difference!!!!

Look at it from another perspective: Scientists say that the universe originated in an explosion called the “Big Bang” about 15 billion years ago. Suppose the Big Bang had never occurred. Suppose the universe had never existed. What ultimate difference would it make? The universe is doomed to die anyway. In the end it makes no difference whether the universe ever existed or not. Therefore, it is without ultimate significance.

The same is true of the human race. Mankind is a doomed race in a dying universe. Because the human race will eventually cease to exist, it makes no ultimate difference whether it ever did exist. Mankind is thus no more significant than a swarm of mosquitos or a barnyard of pigs, for their end is all the same. The same blind cosmic process that coughed them up in the first place will eventually swallow them all again.

And the same is true of each individual person. The contributions of the scientist to the advance of human knowledge, the researches of the doctor to alleviate pain and suffering, the efforts of the diplomat to secure peace in the world, the sacrifices of good men everywhere to better the lot of the human race—all these come to nothing. In the end they don’t make one bit of difference, not one bit. Each person’s life is therefore without ultimate significance. And because our lives are ultimately meaningless, the activities we fill our lives with are also meaningless. The long hours spent in study at the university, our jobs, our interests, our friendships—all these are, in the final analysis, utterly meaningless. This is the horror of modern man: because he ends in nothing, he is nothing.

Jerimoth , Are You really this depressed?????

..

Now being the father of 3 teenagers, I hate repeating myself. Forgive me if you have posted it somewhere else!!

This has always been a subject long avoided by theists and religionists, miracles by definition cannot be explained.

6. Religious experiences and miracles
people are incurably religious.

If people would stop brainwashing children into these fallicies, it would be cured! I believe that religion should be treated like alcohol, keep children away from it until they are "of age", this would cure the world of the awful dispicable disease of religion within a couple of generations.
Sorry I do not feel psychologically unsatisfied! I do not feel empty, I have a full satisfying life which I enjoy without worrying about whatever makes you so "empty".
Again sorry, miracles, there is no such thing. Do not claim miracles without proof. That someone saw something, or second hand stories is not proof. Religious miracle to me imply an unbalanced mind, some disease or probably an outright lie.

Besides the inconsistencies in the stories on the bible, where are the truths about the MIRACLES?

Originally Posted by sienser

In my view, answers so far provided to the question, do not answer the question.
".. chemical reactions", elements in the atmosphere, chance, may be factors after space, time, energy and matter exist, but these factors provide no insight as to the origin of space, time energy and matter. Where did the chemical reactions, elements in the atmosphere, chance, come from? They do not explain a first and sufficient cause of existence.

Without such information, "magic man in the sky" may be the most reasonable explanation.

Except that it doesn't answer the question. It just regresses the question back another level.

Depending on whether you think the cosmologists and mathematicians know what they're talking about we may never have a better answer so I could live with the magic man answer if people would just leave it at that instead of insisting that they know so much about the magic man and his likes, dislikes, etc. and how they should influence laws, attitudes and behaviour.