Calling Top Challengers: Disprove a Single Atheist Argument

Rules are set to age 100+. If you want in, tell me and I'll change it. (Attention! Despite the title, you may not submit just ANY atheist argument to argue against). I present below a series of arguments in favor of God, along with rebuttals of them. Your invitation is to find ANY theistic argument below which you think is correct, with just ONE atheistic rebuttal which you believe is mistaken. Announce your chosen argument in a comment, along with YOUR ARGUMENTS. I'll accept your challenge and the debate shall begin. 1. Where do morals come from without a God? Where do morals come from WITH God? Suppose He exists, suppose he wants certain things, or has a character consistent with certain things. On what grounds do either of those facts determine morality? 2. I've been given a conviction by God that He exists. Distinguish between observation and inference. What experience have you had that leads you to conclude that God has communicated His existence to you? How do you know that it was God, as opposed to anything else? How could you distinguish between it being God, versus a lying deity tricking you? Or a lying non-deity? Or some natural phenomenon? 3. The Bible(Koran, whatever) is perfect You may point to proofs of the truth of certain parts, but how do you know the other parts are perfect? How do you know some parts aren't true and other parts false? 4. What if you're wrong? If I'm wrong, then I suppose Thor will never let me into Valhalla. Oh, did you mean YOUR God? Why yours? What if YOU'RE wrong about Thor? If someone REALLY thought this way, they'd go around and investigate which religion has the worst Hell, so that they can decide to believe in that one, since they"re just believing to try and avoid the bad consequences that might occur on the off-chance that a religion happens to be true. What if you"re wrong about Allah? Or Jesus? (depending on your religion) 5. Could you be wrong? I could be wrong about Batman; maybe he really does exist. That applies to lots of things, Superman, Spiderman, fairies, talking rabbits, flying bears, God, Darth Vader, Harry Potter. I"m willing to grant you that, but I think anyone who went around making sure everybody admitted they could be wrong about flying bears is probably making a mistake somewhere in their thinking. The same applies to God, unless you have more evidence for God than you do for sentient sock puppets. 6. Disorder does not beget order Now, that"s not entirely true, is it? If you put the right chemicals together and add a supply of energy, atoms will form into crystal shapes, now, won"t they? The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that a CLOSED system will not increase in order, more or less. Well, are we in a closed system? Not at all. The sun's pumping in energy all the time, and there are tens of thousands of tons of matter from outer space falling onto earth every day. Not-closed systems CAN increase in order. Plus, even in a closed system, it"s only the total "order" or negentropy that decreases. So long as the total decreases, there"s no reason a local part of it can't increase in "order," even while its surroundings become less orderly. 7. You send yourself to Hell So, supposing that we were all somehow here, but God didn"t exist, or say he was just a Deist God, who created nature (not heaven or hell), and then never touched anything beyond that, would I go to Hell and SUFFER when I died? Would Hell even exist? If yes, then how? If no, then what difference does God make that ends up with me in Hell, and why shouldn"t he be held responsible for that? Why is it that when God doesn"t intervene, I don"t go to Hell, but when do does, I go to Hell? 8. Atheists have a higher suicide rate than Christians Atheists may commit suicide more than Christians, but Christians commit suicide more than Hindus. And the Muslims commit even less suicide. Does this prove Islam? I think not. I think it would be a mistake to assume that a position is true or false based on how often the people who hold the position commit suicide. In each case, I suspect there is a different cause of the rate of suicide. Muslims, for example, might have a closer watch on each other. Hindus might feel they"re needed more by their families, since they tend to live in poorer places. Atheists may be more isolated than Christians, because there are fewer of them in some countries, like America, and they may not be socially accepted by the Christians that surround them It"s worth pointing out, also, that global atheist statistics just tend to reflect whatever's going on in China. There may be something about china other than atheism that makes it the way it is, and it would be a mistake to confuse the two. 9. Historical evidence shows that Jesus appeared to people after His death, and that his disciples were genuinely convinced of His resurrection, despite having every predisposition not to be. - Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, died for his faith. He showed the golden plates that were revealed to him by the Angel Moroni to 11 witnesses, 3 of whom signed a testimony saying Moroni had come to show them the plates. Several of these witnesses later left the church, some were excommunicated against their will. Many were persecuted. The Mormons were kicked out of their homes time after time, until they finally left the country and moved to Mexico (back when Utah was Mexican territory). Some of these witnesses eventually returned to the church, but even those that didn't affirmed that the angel showed them the plates, 'til the day they died, and none of them denied their testimony while they were estranged from the church. Does this prove that the Mormons are right? I think not. I think rather, we recognize the following principle: People seeming to be really convinced of supernatural things is not strong evidence for the truth of those supernatural things, even when they suffer because of their beliefs, or you figure they'd know if they were lying. If you happen to be Mormon, and accept both the Jesus' disciples idea, and the Mormon witnesses idea, just ask yourself if you'd be convinced of Islam if you were told of similar witnesses about Mohammed flying to heaven on a winged horse. 10. Prophecies come true in the Bible/Koran prove that it's true. How does that prophecy prove that the other parts of the book are true? Is it possible that some parts are true and other parts false? What about the book that don't have prophecies? Does the "truth" of Isaiah somehow prove the truth of 3 John and the Song of Solomon? 11. The universe must have a cause/explanation. That's God, so God exists. You've proven that there is a cause/explanation (if the argument is true). Why should it be God? Why not a great cosmic fish? Why not aliens from beyond the universe? Why not Vishnu or Cronos? 12. Fine-tuned universe shows it must have been designed. Therefore God. So there's design. Why God? How do you know it's not a supernatural internet troll (that enjoys messing with people)? Or a computer simulation? Or a giant cosmic possum? Or a flying bear that coughs out universes, and died 11 billion years ago, so there's no longer a creator of any kind? 13. God is defined as perfect. Perfection includes existence. Therefore God is defined as existent. So, God exists. This argument works equally well for the existence of a perfect leprechaun. You can define ANYTHING as "perfect," as "existent." That doesn't make it exist. If an argument works equally well for leprechauns and Batman, that's usually a sign that something's gone wrong. 14. Were you there? No, but let me ask you. If you were strolling along the beach and found a watch, and observed the intricate workings of its many parts, would you not be justified in inferring that there was a watchmaker? But, were you there when the watch was made? How can you know that the watch was made if you weren"t there? You already understand implicitly the principle I am going to state explicitly: There are things in the present which tell us things about the past. Evidence. By careful examination of things in their present state, we can often infer things about the past. 15. Science can"t prove or disprove religion Not so. Religion claims that there are certain things going on in the real world, that we can look for, to see if they"re really there or not. If they are there, then that"s evidence for religion, and it"s evidence against religion if they"re not there. Prayers, for example, are claimed to increase the chances that someone will recover from an illness. So, we could have studies which measure if people get well more often when other people pray for them. If that was a finding, the doctors would recommend prayer, because it was known to work. There would be studies trying to figure out what kind of prayers were most effective, and there would be hand-outs recommending the kind of prayer that most improves someone"s health. That none of these things happens suggests that prayer does not increase the chances of someone"s recovery. Whenever religion claims something is going on in the real world, that"s an opportunity for there to be evidence in favor of religion. Whenever that evidence is not found, that's evidence against religion. 16. It"s like an elephant that some blind men feel. You can"t tell what it"s like as a whole. Things which are unclear shall become clear. You can say that ANYTHING will be made clear later on. Leprechauns or flying bears or talking socks. But if someone is going to say that we should pay extra attention to the possibility of flying bears being real, and that even though that seems to not make sense, it"ll all make sense later on... then we need to know on what grounds you privilege the bear idea instead of the leprechauns. In short, you need evidence just to make a hypothesis worth even considering, and then, of course, you need more evidence to see if it's true or not.