Not convinced

[chard]

Will I go to hell for reading over 300 proofs of God's existence? (I really did read them all, too.)

My favourite: An idiot could see that God exists. I am an idiot. I can see that God exists. God exists.

I heard Pat Robertson use number 266 on television. I find 328 quite appealing, but only because I've read "A Fire Upon the Deep".

Comments

[ashley_y]

I think 210 is compelling.

[ashley_y]

More seriously, and in the same vein, 197 is more or less Blake's argument for God. I think it works if you define God as prettiness, and that's not necessarily a bad definition.

[chard]

Hey, that's one they don't have: God is X. X exists. Therefore God exists.

[gerald_duck]

59 comes very close…

[gerald_duck]

I agree about number 140 ("… I am an idiot. …");

24 is the most compelling I spotted. Except he can't keep time properly in ensemble playing, which may be an allegory for something or other.

72 and 79 make a fine pair.

137 is precisely why I don't bust a gut over trying to dissuade most Christians. The masses need their opium!

I know personally some high-profile composers of Christian devotional music who are determined atheists. Proponents of proof 224 would be very upset indeed if they found out.

The converse of 109 is, of course, why I'm actively agnostic rather than atheist. As elaborated further here in my own journal, where I've re-posted the link.

[jikme]

For me, God crumbles against the argument that no omniscient, omnipotent, and compassionate being could possibly exist. If God were compassionate he wouldn't let us all wallow in misery, and if he were all-powerful he could just zap our moral weakness right out of us. The God who "tests" us with disasters and suffering is a kludge. The God who wants us each to follow our own path to salvation but then endows some poor souls with mental illness or sociopathy (basically prerouting them for Hell) is too much of a jerk to qualify as "God."

Of course, "God" fills a useful role if he inspires people to behave ethically. And, IMO, Jesus definitely knew what he was talking about.

(Fortunately, not every religion depends on God. For me, Buddhism explains the sunsets, the suffering, and even Eric Clapton, though the Beatles are more miraculous in my book :-)

[marhol]

They forgot 'If this sentence is true, then God exists' and variants.

Curry Paradox

This handy construction actually does prove that God exists (from within naive truth theory). This is not generally considered a triumph for believers, but instead a problem with naive truth theory - the construction can also be used to prove your choice of assertion. There is no really convincing replacement for naive truth theory yet, sadly. It's only been clearly broken for 60+ years.

[marhol]

Also, a better (to my mind) exposition

Penguins Rule

[gareth_rees]

I once went to a Christ's College Christian Union proselytization event. Their invited speaker presented the standard trilemma argument:(1) Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or Lord.
(2) He was not a liar or a lunatic.
(3) Therefore, he was Lord.
(A kind of proof by alliteration. It is not in the list, though 339 is a modified version of it.) I took him to task afterwards for presenting such a silly argument, hardly likely to convince anyone not already a Christian. He freely admitted the logical flaws, but said that it was the kind of thing people expected to hear at these events. (His own stated personal reasons for belief were along the lines of 96 and 210, but he said that these didn't do such a good job of encouraging the troops, so to speak.)