Unconvincing Arguments For The Existence Of God[s]

Minnesota Atheists Public Relations Officer August Berkshire has been working on and revising his list of "Unconvincing Arguments for God" [PDF] and the list has grown to be 34 items long including precise reasons why these facile arguments are flawed and why Atheists find it hard to take them seriously.

In this post i am going to take a handful of the unconvincing arguments and explain to the believers why the arguments shouldn't be made and why they are so easy to destroy.

God of gaps

The god of gaps argument is often thrown in at short notice when an Atheist or scientists says "I don't know". The assumption of the person making this argument is that if something can't be explained by science, that alone is evidence that god done it.

Evolution wouldn't favor a false belief

This argument goes something like "why would evolution favor a species incapable of seeing reality?". Of course this argument is flawed to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with evolution. Evolution doesn't favor the truth, It favors what if beneficial. God can be used to keep people behaving well, Much like santa does in children, And religion has been used in the past for controlling groups, Armies and societies. So where it is beneficial, Evolution will favor it, Regardless of how true it is.

Altruism

Some arguments are made that altruism is evidence of god because evolution rewards only selfish behaviour. While it is true that evolution does tend to reward selfish behaviour altruistic behaviour is evolutionary beneficial because it creates a more harmonious society. Evolution has taken advantage of the fact that if everyone is willing to help others there is more chance of the individual receiving help when they need it.

The “Fine-tuning” of the Universe

Some religious people argue that the six physical constants of the universe can only exist within a very narrow range to produce a universe capable of sustaining life. Therefore, since this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” a god must have done it. Again, this is a god-of-the-gaps argument. But beyond that, this argument assumes that we know everything about astrophysics – a field in which new discoveries are made on almost a daily basis. We may discover that our universe is not so “fine tuned” after all.

Another possibility is that there may exist multiple universes – either separately or as “bubble universes” within a single universe. Each of these universes could have its own set of constants. Given enough universes, by chance it is likely that at least one will produce and sustain life.

Pascal's Wager

Pascals wager sates that we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by believing in god. This is flawed for two reasons.
1) pascal assumes that someone can force themselves to believe something based on the inferred consequences of not believing.
2) Even if the wager is right, it doesn't do anything for proving that there is a god, Only that believing it might be best based on the consequences.

Pascals wager can be used as an argument for believing anything where disbelief results in punishment.

False Dichotomies

A false dichotomy is an argument that assumes only two answers are possible (if X is wrong then god done it) and is also an extension of the "god of gaps" argument. The false dichotomy argument is most common in arguments presented by creationists. In these argument the creationist never presents any evidence for their own position and only ever seeks to refute evolution (if evolution is wrong, god done it).

Religious people have a tough, if not impossible task to try to prove a god exists, let alone that their particular religion is true. If any religion had objective standards, wouldn’t everyone be flocking to the same “true” religion?
Instead we find that people tend to believe, to varying degrees, the religion in which they were indoctrinated. Or they are Atheists.