The question of whether there is a conclusive argument for the existence of God has been debated throughout history, with exceedingly intelligent people taking both sides of the dispute.
In recent times, arguments against the possibility of God’s existence have taken on a militant spirit that accuses anyone daring to believe in God as being delusional and irrational. Karl Marx asserted that anyone believing in God must have a mental disorder that caused invalid thinking. The psychiatrist Sigmund Freud wrote that a person who believed in a Creator God was delusional and only held those beliefs due to a “wish-fulfillment” factor that produced what Freud considered to be an unjustifiable position. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche bluntly said that faith equates to not wanting to know what is true. The voices of these three figures from history (along with others) are simply now parroted by a new generation of atheists who claim that a belief in God is intellectually unwarranted.

Is this truly the case? Is belief in God a rationally unacceptable position to hold? Is there a logical and reasonable argument for the existence of God? Outside of referencing the Bible, can a case for the existence of God be made that refutes the positions of both the old and new atheists and gives sufficient warrant for believing in a Creator? The answer is, yes, it can. Moreover, in demonstrating the validity of an argument for the existence of God, the case for atheism is shown to be intellectually weak.

To make an argument for the existence of God, we must start by asking the right questions. We begin with the most basic metaphysical question: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” This is the basic question of existence—why are we here; why is the earth here; why is the universe here rather than nothing? Commenting on this point, one theologian has said, “In one sense man does not ask the question about God, his very existence raises the question about God.”

In considering this question, there are four possible answers to why we have something rather than nothing at all:

1. Reality is an illusion.
2. Reality is/was self-created.
3. Reality is self-existent (eternal).
4. Reality was created by something that is self-existent.

So, which is the most plausible solution?
Let’s begin with reality being simply an illusion, which is what a number of Eastern religions believe. This option was ruled out centuries ago by the philosopher Rene Descartes who is famous for the statement, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes, a mathematician, argued that if he is thinking, then he must “be.” In other words, “I think, therefore I am not an illusion.” Illusions require something experiencing the illusion, and moreover, you cannot doubt the existence of yourself without proving your existence; it is a self-defeating argument. So the possibility of reality being an illusion is eliminated.

Next is the option of reality being self-created. When we study philosophy, we learn of “analytically false” statements, which means they are false by definition. The possibility of reality being self-created is one of those types of statements for the simple reason that something cannot be prior to itself. If you created yourself, then you must have existed prior to you creating yourself, but that simply cannot be. In evolution this is sometimes referred to as “spontaneous generation” —something coming from nothing—a position that few, if any, reasonable people hold to anymore simply because you cannot get something from nothing. Even the atheist David Hume said, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” Since something cannot come from nothing, the alternative of reality being self-created is ruled out.

Now we are left with only two choices—an eternal reality or reality being created by something that is eternal: an eternal universe or an eternal Creator. The 18th-century theologian Jonathan Edwards summed up this crossroads:

• Something exists.
• Nothing cannot create something.
• Therefore, a necessary and eternal “something” exists.

Notice that we must go back to an eternal “something.” The atheist who derides the believer in God for believing in an eternal Creator must turn around and embrace an eternal universe; it is the only other door he can choose. But the question now is, where does the evidence lead? Does the evidence point to matter before mind or mind before matter?

To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator. From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal. In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.

Further, the laws that surround causation speak against the universe being the ultimate cause of all we know for this simple fact: an effect must resemble its cause. This being true, no atheist can explain how an impersonal, purposeless, meaningless, and amoral universe accidentally created beings (us) who are full of personality and obsessed with purpose, meaning, and morals. Such a thing, from a causation standpoint, completely refutes the idea of a natural universe birthing everything that exists. So in the end, the concept of an eternal universe is eliminated.

Philosopher J. S. Mill (not a Christian) summed up where we have now come to: “It is self-evident that only Mind can create mind.” The only rational and reasonable conclusion is that an eternal Creator is the one who is responsible for reality as we know it. Or to put it in a logical set of statements:

• Something exists.
• You do not get something from nothing.
• Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
• The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
• Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
• Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.

Former atheist Lee Strobel, who arrived at this end result many years ago, has commented, “Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”[color=#006600][/color]

But the next question we must tackle is this: if an eternal Creator exists (and we have shown that He does), what kind of Creator is He? Can we infer things about Him from what He created? In other words, can we understand the cause by its effects? The answer to this is yes, we can, with the following characteristics being surmised:

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).
• He must be powerful (exceedingly).
• He must be eternal (self-existent).
• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).
• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
• He must be personal (the impersonal cannot create personality).
• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.
• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.
• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.
• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).
• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).
One last subject to address on the matter of God’s existence is the matter of how justifiable the atheist’s position actually is. Since the atheist asserts the believer’s position is unsound, it is only reasonable to turn the question around and aim it squarely back at him. The first thing to understand is that the claim the atheist makes—“no god,” which is what “atheist” means—is an untenable position to hold from a philosophical standpoint. As legal scholar and philosopher Mortimer Adler says, “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition—one that denies the existence of something—cannot be proved.” For example, someone may claim that a red eagle exists and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist. The former only needs to find a single red eagle to prove his assertion. But the latter must comb the entire universe and literally be in every place at once to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere and at some time, which is impossible to do. This is why intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove God does not exist.

Next, it is important to understand the issue that surrounds the seriousness of truth claims that are made and the amount of evidence required to warrant certain conclusions. For example, if someone puts two containers of lemonade in front of you and says that one may be more tart than the other, since the consequences of getting the more tart drink would not be serious, you would not require a large amount of evidence in order to make your choice. However, if to one cup the host added sweetener but to the other he introduced rat poison, then you would want to have quite a bit of evidence before you made your choice.

This is where a person sits when deciding between atheism and belief in God. Since belief in atheism could possibly result in irreparable and eternal consequences, it would seem that the atheist should be mandated to produce weighty and overriding evidence to support his position, but he cannot. Atheism simply cannot meet the test for evidence for the seriousness of the charge it makes. Instead, the atheist and those whom he convinces of his position slide into eternity with their fingers crossed and hope they do not find the unpleasant truth that eternity does indeed exist. As Mortimer Adler says, “More consequences for life and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from any other basic question.”

So does belief in God have intellectual warrant? Is there a rational, logical, and reasonable argument for the existence of God? Absolutely. While atheists such as Freud claim that those believing in God have a wish-fulfillment desire, perhaps it is Freud and his followers who actually suffer from wish-fulfillment: the hope and wish that there is no God, no accountability, and therefore no judgment. But refuting Freud is the God of the Bible who affirms His existence and the fact that a judgment is indeed coming for those who know within themselves the truth that He exists but suppress that truth (Romans 1:20). But for those who respond to the evidence that a Creator does indeed exist, He offers the way of salvation that has been accomplished through His Son, Jesus Christ: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13)

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/argument-existence-God.html#ixzz394Wg3lNb

We all know big bang theory cannot be proved and it's a hoax to make those who do not accept God existence to hold to something. As such, the summary to the claims of the atheist is in this:

People claim to reject God’s existence because it is “not scientific” or “because there is no proof.” The true reason is that once they admit that there is a God, they also must realize that they are responsible to God and in need of forgiveness from Him (Romans 3:23, 6:23). If God exists, then we are accountable to Him for our actions. If God does not exist, then we can do whatever we want without having to worry about God judging us. That is why many of those who deny the existence of God cling strongly to the theory of naturalistic evolution—it gives them an alternative to believing in a Creator God. God exists and ultimately everyone knows that He exists. The very fact that some attempt so aggressively to disprove His existence is in fact an argument for His existence.


Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/Does-God-exist.html#ixzz394XqB1AG

Now we are left with only two choices—an eternal reality or reality being created by something that is eternal: an eternal universe or an eternal Creator. The 18th-century theologian Jonathan Edwards summed up this crossroads:
• Something exists.
• Nothing cannot create something.
• Therefore, a necessary and eternal “something” exists.

Notice that we must go back to an eternal “something.” The atheist who derides the believer in God for believing in an
eternal Creator must turn around and embrace an eternal
universe; it is the only other door he can choose. But the
question now is, where does the evidence lead? Does the
evidence point to matter before mind or mind before matter

Kalām cosmological argument. Disproved here
And here
Try something new.

“I think, therefore I am not an illusion.” Illusions require something experiencing the illusion, and moreover, you cannot doubt the existence of yourself without proving your existence; it is a self-defeating argument t. So the possibility of reality being an illusion is eliminated.

At the bolded, really?
So hallucinations are real because they are being observed by the person hallucinating?

To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator.

What "evidence"?
Explains why 85% of scientists are atheist

From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal. In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.

The "singular beginning" that is the Big Bang.

Further, the laws that surround causation speak against the universe being the ultimate cause of all we know for this simple fact: an effect must resemble its cause.

What the fvck?! I don't know if I should laugh Why should an effect "resemble" its cause?

This being true, no atheist can explain how an impersonal, purposeless, meaningless, and amoral universe accidentally created beings (us) who are full of personality and obsessed with purpose, meaning, and morals. Such a thing, from a causation standpoint, completely refutes the idea of a natural universe birthing everything that exists. So in the end, the concept of an eternal universe is eliminated.

Not true till you explain how an effect resembles its cause.

• Something exists.
• You do not get something from nothing.
• Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
• The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
• Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
• Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.

This is a fallacy called Special Pleading

If, as you said, everything must have a Creator, then your god too must have a Creator.
If you do not accept, then you're guilty of the fallacy.

He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and
space).

How do you know it's a he? Why not a she, it, or they?

• He must be powerful (exceedingly).
• He must be eternal (self-existent).

Why does it have to be eternal? That you made something does not make you self-existent.

• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).

So if I create something, I won't be limited by it? If I make a car, I won't be limited? If I make a gun, I cannot be killed by it because I made it?

• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time).

So because he/she/it created time, it must be timeless. The people that make cars, are they cars, or are they car-less?

• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/ physical.

he/she/it/they cannot be Yahweh or Allah because we're supposedly in their image, and we do not transcend space and time, so neither do they.

• He must be personal (the impersonal cannot create personality).

He who is not a car cannot make a car;he who is not a pencil cannot make a pencil. noted.

• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites.

Wrong. There are many infinity sets.
Heard of the Aleph Numbers?

• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.

He must be poo as poo exists in nature. Got it.

• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being.

conversely, only non-cognitive can produce non-cognitive?

• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.

How do you know this? Without quoting Scriptures

• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver).

He must be immoral ;no immorality can be had without a giver.

• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).

He must be sadistic, or no suffering would have existed.

The first thing to understand is that the claim the atheist makes—“no god,” which is what “atheist” means—is an untenable position to hold from a philosophical standpoint. As legal scholar and philosopher Mortimer Adler says, “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition—one that denies the existence of something— cannot be proved.”

True. Also, the onus is on the one who says something exists to prove it, or else it doesn’t exist. In this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

For example, someone may claim that a red eagle exists and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist. The former only needs to find a single red eagle to prove his assertion.

In this case, the former has not brought Any "red eagle" to prove his case. And the only "proof" they bring is bronze age novels.

But the latter must comb the entire universe and literally be in every place at once to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere and at some time, which is impossible to do.

in that case, I say unicorns and Spider-Man exists. Proof: I read it in a book and I have "faith" in the book. it's your job to prove me wrong.

This is why intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove God does not exist.

I cannot prove it doesn't exist ;you cannot prove it exists. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence in this case.

Next, it is important to understand the issue that surrounds the seriousness of truth claims that are made and the amount of evidence required to warrant certain conclusions.
For example, if someone puts two containers of lemonade in
front of you and says that one may be more tart than the other, since the consequences of getting the more tart drink
would not be serious, you would not require a large amount of evidence in order to make your choice. However, if to one cup the host added sweetener but to the other he introduced rat poison, then you would want to have quite a bit of evidence before you made your choice.

Who added eat poison and why?

This is where a person sits when deciding between atheism and belief in God. Since belief in atheism could possibly result in irreparable and eternal consequences,

consequences like?

it would seem that the atheist should be mandated to produce weighty and overriding evidence to support his position, but he cannot.

stop shifting the burden of proof. You made the assertion, you have to prove it.

Atheism simply cannot meet the test for evidence for the seriousness of the charge it makes.

hey, why don't you provide evidence to convince the atheist and "save" him.

Instead, the atheist and those whom he convinces of his position slide into eternity with their fingers crossed and hope they do not find the unpleasant truth that eternity does indeed exist.

It is not a truth till it's proven. And you have no proof.

As Mortimer Adler says, “More consequences for life and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from any other basic question.”

Why? If a group of scientists make sentient nanobots, put them in a container isolated. And when they die punish them for eternity for not believing in them, what would you think of the scientists?

Suolboy, good job.

This argument, you say it is logical. But you did not say whether it is merely valid, or both valid and sound. To me it is not sound.

Why?

Well the premises make certain unstated assumptions. As is the case with assumptions, they can be replaced with other assumptions. Here are the assumptions:

You do not get something from nothing. This assumption is based on our limited understanding of the world. It is an a posteriori argument, derived from our experience of the world. It does not necessarily apply to the universe as a whole. It also assumes that the First Cause is unique and does not require any causes, which amounts to a special pleading.

Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe. The argument makes reference to only the big bang theory, which theory is not the only theory for the universe. There are theories that propose that the universe is eternal. The big bang theory itself divides scientists on the question of whether or not it is meaningful to pose the question; what was there before the big bang?

Once you change the assumptions, the conclusion you want us to accept changes and your logical argument becomes unsound because it cannot be said to be true.

Moving on to what you claim to be evidence for the christian God. All the characteristics you listed are contingent, they could or could not have come into being. Take for instance personality. Unless you want to argue that personality is a necessary property of God, it follows that if God has a personality, he might also not have had one. This raises the issue of what determines the characteristics of God. The obvious answer would then be chance. The problem for you here is that your christian God then becomes a product of chance. You can replace personality with purpose, intelligence, morality, etc. The result is the same. Why should chance favour him, but not Buddha or the deist God?

The rest of your argument follows the trend of assuming properties for God. You say God must have a purpose because we have one. What is our purpose? Or the issue of consequence. What is the consequence of disbelief (keep in mind that christianity is one of many competing religions). You even say that we must prove that God exists because the consequences of asserting that God does not exist are dire. But what are the consequences And how does that shift the burden of proof from one who asserts the existence of a thing? There is a strand of dishonesty in being this presumptous.

There is also dishonesty in stating that God is bible God but failing to show where the bible provides the corresponding logical arguments. Don't raise the issue of faith here, since you have now chosen to rely on logic. If you propose to demonstrate that God exists through logic, then surely using the same logic to show that the bible is his message to us should be a simpler task.

Apatheist: What "evidence"?
Explains why 85% of scientists are atheist

The "singular beginning" that is the Big Bang.

where is the evidence of 85% being atheist? i want a statistical evidence.

secondly, big bang theory is a hoax believed by the so called elites of science cos they want something to hold to as against to the existence of God and the creation.
Finally, listen to a former atheist to help yourself make a better decision about your beliefs:

Former atheist Lee Strobel, who arrived at this end result many years ago, has commented, “Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”

suolboy:
where is the evidence of 85% being atheist? i want a statistical evidence.

secondly, big bang theory is a hoax believed by the so called elites of science cos they want something to hold to as against to the existence of God and the creation.
Finally, listen to a former atheist to help yourself make a better decision about your beliefs:

Former atheist Lee Strobel, who arrived at this end result many years ago, has commented, “Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence … In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”

Evidence : 85 percent of NAS scientists are atheist

So the Big Bang Theory is a hoax? Ironically it was propounded by a Catholic Priest
So he wanted something to hold against God he already believed in?

From a former pastor that became atheist :

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith]

These are the words of God

There are the word of God he tweeted on twitter. Accept them or perish!

People of God's univers listen! God is now on twitter, follow him!

Message from God. Here is my evidence!

The OP ran away. Shame.

Lol he took off!