The Madman wrote:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

Incision wrote:
something is more likely with God than without.

And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too.

[...]

But that's not a problem: an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance.

So things look brighter: life isn't the hand we were dealt; it's the way the coin landed.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/zarathustra/section2.rhtml wrote:

Those who preach about an eternal life preach that life is suffering, but that it must be endured in preparation for the afterlife. As such, they are preaching a renunciation of this life, and so are preachers of death.

Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does.

Incision wrote:

First I'll offer a "C-inductive" argument: this is evidence that God exists, even if it isn't conclusive. To do this I just need to show that something is more likely with God than without.

Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does.

swstephe wrote:
What day is it celebrated? Was it approved? I thought it was like an extended April fools joke, wasting my time arguing against weak counter-arguments.

Crackers wrote:
Is human understanding the greatest arbiter of truth and untruth?

mric wrote:
Your argument assumes that if there were a God he would be a) more likely to create a universe than not, and b) would be more likely to create a universe with life in than not.

Cuthbert wrote:
But by that argument there's evidence that it's part of my pet hamster's plan that I live on the second floor. That's because there are countless possible universes in which I live on some other floor or don't manage to live at all, and far fewer in which I live on just this floor. So the probability of my living on the second floor is tiny. But, if my hamster planned my living arrangements, that would explain the whole thing. I didn't land on this floor just by chance. It was the rodent's will.

Now there is evidence that my hamster plans my life, even if it's not conclusive.

Something wrong, surely....??