The God question

Hume, Nietzsche, and Mackie

The serious philosophical versions. Hume’s maxim works on the resurrection and on the Book of Mormon witnesses alike.

David Hume: the miracle argument

This is the single most reusable idea on this site, because it works identically on every miracle claim, in every religion.

The maxim: "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish." Read "Of Miracles" in full, about 15 minutes.

Applied, in his own words: "When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened."

Why it is so useful: it is not an anti-Christian argument. It is the exact standard every Christian already uses to dismiss Muslim miracle traditions, Hindu miracles, and Joseph Smith's angel. Hume just declines to make an exception. Say that out loud and the conversation changes.

On evil, quoting Epicurus: "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?" Dialogues, Part X

They will say the maxim is circular, defining uniform experience so as to rule out miracles in advance. He is not ruling them out a priori; he is setting an evidentiary bar: the testimony's falsehood must be less probable than the miracle. That is ordinary probabilistic reasoning applied without exceptions. Ask which religion's miracles they would accept on this evidence, and why the standard changes for their own. SEP overview

J.L. Mackie: the problem of evil, done properly

The inconsistent triad: "God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false." Evil and Omnipotence, 1955

Mackie's The Miracle of Theism (1982) is still regarded as the most rigorous book-length philosophical case against theism. Kai Nielsen called it "probably the most distinguished articulation of an atheistic point of view given in the twentieth century." Source

Friedrich Nietzsche: a different kind of tool

The death of God, an observation, not a boast: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." His point is that educated Europe had already stopped needing God as an explanation and had not yet faced the consequences. The Gay Science, section 125

On faith: "'Faith' means the will to avoid knowing what is true." The Antichrist, section 52

His sharpest point for a believer: Christianity's own commitment to truth-telling, held as a sacred duty, eventually turns inward and dissolves belief. Christian intellectual honesty kills Christian faith. That is worth naming for someone being told that seeking truth is a virtue but examining these questions is dangerous.

They will say this is psychology, not philosophy. Concede it immediately; it is correct. The diagnostic value stands anyway: it names the mechanism, motivated non-inquiry, that lets a belief feel certain while resting on unexamined ground.

Which to use when