Five Ways to Prove God's Existence.

[Hare_Geist]

I'm an atheist, and my mother has been trying to convert me and her pastor recommended turning me on to Thomas Aquinas since I'm into philosophy - of course, the guy didn't realize that I was already aware of Thomas Aquinas and thought he had some interesting things to say.

So, basically, her pastor is convinced that Thomas Aquinas' "Quinquae Viae" (Five Ways to Prove God's Existence) are full-proof and anyone who reads them cannot not be convinced. I have read them, however, and have heard them and heard them refuted many times before and they really didn't impress me. But maybe my "small intellect" is making me miss something.

So, I would like the opinions of people of all religious creeds and atheists to post their opinions on the five arguments, which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinquae_viae

Aquinas uses logical method only in a conditional manner; he starts with certain faith-based predicates and builds from there. He does not actually start at ground zero and and soundly argue his way into Christian theological conclusions.

In the end, Aquinas was just another apologist, albeit a good one.

Here is a good refutation of the arguments and the last post in this thread does a quick job of refuting the arguments if you don't feel like doing all the reading.