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Aristotelian Logic: noun: Aristotle's deductive method of logic, especially the theory of the syllogism.

Atheist: noun: someone who denies the existence of god

Agnostic: noun: one who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.

Deist: noun: a person who believes that God created the universe and then abandoned it.

Theist: noun: one who believes in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.

Proof: noun: The evidence or argument that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true.

Descartes’ proposition: Cogito sum Ergo --- “I think, therefore, I am” [exist]

Aristotelian logic standard: “Nothing” can come from “nothing,” i.e., an occurrence, event, object, etc., can be traced backward through a casual chain to a “first cause.”

By Descartes’ proposition anyone who thinks, exists. For an individual to exist, by Aristotelian logic, he or she had a cause, i.e., parents. However, parents had a cause, i.e., grandparents who had a cause, etc. At some point (even with evolution) life had a cause and so forth to the cause of the universe in which life came to exist. Hence, the question what or who was the “first cause?” … There is no possible, logical answer but a creative entity that exists outside the constraints of the universe, i.e., beyond the constraints of time, space, etc.: God.

An atheist must deny Aristotelian logic. Consequently, atheism can provide no rational explanation for existence, i.e., a “first cause.” Therefore, atheism is an illogical proposition.

Agnosticism similarly denies that Aristotelian logic is a valid reasoning tool in the sense that it denies that one can conclude positively that there was a “first cause.” Therefore, agnosticism is an illogical proposition.

Consequently, only Deism and Theism can be considered rational, or logical, positions. Therefore, the “God” argument logically reduces to, not whether God exists, but, what is the nature of God. All of the differences among all of religions on earth essentially reduce to differences about what is the nature of God and/or what are God’s expectations for the behavior of mankind.

Aristotelian logic combined with careful scientific observation and knowledge allows someone to infer things about a creator from an artifact. For example, a forensic scientist can examine a signature and with enough knowledge, deduce whether the author was left handed or right handed, etc., or test for the existence for power residue on someone’s hand and infer whether the person may have fired a gun recently, or the marks on a bullet and infer what type of gun fired (or created) the shot. The same methodology can be applied to the universe and its creator. For example, if Planck’s constant, the universal gravitational constant, etc., were different by even small amounts, the universe could become inhospitable to life, in general, and mankind, in particular. From this line of reasoning one logical position is to conclude that the Creator of the universe intended for life, in general, and mankind, in particular, to exist. This rationale is known as the anthropic principle.

Combine the anthropic principle with some general observations of human kind in contrast to the rest of creation as we know it. Mankind has the power of complex speech, the ability to control atomic reactions, to visit other celestial bodies, to reason out the complexities of biology, to pass accumulated knowledge to future generations, etc. Prominent among these formidable, human capacities is the ability to rationally question the nature of the “first cause.” The mere existence of this human ability combined with the anthropic principle suggests that mankind was intended by the Creator to seek the nature of God. The proof is left to the reader.

Pascal’s proposition (paraphrased): If I believe in God and there is no God, I have lost nothing, but I do not believe in God and there is a God, I have lost everything.