I don’t know what you think a “strong argument” is. Arguments are not weapons, with a certain caliber and stopping power and so forth, such that two sides might go at each other with their respective arguments, and whoever’s got the most firepower wins. That’s not how it works.
An argument may be more or less persuasive (relative to some audience!), but that depends on many things, such as whether the argument hits certain emotional notes, whether it makes use of certain common fallacies and biases, or certain commonly held misconceptions; or whether it is structured so as to obscure its flaws; or even whether it’s couched in fancy or beautiful sounding language.
Whether an argument is correct (i.e. valid and sound) is another matter entirely, and may have little to do with whether the argument, in actual fact, tends to persuade many people.
We here at Less Wrong have seen many arguments for the existence of God, many of which are found to be persuasive by many people who are not aware of their flaws (by “their” I can mean the arguments’ flaws, or the flaws of the audience, i.e. cognitive biases and so forth).
All of those arguments are wrong (invalid, unsound, full of fallacies, etc.). That’s what we mean when we say they’re not “good” arguments.
I don’t know what you think a “strong argument” is. Arguments are not weapons, with a certain caliber and stopping power and so forth, such that two sides might go at each other with their respective arguments, and whoever’s got the most firepower wins. That’s not how it works.
An argument may be more or less persuasive (relative to some audience!), but that depends on many things, such as whether the argument hits certain emotional notes, whether it makes use of certain common fallacies and biases, or certain commonly held misconceptions; or whether it is structured so as to obscure its flaws; or even whether it’s couched in fancy or beautiful sounding language.
Whether an argument is correct (i.e. valid and sound) is another matter entirely, and may have little to do with whether the argument, in actual fact, tends to persuade many people.
We here at Less Wrong have seen many arguments for the existence of God, many of which are found to be persuasive by many people who are not aware of their flaws (by “their” I can mean the arguments’ flaws, or the flaws of the audience, i.e. cognitive biases and so forth).
All of those arguments are wrong (invalid, unsound, full of fallacies, etc.). That’s what we mean when we say they’re not “good” arguments.