Argument from, well, the lack of evidence

In 1905, Albert Einstein published a few papers.  One of them was the basis of Special Relativity (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies).  He had an idea and he argued for it, providing a thought experiment and some equations (Lorentz transformations).  At the end of the paper, he provided a prediction which could be experimentally tested, thus providing evidence in support of his theory if successful and falsification otherwise.  Other experiments were also possible, such as testing for time dilation.

Scientists performed these experiments, confirmed results consistent with Einstein's theory and Einstein moved on to General Relativity.

What they didn't do is provide endless variations on "Philosophical Argument for Special Relativity from ...".  This is because they didn't need to.  They had evidence.

It seems to me that the never-ending stream of arguments of the form "argument from …" merely highlight the fact that theists don't have any actual evidence.  The same applies with pseudo-clever pseudo-logical manipulations that masquerade as arguments (and are sometimes called for within "argument from …" arguments).

In a way, it's almost like the avid ghost-hunters and those people who try to track down the Loch Ness monster, or Bigfoot, may well be less crazy than some of our theist friends – they are at least trying to obtain evidence for their obsession.  Imagine someone trying to run an ontological argument for the existence of Bigfoot, completely crazy!  Going out into the forests and mountains to obtain evidence for the existence of Bigfoot is merely going to be unsuccessful (at least on the balance of probabilities).

Those arguing for the existence of god, however, seem to have no embarrassment about running these sorts of crazy arguments and then claiming that these arguments are in themselves "evidence"!  (Warning for uninitiated, apologists don't like being called crazy, I've tried it a few times and they tend not to respond well.)

I think this is one of my major reasons (at least now) for being such a strong atheist, bordering on being an anti-theist (that is I have a negative attitude towards certain types of theists, I'm not anti-god – that would be incoherent, I'm no more anti-god than I am anti-Santa or anti-satan, come to think of it – they're all imaginary).

Every time someone raises a new "argument from …" style argument for their god, I become that little bit more convinced that they are grasping at non-existent straws.

It's also interesting to note that many fallacies, which apologists love to bandy around, also are referred by apologists and other theists to as "argument from …" – a bit of a Freudian slip, perhaps?  That there might be bordering on an argument from ridicule, according to the site linked, an apologetic site, one that is arguing that the following is a logical fallacy:

"The definition of Christianity: the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."

To me this doesn't sound like an argument at all, it just sounds like ridicule.  An argument from ridicule might take this form:

If christianity is ridiculous, then it is false

If christianity is false, then god does not exist

Christianity is, by definition, the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree

This is ridiculous

Therefore christianity is false

Therefore god does not exist

I think we can all agree that this argument has more problems than an appeal to ridicule, oops, I mean "argument from ridicule".  For example, a magic sky-fairy could possibly exist even if christianity were false.