Existence of God

[Leoreth]

I'm always fascinated at how religious people have to "prove" and exert their faith to others. Can't they simply be happy to believe in what they believe?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The need to believe and the need to sell that belief are two very different questions.

 

[Leoreth]

Maybe

By the way, I found this on a REALLY intelligent website:

The Existence Of Zeus


1. Does Zeus exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.

Many examples showing Zeus' design could be given, possibly with no end. But here are a few:

The Earth...its size is perfect. The Earth's size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth's surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter.3 Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.

The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.

Water...colorless, odorless and without taste, and yet no living thing can survive without it. Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water). You'll see why the characteristics of water are uniquely suited to life:

The human brain...simultaneously processes an amazing amount of information. Your brain takes in all the colors and objects you see, the temperature around you, the pressure of your feet against the floor, the sounds around you, the dryness of your mouth, even the texture of your keyboard. Your brain holds and processes all your emotions, thoughts and memories. At the same time your brain keeps track of the ongoing functions of your body like your breathing pattern, eyelid movement, hunger and movement of the muscles in your hands.

The eye...can distinguish among seven million colors. It has automatic focusing and handles an astounding 1.5 million messages -- simultaneously.8 Evolution focuses on mutations and changes from and within existing organisms. Yet evolution alone does not fully explain the initial source of the eye or the brain -- the start of living organisms from nonliving matter.

2. Does Zeus exist? The universe had a start - what caused it?

Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself.

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, "The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion...The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen
The universe has not always existed. It had a start...what caused that? Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter.

3. Does Zeus exist? The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?
Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day: gravity remains consistent, a hot cup of coffee left on a counter will get cold, the earth rotates in the same 24 hours, and the speed of light doesn't change -- on earth or in galaxies far from us.

How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?

Does Zeus exist? The DNA code informs, programs a cell's behavior

All instruction, all teaching, all training comes with intent. Someone who writes an instruction manual does so with purpose. Did you know that in every cell of our bodies there exists a very detailed instruction code, much like a miniature computer program? As you may know, a computer program is made up of ones and zeros, like this: 110010101011000. The way they are arranged tell the computer program what to do. The DNA code in each of our cells is very similar. It's made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G, and C. These are arranged in the human cell like this: CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT and so on. There are three billion of these letters in every human cell!!

Well, just like you can program your phone to beep for specific reasons, DNA instructs the cell. DNA is a three-billion-lettered program telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual.

Let's all repent and convert to Hellenism before it's too late!

 

[Hehehe]

This has already been discussed to death.

 

[emzie]

The need to believe and the need to sell that belief are two very different questions.

The OP strikes me as evangelizing. It's not a matter of proving god to self or to believers, but making the existence of god sound plausible to the slightly sceptical.

Of course, he has one glaring omission, one that many might overlook: There's an unwritten assumption that if there is to be the divine, it must be something with which one is already familiar. Even if the OP correct, to associate that supernatural agent with the God of the Bible is no more reasonable than associating the divine with Zeus or Harry Potter.

edit: Leoreth beat me to it

 

[Ajidica]

I understand that for my logic line to work God needs to be perfect; hence omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. What would you use as the criteria for a God in the Abrahamic style the OP seems to be implying?

I don't remember where it says this in the bible but God says 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.' If God encompases all things then God has to be perfect.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

If god existed, he would be omni-benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. Disaster constantly happens. Wouldn't he fix it since he would want to, would know it was there and could do it? Also, think about all the dates in the Christian calender: Most of them were copied from traditions from Sol Invictus and Mithras - Mithras, like Jesus was born on 25th December, died and was resurrected within 3 days. And why did he send Jesus and all his prophets at the times they came, and why aren't there any now? Also, if he is omni-benevolent, he wouldn't exactly endorse slavery. Yet it is exactly what he does in the Old Testament. Even more reasons are found here: http://godisimaginary.com/excuses.htm

Very poor set of arguments.

1) If there is a supreme being that transcends the universe, and we all enjoy eternal life in paradise, then it doesn't really matter if a disaster happens on earth, or if a person dies at 5 or 105--our concept of time and our temporary, earthly life would be insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.

2) Jesus was not born on December 25. The shepherds were in the fields at the time of His birth which means it could not have been in December. The date for Christmas was chosen to make Christianity more attractive to pagans.

3) There is no solid evidence that Mithraic worship predates Christianity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_Mysteries#cite_note-Clauss_2000-6

4) Slavery in ancient times is not like what happened in the antebellum South. In fact, the form of slavery practiced in the South violated several major Biblical commandments.

5) Your "evidence" against God is that YOU don't understand His timetable, and that He sent prophets and Jesus in the past?? Seriously??! There are no more prophets because they were heralds of the coming age. Prophets are no longer needed.

The funniest thing is that link is titled "Excuses" when the skeptics themselves are desperately grasping at whatever excuses they can find to not believe.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

I'm always fascinated at how religious people have to "prove" and exert their faith to others. Can't they simply be happy to believe in what they believe?

Well, the same could be said for nonbelievers. Both groups have a vocal minority who won't shut up.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Maybe

By the way, I found this on a REALLY intelligent website:

Let's all repent and convert to Hellenism before it's too late!

Come on. You may think that substituting one name for another is cute, but it is actually pretty insulting. The post was made in good faith. If you disagree, I suggest that you lay out exactly why you disagree in some logical way.

This has already been discussed to death.

Yes, and as I said, the assumptions that are the foundation of the clever logic are designed to set up the final conclusions.

Essentially you've posted:

God is love
Love is blind
Ray Charles is blind
Ray Charles is god

 

[warpus]

Why are we so "afflicted" with gods and religion?
Where does that notion reside? In our culture? In our DNA?, Brain chemistry? Consciousness?

Oral history and books,mostly.

Can the mystical experience of those who believe that god has "touched" them be recreated through drugs, and is it the same?

I don't think they used drugs - didn't they use some sort of electromagnetic thingy?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I understand that for my logic line to work God needs to be perfect; hence omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. What would you use as the criteria for a God in the Abrahamic style the OP seems to be implying?

I don't remember where it says this in the bible but God says 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.' If God encompases all things then God has to be perfect.

This assumes that the limited human perception of things suffices to understand God's nature and ways.

Really, every try to prove that God does not exists is doomed to fail. You will not succeed on that way. All one can do is to try to point out why there is no reason to believe he/she/it does exists and why it would also not be likely.

 

[Communisto]

<SNIP> Moderator Action: Contributes nothing to the discussion

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Oral history and books,mostly.

It is more than that. I think the human psyche is receptive to ideas of religion and the divine by nature and there also seems to come up more and more evidence suggesting so.
One just has do understand that religion in the traditional sense is only one possible manifestation of this condition. It is just one of many possible ideologies. And political / economic / social ideologies are only one category of many more categories of ideologies also if we don't call them like that.

What they all do is to put some responsibility off our shoulders, to give us orientation, a benchmark, something hold on to within the maelstrom of the human condition.

And yes: This definitely everybody needs to some extend. I guess religion just is / used to be the most effective and comforting way to accomplish that.

 

[Defiant47]

This has already been discussed to death.

Win.

Saved.

 

[warpus]

It is more than that.

I agree, that's why I said mostly.

I think the human psyche is receptive to ideas of religion and the divine by nature and there also seems to come up more and more evidence suggesting so.

It's probably something in our biology that is curious and needful of answers, as well as the need to feel a part of something larger and bigger than oneself.

 

[Ajidica]

SiLL: Okay, since evidently I can't disprove the existance of god using logic, why don't you try. Prove God exists using logic.
If we can't define God that means God is incomprehensible to us and that we cannot recognize God. Hence, anything can be God. The keyboard I'm typing on could be God because it may still have motives, but I can't recognize them.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

It's undecidable I think. (i.e can neither be proven nor disproven). Unless of course God manifests himself to us all.

 

[Oishi]

How will he manifest to us all? He'll probably give us some holographic balls, then he'll start preaching aboard his spacecraft orbiting the moon. Isn't that nice?

If he manifests to me then I'm a believer, other than that, null.

 

[Birdjaguar]

SiLL: Okay, since evidently I can't disprove the existance of god using logic, why don't you try. Prove God exists using logic.
If we can't define God that means God is incomprehensible to us and that we cannot recognize God. Hence, anything can be God. The keyboard I'm typing on could be God because it may still have motives, but I can't recognize them.

Logic has its own set of assumptions that are unproven and that may make it difficult to use it to prove anything about god.

Defining god is not difficult; most religions have been doing so for a long time; agreeing on a definition is more difficult.

When you say that "god is incomprehensible" to us what does that mean? is there only one way to comprehend god?

 

[Ajidica]

What would you say the assumptions about God are? Based on my knowledge of the Monothiestic faiths (and to a lesser extent Hinduism) they agree that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

What I meant by incomphrehensible was that SiLL had said we can't understand God due to our limited perception. Hence, God is incomprehensbible to us. I believe personaly that although we may never completly understand God, we can at least understand parts of God.