Prove God Exists - Act Three

[Plotinus]

metoer shower, astoids, comets, and aliens if they exsist explain away all religous stories that have to do with any religous event in the sky (ie the big explosion in the sky haveing to with battle of good and evil, the story with mosous(cant spell the name) with god coming down giving the commandments, hell that could have been aliens and there are many other stories like that

Great, those are possible explanations for Old Testament theophanies. So what? That doesn't say anything whatsoever about the existence of God. It's just about particular stories that are associated with him. Afghan Zoroastrians believe that Alexander the Great had horns and was an agent of the devil. They're probably wrong on that, but Alexander the Great still existed.

And in any case, you haven't proved that those are the real explanations for the events described in the Old Testament. Maybe Ezekiel did see a flying saucer piloted by little green men and just thought it was the chariot of God. Or perhaps it really was the chariot of God. You haven't proven anything to the contrary.

Now on to the next part if you think most christians dont believe in Genesis then what the hell are you argueing about since Genesis is the core of your arguement, if god DIDNT create the universe then what the hell do you worship him for, by saying you dont believe in Genesis that is what you have just said

Genesis hasn't got anything to do with my argument. You can believe that God created the universe without believing that Genesis is an accurate description of the process. Origen, for example, in the third century, argued that Genesis was simply an allegory (although what he thought it was an allegory for was pretty wacky, too). To make an analogy, Homer's Iliad is probably not enormously historical. But there may still have been a real war between the Greeks and the Trojans, and many historians believe there is some historical core to the basic outline of the war given by Homer and other writers. Or in another example, I believe that William Wallace did indeed rebel against Edward I, but the film "Braveheart" presents a ridiculously biased and unhistorical version of these events.

Besides, you can believe in God and yet believe that the world has always existed and never came into being. Aristotle believed that.

In any, case, *I* don't believe that God created the universe. I don't believe in God at all and never said I did. It seems a little funny that I'm trying to defend some parts of theism and you're attacking them, since you claim that you do believe in God!

 

[classical_hero]

The sad fact about this thread is that best evidence for the existance of God is in the shape of man. Man is the only creature on earth that can have meaningful discussion (well sometimes). Man is the only creature that can reason to look into things that he knows absolute nothing about and yet try to comprehend that which he cannot comprehend. Man is the only creature that has some sort of spiritual awakening.


Those who beleive in God and do not do what he says, is the reason why we have such threads to prove that God exists. If Christians like me were to be doing what God wants us to be doing, (i.e. telling others about what God has done for them and the fact that he saved you from your sins, then threads like this would be harder to start). That is the greatest prove that anyone can give is a personal testimony about the life that Christ has done for you and what you were like before you believed that Jesus is the son of God. It is when we get to the crux of the matter for every Christian that we can prove that God exists by the lives that we live. I think Gandhi said this about Christian. People will start believing in what you say when you start to live like Christ. That is why we have failed in God's task for us. I know I haven't been the best for God as I could have been, but it is time that Christians should follow Christ.

That is my thought for this thread.

 

[Phydeaux]

Re the formation rates of matter and antimatter, can't remember if they are the same, but I recall that the decay rates are different enough to account for the disparity between the amount of matter and antimatter that is observed.

Can I see some thing that says this, so that I can see if this is true? What about the rest?

 

[Colonel]

Plotinus: i have given you alot of scientfic fact to back the possible to explain stories involveing the sky you have choosen to ignore that out of the numerous possiblilties to explain them you have choosen to believe the one that is the LEAST possible to explain which is God came down and blah blah, I now go back to my orginal statment PROVE God exsist useing a SCIENTFIC FACT to show the exsistance of God. I have shown numerous explanations to explain away his exsistance and dont even say that i havent, look at all my posts and you will see numerous arguements with scienfic backing to explain away his exsistance so i say again use ANY scientfic fact to at least somewhat prove his exsistance

also the fact that exsistance has to come from somewhere cant be used because if u say god created the universe i can say what created god which there is no way to explain

 

[Phydeaux]

the answer: i am not replaceing the love of god with scientific fact i am merely pointing out that you who have defended the belif in god have no scientfic fact to base your belif (To point this i do believe in god) the only reason i have pointed out all the scientific things that explain gods exsistance away is because i wish to point out that most science in its self is contrary to the possibleity of gods exsistance

I do not base my belif on on scientfic facts. This is not to say that there are no scientfic facts that suport God. One such fact is that the universe had to be created.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

you will see numerous arguements with scienfic backing

scienfic= science fiction, I assume? Definitely. Loads of science fiction arguments. You ought to join Scientology.

*note to self: do not feed the troll. do not feed the troll. do not keep posting on a thread where I've been aruging loudly with a moron.*

 

[Colonel]

but i have just pointed out
WHAT CREATED GOD

he couldnt of just appeared so, something SCIENTFIC had to of created him or the universe but since there is no prove in the least that prove he exsists is the fact that the universe had to be created which i have choosen to ignore for this arguement because if god could be created out of nothing then why couldnt the universe so no arguement can be made

to erik you have yet to disprove any of the scientfic theroy i have stated unless i have missed something no one here has or can disprove the science that i have said so dont post if u cant disprove it

 

[Phydeaux]

Plotinus:also the fact that exsistance has to come from somewhere cant be used because if u say god created the universe i can say what created god which there is no way to explain

God did not need to be created like the universe did because He is not made up of the stuff that the universe is made up of (which needs a creator). He is made up of stuff in the spiritaul (that does not need a creator).

Edit: Do you need info on why the universe needed to be created?

 

[Colonel]

but that cant be an arguement what created the spritual stuff as you put it cant come from no where or it brings up why is there only one god and not many

 

[yoshi]

Holy *ucking mother! This is almost as long as the babe thread! Almost.

What I don´t understand is why people keep bringing religious arguements into this. What´s the point; religion assumes God exists. Pardon the expression but that´s just preaching to the converted. The point is to provide the athiest with proof of the existence of, not a diety but rather the origin of ´everything.´

Either way, I don´t think the way to prove this is scientifically because science is a product of well, ´God.´ A philosophical approach would seem to be more appropriate.

Thing is, as has already been mentioned, you´ll always get stumped on the ´okay, if God created everything who created God?´ If you say, ´a greater God,´ you run into the same problem.

That´s why the idea of a singularity makes no sense to me: something always has to come before because something can´t come from nothing.

One alternative seems to make some sort of sense is that the creator is it´s own reason for existing. Kind of like a closed loop. Impossible to visualize but it works when written out. Would someone care to play with that idea?

 

[Colonel]

grand father clause in temproal science, if u were to go back in time and kill your grand father you would cease to exsist but if you went back did it with grand mother killed your grandfather you would be your own grandfather so if u had something space ship went back caused the big bang then went back u would create the universe and create yourself but still the question how were u created in the first place but it would create a temproal loop where you would go back each time over and over to create the univers

 

[Phydeaux]

but that cant be an arguement what created the spritual stuff as you put it cant come from no where or it brings up why is there only one god and not many

Spiritual stuff can come from nowhere... I don't really know why there is this number a greater understanding of the spiritaul is needed.

 

[Colonel]

THERE IS NOTHING THAT COMES FROM NOTHINGNESS

no matter on what plain of exsistance everything is created from some sort of chemical reaction

 

[Blasphemous]

the universe had to be created.

And here we go again.
If this is a scientific fact, it must have evidence. What evidence is this exactly?

 

[Colonel]

he is right that the universe had to be created but one so did god and two of all the possible chooses he chose the most unrealistic instead of a random explosion he chose god was there from nothing and then creates the universe blah blah

 

[FearlessLeader2]

I won't take you up on your rather one-sided attack on Catholics - after all, Protestants don't have a much better history! One of the reasons old Latimer went to the stake so bravely for his Protestantism was that he himself had burned so many Catholics without any apparent remorse. He must have regarded it as pretty much par for the course. In any case, you can't say that the Catholic leadership do *nothing* but discredit Jehovah. Visit http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0222/_INDEX.HTM and read the Pope's deservedly famous encyclical "Veritatis Splendor", and then tell me there is no Christian value to what he says.

I have read it, and it possesses much that is valuable. I wish with all my heart that the Church would live up to this document. The sad fact is, saying this out one corner of the mouth, and slyly rotating pedophiles out the other is precisely the kind of hypocrisy that is devastating to the Word.

If they cannot practice what they preach, then who will believe what is preached?

 

[Plotinus]

THERE IS NOTHING THAT COMES FROM NOTHINGNESS

no matter on what plain of exsistance everything is created from some sort of chemical reaction

No, Colonel, for obvious reasons. Everything has a cause that is other than itself - but this applies only to things within the universe, because those are the only things we have ever observed. I know that the table I am sitting at must have come from something else because that is the universal law I have observed among other objects I have encountered (of course, as Hume showed, I don't actually *know* this, but for the sake of this argument assume I do). But I've never encountered a spiritual thing. How do I know if the same applies?

Note that this consideration is also a pretty good refutation of the argument that God must exist because the universe must have had a cause. It is true that everything within the universe must have had a cause, but it does not follow that this is true of the universe itself. After all, I can lift a brick, but it does not follow that I can lift a house that is made of bricks. Similarly, every object within the universe has a cause, but it does not follow that the universe itself does. To put it another way, how many objects do we know about within the universe? An awful lot. And all of them appear to have causes. Therefore we can extrapolate that things within the universe generally have causes. But how many universes have we experience of? Precisely one. That's not a big enough sample to form a general principle from. If we had encountered lots of universes and found them to be caused by other things, we might expect the same to be true of this one. But we haven't.

Science works by observation, experiment, and by the formation and testing of hypotheses. These methods tell us that objects within the universe have causes. But by definition they cannot tell us such things about either the universe as a whole or about God. Perhaps the universe needed a cause, perhaps it didn't. Perhaps God can be self-caused, perhaps he can't. You can't appeal to scientific principles and blithely carry them across to objects like these. That is like a fish stating that all living things breathe water, so there cannot be land-based animals.

By the way, Phydeaux, it seems a little odd to suggest that God is made of "stuff" of any kind, spiritual or otherwise... Christianity, at least, has generally taught that God is not a "thing" at all, not a physical thing or a spiritual thing - he is what makes "thingness" possible in the first place. Aquinas said that God's essence is his existence, and Tillich said that God simply is existence itself. They were trying to get across the idea that God is not a thing, but the prerequisite for existence. I've not explained it very well - have a look at some of the earlier chapters at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm

 

[FearlessLeader2]

so i say again use ANY scientfic fact to at least somewhat prove his exsistance

Unneccessary, and distracting from the real questions.

Which is the more important question:

How did I get here?

What should I do now that I am here?

Colonel: use any scientific fact to at least somewhat prove that the first question is more important.

...and I hope you're having a good day.

 

[Plotinus]

I think that yoshi has hit the nail on the head here, saying that it is a philosophical matter, not a theological one. That is why bringing up reasons why Genesis is false, where Moses got his ideas from, etc etc is utterly irrelevant.

As for God being the reason for his own existence - again, entirely reasonable. If the traditional divine attributes are omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection, then another is necessary existence. That is (assuming for a moment that God exists), God is not one of those things that might have not existed if things had been otherwise. If my parents hadn't met, I wouldn't be here. But God is not like that. He *couldn't* have failed to exist. Why? Because God is what you need to have anything existing. He *is* existence itself. Thinking of a universe without God is like imagining a tank of fish with no glass around it.

Now, some people have of course tried to use this definition of God as way to prove that he exists - in the crudest (Cartesian) form, God necessarily exists by definition, so therefore he must exist by definition. Not very impressive, although there are subtler versions of the argument - notably St Anselm's, and in our own time, Alvin Plantinga's, which uses the complexities of modal logic to prove that God must exist by definition. Obviously I think that these arguments are wrong (although Anselm's is the best), but since no-one seems to have brought them up here I needn't explain why!

 

[Colonel]

ok how do you KNOW that there are things out side of the universe that can be created without a before action HOW can u possibley KNOW without a doubt that there are things that can be created out of nothing at least i can say based on all knowing of science that that is impossible also why would something create out of nothing if that were truealso if god is not made up of anything how is that he has come down to tell humans things if there is nothing to see, next why would humans pressume that of all his creations he would influnce us the most