Back to basics: Give me an argument as to why a god exists

[FaerieStories]

Hi, I'm new here and I see a lot of active topics on specific concepts where users are already heavily engaged in debate, making it a little hard for me to join in. So to test the waters a little (and to help me decide whether or not to stick around here), let's go back to basics and have a debate about the most fundamental question at hand here: does a god exist?

As a non-believer, I have yet to discover any convincing reason as to why I should believe in a god. So, if a Theist would like to get the ball rolling by giving me a reason why god exists, that would be great.

(PS: unrelated question: what is the general breakdown of belief/non-belief on these forums? Is it an even mix of believers and non-believers, or is there- as tends to happen on the internet- a larger proportion of atheists to Theists?).

[kayky]

Bingo! And if- as you have just agreed- god has interacted some way with the physical universe, then necessarily he must have left some sort of trace of him and therefore is potentially capable of being found through science.

Since I see the universe as God coming into form, your question is nonsense to me. It's like saying you can't find traces of the universe in the universe.

The reason these studies are important to this debate is that they demonstrate that these experiences are not uniquely personal. Regardless of the religion involved, in their brains and other bodily functions, these people are having the same experience..

Well indeed, we all have very similar genetic makeups and often experience a lo of the same things in life.

It's as if we were hard-wired to experience God.

No, it's realistic. I want nothing to do with someone like that. They are the worst sort of people. 'Debating' with a fundie is liking banging your head against a brick wall.

Yet they are perfectly free to debate here if they choose. You may want to don a helmet.

This isn't a competition, where posts are deemed 'worthy' or 'not worthy'. You made a post which I didn't really have anything to say about (but of course I still read and considered), and I have been spending enough of my time typing lengthy responses to at least 3 other people here, so it isn't anything to get upset about.

I was offended by your lack of courtesy--hardly upset.

[dianaiad]

Wait, are you saying that to me? Uh, I just said there were multiple definitions.

Faerie...

To whom is this question addressed?

If it is to me, well....no, I wasn't saying that to you. Notice the quote from Nickman. I was responding to him.

If it isn't...would you mind including a quote from the person you are talking to, so that we'll all know who's being asked the question?

Thanks.

[kayky]

Faeriestories:

Right. And you would think that a god who wanted to be believed in would give everyone that experience. But that's another matter.

I see two problems with this statement. First of all, how can we make assumptions about what God wants? Secondly, why would you assume that God goes around revealing himself to some while ignoring others? My experience has been that these experiences must be sought out and usually occur after a certain adeptness at spiritual practice has been achieved. So I believe this experience is available to anyone who seeks it with discipline.

I'm not making assumptions. I don't even believe in a god, remember? All I am saying is that IF there were a god who wanted to be believed in, he is doing a lousy job considering how many people don't believe in him.

You start by denying you ever made an assumption, and then end with another assumption!

As for point 2, explain to me please the people who have spent all their lives looking for god only to lose their faith, or convert to another religion.

What's wrong with converting to another religion, and what does that have to do with the existence of God? If you're serious about experiencing God (and not simply looking for a ticket to heaven), it's best to start with studying the great spiritual sages of the ages and find out how they did it. Otherwise, you're just playing church.

ou're probably going to say something like 'they didn't try hard enough' or 'they weren't true christians'. Nonsense. No true scotsman fallacy.

I find it amusing how you think you've got me all figured out. And to think of the times on this thread you have complained about people putting words in your mouth!

There are people who spend all their life questioning and trying to 'find god' only to fail, and there are others who never even bother ask themself the question of god's existence because they've been taught it since the cradle.

People succeed or fail at all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. If you really want something, you find a way to achieve it. And as I said earlier, the best way is to stop listening to your Sunday school teacher and check out the real experts.

Right, exactly. In that case I need something observable, testable, repeatable, demonstrable. Anything less will not do, when the claim being made is this massive. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Anecdotal evidence such as the 'personal religious experience' may be well and good for the experiencee, but- as I have pointed out before in this thread- it cannot be used to justify anything to other people.

This is your standard for belief. It is founded on your belief that you understand the nature of reality. Shaky ground.

[FaerieStories]

Since I see the universe as God coming into form, your question is nonsense to me. It's like saying you can't find traces of the universe in the universe.

Fine: rephrase- if god interacted with the rest of the universe.

It's as if we were hard-wired to experience God.

Well no, it's more like the human brain is very capable of deceiving the senses, and of course these experiences will be similar- we all (being the same species) are very genetically similar and so we experience things in much the same way.

Yet they are perfectly free to debate here if they choose. You may want to don a helmet.

Of course they are, but not with me. I want nothing to do with them, and neither should anybody with a grain of a desire for reason or learning.

I was offended by your lack of courtesy--hardly upset.

You were offended that one particular random person on the internet didn't reply to your post? Uh, ok.

[FaerieStories]

You start by denying you ever made an assumption, and then end with another assumption!

No. I am not assuming that YOUR GOD is like this. I AM assuming that my hypothetical god is like this. Whether my hypothetical god is anything like your god is up to you to decide.

I find it amusing how you think you've got me all figured out. And to think of the times on this thread you have complained about people putting words in your mouth!

Uh no, I never said you actually said that. I said that is what I predict you might say- based on people I have talked with in the past who hold a similar position as yours. And the only reason I mentioned it was because it's such a stupid argument that I thought I better get it out the way in case you actually did decide to use it.

People succeed or fail at all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. If you really want something, you find a way to achieve it. And as I said earlier, the best way is to stop listening to your Sunday school teacher and check out the real experts.

...wow. Despite accusing me of 'putting words in your mouth', turns out my guess was spot on. You just said exactly what I predicted you would say. You said that people are 'doing it wrong' or 'not trying hard enough'.

This is your standard for belief. It is founded on your belief that you understand the nature of reality. Shaky ground.

Cop-out. You could end any argument about anything by saying what you have just said. We are trying to understand the nature of reality here to the best of our ability. I am not claiming absolute knowledge.

[kayky]

The Trinity is indispensable for me in two ways. I've been suggesting that to evaluate a thing presuppositionally I take into consideration experience and whether an argument is self-defeating.

The Trinity has become a powerful way of interpreting my religious experience. I'll quote from something earlier in the thread: "My fundamental understanding of religious phenomenology is Trinitarian. I experience myself as sinner, and therefore God as against me in the Person of the Father (prior to faith). But I also experience myself as made in the image of God, and therefore God as for me in the Person of the Son, who is the great high priest who advocates for me in heaven. I experience God as absent, distant, incomprehensible. And therefore, there is the Person of the Father, transcendent and ineffable. But I also experience God as with me daily, and therefore there is the Person of the Spirit, at work within me. I believe the actions of Jesus Christ are demonstrative of his divinity, and therefore there is the divine Person of the Son. But I see that the Son praises his Father as God, and therefore I adopt the spirituality of the divine Jesus and have faith in the Person of the Father. But I also recognize that something had to be at work within me to recognize the Son as divine, though he was in the form of a human, and therefore there is the Person of the Spirit by whom I am able to believe." I find it easier to make sense of the paradoxes between God-as-for-me and God-as-against-me, God-as-distant and God-as-close to be the result of me experiencing different persons in the Godhead rather than to be the result of me experiencing one very parodoxical person: the distant/close God, the propitiated/wrathful God, and so forth. I don't really know how to relate to such a paradoxical single Person.

In terms of the self-defeating component, I find the Trinity to be an important way to overcome many of the criticisms of post-modernity that result in modern secularism collapsing. In this thread, I've mentioned the work of postmodern linguistics (Derrida). I tend to mention him because he was the first to get me thinking this way, and Christian theologian Kevin VanHoozer's work is the first I read to respond to postmodernism in a Trinitarian fashion, so I share my starting point with you. Derrida and others basically argue that there is no connection between the author, the text, and the reader. The author cannot be the source of meaning, because once the words are out there, he or she has no control over them. The text cannot be the source of meaning, because there is always infinite ambiguity in the words on the page, and we can always find new interpretation. The reader does not discover any real intended meaning, because there are no tools to adequately guide the reader in his or her interpretation. (Derrida makes huge arguments to back each of these points up). The reader is actually the creator of meaning, and when we read, we create new meaning in the text. Most of the reason why our interpretations share similarities with others is that we, as readers, have similar backgrounds/cultures/experiences as others. But ultimately in writing, communication doesn't happen. It's just an opportunity for the reader to be inventive. (Now I should note here that I think Derrida is incorrect. I think communication does happen. But I also think that his arguments are pretty solid. When I try to find the way to overcome them, the best approach I've found is to change the starting point so that it is Trinitarian.)

Ultimately, the problem that Derrida has identified is one example of the lack of unity in diversity. (In some ways that's the entire problem of postmodernism. They don't know how to tie the particulars in with the universal, so there is no universal). There is no connection between the author and the text, or between the text and the reader, so there's really no way to get meaning from the author to the reader. The Trinity, when considered as an act of communication, overcomes this hurdle. Jesus Christ is the "word of God." To use theological language, Jesus is the ultimate theophany, the ultimate self-communication or self-revelation of God. Jesus is the "text" of God. But unlike other authors and other texts, there is a connection between the two. They share the same divine being. Moreover, the Scriptures suggest that when someone believes in Jesus as the communication of God, they do so by the power of the Holy Spirit. So here we have a connection between the text and the interpreter. The Spirit, by whom we interpret, is connected to the Word and to the Author because the Spirit shares the same divine being. Therefore, the insurmountable separation that Derrida argues exists is overcome. In divine revelation, the Author, Word, and Spirit who Receives are all connected, and so there is a way for unity in communication to transcend the diversity of author/text/reader.

I hope that makes some sense. It's pretty complicated when you flesh it out, but hopefully I reduced it sufficiently to make it clear.

Anyway, once you establish the possibility of real divine communication, you open the door to rehabilitate all communication. It's a long, winding road that I'll spare you.

Communication is just one example. I find the Trinity indispensable in overcoming the problem of whether morals exist. (You can see my thoughts on this in the head-to-head forum with Ionian_Tradition.) I find the Trinity essential to preserving the idea of a human person (I have a thread here that discusses this I can send you if you like). I find the Trinity to be tremendously helpful in addressing certain questions of history, and how we can overcome historical contingency to know absolute truth. In short, without the Trinity, I can't figure out how to make it past the self-defeating aspects of secularism. If our ultimate principle is unity, then we cannot make sense of diversity. If it is diversity, we can't make sense of unity. But if diversity-in-unity, then I can sort much of it out.

Plus, I think there is Scriptural warrant and philosophical warrant for the idea of the Trinity.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for that. I guess the main difference between us is that I don't read the Gospels as literal history although I do find in them what I think to be an effective path to God (but not the only path).

I interpret the Trinity concept this way:

Father = the transcendence of God from which the universe comes into form

Son = God taking on physical form as creation (symbolized by Christ)

Holy Spirit = the immanence of God that sustains the universe and can be accessed by us

[kayky]

Dantalion:



The main problem we have here is what you have already identified.
Your methodology. One can use presuppositionalism and the claim of personal experience to back up ANYTHING. I'm sorry but that methodology does not fly.

No conclusion is ever reached without a presupposition. In science it's called a working hypothesis.

[kayky]

faith (f th) n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.

Yet even science requires faith. No scientific theory can be proven. They are accepted by faith to be the best explanation we have at the moment. Our faith in a theory grows stronger if over time the theory forms the basis for even more plausable theories.

When Darwin first published Origin of Species, he really had very little evidence to go on except his faith that natural selection was the best explanation for what he observed in nature. Since then the theory of evolution has proved to be the very foundation of modern biology. And so it is a theory in which we place a great deal of faith.

[FaerieStories]

Yet even science requires faith. No scientific theory can be proven. They are accepted by faith to be the best explanation we have at the moment. Our faith in a theory grows stronger if over time the theory forms the basis for even more plausable theories.

When Darwin first published Origin of Species, he really had very little evidence to go on except his faith that natural selection was the best explanation for what he observed in nature. Since then the theory of evolution has proved to be the very foundation of modern biology. And so it is a theory in which we place a great deal of faith.

No, no, no. 'Faith' as in: 'the belief in something without reason' does not come into science at all. Darwin did not have 'faith' in his theory. He went out and did his research and formulated it based on evidence. He sailed to the various corners of the world to observe fauna and flora. He did not sit at home with his eyes shut having 'faith' that he was right. Science has nothing to do with faith. Faith is the exact antithesis of everything science stands for- science is about finding things out through observation and experimentation, not through blind wishing.

[kayky]

Kayky: Since I see the universe as God coming into form, your question is nonsense to me. It's like saying you can't find traces of the universe in the universe.

Faeriestories:

Fine: rephrase- if god interacted with the rest of the universe.

No. You don't understand what I'm saying. If a part of who God is includes coming into form as the universe, your desire to find "traces" of God in the universe makes no sense.

It's as if we were hard-wired to experience God.

Well no, it's more like the human brain is very capable of deceiving the senses, and of course these experiences will be similar- we all (being the same species) are very genetically similar and so we experience things in much the same way.

And so it becomes a matter of interpretation.

You were offended that one particular random person on the internet didn't reply to your post? Uh, ok.

This is your thread, and the post was directly addressed to you. But don't worry about it. I'm through trying to teach you some manners.