Are there good reasons to believe that a god exists?

[Jashwell]

"Are there good reasons to believe that a god exists?"

Doesn't seem like much preamble is needed, but expect this largely to be filled (if at all) with arguments in favour of the existence of a God and counter-arguments. (Because the question is not "Are there good reasons to believe that a god does not exist?"). Though if you do think you have a good argument that shows it is reasonable to believe God does not exist, that is also valid.

This question comes up a lot in other threads where various classical arguments (e.g. ontological, axiological, cosmological) have been given in those threads.

If possible, try not to shotgun debate by raising lots of arguments at once. One sound argument should be sufficient.

[Jashwell]

Reply to A. 1. Of course, there should be nothing. The existence of something demands explanation, not nothing. If you want to read further on the topic, read Ken Dzugan, How to Prove There Is a God: Mortimer J. Adler's Writings and Thoughts about God, published by Open Court Publishing of Chicago in 2012.

I'd rather not, if you are indeed aware of the form of reasoning that leads one to conclude "something is more worthy of an explanation than nothing" then go ahead and give it.

Reply to A. 2. Occam's razor tells us to eliminate all ad hoc explanations, like maybe something can come from nothing.

It tells us to prefer simpler explanations.
Unnecessary ad hoc explanations, like the existence of a deity, are avoided.
"A Universe from nothing" makes sense as "A Universe not from anything", not as some abstract concept of nothing in which it is envisaged as a thing.

Reply to B. 1. Of course change implies a beginning. Give me one example where something that changes does not have a beginning.

Do you mean a beginning of the change?
If we keep to A theory, then I'd say there can meaningfully be change without beginning, e.g. under evolutionary theory species do not have distinct beginnings, but they do change.
I personally don't subscribe to it.

Reply to B. 2. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." It has to do with the impossibility of measurement of both position and momentum simultaneously, not energy conservation.

I'm not entirely sure on the physics myself, but uncertainty in energy (part of momentum) allows you to 'borrow' energy for a set time.

(the uncertainty principle, deltas being uncertainty)

Since the energy is uncertain, energy can be 'borrowed' (depending on the uncertainty in time) and still be within acceptable bounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questi ... -principle
http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/cpep/unc_vir.html
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae605.cfm

It's well documented.

Reply to B. 3. The book Newberg, A., D'Aquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002 tells you how to distinguish delusion from transcendence.
kenblogton

I have no interest in buying and reading a book to respond to your position, if the arguments are valid you can mention them here.

[kenblogton]

kenblogton scribed:

If we accept that something exists, it follows that something cannot come from nothing.

No, it does not follow. This is a fundamental error in logic, and your entire argument fails as a result.

If you want to argue that something cannot come from nothing, please present a valid case for that claim. The fact that something exists in no way supports it.

Exactly. It's an assertion, not a conclusion. There is no demonstration that something existing requires that something cannot come from nothing. It's yet another example of the fallacy from personal incredulity, where the theist just doesn't get the situation, therefore they make up an answer that appeals to them, whether or not it actually has any application.

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. With an absence of examples, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

Reply to A. 1. Of course, there should be nothing. The existence of something demands explanation, not nothing. If you want to read further on the topic, read Ken Dzugan, How to Prove There Is a God: Mortimer J. Adler's Writings and Thoughts about God, published by Open Court Publishing of Chicago in 2012.

I'd rather not, if you are indeed aware of the form of reasoning that leads one to conclude "something is more worthy of an explanation than nothing" then go ahead and give it.

Reply to A. 2. Occam's razor tells us to eliminate all ad hoc explanations, like maybe something can come from nothing.

It tells us to prefer simpler explanations.
Unnecessary ad hoc explanations, like the existence of a deity, are avoided.
"A Universe from nothing" makes sense as "A Universe not from anything", not as some abstract concept of nothing in which it is envisaged as a thing.

Reply to B. 1. Of course change implies a beginning. Give me one example where something that changes does not have a beginning.

Do you mean a beginning of the change?
If we keep to A theory, then I'd say there can meaningfully be change without beginning, e.g. under evolutionary theory species do not have distinct beginnings, but they do change.
I personally don't subscribe to it.

Reply to B. 2. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa." It has to do with the impossibility of measurement of both position and momentum simultaneously, not energy conservation.

I'm not entirely sure on the physics myself, but uncertainty in energy (part of momentum) allows you to 'borrow' energy for a set time.

(the uncertainty principle, deltas being uncertainty)

Since the energy is uncertain, energy can be 'borrowed' (depending on the uncertainty in time) and still be within acceptable bounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questi ... -principle
http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/cpep/unc_vir.html
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae605.cfm

It's well documented.

Reply to B. 3. The book Newberg, A., D'Aquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WON'T GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002 tells you how to distinguish delusion from transcendence.
kenblogton

I have no interest in buying and reading a book to respond to your position, if the arguments are valid you can mention them here.

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. Without an example, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing means not anything. Of course, nothing needs no explanation.
You have not given one example of change not having a beginning, but have rather avoided answering my question.
If there is no explanatory value in a theory, Occam's razor says to eliminate it, like the need to explain the existence of nothing. With no examples of something from nothing, it is discarded as an explanation.
The Heisenberg uncertainty has nothing to do with energy or with borrowing energy. It has to do with one cannot simultaneously the position and velocity of a particle.
There are no observed instances of energy creation from nothing. Energy borrowing is not energy creation.
kenblogton

[McCulloch]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. Without an example, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing means not anything.

I, for one, agree. Everything that is is made up of stuff that was. There is no evidence that there are sources of new stuff. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. All of what is has always been in some form or other.
How does that relate to the proposition that a god exists?

[mwtech]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. Without an example, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing means not anything. Of course, nothing needs no explanation.

The problem with this position is that you assume to know for certain that we came from nothing. We don't know this. There is no way we could know this.
I assume you are working under the principle that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. We have matter/energy, so it was either created originally or has always been. So, there is the possibility that all the matter/energy that is here has always been here. If you can believe in a God with no beginning, why can't you believe in a universe with a beginning. There is also the faulty assumption that the laws of physics as we know them have always existed. We can't know that. Maybe before the beginning of the universe as we know it now -- lets call it pre-big bang -- the law of conservation of matter and energy didn't apply. There is no way to know this because there is no way to observe the pre big bang universe. There is the theory that our universe is not the only universe, and that we are a byproduct of a universe who's laws of physics are different. And then of course there is the creation theory, which doesn't even get so far as supporting the Judeo-Christian God. It can support a deist view or a theist view and nothing more than that without further confirmation.

So here are 4 theories:
1) the universe had no beginning
2) the pre-big bang universe didn't work the same way current universe did. In other words, the laws of physics began at the same time the universe did.
3) There are any number of other universes that don't follow the same physical constants and we were a product of one of those.
4) we have a creator of unknown origin that is not restrained by these laws of physics.

No one of these theories holds any more weight than another because it is not possible for us to examine any evidence from before the universe as we know it come to be. But to assert that because we cannot explain it, it is easily explained by theory 4, is irrational and holds no logical value. It is just another baseless assumption.

[Cephus]

kenblogton scribed:

If we accept that something exists, it follows that something cannot come from nothing.

No, it does not follow. This is a fundamental error in logic, and your entire argument fails as a result.

If you want to argue that something cannot come from nothing, please present a valid case for that claim. The fact that something exists in no way supports it.

Exactly. It's an assertion, not a conclusion. There is no demonstration that something existing requires that something cannot come from nothing. It's yet another example of the fallacy from personal incredulity, where the theist just doesn't get the situation, therefore they make up an answer that appeals to them, whether or not it actually has any application.

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. With an absence of examples, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing.
kenblogton

Actually, we see it in quantum mechanics all the time. That kind of assertion doesn't work anymore.

[instantc]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. With an absence of examples, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing.
kenblogton

Actually, we see it in quantum mechanics all the time. That kind of assertion doesn't work anymore.

It depends on your definition of 'nothing'. If one takes 'nothing' in the literal sense, then it is evident that something cannot come from nothing, for nothing is not anything, it is an empty set of properties. If it had the potentiality to produce something, that would count as a property and we would already be talking about something rather than nothing. Thus, 'something cannot come from nothing' stands to reason as per the literal definition of the word nothing.

[Cephus]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. With an absence of examples, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing.
kenblogton

Actually, we see it in quantum mechanics all the time. That kind of assertion doesn't work anymore.

It depends on your definition of 'nothing'. If one takes 'nothing' in the literal sense, then it is evident that something cannot come from nothing, for nothing is not anything, it is an empty set of properties. If it had the potentiality to produce something, that would count as a property and we would already be talking about something rather than nothing. Thus, 'something cannot come from nothing' stands to reason as per the literal definition of the word nothing.

In reality, there's no such thing as "nothing", there's always quantum fluctuations, etc. If people are going to assert that something cannot come from nothing, they'd have to show that there is any such thing as "nothing" first and, of course, they can't.

[kenblogton]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. Without an example, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing means not anything.

I, for one, agree. Everything that is is made up of stuff that was. There is no evidence that there are sources of new stuff. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. All of what is has always been in some form or other.
How does that relate to the proposition that a god exists?

1. The existence of something. The question is “Why is there something rather than nothing?� If we accept that something exists, it follows that something cannot come from nothing. If it were possible for something to come from nothing, we would expect to find examples of such. However, we find only examples of something coming from something. Therefore, based on Occam’s razor, we reject all notions of something coming from nothing. It follows that a creative entity is needed to create something from nothing, whether or not that something changes.
2. The existence of something which changes. Change implies a beginning. The changed state may also be viewed as the effect of a cause. It is a well-accepted axiom of logic that a cause precedes its effect; that a cause never follows its effect. A creative entity is needed to begin, or cause, a changing something which was preceded by nothing.
3. The nature of the creative entity. The first two points demonstrate that the creative entity itself cannot be created and cannot change. If this creative entity were created or changing, we get into an infinite regress: this changing creative entity is created by another changing creative entity which is created by another changing creative and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, using Occam’s razor, we cut off the creative entities at one uncreated and unchanging creative entity.
If we consider the physical universe of space, time, matter and energy as the created something, then we can infer some of the attributes of its non-physical creative entity: non-material, usually referred to as spiritual; not occupying space, usually referred to as invisible, and outside of time, usually referred to as eternal. We can also infer this creative entity is of supreme intelligence or omniscience, given the marvelous design observed in the inception and evolution of the physical universe, and has supreme power or omnipotence, given accepted scientific theory which states nothing physical or material – matter and energy – can either be created or destroyed. Further knowledge of the nature of the creative entity cannot be inferred directly from the physical, and requires further revelation from the creative entity itself.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

Give me one example of something coming from nothing. With an absence of examples, the assertion stands: Something cannot come from nothing.
kenblogton

Actually, we see it in quantum mechanics all the time. That kind of assertion doesn't work anymore.

It depends on your definition of 'nothing'. If one takes 'nothing' in the literal sense, then it is evident that something cannot come from nothing, for nothing is not anything, it is an empty set of properties. If it had the potentiality to produce something, that would count as a property and we would already be talking about something rather than nothing. Thus, 'something cannot come from nothing' stands to reason as per the literal definition of the word nothing.

In reality, there's no such thing as "nothing", there's always quantum fluctuations, etc. If people are going to assert that something cannot come from nothing, they'd have to show that there is any such thing as "nothing" first and, of course, they can't.

The physical only came into existence somewhere between 8-15 billion years ago. Prior to that, Scientists tell us there was NOTHING - no space, time, matter or energy.
kenblogton