Does God exist?

[otseng]

Does God exist? What reasons are there to believe that God is real?


Admin note:
This thread used to be called "Does God exist or not?"
I have renamed this thread to be "Does God exist?"
Another thread has been created to discuss God's nonexistence, "Disproving God".

[Tigerlilly]

However, the existence of the eternal God is not known by faith. The existence of the eternal God, who’s existence transcends space-time, is known by logical necessity, not faith. The precondition of space time, must exists outside of space and time.

Belief in God flies in the face of the Principle of Parsimony. There is nothing in the natural word/universe that cannot be explained by the natural universe. There is no logical need for an superfluous entity.

[nikolayevich]

Belief in God flies in the face of the Principle of Parsimony. There is nothing in the natural word/universe that cannot be explained by the natural universe. There is no logical need for an superfluous entity.

Nothing which cannot be explained by the natural?

Explain love, embarrassment, longsuffering, long-term emotional loss, self-sacrifice... Though people try, attempts to explain these entirely by instinct or necessity always leave one wanting for more complete, more all-encompassing explanations. Part of why God is so real to so many, is because answers which include Him often fulfill more completely the demands of man's problems, than the purely thisworldly (if you will).

[bernee51]

Belief in God flies in the face of the Principle of Parsimony. There is nothing in the natural word/universe that cannot be explained by the natural universe. There is no logical need for an superfluous entity.

Nothing which cannot be explained by the natural?

Explain love, embarrassment, longsuffering, long-term emotional loss, self-sacrifice... Though people try, attempts to explain these entirely by instinct or necessity always leave one wanting for more complete, more all-encompassing explanations. Part of why God is so real to so many, is because answers which include Him often fulfill more completely the demands of man's problems, than the purely thisworldly (if you will).

Because they are not part of the natural world as objective entities. I am yet to see a bucket of love, a phial of embarrassment, a ton of longsuffering...

These are all concepts which are subjective to elements which make up the natural world. Without the natural world to describe them they would not exist. One man's long suffering can be another's sexual fulfillment.

If you don't like that one, try this on.

The natural world is made up, in part, of a geosphere, biosphere, and nooshere. The things you describe do exist in the natural world - in the nooshere.

[Dilettante]

What An Observer claims to have logically demonstrated is not necessarily the existence of the Christian God, but that of the "Uncaused Cause", sort of the "God of the philosophers". But that is a far cry from what most people (in Christian nations) mean by God. The cosmological argument may appear irrefutable, but it will probably not satisfy believers. A remote, distant entity such as that first cause is not a God one can pray to, worship or have a "personal relationship" with. First causes are notoriously indifferent toward the suffering of the creatures they have caused to exist. What good is believing in such a God? Can an infinite God be a personal God also? Aren't those two incompatible? Should we just say "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent"?

[mrmufin]

What An Observer claims to have logically demonstrated is not necessarily the existence of the Christian God, but that of the "Uncaused Cause", sort of the "God of the philosophers". But that is a far cry from what most people (in Christian nations) mean by God.

How would I distinguish between the god(s) of the philosophers and God, of Christianity?

The cosmological argument may appear irrefutable, but it will probably not satisfy believers. A remote, distant entity such as that first cause is not a God one can pray to, worship or have a "personal relationship" with. First causes are notoriously indifferent toward the suffering of the creatures they have caused to exist. What good is believing in such a God?

That's something that I've always wondered... with observational data of any of the gods in such short supply, how could anyone know that they've picked the right god? I think there are wide variety of reasons for belief in a god, and one of them might be that they're necessary in so many religions...

Can an infinite God be a personal God also? Aren't those two incompatible?

I think those are valid questions, indeed. How could we know the answers? We really can't evaluate the gods directly, like we could compare a Mercedes to a Saab to a BMW to a Volkswagen to a Volvo. What can we compare to answer those questions? Scriptures? Religions? Congregations? Traditions? I really haven't got a clue as to whether an infinite god might be a personal god any more than a finite god might be impersonal. How could we know if any of the properties or descriptions of any of the gods are accurate? I've wondered this stuff since I was a kid...

Should we just say "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent"?

As Philadelphia talk radio host Evil Irv Homer used to say, "You broke the code, my friend."

We can not know about the gods because every answer only raises more questions. I suspect that some folks, for whatever reason(s), might be a bit uncomfortable when the most honest answer to an important question is, "I don't know."

Regards,
mrmufin

[TQWcS]

There is Godel's Ontological Argument for his existence. He came up with this work in the 70's but was too afriad to publish it. Today it is just getting the academic credit it deserves.

If you would like to read his argument you can go here

http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/ontology.html

[Gaunt]

There is Godel's Ontological Argument for his existence.

Godel's argument fails on this line:

"If God did not exist, then by our first point, above, God would know that he or she did not exist"

If God did not exist, God would not be able to know anything.

[Xanadu Moo]

There is no evidence of the creator in the structure of the Universe.

Nyril, you shouldn't speak in negative absolutes like that. It opens you up to faulty statements, and it makes you look dogmatic, i.e. - closed-minded.

So, does the universe more closely suggest: a) chaos or b) order?

b) ... Bingo! And therefore that order gives some evidence of a designer. (don't confuse evidence for proof) In fact, it's very strong evidence.

Do you care to elucidate on why your view on this is more substantial than Einstein's?

[Dilettante]

Xanadu Moo wrote:

So, does the universe more closely suggest: a) chaos or b) order?

b) ... Bingo! And therefore that order gives some evidence of a designer. (don't confuse evidence for proof) In fact, it's very strong evidence.

Do you care to elucidate on why your view on this is more substantial than Einstein's?

Xanadu Moo...Would that the "order" in the universe sufficed as evidence of a designer! But, alas, it doesn't. The argument from design was brilliantly expressed by Chrysippus the Stoic, Cicero, and Aquinas. (A similar argument was lampooned by Voltaire--have you read "Candide"?)Unfortunately, it was even more brilliantly refuted by Hume and Kant. Finally, Darwin's work seems to prove that apparent design can exist even if there is no designer. So we're back on square one.

By the way...What was Einstein's view on this? I was under the impression that Einstein's theological stance had been modeled after that of Spinoza (i.e., God=laws of nature, so miracles and a personal God are ruled out). Einstein and Spinoza were pantheists--or perhaps closet atheists--so their view does not help traditional theism much.

Regards,
Dilettante

[Xanadu Moo]

"The superior reasoning power...revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
—Albert Einstein

“This order suggests a maker.”
—Albert Einstein

“You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world to the degree that we may speak of such comprehensibility as a miracle or an eternal mystery. Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be in any way grasped through thought… The kind of order created, for example, by Newton's theory of gravity is of quite a different kind. Even if the axioms of the theory are posited by a human being, the success of such an enterprise presupposes an order in the objective world of a high degree which one has no a priori right to expect. That is the "miracle" which grows increasingly persuasive with the increasing development of knowledge.”
—Albert Einstein

Order does give some suggestion for the case of a creator. That is a safe statement. What is irresponsible to say is that there is no evidence of a creator in the structure of the universe, as a previous poster stated. We should be considering all the possibilities instead of denying some of them unilaterally.

Thanks for the references, Dilettante. Without having read the references yet, I would submit that we're not quite all the way back at square one, but there is certainly some indication that the order has a purpose -- a purpose generated by an intelligent being. I don't think the refutations you cite discount the possibility of a designer.

I have some questions that maybe will be addressed in the sources you cited, namely:
* Is matter/nature random? If not, then what could govern it to not be random?
* Is the universe closer to being stable or unstable? Does matter generally remain in a certain state for great lengths of time, or is it constantly in flux? What we have is a rather predictable system. We have givens that are fairly reliable -- laws, properties. Many objects remain in a similar condition/shape for hundreds of years.
* If we knew nothing of the universe or of any world, would we think that a system without a designer would be random, or have an orderly structure to it? Almost all predictions would be for a random succession of events and relationships. In other words, the condition we currently find ourselves in is unexpected based on the criteria most commonly associated with mindless matter.
* What influenced matter to organize? How is it possible to organize without an awareness of what's being done?

Are there theories about inorganic matter having consciousness? Can atoms "think" and "behave" according to goals of constructing? This would be another explanation, but I don't know how well received it would be.

Anyway, without intelligent minds to give a certain level of order, how is that order arrived at? Perhaps the debate is just to what degree of order requires a conscious planning from an outside source.