Does God exist? (14 Viewers)

[Not-That-Bright]

Well for me the absence of proof for the existance of anything is good enough to believe it doesn't exist, I think this is true of other people also, just not when it comes to God.

 

[KFunk]

You cannot axiomatically prove that God does not exist. I would assume that to a lunatic, their fantasies seem real (from personal conviction) and you cannot prove to them otherwise. You can obviously justify using logic your belief in no God to yourself and to others who hold the same belief, but that does not make it anything more than justified conceived proof.

I reckon you can, however the axioms are likely to be somewhat controversial. Suppose I broke down a previous post of mine (where I put forth a 'god does not exist' argument) into psuedo-axioms:

Ax. 1 If something is the creator then initially it must have been all that existed. (Cx -> Ax)
Ax. 2 External stimuli is necessary for a conscious being to develop a sense of self/other (S/Ox -> Sx)
Ax. 3 If a conscious being is all that exists then that being has no external stimuli (Ax -> ~Sx)
Ax. 4 If a conscious being is to create something it must possess a sense of self/other (Cx -> S/Ox)

If you assume that there was a creator (assume that there is some x such that Cx) and you follow the 'axioms' through you arrive at the fact that god must have a sense of self/other in order to create but cannot have them because god, as first cause, has no external stimuli which could engender such a sense of self/other. In other words, the assumption that a creator (i.e. god) exists results in contradiction. Note that 2, 3 & 4 are each limited to conscious beings (you could amend them with 'if x is a conscious being then ...'. ). Of course, I do not pretend that these 'axioms' are at all uncontroversial. I can certainly find potential holes in them myself.

 

[doingHSC]

Well for me the absence of proof for the existance of anything is good enough to believe it doesn't exist, I think this is true of other people also, just not when it comes to God.

ohk fair enuf. Well actually u can not prove that it does not exist, but u believe it does not exist due to lack of proof, which according to "statistics/probability" does not rule out its existance. As I said b4 u can not prove that god exists and neither can u prove god does not exist..

I think this thread is waste of bandwidth & space

 

[Not-That-Bright]

ohk fair enuf. Well actually u can not prove that it does not exist

Read what I wrote please. I am well aware that I can not prove with 100% accuracy that god does not exist. I merely noted that I can prove god does not exist JUST AS WELL as anyone else (including myself) can prove that any other supernatural being/object exists.

 

[EraserDust]

Well for me the absence of proof for the existance of anything is good enough to believe it doesn't exist, I think this is true of other people also, just not when it comes to God.

Makes common sense logically, yet this does not prove that God does not exist to those who believe otherwise. It only justifies your disbelief.

I reckon you can, however the axioms are likely to be somewhat controversial.

Thankfully you are aware of the "pseudo" nature of your axioms. A well thought out argument, yet I still hold that what you have offered is justifed conceived proof in the appearance of axiomatical proof.

I think this thread is waste of bandwidth & space

Seems like it.

 

[HotShot]

I reckon you can, however the axioms are likely to be somewhat controversial. Suppose I broke down a previous post of mine (where I put forth a 'god does not exist' argument) into psuedo-axioms:

Ax. 1 If something is the creator then initially it must have been all that existed. (Cx -> Ax)
Ax. 2 External stimuli is necessary for a conscious being to develop a sense of self/other (S/Ox -> Sx)
Ax. 3 If a conscious being is all that exists then that being has no external stimuli (Ax -> ~Sx)
Ax. 4 If a conscious being is to create something it must possess a sense of self/other (Cx -> S/Ox)

If you assume that there was a creator (assume that there is some x such that Cx) and you follow the 'axioms' through you arrive at the fact that god must have a sense of self/other in order to create but cannot have them because god, as first cause, has no external stimuli which could engender such a sense of self/other. In other words, the assumption that a creator (i.e. god) exists results in contradiction. Note that 2, 3 & 4 are each limited to conscious beings (you could amend them with 'if x is a conscious being then ...'. ). Of course, I do not pretend that these 'axioms' are at all uncontroversial. I can certainly find potential holes in them myself.

no u got it all wrong.

All models and theories to start with have assumptions but they dont deal with assumption. You have made the assumption that god is the creator or there is creator and then you have dealt with this assumption - u cant do that.

its like saying i suppose i put forward a model and i assume that ur dumb. then i go on in the model to verify the assumption - but that doesnt make any sense because i have already made assumption that ur dumb.

to look at if there is creator or not - u do not create a theory or model and then say with an assumption that there is a creator. what you would do is, have set of assumptions and using those assumptions you would decide whether there is an creator or not - the other way around.

but anyway - u have set of assumption but u havent verified those assumptions - verify them then maybe i can debate on it at the moment i have no understanding of ur assumptions.

also remember for something to exist - it must already exist or be created - only two options. i do believe that science will not be able to distinguidh between the two because all its underlying theory is based on the assumption that it has already existed or it was created.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Makes common sense logically, yet this does not prove that God does not exist to those who believe otherwise. It only justifies your disbelief.

That doesn't bother me if they won't buy it, if they choose to continue to believe in God but not the tooth fairy then imo they're being completely illogical.

 

[KFunk]

You have made the assumption that god is the creator or there is creator and then you have dealt with this assumption - u cant do that.

Yes you can, it's called proof by contradiction. You assume 'P' and then show that P leads to contradiction, making P false. I take the assumption that 'there exists a creator' and show how it leads to a contradiction, implying that a creator cannot exist. My proof (if you can call it that... it still has holes, none of which you have pointed out) only applies to a god which is a creator, i.e. it shows that there is no creator, not that there is no god.

its like saying i suppose i put forward a model and i assume that ur dumb. then i go on in the model to verify the assumption - but that doesnt make any sense because i have already made assumption that ur dumb.

to look at if there is creator or not - u do not create a theory or model and then say with an assumption that there is a creator. what you would do is, have set of assumptions and using those assumptions you would decide whether there is an creator or not - the other way around.

but anyway - u have set of assumption but u havent verified those assumptions - verify them then maybe i can debate on it at the moment i have no understanding of ur assumptions.

also remember for something to exist - it must already exist or be created - only two options. i do believe that science will not be able to distinguidh between the two because all its underlying theory is based on the assumption that it has already existed or it was created.

The rest of your post continues to misunderstand my method of proof. Let 'Cx' mean 'there exists a creator'. I DO NOT assume Cx in order to prove Cx... that would be fallacious. Similarly, I DO NOT assume 'not Cx' to show 'not Cx', for that too would be fallacious.

What I do do is assume Cx, show that it leads to contradiction and thus conclude that Cx is false. As I mentioned before this method is proof by contradiction and the logic is sound. If you want to attack the argument you have to do so by disagreeing with the axioms/premises.

 

[EraserDust]

I do like to reflect upon the existence of God - but as I think we have all concluded its a pointless excerise. I hope the following words sum up the entire argument from here on in. Just to turn Wittgensteinian on you

"It's beyond the scope of our language games to talk about God, because transcendence, omniotence etc. are not part of our form of life. My view is this: I know there is no god - but why the hell wouldn't you believe in him anyways - just in case"

With an epistemological stance, I would hold that Ludwig Wittgenstein does not know there is no god, that is only his opinion. Agreed that God is beyond the scope of our human understanding (assuming He exists), yet if He chooses to reveal Himself (as many believe He has) then there exists that possibility of understanding.

Also spadijer, this is as pointless an exercise as any exercise at all. Eventually you'll die and be no worse off for having posted that comment earlier. Same here. Anyways as with Wittgenstein's words, also consider Pascal's Wager: it is always better to believe God exists, since the expected value gained from belief is always greater than the expected value obtained from unbelief.

That doesn't bother me if they won't buy it, if they choose to continue to believe in God but not the tooth fairy then imo they're being completely illogical.

That is the point, it is illogical. Follow all tracks of thought around the philosophical turntable long enough (without pure bias) and you would inevitably come to the conclusion that logically without God, life has no intrinsic meaning. Some people provide their own personal meaning (through absurdism), whilst a fideistic believer is well justified in their personal belief, since belief in God is essentially absurd.

Is it wrong to change my perspective? I'm suggesting before we ask Is there god, we must ask what is God.

Then you'll end up discussing semantics, and you'll probably find most people have different (although the differences can be subtle) mental images of God. If we want Him to exist we make Him worthy of existing, if we want Him to not exist then we make him contradictory of His own nature. Simply because we can form an imaginary God within the mind, one must assume there is some relevance to reality. Also one could claim that God (assuming He exists) defies our meager definitions.

 

[T-mac01]

why? this makes quite logical sense

a primitive man who could reach higher up than other primitive men , by pushing himself onto two feet, would get these abundant resources (fruit say) found in higher places that are only available to him. then if for some reason the food at ground level became scarce, his other primitive man brothers who could not reach up high would die out and only the ones who could reach higher up to get fruit could survive.

further more, standing on two legs could have other advantages, includign a show of strength to scare away other primitive men etc. again the stronger would survive.

the problem you seem to have is that you havent grasped the conept of evolution yet. no ones saying that just because you reach for something that your body will change. they are saying that in every person tehre are mutations, and if one of these led to a primitive man being able to position himself even a little bit more upright, it would be advantaegous to him and he would be more likely to survive and carry on his genes than his brothers.

hahahaha
Ok I'm not going to completely disagree with "your" concept of evolution. But I don't see how "men being able to position himself even a little bit more upright, it would be advantageous to him and he would be more likely to survive and carry on his genes than his brothers" would make these men dramatically increase their own chances of survival. There are reasons like considering if we had the mind set of an ape having a body like ours, we would not simply be able to survive with our height advantage.
So these mutations like you've mentioned would not make a difference to have eventually wiped out all the hunch backed apes.
Also, as if we are tall enough to be able to reach fruits from trees anyway.

You'll probably argue that there are other ways to survive. That then would mean the straighter spine theory is false.

Also, if those that have straighter backs do survive. That would mean all the female apes would want to mate with that man ape. That is just self-explanatory. These female apes could range whatever you can think of. But even if they do mate, it doesn't mean those baby apes would come out 100% as "the straighter backed apes". Probably 50% due to the genetic theory. I don't know.

As I'm typing all these crap, I can't help myself cracking up.

So please, guys. If you want to use science to argue, just don't use the human revolutionary process theory. It's really degrading to our science.

hahhaha God will be pissed. The humans being created think they were apes. Hhahahahahahaha

 

[EraserDust]

Does God exist? Why not?

You have articulated my views better than I myself ever could.

Say spadijer, your comment inspired me to backtrack this thread and read over your views on the matter. Freaking long post on page 224, yet an intriguing read nonetheless. Plus I'm glad if I managed to clarify your views in my previous post.

Maybe I should state my position of belief too: using faith as a means to escape nihilism, the crazy coward that I am.

I believe in the Christian God construct because it is absurd (try doublethink). So I can honestly say that I personally experience God’s love, but since this feeling is indeed a mere delusion constructed by my own mind, I still hold that a life full of imaginary love is better than one consisting of logical apathy.

Even though I may be rationally convinced that this godly love I feel is only an illusion, I’d say that it has actually served to enrich my temporary earthbound life. Now if there is no God, then those who foolishly believe in Him will share the same fate as those who reasonably don’t. Simply ceasing to exist – an eternity of absolutely nothing.

 

[c_james]

I'm about to sleep, but just reading the last couple of pages of this thread has seriously disturbed me. There really are people out there who think God is some puppetmaster controlling every single event, no matter how miniscule, contradictory or whatnot. Even worse, we have people who believe in what is, for lack of better words, bizarre shit that flies in the face of all human reason (not mentioning any names). There's something seriously with this world, and that's evident from a quick browse of this thread. Theocracy is the next natural step; heck, it's already happened in the US. I shudder.

/endrant.

 

[The Logical One]

The universe doesn't have to have "popped out of nowhere". To propose an idea: it could simply be an eternal cycle of big bang, big shrink, big bang, big shrink ad infinitum. In this case the universe is all that ever has been or will be. While this may be a matter of dodgy intuition I suspect at some base level (be it energy or otherwise) there is some fundamental 'unit' which is eternal. This unit seems to have a nature not to dissimilar to what you call god. If god is to be the creator of everything then it is necessary that noone created god, so I find it safe to suppose that such a god is eternal and has always existed. Scientists have eternal particles, strings and vacuum fluctuations and theists have a sentient being.

The appeal of the concept 'god' is a very understandable thing. We crave meaning and rationality. Indeed, a lot of what you said above reads like an existential crisis resolved by postulating the existence of god. While it might 'make more sense', in an intuitive or an idealistic manner, that there is a sentient being conducting the movements of our universe, I don't think it provides a very logical foundation for god's existence. In a way it seems like wishful thinking - I know that I would prefer it if there were a god and some form of afterlife but as of yet I am unable to bring myself to believe in such things. One of the main things I wish to question is your premise that life must possess inherent meaning - why must this be the case? Can we not first exist and then define what which we are, giving ourselves meaning?

Our intuition yields many fruits, but it has been knocked back by science again and again. A universal speed limit of 'c'? Particle behavior mediated by probability alone? Quantum mechanics is so vastly counter-intuitive and yet we can use it to make accurate predictions and to make technology that works. Historically it would seem that what makes most sense isn't necessarily the best measure of how things must be.

All I can say is excellent post, I easily can subscribe to your logic. I agree, what seems to be the most logical may not be the answer, but untill I can find a more logical explanation or somebody else does, I'm not going to subscribe to a belief which is less logical in its entirety.

In my logic it is more likely that our universe was created by an entity of another universe then not.

Here is what I believe to be true which has led me to think this way.

-The universe which we live in was at some moment in time started, prior to that it was nothing. Basically after a universe has started it will never end and here is my reasoning as to why;

All universe (there is logically an infinite ammount since nothing has existed for and infinite amount of time) are bound by laws. In our universe everything happens to protect energy, it's like the stars forming, and dying and everything is only happening to protect the balanced ammount of energy which we have, it never lessens it never increases. Therefore logically It would seem that they exist only to support the law of energy. Let's say there a blackboard, well you have to imagine this blackboard as nothing not bound by rules of physics and what not. The blackboard would represent a universe, and I wrote down the first law of the universe in the middle. "There is exactly 2 bars of chocolate", instantly the universe would begin transforming and changing to produce the 2 bars of chocolate, if to create 2 bars of chocolate you need factories, and nuts and cocoa, all of that will happen. The universe would shift and turn untill everything was put in place for these 2 bars of chocolate to be made, but never 3. Everything (however illogical) would exist just to make it so that these 2 chocolates exist. It's hard to process but it is the way that the universe works, after the first law is defined nothing else can alter it's destiny. For eternity those 2 bars of chocolate will exist, and if something happened which could destroy this balance, a new law which governed the universe would exist to compment the first so that the balance of the 2 chocolate bars existing could not be disturbed. Now, to answer some century old questions. If the space needed to make these 2 chocolate bars was a 2 metre long cube (squares are universal) then how big would the universe be? It would still be infinite. All universes are infinite. Anywhere which you go away from the cube the same laws which exist in that universe exist. But, if the universe is infinite how can something have a position? Well imagine it as nothingness, that's what the universe is after what exists to protect the laws and before the laws existed, just infinite nothingness.

Lets take our universe for instance, when metal is heated to a particular temperature it will form light (as the activation level chenges bla bla) even if you travelled out of the universe which has seen matter in any direction for as far as possible this law will be true. It's because it protects the idea that "energy exists".

In our universe the 'first law' is, energy exists and there is a finite ammount. (I think) All the laws exists basically to protect the ammount of energy which exists, anything which we do as humans could not alter this, we could never lower or increase the ammount of energy which exists in our universe, and all the laws which ecist exist to protect the ammount of energy. eg(gravity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, everything).

That brings us to our question, what created the first law? Other universes (much simpler ones) could come into existance naturally, but they are much more unstable and less complicated. Which is hard to understand, and even harder to explain. The infinite ammount of these universes could be how "God" came to exist. If God exists in this way he would only be bound by the laws of its universe. It might just be an entity which as apart of the laws it is bound by be forced to 'create' laws which are just 'random' and we're the result of one of these. (just by the complexity of our universe with its bilateral self-supporting laws which all protect energy).

I know you may think that all of this is irrational but the image which is created seems to be the most logical. It's just my opinion though, so feel free to criticise it.

 

[maria1]

ofcourse god exist. i mean if he didnt exist, how would this world come about, this world wasnt created by humans lol. but seriously look around you, look at nature. who would create such beautiful things. um the answer to that is god.

 

[The Logical One]

ofcourse god exist. i mean if he didnt exist, how would this world come about, this world wasnt created by humans lol. but seriously look around you, look at nature. who would create such beautiful things. um the answer to that is god.

Life is beautiful, nothing else.

 

[gerhard]

hahahaha
Ok I'm not going to completely disagree with "your" concept of evolution. But I don't see how "men being able to position himself even a little bit more upright, it would be advantageous to him and he would be more likely to survive and carry on his genes than his brothers" would make these men dramatically increase their own chances of survival. There are reasons like considering if we had the mind set of an ape having a body like ours, we would not simply be able to survive with our height advantage.
So these mutations like you've mentioned would not make a difference to have eventually wiped out all the hunch backed apes.
Also, as if we are tall enough to be able to reach fruits from trees anyway.

I think the problem is that youre thinking this all happens in like 200 years or one generation, instead of over tens or hundreds of thousands of years. All having a straighter back has to do is give a slight advantage for it to be genetically favourable. If it gave primitive man an extra 1% chance of survival, then these primitive man would get to live longer and have more children, who would have some percentage chance of having this advantage, and those children which had the advantage would also have an extra 1% chance of survival and so on.

Also the idea is that some event has occurred which has meant that those apes which cannot reach higher have died out. eg maybe some other animal has come in and eaten all the food available at lower levels, maybe a natural disaster, whatever.

Also, if those that have straighter backs do survive. That would mean all the female apes would want to mate with that man ape. That is just self-explanatory. These female apes could range whatever you can think of. But even if they do mate, it doesn't mean those baby apes would come out 100% as "the straighter backed apes". Probably 50% due to the genetic theory. I don't know.

I If all the female apes (we are exchanging the word ape for primitive man here im assuming) want to mate with the straighter back ape, then the male will probably mate with all of them. This would increase the amount of straighter backed apes being born in the future. The children dont need to be all straighter backed, they just need to be have a chance of being so.

As I'm typing all these crap, I can't help myself cracking up.

So please, guys. If you want to use science to argue, just don't use the human revolutionary process theory. It's really degrading to our science.

hahhaha God will be pissed. The humans being created think they were apes. Hhahahahahahaha

This is just embarrassing. If you have a point to make, say it. If you want to pretend you are superior to reasoned argument please do not post here.

 

[EraserDust]

Even worse, we have people who believe in what is, for lack of better words, bizarre shit that flies in the face of all human reason (not mentioning any names).

If what someone believes is bizarre by another's reason, then why should they claim otherwise? Human reason has its limits within the subjective mind. Your interpretation of the world is certainly not flawless (nor prominately objective). Neither is mine. BA Philosophy will allow you to rationally investigate such matters, but towards what meaning apart from the love of wisdom?

I realise you have heaps of other posts earlier in this thread, I'll only common on the more recent:

Or it could just be that the question is necessarily indeterminable.

If you think the answer to God's existence is necessarily indeterminable, then you never will find a valid answer in opposition, since you've already settled on a fixed premise. Of course you only stated it as a potential, leaving possibility open, an agnostic stance.

People are here to discuss the intellectual question of whether or not God exists, not the spiritual one.

Assumedly the spiritual aspect of God is fully entwined with that of the intellectual one. Separate them and you are no longer discussing God as a whole concept, you are instead discussing your personal mental image of God on an intellectual basis (which by all understanding could be a contradictory image such as a toaster, just waiting for you to debase it using your prime intellect). Fair enough it was an analogy.

There's something seriously with this world, and that's evident from a quick browse of this thread.

O RLY? I'd assume you meant to include the words "wrong" or "insane" there.

Theocracy is the next natural step

IMO politics and religion shouldn't mix. Agreed.

EDIT- by the way I forgot to say thanks for that enlightening rant and other posts.

 

[KFunk]

Also spadijer, this is as pointless an exercise as any exercise at all. Eventually you'll die and be no worse off for having posted that comment earlier. Same here. Anyways as with Wittgenstein's words, also consider Pascal's Wager: it is always better to believe God exists, since the expected value gained from belief is always greater than the expected value obtained from unbelief.

On Pascal's Wager: He doesn't seem to take into account enough of the possible negative outcomes of religious belief (I posted a while go on the danger of false belief). However, I suppose one could argue that on average the value gained from belief is greater. In any case, I simply can't agree with the argument that the value of such belief is always greater than that of disbelief.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

If what someone believes is bizarre by another's reason, then why should they claim otherwise? Human reason has its limits within the subjective mind. Your interpretation of the world is certainly not flawless (nor prominately objective).

Is this how all debates should be settled? I really consider this sort of thinking (when brought up all the time) to be the ultimate cop-out. I can essentially just invent any fanciful idea in my head to explain away anything.

I think we have these choices:

#1 - Say that nothing supernatural exists. The main positive of this sort of view is that it removes the huge problems which we encounter if we accept that the supernatural does exist. I'd say it's fairly logical given that we have no evidence of the supernatural. I think it's basically the same as this example:

If in 1603 you claimed there were no black swans (based on your knowledge at the time) then you were being logical, even if ultimately it turns out there are black swans.

The problem with it is that while you can hold this view and still acknowledge maybe that it is ultimately truth that you cannot know either way, some people may have a problem with basing 'truth' on what best you currently do know.

#2- Believe in all supernatural things. Firstly, you have no evidence to believe in these things, so on the contrary to the example in #1, you're in essence believing that black swans exist before there is proof. This makes your world an extremely turblulent, confusing place.

#3- Believe in some supernatural things. The problem with this is that you're picking some (or one) supernatural thing over another, when they all have equal amounts of evidence for them.

#4- I am not sure. While agnosticism is obviously the most easily justifiable position on any debate, I would challenge those whom claim to hold this position to truthfully say that they are not sure about everything. Being unsure about the existance of the supernatural essentially means everything in your world is potentially uncertain E.g. What if you're in a dream-state brought on by the evil lord Xenu?.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

On Pascal's Wager: He doesn't seem to take into account enough of the possible negative outcomes of religious belief (I posted a while go on the danger of false belief). However, I suppose one could argue that on average the value gained from belief is greater. In any case, I simply can't agree with the argument that the value of such belief is always greater than that of disbelief.

Another problem is that if you're simply believing in order to reap some reward, according to most religions I imagine God won't be happy.