Arguments for (or against) the existence of God

[unformed 0]

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I think that all organized religions have committed infinite atrocities in the name of God, and I can't believe that if God exists all the evil done in his name is appreciated.

I highly doubt Buddhism has. Maybe it has, I'm not sure. But Buddhists are by far one of the most peaceful and accepting people of all religions. Buddhism is more of a way of life than a religion.

Me, however, I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. There is a difference.

This ad space for sale.

[happythoughts 0]

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If Chuteless was a well-recognized, credible historian

So only well-recognized, credible historians can verify the existance of someone/something?

These darned historians know about history. So, if someone wants to know about history, that is the direction that I point them in. Just trying to help you out in your search for historical knowledge.

[livendive 8]

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Lewis went on to remark that humans are comprised of much the same material, and act as both producers and consumers of energy, running at about 120W per person, which is quite a bit of electrical power, when one stops to consider it.

Anyway, when the vehicle which converts and sustains that energy has gone, that energy, as recognized and acknowledged in the common laws of physics, must go somewhere.

I don't get it. Parts of my car produce energy and parts of my car consume energy. When I turn it off, the energy doesn't just disappear or go to heaven or any such thing...production and consumption stop simultaneously, leaving mass that represents potential energy until it is restarted. Why do you believe human bodies don't go through a similar process when they are shut down?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[tunaplanet 0]

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Just trying to help you out in your search for historical knowledge.

So can you sit and tell me for 100% certainty that Flavius Josephus never lied about anything? All historians are never guilty of slanting/misrepresenting their "facts"?

I'm good on historical knowledge. What I'm looking for is some concrete proof that he existed...not one person's word that he did or not.

Any physical evidence?

Forty-two

[PhillyKev 0]

Interesting that you use "physical evidence" as the burden of proof for a well documented historical figure. But hearsay and lack of any physical evidence doesn't change your mind about WMD in Iraq.

[tunaplanet 0]

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WMD in Iraq.

If you want to discuss that start a thread and we'll debate it. This thread, however, is about the existance of God.

Apples and oranges by the way on your analogy. You can do better than that.

Forty-two

[PhillyKev 0]

Wasn't trying to start a conversation on that subject. Trying to figure out if you adjust your burden of proof to suit your pre-suppositions.

[tunaplanet 0]

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Trying to figure out if you adjust your burden of proof to suit your pre-suppositions.

Again, not what this thread is pertaining to. If you want to talk about that start a thread about that as well.

Forty-two

[happythoughts 0]

Physical evidence. How? I don't think that is possible.

A grave site? How do you know it would be his? Because some historian said so?

How do we know that Hitler is dead? Dental records? Where did we get them? From Hitlers dentist? His Army records? The army that he controlled? Easiest deception in the world to pull off.

There is no totally perfect evidence that any non-living person every existed at any time. It is just the word of historians, or the word of other witnesses.

Given a criteria of perfection, I can't prove that anyone ever existed. Of course, I've never met you either.

[marcandalysse 0]

Buddha was asked about the existance of God.

His teachings were always about ways to live life in harmony, and peaceful understanding of self, others, surroundings. So he never talked about 'God'.

His questioner insisted on an answer. Buddha replied:

"If you were wounded by an arrow, would you first ask 'where did that come from', 'who shot that arrow'?? No, the first thing you would do is pull out the arrow and treat the wounds."

Lots of ways to interpret this story from the sutras, but I think he was trying to say that spending our energy on living a good life would be more beneficial than pondering esoteric mystical metaphysical questions....

Peace!
marc

"The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly." --GK Chesterton

[PhillyKev 0]

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Trying to figure out if you adjust your burden of proof to suit your pre-suppositions.

Again, not what this thread is pertaining to. If you want to talk about that start a thread about that as well.

Funny thing is, I get to not do what you say.

[Casurf1978 0]

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Any physical evidence?

We have no physical proof for a lot of ancient historical figures, do you doubt they existed. What proof do you need for Jesus? An engraved coin with his profile. His bones. Also Josephus was not a follower of Jesus so how could he slant his views? Secondly he only mentions Jesus twice. Once mentioning that 'james brother of christ' was stoned to death. Dont take the literal meaning of brother here since in those times brother could also mean cousin. The second time he mentions Jesus and his followers. Neither view seems slanted, just simple entrys from a historian.

You're also questioning the word of one of the most prominent ancient historians. He was an advisor to Emperor Vespasian one of the few good emperors Rome ever had. Hell he had to bring stability to Rome after Nero.

[brits17 0]

Since this is questioning the existence of God, not any certain belief, here is one argument for.

The famous skeptic David Hume quoted "But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause." - from The Letters of David Hume

One of contemporary philosophy's most prominent atheists Kai Nielsen once said "Suppose you suddenly hear a loud bang... and you ask me, 'What made that bang?' and I reply, 'Nothing it just happened.' You would not accept that."

This is an example of how God makes sense of the universe's origin. Other reasons are 1- God makes sense of the universe's complexity (more scientific type evidence) and 2- God makes sense of objective moral values. Its late and I'm tired though. Maybe I'll type em out tomorrow.

_______________________
aerialkinetics.com

[Botellines 0]

Is god or Jesus on video? because if they are not on video, they didn´t happen.

[freeflybella 0]

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Who wants to know about a poor Palestinian Jew. For historians of that era Jesus was just a 'speck' on the radar, not even worth mentioning. Dont take this as an attack on Christians, or Jesus. I'm just saying back then he was not important enough to write about.

Back then there was no internet, no televised news, no world newspapers.

People barely knew anything outside of their own house, much less their own city/town. Anything new or different was considered 'horrifying' or 'amazing'.

What would people today think if they saw video on the internet showing a guy turning water into wine? And why don't we think it's a miracle that we can feed entire countries of starving people with a few bags of grain?

For me, faith is necessary to continue living. Faith in what? How should I know? I don't have religion and I don't have a 'god'.

But I have faith.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[tunaplanet 0]

So far we have no concrete evidence or proof. Hmmmmmmm.

Forty-two

[sunman 0]

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http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.mv

Thanks for that. I just found a new favorite web site.

[brits17 0]

It seems many skeptics want visible proof. Have I seen God? No.

I've never seen my congressman. Though I can't deny that he exists. I've seen his legislation pass, I've seen his name on the ballot list.
In the same way, I can't deny that God exists.

Objective Values
If there is no God, then moral values are merely the products of socio-biological evolution. Or if there is no God, then morality is just a matter of personal taste. To say that the act of killing innocent children is wrong would just be an expression of taste saying, "I don't like the act of killing innocent children."
Of course, anyone can look at that statement and agree, there exists objective moral values.
On the atheistic view, some action such as rape may not be socially advantageous, and therefore it has become taboo in the course of human development. But that doesn't prove that rape is really wrong. In fact, its conceivable that rape could have evolved as something that's advantageous for the survival of the species. Thus, without God there is no absolute right and wrong which imposes itself on our conscience. Such things such as love, equality, and self-sacrifice are good in an objective sense.

Universe complexity
From Stephen Hawkings A history of Time he quotes "if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball."

British physicist PC Davies has concluded the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for the formation of stars - a necessity for planets and thus, life - is a one followed by at least a thousand billion billion zeroes.
Our universe seems to be fine-tuned (for intelligent life), because any small changes in the 20 or so physical constants would make it very different, and presumably not hospitable to intelligent life. For example, stars would not be able to fuse hydrogen and helium if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, or if the strength of the strong nuclear force had been only 2% greater diprotons would be stable and hydrogen would fuse too easily.

Another related source of astonishment is that the early universe had a very low entropy, a very unlikely situation: statistical mechanics says that the most probable state of matter has a very high entropy, a state where life is not possible. The universe is now going towards that state, according to the second law of thermodynamics, resulting eventually in heat death. This paradox can be treated in the same way as fine-tuning.

I'm done typing for the night. The conditions weren't correct for a fixed object jump, so I decided to get philosophical instead (references for some text available upon request )

_______________________
aerialkinetics.com

[Zenister 0]

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From Stephen Hawkings A history of Time he quotes "if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball."

of course there is no way to know how many times this did happen before conditions were right... as there would have been no one around to observe the failures and no system to measure their number or the amount of 'time' before the success.

if i roll the billion sided die often enough eventually i will get a 1.

edit: silly spelling

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[billvon 2,476]

>British physicist PC Davies has concluded the odds against the initial
>conditions being suitable for the formation of stars - a necessity for
> planets and thus, life - is a one followed by at least a thousand
> billion billion zeroes.

Agreed; however, that may also mean that out of the thousand billion billion universes, we only came to be in this one, because this was the one where all the constants worked out just right.

>Our universe seems to be fine-tuned (for intelligent life), because
> any small changes in the 20 or so physical constants would make it
> very different, and presumably not hospitable to intelligent life.

That's a pretty big assumption! Life can't evolve as charges in a crystal? Or as a film on a neutron star? Or as a cloud of subatomic particles? _Our_ form of life needs those constants to be what they are; that doesn't mean we are the only kind of life that can exist.

> For example, stars would not be able to fuse hydrogen and helium
> if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different,
> or if the strength of the strong nuclear force had been only 2%
> greater diprotons would be stable and hydrogen would fuse too
> easily.

And we'd have a very different universe, a universe in which a different sort of life would be favored.

[brits17 0]

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That's a pretty big assumption! Life can't evolve as charges in a crystal? Or as a film on a neutron star? Or as a cloud of subatomic particles? _Our_ form of life needs those constants to be what they are; that doesn't mean we are the only kind of life that can exist.

i agree. i didn't say we were the only kind of life. just the only known intelligent life.

of course i didn't list all reasons, that would be a book. but i just threw a few out there. the circumstances in my opinion, are pretty mind boggling. i suppose some don't see it that way and that's ok too.

_______________________
aerialkinetics.com

[happythoughts 0]

Universe complexity. If people see a car, they reason, "A car is complex and could not have just come into existence. Somoone must have created the car." Good reasoning for a "prime mover", the creator that put into motion.

Same argument for the universe. Either the universe has a "creator" or it has existed forever. Infinity is a hard concept to grasp. The idea that it has always existed.

Here is the problem - If you accept that there is no infinite existence, then there must be a "creator" for all things. The universe had one then. Of course, as car is created by a more complex being (man), and the universe has a more complex creator (God).

So, how did God come into existence? No creator? Around for an infinite amount of time?

That is the problem. At some point, there has to be something that has been around for an infinite amount of time. I don't believe that it is an all-powerful deity. It is just the universe.

[rehmwa 2]

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Chuteless mentioned Jesus a few times. Does that therefor mean he exists?

I'm pretty sure Chuteless exists.

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Marc - I think he was trying to say that spending our energy on living a good life would be more beneficial than pondering esoteric mystical metaphysical questions....

Very nice and more to the point.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[skydyvr 0]

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At some point, there has to be something that has been around for an infinite amount of time.

Which corners us into one conclusion , regardless that we can't understand it: time doesn't really exist.

. . =(_8^(1)

[happythoughts 0]

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At some point, there has to be something that has been around for an infinite amount of time.

Which corners us into one conclusion , regardless that we can't understand it: time doesn't really exist.

"we can't understand it"

Exactly. Like when we didn't understand lightning, so that was Thors hammer striking the anvil and creating noise and sparks.

Things we don't understand. Very simple answers for very complex questions.