Does God exist?

[Thunderbird]

 

No, a person who knows his opinions are meaningless. A person who looks dispatently at the evidence. A person who knows that belief changes nothing. In other words a scientist.

In the realm of science,... true, but outside those contraints of logic belief, or faith in certain human Potentialities of good unselfish acts can be powerfully creative, and inexplicable as a force of nature.

[questor]

Have any of you compared your arguments against the existence of God with your arguments in favor of the existence of alien space ships? I guess all human beings have their own unprovable myth to believe in.

[Thunderbird]

Have any of you compared your arguments against the existence of God with your arguments in favor of the existence of alien space ships? I guess all human beings have their own unprovable myth to believe in.

No evidence for ether, and yes, the improvable myths are very powerful as a creative force if one believes in it. A really good one anyway. They have shaped the foundations of our society. Have you ever considered that.

[modest]

Have any of you compared your arguments against the existence of God with your arguments in favor of the existence of alien space ships? I guess all human beings have their own unprovable myth to believe in.

 

Recognize that unprovable =/= unproven and it will make more sense.

 

~modest

[Moontanman]

Have any of you compared your arguments against the existence of God with your arguments in favor of the existence of alien space ships? I guess all human beings have their own unprovable myth to believe in.

 

Questor, science neither argues for or against the idea of god, it just state that god cannot be defined by or proved by science. Science has no idea if god is real and no way of proving it or disproving it. It's the bible thumpers who claim that the bible negates science who have the problem. One thing is for sure there are no radar sightings of god, no realistic photographs, no multiple observer sightings. god occupies the realm of belief, the supernatural. God is defined by belief not proof, if you require proof to believe in god then you have no belief.

[REASON]

can science tell you what vanillia tastes like?

 

Science may not be able to tell you what vanilla tastes like but I sure can.....

 

.....It tastes like vanilla.

 

Raise your hand if you understand what I mean when I say, "it tastes like vanilla."

 

We can all sample vanilla and understand what it tastes like. That's because vanilla flavor actually exists.

 

Now I could present you with a white piece of candy that I said was vanilla flavored and if you trusted me, you might believe that it was. But when you put it in your mouth and discovered it was actually coconut flavored, would you still believe it tasted like vanilla simply because I said so, and you had trusted me?

[questor]

I do not argue for the existence of God in the context generally used. I do argue for the existence of a creator of the universe, whatever that force turns out to be, and whatever name you put upon it. This concept is quite difficult for many to grasp. I offer as evidence the universe itself. Since there is absolutely NO evidence that UFO's are spaceships piloted by ET's, I see no reason to think that concept has any validity. I don't waste my time thinking about occurrences which may be simple natural phenomenae or tricks of vision. I spend more time thinking about what could have caused such a

phenomenal and supernatural event as the birth of our universe.

[modest]

I do argue for the existence of a creator of the universe, whatever that force turns out to be, and whatever name you put upon it. This concept is quite difficult for many to grasp.

 

Difficult to grasp? Honestly?

 

Quite the opposite - the idea that the universe must have a cause is not difficult - and saying that it's a fact that has evidence is a knee jerk reaction that's depthless.

 

Pull that idea back even one or two layers and it completely falls apart. Cause and effect is a human concept that applies to things in the universe. We see cause and we expect effect. We see effect and we know cause. It is built on time and causality which are themselves part of our universe.

 

Then you say a priori that the universe must have a cause. This is just flat out wrong. The universe is everything we know including time and cause and effect. You are saying "before cause and effect, there was a cause" which is senseless. You are saying something preceded time. That's not something you can prove or rationalize because it's completely illogical.

 

I understand if it's something you believe (that the universe was created). It's a common belief. It has a name: deism. I have deistic friends. There's a deistic moderator of this very forum. It's a fine belief and I have nothing against it - but it is neither anything you can prove nor is it "difficult to grasp".

 

~modest

[questor]

Here we go again. I did not say I believe in deities of any sort. Deism ( from Wikipedia) '' Deism is the theistic belief that a supreme God exists and created the physical universe, but shall not intervene in its normal operation. It is related to a religious philosophy and movement that claims to derive the existence and nature of God from reason. It takes no position on what God may do outside the universe. '' You said:

''I understand if it's something you believe (that the universe was created). It's a common belief. It has a name: deism. I have deistic friends.''

I said I do not argue for the existence of God, or any deity. This , as has just been shown by your post, is difficult for people to grasp. Why would a force powerful enough to create the universe have anything to do with man's religion? Why would a creating force care about any of man's thoughts or activities?

As to causality, that is a different subject. Can you think of any chemical reaction, molecular or particle movement or any occurrence that does not have a cause? Keep in mind, we are not discussing God being the cause.

[modest]

I said I do not argue for the existence of God, or any deity. This , as has just been shown by your post, is difficult for people to grasp.

 

You've already played your cards questor:

 

3. If the universe was created by some force, this force could be described as a creator.

 

What you call a "creator" is, in fact, no different from the deistic concept of god.

 

Why would a force powerful enough to create the universe have anything to do with man's religion? Why would a creating force care about any of man's thoughts or activities?

 

This is exactly deistic. And, by the way, I agree. If there was a creator of our universe it seems incredibly unlikely that he/she/it/creative force/creator/force of creation/X is at all interested in our affairs.

 

As to causality, that is a different subject. Can you think of any chemical reaction, molecular or particle movement or any occurrence that does not have a cause?

 

Can you think of any outside the universe that have a cause? It is your position - it's up to you to put some logic behind it. Logically tell me how time works before there was time. I dare ya.

 

~modest

[questor]

Modest, ''Can you think of any outside the universe that have a cause? It is your position - it's up to you to put some logic behind it. Logically tell me how time works before there was time. I dare ya.

 

I don't understand the first question. As to the one about time.. logically you tell me how time works right now, while we are in the midst of it. How do you know there was a time before time?

The question from me was..tell me anything you are aware of that does not have a cause. If there is nothing you can think of, then perhaps it makes sense to surmise that since the universe exists, something must have created it or caused it. I am not saying it was a God or a deity. If the universe was not created, what caused it to be. If man did not exist, the idea of God or deities would not exist.

[modest]

Questor,

 

I've found your argument very well summarized on Wikipedia's Cosmological argument page. It also summarizes my position to some small degree:

 

causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and showed that causal relations were not true a priori (deductively). Even though causality applies to the known world, it does not necessarily apply to the Universe at large. In other words, it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience.

 

I've also found your argument made by the Deist Thomas Hobbes in the early 1600's:

 

The effects we acknowledge naturally, do include a power of their producing, before they were produced; and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such power; and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it were not eternal, must needs have been produced by somewhat before it, and that again by something else before that, till we come to an eternal, that is to say, the first power of all powers and first cause of all causes; and this is it which all men conceive by the name of God, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotence.

 

– Thomas Hobbes, Works, vol. 4, pp. 59-60; quoted in John Orr, English Deism, p. 76

 

This seems to me nearly identical in substance to your argument made 400 years ago. I don't mean to subtract from your personal discovery of this concept--but I do mean to detract heavily from your insistence than no one gets your argument. People have been getting it for half a millennium if not more.

 

Furthermore, your response to my latest post:

I don't understand the first question. As to the one about time.. logically you tell me how time works right now, while we are in the midst of it. How do you know there was a time before time?

The question from me was..tell me anything you are aware of that does not have a cause. If there is nothing you can think of, then perhaps it makes sense to surmise that since the universe exists, something must have created it or caused it. I am not saying it was a God or a deity. If the universe was not created, what caused it to be. If man did not exist, the idea of God or deities would not exist.

shows no understanding of my objection to this argument.

 

I know you are not calling the creator "god" and I know you claim no personal relationship with the force of creation - whatever that is. You are only claiming that something had to create the universe. It needed a cause.

 

Now understand - I'm not saying a cause makes no sense. I'm not saying a 'creation event' is impossible. I'm simply saying it's impossible to prove. The workings of the universe (cause and effect) cannot be assumed to be the same or equal or valid outside or before the universe. In fact, how can there even be a human understanding of "before the universe" when time itself is a concept of the universe? Cause and effect cannot be used to prove cause apart from the universe. It can't be done.

 

~modest

[questor]

If the sum of your argument is that we cannot prove causality, I agree. If the universe is derived from a big bang and the same elements exist throughout the universe, and everything we can observe has a cause and effect, it would be natural and logical to ASSUME the birth of the universe was caused. If it was not caused, what are the alternatives? If it has always existed, there was not a big bang.

[modest]

If the sum of your argument is that we cannot prove causality, I agree. If the universe is derived from a big bang and the same elements exist throughout the universe, and everything we can observe has a cause and effect, it would be natural and logical to ASSUME the birth of the universe was caused. If it was not caused, what are the alternatives? If it has always existed, there was not a big bang.

 

This leads directly to my second objection. If we assume the universe was 'caused' by a 'creator' then we should logically also assume the creator needed causing and that creator needed causing and on and on in an infinite regression.

 

What this eventually boils down to is the *fact* that there is something and there is not nothing and the *assumption* that this something which we live in needed help getting here from nothing. But, I think this is a bad assumption. It is no better (and I think worse) to assume there was a creator who turned nothing into something rather than something simply being or something coming from nothing with no help.

 

If you follow this line of reasoning it's rather clear that postulating a creator or a force of creation that existed before our universe doesn't solve the problem we are otherwise perplexed by. All it does is transfer the problem to something else.

 

While the above makes good sense to me, I have a feeling it reads like gibberish - yet I can think of no better way to say it. So, if it doesn't make sense to you, please read this link:

 

Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

~modest

[questor]

Yes, we have a conundrum. It is logical for me to believe there was a cause for the universe, since everything in it has a cause ( as far as we know). The rest of the riddle is tougher... what caused the cause? Was the cause always there? Does the cause still exist? Does the cause follow physical laws or make physical laws? I have no answer to these questions, but it does make one consider the supernatural. I'm sure many minds have wrestled with these questions. I was an atheist for many years, and I do not believe in the dogma of man-made religions or worship a deity, but I do question how the universe could exist as it is without some supreme intelligence at the wheel.

[Moontanman]

Yes, we have a conundrum. It is logical for me to believe there was a cause for the universe, since everything in it has a cause ( as far as we know). The rest of the riddle is tougher... what caused the cause? Was the cause always there? Does the cause still exist? Does the cause follow physical laws or make physical laws? I have no answer to these questions, but it does make one consider the supernatural. I'm sure many minds have wrestled with these questions. I was an atheist for many years, and I do not believe in the dogma of man-made religions or worship a deity, but I do question how the universe could exist as it is without some supreme intelligence at the wheel.

 

 

And they say M-Theory is just speculation:doh:

[questor]

Moon, if you have the answers or a better theory, speak up. What does string theory say about the origin of the universe?