Does God exist? the definitive answer.

Tar.Aldarion

I think you are missing that I was really drunk.

gagga

Some might benefit from watching this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB2vmj8eyMk

Playboy

gagga wrote:

Some might benefit from watching this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB2vmj8eyMk

That show is crap! Dawkins is a prejudiced propogandist as every bit a fundemantalist as the people he is complaining.

gagga

Playboy wrote:

That show is crap! Dawkins is a prejudiced propogandist as every bit a fundemantalist as the people he is complaining.

Really? And what, pray tell, do you base this on? Please feel free to elaborate.

Playboy

gagga wrote:

Really? And what, pray tell, do you base this on? Please feel free to elaborate.

Dawkins rarely engages with anyone in the religious community of even moderate intelligence. He picks and chooses who he interviews very carefully and does his best to make the person look as unstable and irational as possible. He edits the documentary in such a way that we only hear from people what Dawkins wants us to hear. He sets up the straw men and knocks them down over and over again in this documentary and his writings. I dont have the time to trawl through his writings and have this debate again but imo people should take dawkins with a very large dose of scepticism.

Some articles here including a reply from dawkins if you are interested.

http://cis.org.uk/resources/dawkins.shtml

gagga

Dawkins rarely engages with anyone in the religious community of even moderate intelligence.

He picks and chooses who he interviews very carefully and does his best to make the person look as unstable and irational as possible.

I’d be interested to hear what your criteria is for what makes a person intelligent.

From what I can see those interviewed are far from being “moderately intelligent” and gave conversant, knowledgeable insights into their respective belief systems.

He edits the documentary in such a way that we only hear from people what Dawkins wants us to hear. He sets up the straw men and knocks them down over and over again in this documentary and his writings.

It is perfectly understandable and accepted within the industry that when making a documentary to support your point of view you edit it accordingly. Perfectly normal practise.

But in my estimation Mr Dawkins was more than reasonable to those interviewed.

I dont have the time to trawl through his writings and have this debate again but imo people should take dawkins with a very large dose of scepticism.

I respect your views but I feel your judgement of this man is unnecessarily harsh.

Some articles here including a reply from dawkins if you are interested.

http://cis.org.uk/resources/dawkins.shtml

Thank you for the link.

Playboy

I hope you get the time to read all the articles in that link. Might change your opinion slightly or at least give you some food for thought. I started my adventure with Dawkins very positively but as time progressed I came to to some very negative conclusions about the man and I'm not even slighhtly religious. What I expect from Dawkins is fair, open and honest debate even if the other side fail to deliver in that regard. For a person who champions truth he certainly knows how to abuse it imo.

j2u

amigaboy wrote:

IF He does interact then he does not think, and as it goes 'I think therefore I am'.


So to conclude, no God does not exist.



But what abou plants they move and function but they dont have a brain so as far as i know thet dont think but does that mean by your definition they dont exist??

Wazdakka

God does exist,
But he is limited to containment within the fragile human mind,
He has been created, He has been modified, And he will be destroyed depending on our needs.

God does exist, But only because he doesn't.


ie, It is my opinion that mankind seems to require belief or faith in some higher power to explain things that it does not yet understand. Perhaps its something pyscological, routed back to when we were children and our parents knew and understood everything we didnt. god, in whatever form that its believed as, is used by people to answer the questions they cannot.
"Why are we here?"
"What happens when we die?"
And god is even used to answer " How will we live?"

Looking back over history god or gods have changed drastically based on these questions. Rain and sunshine were required for crops to grow and the people to survive, so they worshipped the sun and the moon, and developed gods responsible for rainfall.

As society developed more man needed law and order to control itself, All of a sudden belief and apeasment wasnt enough, you had to live your entire life by the law of god.

God seems to be used as a stepping stone by man. Either a tool, a bridge, or an obsticle. Depending on your point of view.

A Tool that can be used for development and progression of a society or to stunt development and establish a strong power base.

A Bridge to be used as a "rest stop" until we posses a better understanding of what is going on around us.

An obsticle to those who wish to expand there knowledge, or further the development of the human race at any cost.


I feel sorry for those people out there that devote their entire life to the following of god.

But then again i think they feel sorry for me aswell...

~Waz~

amigaboy

The central argument against the existence of 'God' as presented to the world by major world religion's that I made is that Infinite Knowledge can only mean an entity that does not have the capacity to think, and that therefore does not, from an point of actuality, exist. I haven't seen anything that makes a strong case to the contrary.

While I agree that it is always possible for a God of some sort to exist, I must conclude based on this main point, as well as scores of other points made by the likes of Dawkins that there is no 'God'.

I've read some good points here, and many could in fact be right, but the arguments in favour of God's existence are only as good as those of the existence of the giant spaghetti monster.

The reality is, whether God does exist or not, that all religions are con' artists who's net contribution to humanity has been ignorance, fear, hatred and suffering, I am more concerned with ending these harmful influences on the world, as if God does exist surely he (or she!) would expect better of humanity.

johnnyskeleton

amigaboy wrote:

The reality is, whether God does exist or not, that all religions are con' artists who's net contribution to humanity has been ignorance, fear, hatred and suffering, I am more concerned with ending these harmful influences on the world, as if God does exist surely he (or she!) would expect better of humanity.

If I were a God, I wouldn't make myself known to the people I had created, nor would I care what they think of me. I find it hard to accept that a God who must by definition be more intelligent than me would be so desparate for me to like him.

I also agree with your spaghetti monster theory. My concept of how religions start is very similar to the plot of "The Life of Brian". People see what they want to see. That our God cares about us, is vaguely human shaped and will look after us for ever after, etc all conform to our basic desires. So too do God's ostensible demand that we don't kill each other, lie, steal, cheat or contradict people in authority over us, etc fit in nicely with how we want to organise our society.

I mention these things because they have led me to conclude that, quite apart from the question whether God exists, we as humans can never really know if God exists, or what the nature of God is, or how he likes his eggs in the morning.

But I view your argument with the same scepticism. You are inisting on things being true without substantial foundation, and you are also refusing to accept anyone else's logic. When you say "I haven't seen anything that makes a strong case to the contrary" it suggests to me that you are refusing to accept anything other than what you already believe.

But this is your theory as I see it:

Question: Is it possible for something to be all knowing in this universe?
and your answer:

If something is all knowing then it cannot think.

This does not make any kind of sense. In your original post you stated:

However in this Universe it is impossible for something to be all knowing.

and then 6 lines later:

If I was God I would not have to think about which model is the best I would just buy it because I would already know

emphasis added

So God is all knowing, he just cannot think. This is your argument. Then you seem to suggest that not thinking is equal to not existing. But that does not follow either:

Many things (as was pointed out earlier) such as tables exist but don't think. And if you want to know what an all knowing being thinks about, well, I would imagine he spends many hours contemplating his own unbelievable smugness and sense of self-satisfaction.

I don't think we can argue that god doesn't exist in absolute terms, because we cannot argue on an absolute level about anything (we humans are certainly not all knowing)

douglas adams wrote:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing". "But," says man "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't, QED." "Oh Dear," said God and dissappeared in a whisp of logic. Man then went on to prove that black was white and got killed on the next zebra crossing.

Seloth

One should not place god in the views of Logic
The above statement is my main response.

There is neither Proof of the Existance of God nor is there Proof that he does not exist.An article in the Popular BBC Focus,A Science and Technolagy Magazine or Science Journal if you prefer said there is no harm in Belivig in God and there's no harm not beliving in one so it's Probaly best to belive in one just in case.

Also If you read my post in There is no Evidense of God then it might make you think twice.

The Bible shouldent be used to Prove God Exists or dosent as it was written by man.The 7 days thing,Well we all know thats Bull and and the Vatican has opended up to Evolution and Astronamy.

If there is A God which I hope there is he Probaly only interacts with us when needed to but does not do it through the ways we think,For example Moses.

Recent research has show that A large volcanoe erupted during the supposed time Moses freed the Slaves.Most of his Miracles were a result to this,for instance,The Plague of the Frogs and locus,Well when St helens erupted in Washington the nearing Citys and towns were swarmed with instcts and frogs.The Nial Parting was the result of a minor tsunami,In the 1960 a Small Greek fishing village on a island witnessed it bay disappear,All the boats were on the sea bed,Fish were flopping away and not to long after the water return with a Minor Tsunami,This was the result of a minor eruptionfrom the same volcanoe.The black smoke he folloed with the slaves during the day and the shinig light he followed in the night,Well the Smoke was from the drift of the Ash cloud and the Lights were the haze.

Now some may say this is proof he did not do this,It was natural but you could also say that maby God did this so that would happen,Same with Noahs ark,The Story is based onfact but on a smaller scaled,Basicaly the Black Sea used to be much much smaller,A Glacier inbetween the Mediteraninan and the Black sea melted,The Black sea expanded destroying Hundreds of Towns and city's.A few months later a Turkish king greeted a large vessel at it's harbour,The ship was full of animals.When the king asked what happend the man replied,Sin has been washed away.One thing wrong with the story is that it happend 350 years before the apparent story of Noah but so what.We get allot of things wrong,We got Jesus Birthday wrong,His actualy one was around Spring time and he was born much earlyer or later than we precviously thought but there are Remaining Roman records of a Man Called Jesus who did great things found in Rome.Now to show Im not being one sided there were also other records of other people perfomring miracles but Jesus was ment to be the most powerful.

Now I do find my self thinking maby there isint a God,maby we just Rot in the ground.But then Other times I find my self the complete opposite.Forget the Church,Forget Priest and Nuns or what ever relgion you are apart of,The Most important thing is to decide for your self,The one thing which I find to be the most truth full is he gave us free will,This means we can make our own decisions.It what you belive,The Church is only a guide line,You must expand your thought not keep it into a small box

I belive in Both Science and God,If you say you are a scientist and do not belive in God then that is a false statment,As a scientist is open to all every theory no matter how far fetched they are.And when I say Scientist I dont mean the career I mean the people that say they only belive in Science yet it gets it wrong alot of the time,Even now the far fetched telepathy is being more accepted and certain evidenses are coming in its favor.

Religion is the main source of most of the wars in History,As I've said above,God gave us free will so do not use this to disapprove of a God.

And Id like yo pint out I know I made quite a few spelling errors but dont comment on that,Its what I'm saying that counts

p.s If you have Pal talk don't go into the Religion part as those Americans will just make you depresed.

p.p.s I sound like some crazy Preacher dont I

bonkey

Seloth wrote:

If you say you are a scientist and do not belive in God then that is a false statment,

I couldn't disagree more.

There was a rather good book pubolished recently entitled "what we believe but cannot yet prove". If we ignore the (hopefully obvious) flaw in the title (that you don't actually prove anything in science), the relevance should be clear: scientists can hold something to be true or false without being able to support that belief with scientific theory.

What they should not do is confuse such belief with a stance backed by scientific theory.

A scientist most certainly can no believe in God, just as they can believe there is a God, or believe that the jury is out on the subject. What they should recognise, however, is that those beliefs are non-scientific in nature and are therefore seperate to their scientific work.

Seloth

Sorry I put that Wrong.

What I ment to say is that If you are not at least open to the idea of God.


But yes that saying is still flawed but as I said,It is not the career or certain studies it is in genral the People who call them selfs scientists as the only belive in Science and notting else and are genraly not open to anything else.

But as I said in my post,Expand

Also Please don't get me Wrong as I've said above,Scientist have the right not be Atheist but as I've said above I'm not on about them.

Zillah

My main problem with the original post's argument is the following:

- The Abrahamic religions make it very clear that God is subject to nothing other than his own will. He is omnipotent. If he wills it he can make a paradox true. He could make it so that anything that isn't a paradox is untrue, were he in the mood.

He is, at no time, subject to any rules of any kind, including logic.

Now, I personally think this is a vacuous and theologically bankrupt position, but it is the position they hold and you can't beat it. All you can do is point out that they're almost definately wrong and that its an absolutely useless position to hold, but you can't outright counter it.

- Their philosophy "moves the goalposts" so to say. In response to your "God cannot think if he is omniscient" argument, they counter by pointing out that God has a mind beyond our understanding. No human being can fathom the means by which the mind of God functions. Or he doesn't have a mind, he has something else entirely.

I'd also like to point out that theology is like searching in a dark basement at night for a black cat that isn't there.

EDIT: Balls, didn't realise this was a ressurected thread.

Zillah

Seloth wrote:

there is no harm in Belivig in God and there's no harm not beliving in one so it's Probaly best to belive in one just in case.

Pascal's wager, generally considered a fallacy. It doesn't support the existence of God, so it has nothing to do with whether he exists or not. Its about whether to choose to believe or not, and one cannot choose to believe something, at most one can choose to pretend to believe.

Crucifix

Zillah wrote:

Its about whether to choose to believe or not, and one cannot choose to believe something, at most one can choose to pretend to believe.

Exactly. I hate Pascal's wager. Everybody always points out the problem of there being many 'One True Religions', but it's the above problem that irks me the most.
It seems to imply that you can either trick an omnipotent being, or that when you die, and face judgment, God would go "Well, you didn't really believe in me, but at least you lied to yourself and everyone you knew". It suggests that 'faith' is everything, and the way you lived your life meant nothing. Even as a heathen I find that concept of God abhorrant.

Seloth

When they said that they ment ((Well I think)) that it would be better to believe but they are not saying that you have to trick your self or pretend.They are just pointing it out.

Spectator#1

The following does not come from any book or any philosopher, save the one writing this post - me. If you are to use it please be sure to reference it back here to the author.

Oh ****! I've been using it for a few months now, got a job out of it and all. My book is on the press ready to go! I didn't realise you were that precious about it, I was just coming on to thank you!

I have two cars and a mansion, it's probably a bit late to bring you in on it now though. The legalities are only all straightened out. Here, do you want the end of this sandwich?

So... well done and all anyway. Mighty fine idea. Seeya 'round.

DublinWriter

amigaboy wrote:

IF He does interact then he does not think, and as it goes 'I think therefore I am'.

Nope, my take on Descarte's original thesis is the following:

"I think, therefore I think I am".

dan719

Seloth wrote:

If you say you are a scientist and do not belive in God then that is a false statment,As a scientist is open to all every theory no matter how far fetched they are.And when I say Scientist I dont mean the career I mean the people that say they only belive in Science yet it gets it wrong alot of the time,Even now the far fetched telepathy is being more accepted and certain evidenses are coming in its favor.

Well that is complete rubbish. Science is defined as the empirical study of the universe around us. That means it relies on the formulation of theories testable by experiment. The theory that there exists an all powerful being who can be everywhere simaltaneously is about as ridiculous and as ad hoc an idea as one could hope to formulate. The joy of science is we we do not have to accept it. We may not be able to 'prove' that god does not exist, in the same way you are unable to 'prove' that I have a pet dinosaur that no one else can see, which happens to speak fluent mandarin and enjoys cartwheels. But if you are a scientist, you certainly wouldn't take my claim seriously.

Dark Artist

dan719 wrote:

We may not be able to 'prove' that god does not exist, in the same way you are unable to 'prove' that I have a pet dinosaur that no one else can see, which happens to speak fluent mandarin and enjoys cartwheels.

That cracked me up!

The thing that keeps me from not believing in God is the fact that I'm actually here. It might not necessarily be Jesus Christ, but there must be something.

I see the world through my eyes, and feel the air on my skin, thanks to my brain, but what is the person inside made out of? And when I die, how can I just end? Even when we are asleep we are still seeing things, still dreaming.

How do I know that the world before I was born ever existed? How do I know that I myself am not God?

There is something going on that we cannot see and cannot 'physically' prove, but surely we have hope just going by the undeniable feeling that we ourselves are real and we will be here forever.

Spectator#1

dan719 wrote:

The theory that there exists an all powerful being who can be everywhere simaltaneously is about as ridiculous and as ad hoc an idea as one could hope to formulate. The joy of science is we we do not have to accept it. We may not be able to 'prove' that god does not exist, in the same way you are unable to 'prove' that I have a pet dinosaur that no one else can see, which happens to speak fluent mandarin and enjoys cartwheels. But if you are a scientist, you certainly wouldn't take my claim seriously.

It says more about you than anyone else if you can't distinguish belief in a deity from belief in a multi-lingual, gymnastic, invisible dinosaur.

As a scientist you don't have to take claims to a deity seriously because it doesn't matter to science whether or not there is a god. This is fine as far as I'm concerned for as long as scientists recognise ethical practice in their work.

Arguments for the existence or nonexistence of god have completely missed the point as far as I'm concerned, science and religion deal with human existence on two completely different levels. Nobody knows if there is such thing as god, you either have faith or you don't, end of story.

I don't think it detracts from people's lives too much if they don't believe in a god. It's more than possible to live a well ordered, good and happy life without faith. I do think, however, that this attitude that holds that because belief in a deity is ridiculous in terms of empirical science, it's to be ridiculed or patronised is an ignorant, obnoxious and laughable attitude as well.

I laugh at anyone who sneers at people who have faith as much as I laugh at people who use their faith as a pedestal to condescend, who don't properly understand what faith is. They are all as small-minded and petty as each other.

dan719

Spectator#1 wrote:

It says more about you than anyone else if you can't distinguish belief in a deity from belief in a multi-lingual, gymnastic, invisible dinosaur.

As a scientist you don't have to take claims to a deity seriously because it doesn't matter to science whether or not there is a god. This is fine as far as I'm concerned for as long as scientists recognise ethical practice in their work.

Arguments for the existence or nonexistence of god have completely missed the point as far as I'm concerned, science and religion deal with human existence on two completely different levels. Nobody knows if there is such thing as god, you either have faith or you don't, end of story.

I don't think it detracts from people's lives too much if they don't believe in a god. It's more than possible to live a well ordered, good and happy life without faith. I do think, however, that this attitude that holds that because belief in a deity is ridiculous in terms of empirical science, it's to be ridiculed or patronised is an ignorant, obnoxious and laughable attitude as well.

I laugh at anyone who sneers at people who have faith as much as I laugh at people who use their faith as a pedestal to condescend, who don't properly understand what faith is. They are all as small-minded and petty as each other.

I was not actually attempting to compare faith in a deity to (as you so eloquently put it) 'a multi lingual, gymnastic dinosaur'(he is real I tell you). I was merely illustrating that to claim since we cannot prove god does not exist, then we must believe he does. That logic is ridiculous and is not accepted in science. (as an aside a famous Los Alamos scientist stated when asked what would the world be like if research had shown an atomic bomb to be impossible to build:replied 'proofs of impossibility are almost non-existant in physics-great pun). But in seriousness I do not believe faith is a bad thing. Although I do agree with Dawkins that dogma only damages and limits one's intellectual potential. I am an atheist, but I certainly don't wish to foster such non-beliefs on others. But don't use ridiculous fallacies of logic to claim that I 'must believe' or else I am no scientist.

CrazyPJ

Phew, me brains hummin after readin that lot. OK, back to the drawing board it is then...:)

Taoism ....**** happens.
Confucianism ....Confucius say, "**** happens."
Buddhism .....If **** happens, it isn't really ****.
Zen Buddhism .....What is the sound of **** happening?
Hinduism ....This **** happened before.
Mormonism ....This **** is going to happen again.
Islam ....If **** happens, it is the Will of Allah.
Stoicism .....This **** is its own reward.
Protestantism.... Let this **** happen to someone else.
Calvinism ....**** happens because you don't work hard enough.
Pentecostalism .....In Jesus' name, heal this ****!
Catholicism .....**** happens because you deserve it.
Judaism .....Why does this **** always happen to us?
Zoroastrianism..... **** happens half the time.
Marxism .....This **** is going to hit the fan.
Atheism .....No ****.
Seventh Day Adventist .....No **** on Saturdays.
Existentialism........ Absurd ****.
Agnosticism ......What is this ****?
Nihilism....... Who gives a ****?
Deconstruction.... **** happens in hegemonic meta-narratives.
Christian Science ......**** is in your mind.
Moonies .....Only happy **** really happens.
Jehovah's Witnesses ....Knock, Knock, **** happens.
Scientology ....**** happens on page 152 of Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard
Hare Krishna ....**** happens, Rama Rama.
Hedonism .....There's nothing like a good **** happening.
Alcoholics Anon... One **** at a time
Rastafarianism ....Let's smoke this ****.

Marcus.Aurelius

Science does not believe that God does not exist. Evolution is a theory at best, and there is rising evidence to suggest it is not a good one. We have such complex systems in nature, we find new evidence in proteonomics and nucleic acid research that continually makes evolution an incredibly long shot at best. The chances of our existence are essentially infinity to one. An intelligent designer is far more scientifically sound, according to increasing numbers of biologists. Ignore the chemists, geologists, physicists and doctors, they never see what real biologists see.

M.D. O'Leary, BSc, BSc (Hons), PhD.

roosh

House wrote: »

Science does not believe that God does not exist. Evolution is a theory at best, and there is rising evidence to suggest it is not a good one. We have such complex systems in nature, we find new evidence in proteonomics and nucleic acid research that continually makes evolution an incredibly long shot at best. The chances of our existence are essentially infinity to one. An intelligent designer is far more scientifically sound, according to increasing numbers of biologists. Ignore the chemists, geologists, physicists and doctors, they never see what real biologists see.

M.D. O'Leary, BSc, BSc (Hons), PhD.

Interesting post. Could you point me in the direction of literature on the subjective, that would be accessible to the lay person?

spoutwell

House
"Science does not believe that God does not exist"

Science is a science. It is not capable of believing anything. Lots of 'scientists' do not believe in God. Some scientists do believe in God.


"Evolution is a theory at best"

Not when there studies have been done which confirm that species do evolve from other species. Why does our skeletal structure resemble that of other primates? Pure coincidence?

Daftendirekt

House wrote: »

Science does not believe that God does not exist. Evolution is a theory at best, and there is rising evidence to suggest it is not a good one. We have such complex systems in nature, we find new evidence in proteonomics and nucleic acid research that continually makes evolution an incredibly long shot at best. The chances of our existence are essentially infinity to one. An intelligent designer is far more scientifically sound, according to increasing numbers of biologists. Ignore the chemists, geologists, physicists and doctors, they never see what real biologists see.

M.D. O'Leary, BSc, BSc (Hons), PhD.

I'd love to see this 'evidence'.

I'd also be extremely curious about who these supposed biologists are, since at this stage, disbelief in evolution for a biologist would be on a par with disbelief in gravity for a physicist.

And with regard to your comment about how evolution is 'a theory at best': a theory is the highest level of acceptance an idea can achieve. It is not merely an untested hypothesis or assertion, as the colloquial use of the word would have you believe.


On topic: no, I don't think a deity exists. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that jazz.

Panrich

House wrote: »

Science does not believe that God does not exist. Evolution is a theory at best, and there is rising evidence to suggest it is not a good one. We have such complex systems in nature, we find new evidence in proteonomics and nucleic acid research that continually makes evolution an incredibly long shot at best. The chances of our existence are essentially infinity to one. An intelligent designer is far more scientifically sound, according to increasing numbers of biologists. Ignore the chemists, geologists, physicists and doctors, they never see what real biologists see.

M.D. O'Leary, BSc, BSc (Hons), PhD.

I smell a rat with this post. I would expect better sentence construction from an educated mind. I would also expect more coherent arguments than advice to ignore most of the scientific community.