Argument for the Existence of God

[Caid Ivik]

Rule of Duns Scotus teaches that if we can prove both positive and negative side of the thing, then it can imply anything. And so it is with the metaphysical god: it can be also the "religious" God, and in same time it can be a hidden, unknown impersonal power. So with an idea if it is "more natural to believe or to be an atheist" I would be silent and leave it in graves of 17th century philosophers. But if the formation of the universe included concepts of good, wouldn't it be good to show itself to the new formating intellects? And this argument for the manifestation of God is not from Bible nor Cusanius, it is a word of Krshna  himself in Bhagavadgita  ;)

[TMA_1]

Hmm I remember reading that direct information from Hagel.

[Caid Ivik]

Hegel is rather different, as he takes "God" only as an idea, which we are fulfilling by own evolution. Christianity is in this more "revolutionary", we change by momentual acts.

[TMA_1]

hmm he sounds much more contemporary than I thought. Did marx take some of his ideas involving that issue?

[ps501]

Wasn't it Marx who wrote "Religion is the opiate of the masses?"

[Wolf]

ps501: He did.

TMA-1: He probably did.

[Dude_Doc]

Maybe it is not proof of God just to say that there is a Universe, and that we exist in it - but I personally, believe that the whole creation is proof that there actually is something. I do not believe that everything just "came" one day. And even if there is some kind of scientific proof of whatever came before the Big Bang - well, what did that come from?

Of course, the other argument could be "why is it impossible to happen without 'something'/God?"

[Anathema]

Wasn't it Marx who wrote "Religion is the opiate of the masses?"

Yes, but he took opiate to mean a soothing substance, not the negative meaning it's usually associated with (addictive/destructive)

[Caid Ivik]

hmm he sounds much more contemporary than I thought. Did marx take some of his ideas involving that issue?

The evolutionar aspect. Each act is a consequence of previous acts. With christianity are all three teachings reaching a common point in demand of the teleological reason for this evolution. Altough Marx and Hegel see this reason in utopic states, while christianity reaches for higher targets...

[HasimirFenring]

If Descartes hadn't been hamstrung by his tragic christianity then he might have been an even greater thinker than he already was. His arguments were logical and worthwhile until he tried to undo all his hard work.

I'd say the same of Blais Pascal, who spent the first half of his life as a productive mathematician and wasted the second producing christian dogma.

[Tako]

I'm reading a book right now called : The king, the wise and the fool

(original title is french: Le Roi, le Sage et le Bouffon)

It is about  a reliogion tournament and all mayor religion's a representet as well as an athe

[Dude_Doc]

But if God is the beginning and the end of things and he is dead then he can never be born, so he never excistet.

Though - it has been argumented that God lives in a place where time does not exist. About this - I've got a crazy theory here - but, maybe the timespan of the universe (it will end someday) is there to prevent humans to become too powerful.

Sounds like a good movie-story, no? :D  ...you never know...

[Caid Ivik]

Or perhaps the timespan will be because they become so...

[Dude_Doc]

Or perhaps the timespan will be because they become so...

God works in mysterious ways. ;)

[Caid Ivik]

Sometimes I say we just forget to open eyes to see them  8)

[Acriku]

God exists in a timeless place. Hmm. Does no one else see the impossibility of this? If he exists at any time in a timeless place, he had to have existed there forever (from our perspective) because the act of going into this timeless place takes time! Nothing changes in a timeless place, no before or after. God can't do anything in a timeless place. He is, essentially, dead.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Acriku you have a misunderstanding of time.

[Caid Ivik]

God exists in a timeless place. Hmm. Does no one else see the impossibility of this? If he exists at any time in a timeless place, he had to have existed there forever (from our perspective) because the act of going into this timeless place takes time! Nothing changes in a timeless place, no before or after. God can't do anything in a timeless place. He is, essentially, dead.

You use extremely unpassing terms. God does not exist, to be sure. Existence is a being, which is bound to space and time, something somewhere. God, as an infinite being, has no such borders. To "be dead" would need to "be live" before it. However, to say there is no God as He would have to be dead then, is a nonsense, because there would be no one to say it. World is His manifestation, somehow we can say His existence, but it would not help in understanding Him. Much closer is the Aquinus' version - He is a pure eternal activity.

[GUNWOUNDS]

You use extremely unpassing terms. God does not exist, to be sure. Existence is a being, which is bound to space and time, something somewhere. God, as an infinite being, has no such borders. To "be dead" would need to "be live" before it. However, to say there is no God as He would have to be dead then, is a nonsense, because there would be no one to say it. World is His manifestation, somehow we can say His existence, but it would not help in understanding Him. Much closer is the Aquinus' version - He is a pure eternal activity.

now that is deep. Universe is God's manifestation huh?... reminds me of the idea that our whole universe is but one "cell" in his entire "body"

[nemafakei]

A timeless place? That makes as much sense as a placeless time. If there is no time, then he is as real as a square in 3-d space.

[GUNWOUNDS]

A timeless place? That makes as much sense as a placeless time. If there is no time, then he is as real as a square in 3-d space.

i guess you didnt understand the previous posts.  I thought atleast the 3rd idea was easy to understand.

[Wolf]

"Understand" is not the same as "agree with." I understand your 3rd point, and I think that there is hardly evidence to either prove or disprove its validity. It's entirely theoretical, which, I think, is as it should be. Faith should stand without proof.

[Acriku]

i guess you didnt understand the previous posts.  I thought atleast the 3rd idea was easy to understand.

I found the first part rather intriguing, my imagination caught onto it and really went with it. Good description, GUNWOUNDS. That could work, if you define time in that way. I used time in the sense that causing a before and after means there involves time, in other words change necessitates time. If God is in a timeless place, then change could not happen. If anything, from his perspective there needs to be time for him to do anything. Our definition of time is limited to the decaying of particles at light speed (I learned it had something to do with cesium atoms and the decaying thereof) and if we say your first part is true then it is an insufficient definition. It seems to be a sort of filling-in-the-gaps argument, where you fill in a gap of the belief in God with something that is based on nothing but the fact that it may sufficiently fill in the gap. Sort of like what the people out at www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com are doing parodically. Very intriguing though GUNWOUNDS.

[Caid Ivik]

now that is deep. Universe is God's manifestation huh?... reminds me of the idea that our whole universe is but one "cell" in his entire "body"

It is simple process of creation: infinity creates finity. Surely it is closer, as infinite God cannot be divided to "cells". Basis of the universe is quantitative differentiability (I hope I could translate this  ;D ). However, God is in His essence singular and unite. And this is no problem of faith, unless you take this sphere like if this post has been randomly generated or there is a real person using "Caid Ivik" avatar behind it. Religious faith affects only His manifestationsm, usually the more visible ones (ie Christ, Krshna, logos etc). As industrial physics thought about God as a machine, we can say there is no real atheist, unless you don't believe there is some world.

I think the discussion about "if is something" was in history already solved many times, so we should change the question to "why it is" or "what should we do here".

[GUNWOUNDS]

"Understand" is not the same as "agree with." I understand your 3rd point, and I think that there is hardly evidence to either prove or disprove its validity. It's entirely theoretical, which, I think, is as it should be. Faith should stand without proof.

oh for goodness sake i am not trying to prove anything wolf... i dont care if people "agree" with me.. i just want people to understand me and have their imagination run with what i am saying... sorta like what Acriku said above.