Argument for the Existence of God

[GUNWOUNDS]

[ Faith should stand without proof.

Except for one problem.... According to the Bible there was proof.. there was plenty of eye-witness testimony of the manifestation of God...he didnt force abraham or noah, or elijah to accept on blind faith... he flat out exposed himself.... also people witnessed the awesome power of Elijah and Jesus , etc, etc.  So according to the Bible God did give man a few juicy tidbits to chew on.  However as you read below you will see how even the best of manifestational proof can slowly degrade into questionability. 

I have made the point over and over again that it is impossible to convince an entire world of the existence of God and have it continue through the generations.

[Dude_Doc]

Or perhaps the answer is pretty simple: He is God - He can do anything. Time to us can be space to Him, time to Him can be space to us, and so on. Quite tricky, isn't it?

Besides this, as we have not yet gone that far into our evolution, our exploration and knowledge, let alone our petty problems on whom this or that land belongs to - to challenge the question of logic and God is a little above our heads.

[nemafakei]

"i guess you didnt understand the previous posts.

[TMA_1]

Okay, in the new testament it says that "God is spirit, and he who worships him must worship him in spirit". God is not a physical being. He has no corporeal body. Because of this God is beyond reckoning and beyond human comprehension. That is why metaphors and symbols are used in the bible.

God cannot be physically understood because there is no physicality to God in most Judeo-Christian beliefs. Because of this we cannot use science to explain God directly. We can only bring up indirect proof. The I Ching talks about similar things. That The Way cannot be directly seen. It can only be seen by it's indirect actions. If you are in a valley, you cannot see beyond the hills. Because of this you cannot know for sure that there are other valleys. But you can guess indirectly that there are other valleys beyond the hills. This goes into the yin yang principle so I wont go further, but you can see what I mean hopefully.

Science cannot lend itself for giving us more answer about God. It can show God's works, but it cannot give us any new information about God himself.

Other schools of thought though may be able to lead us to a greater understanding. Theology, philosophy, even logic can give us a better understanding on the concept of God.

In the end though I dont think that any argument can give us any direct clues about the existence of God. It all boils down to faith in the end. What some closed minded people need to realize as well is that faith should not be relegated to the lowest levels of human thought. Too many people think it is a waste to live one's life to understand a specific dogma. This is arrogant, and boarders on cruel. Who has a right to bash a person who deeply desires to better understand God in their own way? Why is it that if you actually try to understand God through religion (especially through christianity) that somehow you are throwing your life away?

It seems a bit childish and immature to say that this is a bad course of action. For example somebody said Pascal was foolish for throwing all of his reason away. He himself faced an incident where he thought he saw God's intervention. Because of this he focused most of the rest of his life to understanding God. This is beautiful and extremely interesting. He didnt always enjoy his studies in understanding God, and even had great fears of going to hell. I think that anybody who attacks somebody with such convictions is really just asking for an argument. Thats my personal opinion though.

[nemafakei]

Certainly the study of any single topic in great detail is commendable, and depth of study often brings rewards elsewhere. The only proviso I have is that study of one thing to the exclusion of all else must be avoided - for a start, it's more difficult to study something if you have no external analogies.

As you say: "Other schools of thought though may be able to lead us to a greater understanding. Theology, philosophy, even logic can give us a better understanding on the concept of God."

But I don't think that it is wise to disregard the nature of the universe as unhelpful. At the very least, it can provide inspiration for the 'useful' topics you mentioned, for example through fundamental mathematics. Furthermore, you can see things indirectly: thinking hard about the nature of the universe allows us to see the tendancies - the hills and the valleys - and we can 'see' beyond the particular hill that's blocking our view.

"He has no corporeal body. Because of this God is beyond reckoning and beyond human comprehension. That is why metaphors and symbols are used in the bible."

I completely agree that metaphors and analogies are very useful (hence interdisciplinary studies). But when using them, we must be very clear that we are doing so.

[TMA_1]

I agree that a well rounded education is definitely a great thing to have. I was just saying that an indepth study of a specific faith, with true conviction, is not a bad thing at all. In fact it is something that should at least be respected. Thats all.

I wasent saying that a study of the sciences is unhelpful. All I was saying is that I dont think science is the key to understanding God. The established sciences are indeed extremely helpful and are to be honored by anyone with any sense of reason. Like you said, it can help us to understand many questions that we have. Also though you know well that science can only answer questions that we can experiance with our senses. I think it would be unwise to use science on a subject matter that cannot be sensed. See what I mean?

[Caid Ivik]

We should not study sciences, we must live them.

[TMA_1]

getting a little corny there caid.lol jk :)

I think that is more a matter of your own outlook on how to express the sciences. The act of studying something in detail is the act of living it. the platitude isnt required in my opinion.

[ken124578]

..... and in the end it's all about faith.

[TMA_1]

It is all about faith to those that believe that is the correct way to go. Some people live their entire lives without a faith in something higher than themselves. I think though in order to fully understand God, faith is required. Otherwise you are just rationalizing about unproven data.

[Caid Ivik]

If we are to be exact, everything is matter of faith. There are cases, like ie by Gorgias or Descartes, who thought that truly existed nothing.

[TMA_1]

that isnt the point caid... geesh lol I am not getting into those philosophies, and you bringing them up is out of left field. It makes sense, but it seems like you are just trying to put something up, usually adding stuff that isnt required.

oh well, its probably nothing.

[Caid Ivik]

ken124578 put it up. Problem is that you make religious faith different from the secular. If God is to be both ontologic basis for the world and at same time an object of our worship and love, I see no sense in such differentiation.

[ken124578]

Admit it tma, we're right ;)

If you can't scientifically prove something but stil want to believe in it (God) then you need some faith.

[Caid Ivik]

You need some faith to believe in scientific prooves as well. Science can make nearly any proof, see Dawn of mages. Anything can be hit by dunsscotian law, that you can prove both positive and negative, so you can derive anything from it. Could we call in this logical exactness anything so exact, that it needs no faith? Even logic has its alternatives...

[ken124578]

You need some faith to believe in scientific prooves as well. Science can make nearly any proof, see Dawn of mages. Anything can be hit by dunsscotian law, that you can prove both positive and negative, so you can derive anything from it. Could we call in this logical exactness anything so exact, that it needs no faith? Even logic has its alternatives...

Dawn of mages = ?

dunnscotion law = ?

Google gave me nothing

[Caid Ivik]

sorry, 1.Morning of the Magicians by Bergier and Pauwels, one of the first science-popularizing books; 2.Law of Duns Scotus: if ( p=true ^ p=false ) then ( p->q; q=true )

[GUNWOUNDS]

ken you would have to have faith that you are really here and not in the matrix....thats basically what Caid is saying in summary of all his posts.

[Acriku]

Meh, I admit that's possible but so highly improbable. Besides, what would it matter either way? We're in the matrix, we're not in the matrix. Life goes on.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Meh, I admit that's possible but so highly improbable. Besides, what would it matter either way? We're in the matrix, we're not in the matrix. Life goes on.

just saying that faith applies to more than just religion and could apply to everyday mundane life.....

[TMA_1]

Hmm, you guys are all schizophrenics. lol  ;)

Asking the question of perception, and how perfect humans really do percieve things, isnt a good idea to bring up in a debate unless you are talking about it. It is a philisophical principle that is more based on sheer opinion and speculation than anything else. I personally see where that philosophy comes from, and it is interesting. I just dont think it helps the debate because you are adding variables that cannot be answered. It could bog down the debate.

[GUNWOUNDS]

i dont get what you are saying TMA.

[Caid Ivik]

Philosophy does not come from there, it only went into it. It is a blind way without technical/hermeneutical/ethical use, dh wisdom. Which is ethymological sense of the word "philosophy" anyway. We may be in "matrix", an imaginar world, we may be only a thought in unperceivable mind of God, but there is nothing to deduce from it.

[stefanhendriks]

Actually the 'matrix' question touches our very God question as well.

Do you know that scene, where Morpheus explains how hard it is to know you are in the matrix:

"Real"... how do you define "real"? If "real" is that what you can taste, smell, touch, see and hear. Then "real" is nothing more then electric signals interpreted by your brains.

Basicly we can se we 'live' inside a matrix. We call it 'life' ;) I would say humans are unable to interpet everything at this 'stage'. Like, the 5 senses, they are great. But there must  be more. I think there is more, and i don't need knowledge, proof or whatever. I have experienced enough to say there must be more. I think people sort of created one word, to make it responsible for everything that could not be explained yet. Its a 3 letter word, or for some a 5 letter word...

God, Allah, <insert your favorite word here>...

Especially in the days that people could not simply understand how things happened (not enough brain capacity, or knowledge, science, etc), there HAD to be a way to explain it. And so, God was formed.

Off topic:

I've seen a documentary about religions, it was quite funny to see, but historically seen, all religions (yes, ALL) are based on ONE religion. I forgot its name, but actually it made a lot of sense.

[Caid Ivik]

It could be so, as God of Bhagavad-githa and God of Bible (as its older parts are from same era as BG) are similar. Altough nations who wrote those books had a continent full of pagans parting them from the other and their religion was fully spread about millenium later. But I would say so only about present religions.