Through reason I think we can arrive at sound (properly basic) conclusions about the truth of the biblical monotheist God. And I find this reasoning works best by a process of elimination.
Atheism, which I account as a quasi-religious position with respect to the existence or otherwise of God/gods, entails certain necessary beliefs that frankly require more faith than anything demanded by (catholic) Christianity. Spontaneous cosmology. Unintentional causation of a reality populated with sentient beings for whom meaning, volition, motive, intent etc are central to our observed understanding of existence. The very existence of the 'laws" of science and mathematics and logic/epistemology is virtually impossible to reconcile with a non-theist view of reality - unless you resort to a sort of fedeism special pleading. (Groundhog Day, past-eternal, perpetual motion universes. Myth of Sisyphus. Matter spontaneously appearing and disappearing. Nihilism. Pointlessness) And I think this leaves atheism in a category of gonzo metaphysics which is technically possible but that’s not sufficient. What atheism needs to do is be more plausible than the alternative which it seeks to negate. If it takes more ‘faith’ to believe ‘X’ than to believe '‘Y’ then I think it’s more rational to pick ‘Y’.
If you rationally discount atheism then you’re left with the choice of theistic religions. I rationally discount Polytheism because I think this is logically incongruous with omnipotence - multiple gods simultaneously competing to create/destroy/create/destroy ad infinitum… wouldn’t be parsimonious. It’s metaphysically possible but is it plausible? Not if the ontological categories of “good, better, best” exist in theism. There can only be One omnipotent Being just as there can only be One maximally great Being. I think the ontological argument for a necessary Being called God is sound. And while this ontological argument might not relate solely one single denomination/religion, it certainly rules out a lot of others. I think you can reason your way to monotheism by way of crash-testing the logic of polytheism and by working your way to the conclusion that there can only be One “best”. One capital “G” God.
Monotheism. You can arrive at monotheism while still accepting that many other religious/supernatural experiences (occult pagans, wiccans, Hindus,) are not totally contradictory of biblical monotheism. The existence of other sincere (albeit partially mistaken) religious experiences doesn’t invalidate other partially or entirely true religious experience of the One True God.
So, once you’ve concluded that atheist cosmology by chance is hard to grasp without wilful suspension of disbelief (blind faith,) and once you’ve concluded that there can’t be two gods because - (a) Occams Razor and (b) the law of excluded middle prevents us from accepting that Thor and Zeus both created the world - what you’re left with is pretty much the basic nuts and bolts of Abrahamic Monotheism.
And if you can rationally land on the God of Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Jeremiah and Solomon and David and Joseph and Mary, then you’re (arguably) already at the one true God
If you accept that there was a point that only God existed then it follows that God Himself is subject to time. You cannot possibly have some action without time since there is a before and after in any action.
Hello Farston,
I am sorry If I repeat some things said above, however I was not able to read through the sewage of this comment section. A lot of butt-hurt atheists, “modernists” and pseudo-intellectuals will try to convince you about their “truth” so they don’t feel bad about their wrong doings. They just don’t want to fix their lives and that’s why they are trying to pull you down with them. Its called crab in a bucket syndrome.
Here is the reasoning you were interested in:
Yes, God existence is proven by the need of beginning point. Atheist will try to tell you the universe is in a loop. Give them a pen and tell them to draw a circle without starting somewhere.
So now we know God exist. Lest see which one is the right one:
We need to exclude all the religions which are dead or nearly dead since it shows God is not with them.
So we are pretty much left with Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Budhists and Hinduists.
Lets remove those who claims Jesus is part of their religion, however in their eyes is not God. That’s because we know he told us he is the son of God (He was crucified for it - that’s a pretty good proof) - if those religions deny it, they are honoring someone without listening to what he was saying.
We are pretty much left with Jews, Catholics and protestants.
Protestants are false because they were just changing the truth of the Church. If you take a look at their beginning and where they are now you can see that they don’t wish to join back the Church no matter what. + All the protestants believe that Satanists exists - however Satanists do the inverse CATHOLIC mass. Not the protestant ones. Oops.
You can read in the Bible about the fulfilling of the expectation of messiah. Criteria were met. Therefore Catholicism!
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