Does God exist?

[seeker777]

Authority? The constitution? Fiber Optic relay’s that allow for online communications?

Anyway…

You can’t have it both ways. On one hand you claim everything had to come from something. Except God, he has always existed.

A little too impossible for my liking and a little too convenient.

You may as well just say ’ it’s magic’.

Everything has to come from something, except for God. That’s what your saying.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Authority? The constitution? Fiber Optic relay’s that allow for online communications?

What is the “expert” (knowledgeable person or institution) from which you base your propositions on?

Anyway…

You can’t have it both ways. On one hand you claim everything had to come from something. Except God, he has always existed.

I’m not having it both ways, any more than it’s having it both ways to say that ice-cream is cold and hot-dogs are warm.

How can an uncaused cause be caused? How can caused causes not have causes which caused them?

It’s a simple matter of definition. God has no causes (nothing caused Him) because He is the uncaused cause. How is it you have a problem with that?

A little too impossible for my liking and a little too convenient.

You may as well just say ’ it’s magic’.

Everything has to come from something, except for God. That’s what your saying.

Everything HAS come from God, except for God, who as the uncaused cause is causeless and eternal.

There’s nothing magic about that. If you think that THAT is magic, what “non-magic” way was the universe given it’s “existence”?

If nothing is “eternal”, which you SEEM to call a “magic” attribute and therefore “impossible”, then isn’t an eternally existing universe just another “magic” explanation for the universe?

 

[crowonsnow]

Why would you say that a god that is real, wouldn’t be a god? I can agree with you that nothing “unreal” exists, therefore, if God exists, he is “real”. He is real by definition according to a Catholic understanding, as He is Being itself.

I’m saying that anything that is real in the sense that we observe and understand reality, real like a duck or grass or sound, wouldn’t qualify as a god. But if you can show me something that you say is a god we can attempt to get beyond that point.

As far as “god as being,” I’ve heard presuppers say that god is existence and that “existence exists.” I don’t know what the difference is between a god and a god’s existence. Show me some existence, or some “being” and we can attempt to get beyond that point also.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Besides faith (your response to God’s revelation), how do you come to know God exists?

Through reason? How?

St. Augustine gave us five great arguments. What are yours? How can we even be nearly sure that this universe is not due to chance?

Only God exists - as usual, we tend to get our questions back to front.​

I’m an Acosmist Lewisian-Pauline (I hope) Panentheist - but it’s too much of a mouthful to put in a profile God is the Reality - creatures, are the fiction. Not the other way round

As to the “How ?”: mostly by reading Lewis, St. Paul, Dante, Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, that kind of thing

 

[KingAlfred]

**Besides faith (your response to God’s revelation), how do you come to know God exists?

Through reason? How?**

St. Augustine gave us five great arguments. What are yours? How can we even be nearly sure that this universe is not due to chance?

Through History and spirituality. Man has always sought God. Man was created with an instinct for the divine. To me, this indicates that God has always wanted Man to know about Him, to serve Him, and to be saved therein. Christ was the ultimate and last revelation. Man now knows exactly who God is, what He expects, and how He grants salvation – through His Son, Jesus Christ.

 

[seeker777]

God has no causes (nothing caused Him) because He is the uncaused cause. ?

Seeing as your fixated upon by what authority I base my very reasonable opinion.

I have this opinion, based upon the fact that creationists insist everything must have been designed by a creator. When they are asked, ’ then who created the creator?’ They invoke the mystery of God being eternal and of having no begining.

They are then quite satisfied to ignore the inherant contradiction in their premise and to think no more about it.

I ask you the same?

Who told you or by what source have you learned that God has no cause?

 

[seeker777]

Man now knows exactly who God is,

…and who pray tell would that be?

Brahman, Jesus, Allah, Osiris, Zeus, Vahiguru or the many Gods of Pagans?

Or by what means is man to know God?

Zoroastrianism, Unitarianism, Islam, Christianity, Scientology, Judaism, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, Rastafari, Pagan, Jainism, Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, Bahai, Candomble or Bahai?

You have offered a strong, convicted opinion, but you are no closer to truth.

 

[seeker777]

I’m an Acosmist Lewisian-Pauline (I hope) Panentheist God is the Reality - creatures, are the fiction. Not the other way round

The problem with Panentheism, is that the belief is that God is in everythig and outside of everything…God is basically everything.

I’m not being crass, but if that is the case, then Panentheism asserts that God must also be the nasty bits that we leave behind in lavatories.

Panentheism sounds great when you think about the beautiful things in the world, but it looses credibility when you think about the nasty things in this world.

I considered Panentheism, but rejected it once I got as far as that.

 

[Katholish]

I’m saying that anything that is real in the sense that we observe and understand reality, real like a duck or grass or sound, wouldn’t qualify as a god. But if you can show me something that you say is a god we can attempt to get beyond that point.

As far as “god as being,” I’ve heard presuppers say that god is existence and that “existence exists.” I don’t know what the difference is between a god and a god’s existence. Show me some existence, or some “being” and we can attempt to get beyond that point also.

So when you say “real” you mean something perceptible? A duck is real (or at least you know it is real) because you can see it, etc. But God is not real because you cannot perceive Him? Is this not what you are saying? In this case, I would need to provide with an example of something that is not directly perceptible, but you would consider real. If I could do that, then the fact they you could not perceive God, would not rule out His existence. Do you agree?

The question is whether only material things exist, or is it possible that there are immaterial things that exist as well.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
God has no causes (nothing caused Him) because He is the uncaused cause.

Seeing as your fixated upon by what authority I base my very reasonable opinion.

I have this opinion, based upon the fact that creationists insist everything must have been designed by a creator. When they are asked, ’ then who created the creator?’ They invoke the mystery of God being eternal and of having no begining.

So, you’re simply not going to answer my question. That’s quite expected.

The answer to, “…then who created the creator?”, is that the creator is not a mystery but a description. There is no mystery in an uncaused cause being uncaused! It’s perfectly clear, by definition.

The “mystery” of God’s eternal existence is only a mystery to those who don’t understand what “uncaused” means.

Now, the “mystery” of how YOU consider the universe to exist as it does now is just as much a mystery as “our mystery”, so why are you any more credible than we are?

They are then quite satisfied to ignore the inherant contradiction in their premise and to think no more about it.

I ask you the same?

Who told you or by what source have you learned that God has no cause?

God told me via the Magisterium of the Church.

…and your response to that is…

 

[East_and_West]

By your logic, God being something, had to have been created.

Who or what created God, as you said, something cannot come from nothing.

I suppose that’s the problem with your argument, that everything has to come from something…except for God?

Everything seems to need a creator by this argument, except for God? God gets a free pass.

Not quite. The law that we are arguing from is actually called the law of sufficient reason. According to this law, everthing that exists either has sufficient reason for its existence in itself or in another. We realize that because series must have a beginning, the first in the series of cause and effect must possess the reason for its existence in itself. It must be self existant, otherwise it would not be the first in the series.

 

[East_and_West]

I don’t believe that the existence of God can be proven and it’s kind of silly to try. If you could prove it, we wouldn’t need faith. And proving His existence doesn’t say anything about Him. I might say, “Okay, He exists and as far as I can see, He is an omnipotent little boy who enjoys ripping the wings off flies.”

The choices are: an uncreated Creator or an unceated universe (or at least w/o a Creator). Both require a leap of faith.

You’ll notice that the more science discovers, the more mysteries they discover, but God always leaves us free not to believe. He hasn’t left us any cosmic, “Here I am!” signs – unless we already believe in which case they’re all over.

My .02

If you are Catholic, then you believe contrary to what our religion teaches. According to the first Vatican Council, we believe that a person can be certain of the existence of God by reason alone. This does not necessarily include emperical evidence. Rather, this means a syllogistic/deductive proof, which is in fact, more certain.
As for an uncreated universe, it mathematically impossible. Since the universe, being finite and changing, functions in time. If the universe were uncreated, it would have to be infinitely old. However, if it is infintely old, then we would never reach the current moment in time because the universe would have to have passed through an infinite number of “seconds”. This is impossible.

 

[East_and_West]

What does “due to chance” mean?

When people use “chance” like this, they usually mean something utterly unpredictable. What has ever been observed that exhibits this “utterly unpredictable” behavior?

The answer: Nothing behaves like this.

If there were things that were “utterly unpredictable”, then scientists would throw up their hands and take up dice tossing as their much more profitable occupation.

The scientist assumes that EVERYTHING is predictable (and they’re wrong in only one instance of course). The natural human (and animal as well) assumption is that the world is predictable. The UNnatural assumption is that the world is unpredictable.

Why would anyone START with the unnatural assumption, when all the evidence supports the natural assumption?

So, the universe is either a “big deterministic machine” which has existed forever and will exist forever where “God” means “the machine”,…

…or the universe is “the creation of the Creator” where “the Creator” is a non-machine (meaning a person or persons).

Either way “God” exists.

Those averse to the absurd consequences of “the infinities” choose the latter. Those who are more interested in “easy answers” than “obvious truth” choose the former.

I completely disagree with your conclusion. It demonstrates a shallow forming of thinking and you choose to ignore the logical problems associated with the idea of a universe that has existed always.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Seeker777

Everything seems to need a creator by this argument, except for God? God gets a free pass.

Not really. Your assumption is that **we **allow God to be causeless. God was causeless before we existed. God created time and space and matter, and therefore what we humans call causality. Being the creator of causality, why would He be subject to the principle of causality? An uncaused God is a perfectly plausible concept, even though living in the dimensions of space/time we find ourselves unable to grasp it as we more easily grasp the principle of causality.

 

[seeker777]

An uncaused God is a perfectly plausible concept, even though living in the dimensions of space/time we find ourselves unable to grasp it as we more easily grasp the principle of causality.

Not to me. We agree to disagree.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Big Bang, which now is more scientific fact than theory, allows for a start to the universe, but science cannot fathom how the universe started. It is therefore a fact (containing an element of faith) that must be a huge embarassment to atheists who maintain that the universe is eternal and without a moment in which it was created.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
What does “due to chance” mean?

When people use “chance” like this, they usually mean something utterly unpredictable. What has ever been observed that exhibits this “utterly unpredictable” behavior?

The answer: Nothing behaves like this.

If there were things that were “utterly unpredictable”, then scientists would throw up their hands and take up dice tossing as their much more profitable occupation.

The scientist assumes that EVERYTHING is predictable (and they’re wrong in only one instance of course). The natural human (and animal as well) assumption is that the world is predictable. The UNnatural assumption is that the world is unpredictable.

Why would anyone START with the unnatural assumption, when all the evidence supports the natural assumption?

So, the universe is either a “big deterministic machine” which has existed forever and will exist forever where “God” means “the machine”,…

…or the universe is “the creation of the Creator” where “the Creator” is a non-machine (meaning a person or persons).

Either way “God” exists.

Those averse to the absurd consequences of “the infinities” choose the latter. Those who are more interested in “easy answers” than “obvious truth” choose the former.

I completely disagree with your conclusion. It demonstrates a shallow forming of thinking and you choose to ignore the logical problems associated with the idea of a universe that has existed always.

Uh, I’m not arguing that the universe has always existed (I vehemently argue AGAINST that, actually).

I’m merely saying that in either case, “universe created by God” or “universe as big machine called ‘God’”, that GOD is needed for it to exist.

The ludicrous silliness of the “proliferation of infinities to avoid the obvious problems” that results from taking the position that “God” is the “machine universe” simply makes that “solution” to the problem of the existence of the universe just plain unacceptable.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlemagne II View Post
An uncaused God is a perfectly plausible concept, even though living in the dimensions of space/time we find ourselves unable to grasp it as we more easily grasp the principle of causality.

Not to me. We agree to disagree.

Yes, but WHY do you not accept an “uncaused cause” as being plausible, if you believe that the universe has always existed, since describing the universe that way is the very DEFINITION of an UNCAUSED CAUSE!?

How is that NOT a self-contradictory stance, Seek!?

 

[Abbadon]

If by god you mean Osiris then yes.

Burden of proof is on those that claim the hypothesis. All of the proofs for any sort of god are poor and flimsy. There are no accurate predictions to be made. No way to observe it. No evidence to support it.

All there are, are stories and a heap of assumptions. Which is totally fine as long as you don’t center your entire life around the stories.

 

[Abbadon]

Yes, but WHY do you not accept an “uncaused cause” as being plausible, if you believe that the universe has always existed, since describing the universe that way is the very DEFINITION of an UNCAUSED CAUSE!?

How is that NOT a self-contradictory stance, Seek!?

But why must this uncaused cause be your specific idea of god? A god that hears prayers, sends down a son, feels insulted at your sexuality, prefers a certain race of people as his chosen people and orders you to wars?

Current evidence seems to point to a super dense seed yes? For universe creation. I think that means that something initiated our universe. But to me the best answer is something very very simple and something very natural. Or some aliens that are fiddling around with universe creation. Or perhaps an elaborate computer simulation. The last two of which, which may be true seem implausible, unless evidence presents is self to support it.