Does God exist?

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Catholics and Christians proclaim that “God exist.” Can it be demonistrated, or in anyway proven?
 
Yes it can be proven. But it can also be disproven.

I let my reason be illuminated by the faith in God that was given to me at my baptism, even if God’s existance can be disproven. Otherwise I guess I’d be just be “a hopeful agnostic”, to use Malcolm’s word’s from “Malcolm in the Middle”.
 
No, God can’t be disproven.

There are millions of things that can’t be disproven – the Hindu gods, the Greek gods, the Roman gods; Santa Claus, leprechauns, the Lochness Monster, Bigfoot.

You can’t prove for certain that those things don’t exist. It’s possible that any of them exist.

But practically, none of us believe in any of those things. Why not? Because there’s no good evidence that indicates that they exist.

That’s the way belief works: we disbelieve a claim until evidence convinces us. We don’t accept a claim first and then try to fit data to match it. If you approach belief that second way, you’ll always come away with the answer you want (not necessarily the answer that’s true).

P.S. Since we’re discussing things that exist for everybody (not just for one person), the kind of evidence we need is independently verifiable (that is, capable of being verified by anyone, regardless of belief).
 
MegaTherion said:
No, God can’t be disproven.

There are millions of things that can’t be disproven – the Hindu gods, the Greek gods, the Roman gods; Santa Claus, leprechauns, the Lochness Monster, Bigfoot.

You can’t prove for certain that those things don’t exist. It’s possible that any of them exist.

But practically, none of us believe in any of those things. Why not? Because there’s no good evidence that indicates that they exist.

That’s the way belief works: we disbelieve a claim until evidence convinces us. We don’t accept a claim first and then try to fit data to match it. If you approach belief that second way, you’ll always come away with the answer you want (not necessarily the answer that’s true).

P.S. Since we’re discussing things that exist for everybody (not just for one person), the kind of evidence we need is independently verifiable (that is, capable of being verified by anyone, regardless of belief).
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I believe the the existance of God is independently verifiable to anyone who is willing to perform the experiment necessary to demonstate it.
 
ready said:
I just spoke the Churches teaching on the matter. Not mine.
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For the record, here is a snippet of the Church’s teaching on God’s existence from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.
32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.
As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7 And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material”,9 can have its origin only in God.
34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10 35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.
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davidv said:
I believe the the existance of God is independently verifiable to anyone who is willing to perform the experiment necessary to demonstate it.
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If the “experiment” necessitates already believing in God, then I wouldn’t be very impressed when it yields “results” (results that are subjective and unverifiable).
 
Pardon my last post. The Church teaches that God’s existance can be proven and disproven. We, by our reason illuminated by faith, believe in His existance, despite the arguments which argue his non-existance.
 
PJM said:
Catholics and Christians proclaim that “God exist.” Can it be demonistrated, or in anyway proven?
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That’s kind of like two algae cells saying to each other, “I’ve heard that humans exist - can you prove it to me?”

Since algae cells don’t have eyes or ears or even a brain to comprehend our presence, there’s no way for them to comprehend our presence even if we had a blob of them in our hands.

We are on that level with God, maybe even lower. We can’t comprehend Him no matter how hard we try because it’s impossible. But faith gives us an advantage that those without it don’t have. When you’re heart’s at the right place, you’ll know.

Before that time, don’t expect anyone to prove it in empirical values.

Snert
 
I believe in God’s existance because there had to be a first cause to creation, as is argued by St. Thomas Aquinas.

And I believe Jesus is God because of my baptismal faith that I have been given as a gift from God – that I choose to keep alive, despite any arguments that seem to try to disprove my sacred beliefs.

Satan and satanists believe in the existance of God. They just chose to defy Him by their lives.
 
God exists and always has but many men reject the truth, not surprisingly. Proof, regarding an event, such as the birth,death and rising again of Christ, is highly subjective and not going to convince some who did not actually witness the events. The evidence (not proof) is another matter. There was a huge amount of convincing evidence that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was crucified and rose again. Without His life on earth and death for our sakes the world would certainly be a different place. The miracle of creation and the ministry of Christ on earth convince me that God exists but doubts sometimes nag me as it does others and always will.
Proof? No there will never be proof in a scientific or judicial sense but lots of evidence…look around.
 
Snerticus said:
That’s kind of like two algae cells saying to each other, “I’ve heard that humans exist - can you prove it to me?”

Since algae cells don’t have eyes or ears or even a brain to comprehend our presence, there’s no way for them to comprehend our presence even if we had a blob of them in our hands.

We are on that level with God, maybe even lower. We can’t comprehend Him no matter how hard we try because it’s impossible. But faith gives us an advantage that those without it don’t have. When you’re heart’s at the right place, you’ll know.

Before that time, don’t expect anyone to prove it in empirical values.

Snert
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Yet here we are, not only talking about Him, but telling other people that our Church is the only one that has the “fullness of truth” about Him!

How would algae conduct apologetics? 😉
 
But we are the only Church that has not broken with Christ and the teachings of His early Church, which he said would speak for Him. “He who hears you, hears me.”
 
As an agnostic I can honestly say that I do not know. I can also say that if a god does exist, I doubt very seriously that it is the god of abraham.
 
pismopal said:
God exists and always has but many men reject the truth, not surprisingly. Proof, regarding an event, such as the birth,death and rising again of Christ, is highly subjective and not going to convince some who did not actually witness the events. The evidence (not proof) is another matter. There was a huge amount of convincing evidence that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was crucified and rose again. Without His life on earth and death for our sakes the world would certainly be a different place. The miracle of creation and the ministry of Christ on earth convince me that God exists but doubts sometimes nag me as it does others and always will.
Proof? No there will never be proof in a scientific or judicial sense but lots of evidence…look around.
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dictionary.reference.com/browse/evidence

You will not be able to provide any evidence thats viable for the eixtence of god, however neither will i be able to provide any that he does not exist. We could argue on the grounds of logic, which people are able to make assumptions on however this is not evidence nor proof.

During our life time the arugment for the existence or non existence of god will go round and round in circles. However one things for sure we will all find out one day 😉
 
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