How do you know God exists?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Samuel_Monosov
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
in_servitude said:
Love it!!!👍
Click to expand...
Yes, and that was just one of my experiences. I know this atheist person has a hard time believing something they have closed their mind to, but maybe someday they will be open to accepting that they don’t know everything, and shouldn’t say its impossible.
 
Samuel_Monosov said:
To preface, this is not a thread about atheism. If it becomes a thread about atheism, I request that the moderators remove it immediately. Also, I do not want there to be debates. I simply want to ask questions, to find out why Catholics believe God exists. It will just be my honest questions, honest questions from others, and Catholic answers.

No fighting. No atheism. No evolution.

Here is the first question:

How do you know God exists?

How confident are you that God exists?
Click to expand...
I have faith that God exists. Otherwise, Christ and his Apostles make no sense at all. And we also have Thomas Aquinas’ five ways. So, yes, I am confident that God exists. I don’t feel God but there are many amazing arguments that I can’t refute which make everything make sense. Otherwise, there is no point to anything, there is no value in anyone, and there is no reason why I should not follow whatever impulse enters into my brain.
 
i did not read all of the responses, however, many are giving scientific arguments. All i can think about when i hear this is a quote i heard a while ago(i dont remember who it is from):

"I have heard all of the great ideas; listened to all the great philosophers…But where is life? Where is

I would have to agree with this quote. No mathamatical equation can prove to me God does or does not exist.

But i beleive experiencing him can. And i am longing to, oh am i longing to.
 
Sneaux said:
Every time I pray my prayers get answered. When I’m scared I’ll pray, and comfort will come over me, that says “Every thing will be okay” and when you look at the world around you, tall beautiful mountains, the ocean, newborn babies, and think about how everything works out, there has to be someone in charge of it all. People talk about how everything is a coincidence…the world, the human race, and every living thing is way too complicated and beautiful to be a simple coincidence.
Click to expand...
👍 Welcome to the forum! The truth is simple but many people fail to recognise it because they are always concerned about material things. The devil is certainly in the details if they constantly distract us from the panorama!
 
What about all the near death exp. people including my grandpa had? I know skeptics would say its just brain cells dying off, hallucinations, & dream activity. If that was the case then why is it that all the exp. were the similar and the people who have had them felt an overwhelming sense of peace?
 
gentle_atheist said:
Thanks for sharing that experience with us, Nicole. I can imagine how your heart sank when your dog got loose and how happy you were when he came back. Dogs are the finest creatures on earth, bar none.
Click to expand...
Its nice to see that unlike on youtube, atheists on here are polite.
 
mdisse said:
Its nice to see that unlike on youtube, atheists on here are polite.
Click to expand...
Atheists get angry because they have no reason to believe in God. Many of them have had no great experience to show them that there is a supernatural. Most of them come to logical conclusions, which I understand, but there are just some things that aren’t possible without some sort of higher being.

I understand the atheist point of view. I used to be one, but great things happened to me that I just cant ignore.
 
By mere examination of the universe we can come to the conclusion that there is one supreme, eternal, unchanging being – that is, being itself, or ‘existence’.

Now, to understand that this Supreme Being has a personality may only be known by faith, which is the gift of God.
 
ivebeenshown said:
By mere examination of the universe we can come to the conclusion that there is one supreme, eternal, unchanging being – that is, being itself, or ‘existence’.

Now, to understand that this Supreme Being has a personality may only be known by faith, which is the gift of God.
Click to expand...
No, not really. There are plenty of scientific explanations for the universe.
 
NicoleVentura said:
Atheists get angry because they have no reason to believe in God. Many of them have had no great experience to show them that there is a supernatural. Most of them come to logical conclusions, which I understand, but there are just some things that aren’t possible without some sort of higher being.

I understand the atheist point of view. I used to be one, but great things happened to me that I just cant ignore.
Click to expand...
What about people like me? I never used logic to rule-out the possibility of God - I just neither feel nor sense nor see him. If he exists, he is as present in my life (in any way I can experience) as a rock on top of a mountain.
 
endoentropism said:
What about people like me? I never used logic to rule-out the possibility of God - I just neither feel nor sense nor see him. If he exists, he is as present in my life (in any way I can experience) as a rock on top of a mountain.
Click to expand...
Actually, what you just said is what I’m talking about. The atheists dont feel him, see him, hear him, smell him. So they come to the logical conclusion that its ‘not there’.
 
ivebeenshown said:
“No, not really” what?

Science cannot explain existence, because existence is supernatural.
Click to expand...
No its not. :confused: How is something existing considered supernatural?

Thats like saying the existence of rocks, or water or humans or animals are supernatural.

You can think they came from something supernatural, but science can prove you wrong. Well, at least mostly. True we don’t know everything, but we’re learning.
 
NicoleVentura said:
Actually, what you just said is what I’m talking about. The atheists dont feel him, see him, hear him, smell him. So they come to the logical conclusion that its ‘not there’.
Click to expand...
For me (and this is my logical side coming through) complete faith in God is as silly as a rejection of God because of a lack of evidence. That is not to say I think people who “feel” god are foolish, but from my personal experience he is neither here nor there. And yet I find myself drawn to religion (even without God) because I see it as a path towards a healthy and meaningful life. I see the Bible through the prism of metaphor, not a carrot and stick for a rewarding afterlife. A book with lessons and guidelines, and a community to reinforce and support such a life.

Unfortunately, because I cannot honestly say that I “believe” in God or know he exists, I can never be baptized or be a true member of the Catholic community. Or so it seems from the outside looking in. I could say, “well God is a metaphor for the ordering of the universe etc etc. and so I give my life to the idea of Him” but deep down inside I’d feel like I was lying to everyone who believe God Is according to Catholic doctrine.
 
TimothyH said:
Yea, I’m out of my league here on a philosophy forum. I am struggling with the use of these terms in a philosophical context, and am currently reading Diadochus of Photike and have just ordered a book of some of the writings of Symeon the New Theologian.

Thanks for the correction. I would not be adverse to a futher explanation of such terminology.

My point was that you can’t put a direct personal experience of God, something that leaves a taste in your mouth that you never forget, into a neat little category.

-Tim-
Click to expand...
Those are all extremely Orthodox (in the Eastern hesychastic mystical sense) writers: what draws you to them? Especially Symeon the New Theologian, who, if I recall correctly, is most famous for denying original sin (at least as far as us Augustinians conceive it). The only thread the two share is an unwavering determination for the way of negation. And both are in the Philokalia (which I assume you’re reading through).

“Theologian” was given as a title to those few in Orthodoxy (why St John the Evangelist is called “the Theologian” instead) who have received the vision of God, or, to the Orthodox, his energies - theoria - and can move from gnosis (knowledge) to the highest act of metagnosis - faith.

Most Orthodox theology is incredibly simplistic, but it does have a vibrancy and color that is absent in much of the precise and rigorous Western works.
 
NicoleVentura said:
No, not really. There are plenty of scientific explanations for the universe.
Click to expand...
For how it works, yes: for why it is, or how it began, or what it came from, no. Existence is supernatural in that sense: every human body which came from stardust; every star formed in a nebula; every nebula formed from the gravitational collapse of gas; at the highest level, everything - nebulae of clusters of thousands of galaxies - formed around strings of dark matter; but what formed form itself? To exist instead of not to exist is supernatural (the principle of sufficient reason): the beginning of the universe was from nothing. Ex nihilo. Science can not explain it, but merely to state that it happened; science can’t even study the Planck time, the chaos at the beginning.

“In the beginning God created…and the earth was formless and void.”
 
NicoleVentura said:
Actually, what you just said is what I’m talking about. The atheists dont feel him, see him, hear him, smell him. So they come to the logical conclusion that its ‘not there’.
Click to expand...
I don’t feel, smell, touch, see or hear God, and I come to the logical conclusion that God exists nonetheless. Experiential “evidence”? I have none at all. Anecdotal evidence is oft less useful than no evidence whatsoever, as anyone who has ever studied any sort of statistics knows.
 
Samuel_Monosov said:
To preface, this is not a thread about atheism. If it becomes a thread about atheism, I request that the moderators remove it immediately. Also, I do not want there to be debates. I simply want to ask questions, to find out why Catholics believe God exists. It will just be my honest questions, honest questions from others, and Catholic answers.

No fighting. No atheism. No evolution.

Here is the first question:

How do you know God exists?
Click to expand...
I was brought up to believe he exists and as I experienced the world, it made sense that he would exist.
Samuel_Monosov said:
How confident are you that God exists?
Click to expand...
I am always confident that he exists but of course in more difficult times I’m sometimes doubt that he’ll lead me in the proper direction.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top