How do you know that God exist’s?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jimmy_B
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Jimmy_B

Guest
JMJ
How do you know that God exists’?

I have many reasons for believing in God’s existence. However, I am only listing one reason for my belief here. I would like to read how others have come to know that God exists.

Love,

One reason I know God exists is based on love. Anyone that has a child can relate to what I am going to say next. When my oldest son was a toddler, I was sitting on the couch, watching TV, when he climbed onto my lap, facing me. He looked at me intently, as he drew his face closer to mine. He reached out, with his little hands and squeeze both of my cheeks. All the while staring directly into my eyes, then he leaned back, tilted his head and smiled, and said, “Daddy I Love you”. He reached his little arms around me and hugged me. I hugged him back and said, “I love you too son”, at that moment, along with many other blessed moments in my life; I experience pure, full, sincere, innocent love. The kind of love that completely fills your heart.

At that moment, it is as if God himself reached out, and with his finger, touched the center of my chest and I could feel the warmth of his love radiate outward from that point, throughout my entire body.

Moments like this don’t last long, but they are still awesome and important. The reason they are important, I believe, is that through the ones we love, God does reach out and touch us. Poof, in an instant, you are hit with a small amount of God’s love. I say small amount, because God’s love has no bounds.

I am very blessed that I can remember this moment, a moment I shared with my father (God) and a moment my son shared with his father. There have been many, many moments like this in my life, as I’m sure you have experienced. It is our Father’s way of letting us know him and experience his love a little bit at a time. He is trying to let us know what we have to look forward to when we finally join him for eternity. I know love comes from God, because it is the only thing you can never grow tired of, or get too much of. How else could you enjoy all of eternity?

Pay attention, God is trying to let you know, He loves you!

Yours in Christ,
 
I remember on my first day at Catholic school 1st grade looking at the bulletin board decorated with an Adam and Eve theme. It was a silent, wordless revelation that always stuck with me, but later in life I recognized that God revealed to me at that young age, “I AM.” Through all my ups and downs through the years when it came down to it, I always know He is I AM.
 
Fact: Man is not intelligent enough to create something it will never understand.

God exsists & we only exsists because he thinks about us & loves us constantly. If God were to stop thinking about us for a milli-second then we would cease to exsist as if we never were, we’d vanish from exsistance.

If God did not exsist then life would have no meaning whatsoever. If we were created from a “big bang”, then life is trivial & of no importance, we would in fact be a mistake or a freaks of nature.

I fact that we have laws, laws against killing & stealing is more evidence of Gods’ exsistance. If we were mere animals then there would be no laws but survival of the fitest, kill or be killed. Animals are not conscious of their misgivings or limitation, only their will to survive, we humans have the intellgence enough to limit ourselves, aniamls do not.

God exsists because life has meaning, for without God we would have no need to live, life would have no hope, nor love.
 
It would probably have been harder for people in the Old Testament to believe in God, they had to rely on the prophets.
We have the advantage of living after the Son of God was born, and unlike them, we can receive Jesus in our bodies.
I’m sure people in the Old Testament had many that said “baloney”
but we have the added testimony of Jesus.
Like, does Bethlehem excist, Nazareth, river Jordan etc: ?
we have the advantage of all these and loads of witness’es apostles and many more.
So like I said for those that have a hard time believing, well look at what is written about Jesus.
Can they all be decieved, didn’t Jesus talk about His Father in Heaven ?
Didn’t Jesus compose the Our Father ? if we can’t get past that stage then only the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to us.
 
JMJ
Thanks for the post Roy.
Dj Roy Albert
Quote-
Re: How do you know that God exist’s?

“Fact: Man is not intelligent enough to create something it will never understand.

. If God were to stop thinking about us for a milli-second then God exsists & we only exsists because he thinks about us & loves us constantly we would cease to exsist as if we never were, we’d vanish from exsistance.

If God did not exsist then life would have no meaning whatsoever. If we were created from a “big bang”, then life is trivial & of no importance, we would in fact be a mistake or a freaks of nature.

I fact that we have laws, laws against killing & stealing is more evidence of Gods’ exsistance. If we were mere animals then there would be no laws but survival of the fitest, kill or be killed. Animals are not conscious of their misgivings or limitation, only their will to survive, we humans have the intellgence enough to limit ourselves, aniamls do not.

God exsists because life has meaning, for without God we would have no need to live, life would have no hope, nor love.’’

I really like the point you made here;
“ If God were to stop thinking* about us for a milli-second then God exsists & **we only exsists because he thinks *about us & loves us constantly we would cease to exsist”
I never really thought about it in this sense. However; I agree 100%. To me this goes to that truth, which is, “everything is by God’s will”. If God’s will, allows our existence, then we exist. Great post, thank you. Your post, along with many others, have really enlightened me on a whole range of issues. This is just another example of why I really enjoy this forum and Catholic Answers!
Yours in Christ,
 
Your welcome.

I trully believe what I said. If God were to stop loving us just for an instant we would disapear from exsistance as if we never were, & no one would have any recolection of us. Reminds we of ’ It’s A Wonderful Life’ with Jimmy Stewart. 🙂

I’ve contemplated hours & hours on the exsistance of God & found that He must exsist or else live would be meaningless.

I’ve heard that people, while under hypnosis have been taken back through their childhood years to remember events in their past that may shed light on their present problems or illnesses. I heard that some doctors have even taken people back to their months in the womb & even to the moment of their birth. Many of these people (some atheists) remember crying out to God in anguish as they were being born & taken from the comfort of their mothers’ womb. Astounding to say the least.
 
I used to spend a lot of time with the idea of being able to prove God’s existence. Ultimately, though, I came to the conclusion that many people much smarter and more spiritually mature than I always said, but which I always found hard to accept - that it is a matter of faith, not proof. In other words, reason can only go so far, but to cross that final gap requires the famous leap of faith. So for me it’s become not a question of “How do you know God exists,” but rather “Why do you choose to believe in God?”

I choose to believe in God because I choose to believe in love, and in a universe where love is possible. The choice, to me, is between a meaningless, nihilistic universe and one of abounding beauty, love, and fulfillment. I chose the latter.
 
Obviously, there are many reasons I believe that God exists. I like what’s been said so far, and I have a reason of my own to add. I have seen my life transformed by God. I have found that when I pray for God to change my heart, the change of heart eventually comes. I know from experience that just wanting to be different doesn’t help, but when I pray, that really is transforming. There is no way for me to explain my ongoing interior transformation except to acknowledge that God does exist and that He does love me.
 
Consider the eloquence and beauty of the reasoning behind this Cosmological argument for the existance of God:

The Prime Mover:

This argument for the existence of God proceeds as follows:

“Nothing can move itself, hence everything that moves is moved by something other than itself. If this is also moving, it must be moved by a third, and so on ad infititum. But an actual infinite series of things moving and being moved is impossible, and unless we ultimately arrive at a first link in this chain, all motion is impossible.
Hence there must be a first to account for the motion we observe in the world. This first must not itself be subject to motion, for it would then have to have another before it to make it move, and it would not be the first we supposed it to be.
We have thus proved, therefore the existence of a *primum movens immobile, *a first unmoved mover.”

And this unmoved mover is God.
 
JMJ
Kevin,

Thanks for your post.****
Kevin Walker
Re: How do you know that God exist’s?

Consider the eloquence and beauty of the reasoning behind this Cosmological argument for the existance of God:

The Prime Mover:

This argument for the existence of God proceeds as follows:

“Nothing can move itself, hence everything that moves is moved by something other than itself. If this is also moving, it must be moved by a third, and so on ad infititum. But an actual infinite series of things moving and being moved is impossible, and unless we ultimately arrive at a first link in this chain, all motion is impossible.
Hence there must be a first to account for the motion we observe in the world. This first must not itself be subject to motion, for it would then have to have another before it to make it move, and it would not be the first we supposed it to be.
We have thus proved, therefore the existence of a *primum movens immobile, *a first unmoved mover.”

And this unmoved mover is God.

Here is more info…

Thomas Aquinas

Summa catholicce fidei contra gentiles (1261-C,4); and the Summa theologioe.

SUMMA I: GOD.

Part I. treats of God, who is the " first cause, himself uncaused " (primum movens immobile**)** and as such existent only in act (actu), that is pure actuality without potentiality and, therefore, without corporeality.

His essence is actus purus et perfectus. This follows from the fivefold proof for the existence of God; namely, there must be a first mover, unmoved, a first cause in the chain of causes, an absolutely necessary being, an absolutely perfect being, and a rational designer………

….Since every knowing being strives after the thing known as end, will is implied in knowing. Inasmuch as God knows himself as the perfect good, he wills himself as end. But in that everything is willed by God, everything is brought by the divine will to himself in the relation of means to end.

Therein God wills good to every being which exists, that is he loves it; and, therefore, love is the fundamental relation of God to the world……

Sir Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of Motion

I. Every object in a state of uniform motion remains in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
II. The relationship between an object’s mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma.
III. For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.

“It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter… *no ordinary power being able to divide what God himself made one in the first creation.” *

Sir Isaac Newton

Yours in Christ,
 
Self Evident, requiring no proof:
Something cannot come from Nothing.

Therefore, something had to exist from all eternity.

You have 2 choices:
  1. Inanimate Matter existed from all eternity.
  2. Animated Intellect existed from all eternity. (non - matter).
 
Self Evident, requiring no proof:
Something cannot come from Nothing.

Therefore, something had to exist from all eternity.

You have 2 choices:
  1. Inanimate Matter existed from all eternity.
  2. Animated Intellect existed from all eternity. (non - matter).
Since Intellect is non-matter, it could never have come from matter. (something greater than its nature).

Yet Intellect exists.

But, an infinite Intellect could create matter. (something inferior to itself)

#2 is the only logical choice.
 
JMJ

Quote-

“given all we know about the world today, the idea of God has an enormous explanatory power, and thus faith in God is more rational than atheism”
*“Many people claim to have experienced God, and this should be trusted unless there is any reason to doubt it.” *
“one should trust that one’s own experiences are reliable unless some defeater exists, and he claims that the many reports about religious experience should be trusted.”
Richard Swinburne**

(professor in philosophy at Oxford University in England)

Quote-

“religious beliefs do not have to be justified through other beliefs in order to be rational. Religious beliefs are, properly basic. All humans have a kind of basic beliefs that are recognized even if we cannot give proofs or arguments for them. One does not, need to give any proof or arguments in order to have a rational faith, just like one doesn’t need proof in order to believe in basic truths like the existence of other people or the external world.”
Alvin Plantingais

(professor at Notre Dame University)

Quote-

“The statement, “God exists,” is a precisely stated proposition. Thus, it is either true or false. The simple fact is, either God exists or He does not. There is no middle ground.”

“It is meaningless to say that something is a cause if it yields no effect. It is likewise meaningless to say that something is an effect if it has no cause. A cause, by definition, must have an effect, or it is not a cause. An effect, by definition, must have a cause, or it is not an effect”**

Bert Thompson, Ph.D.

Quote-

*****Traditional philosophy argued for the existence of God on the foundation of the law of causality. The cosmological argument went from the presence of a cosmos back to a creator of the cosmos. It sought a rational answer to the question, *“Why is there something rather than nothing?”

R.C. Sproul

(In his book, Not A Chance)

Yours in Christ,
 
JMJ

Proof that God=Guv

Basic outline of the Scientific Proof of God.

This outline shows that the Cartesian structure of
space itself is the physical cause of the Cartesian structure
of the Brain, and therefore the Cartesian structure of
Psychometry space. The theoretical reason for this may
be explained as follows: As we know, the ordinary space
of common experience is Euclidean (Cartesian), which means
that the Pythagorean Theorem holds: r2=x2+y2+z2
This is just the equation of a circle or a sphere, and for this
reason euclidean Space is universally referred to as the
“space of rigid body rotations” (it is also the space of rigid
body translations too, for the same reason). With any other
metrical law we would not be able to rotate or translate a
rigid body in space without deforming it. Helmholtz, Riemann
and Weyl proved this long ago. This fact is what causes
Nature to impose a Riemannian-Euclidean metric (quadratic metric) on spacetime, which means the metric must not
only be quadratic but that it must reduce to the familiar
Euclidean metric in 3D space.
OK, knowing then that Nature physically imposes
(somehow) a Euclidean metric on the space of ordinary
experience; we also know that there are only 4 “simple”
coordinate systems possible in Euclidean Space: Cartesian,
Polar, Cylindrical and Spherical. Furthermore, elementary
mechanics teaches us that the “simple machines” are simply
mechanical realizations of these “simple” coordinate systems.
A Brick is Cartesian, a Wheel is Polar, a Screw is Cylindrical,
a Ball Bearing is Spherical.
Obviously however, the Cartesian Machine is the simplest and
most common. It is for this reason that Nature uses the
Cartesian Body Plan to construct all (multicellular) Plants and
Animals. All (multicellular) Plants and Animals are CARTESIAN
MACHINES. T

The document presented at:

http://geocities.com/scientific_proof_of_god/georgefile.html

Yours in Christ,
 
JMJ

Quotes from - Expression of Purpose in Evolution ****
John Nash

*****“The world is the vehicle through which the life of a Logos is expressed, and the evolution of the kingdoms of nature simply reflects the unfolding consciousness of that Life. *****

“teleology, the theory of purpose, is not a popular term among mainstream scientists and philosophers”

“However, there is evidence that humankind has reached a turning point in its intellectual development and that the notion of purpose will soon find more general acceptance and even scientific proof.”******

“In fact Isaac Newton saw in those eternal, immutable laws of motion an expression of the splendor and majesty of a rational god. The universe was a giant mechanism, like a clock, but it was a wonderful clock. Newton himself believed that the universe, albeit ordered and predictable, was kept ticking by a "perpetual miracle,”

“The emergent properties are spontaneous manifestations at the particular level of complexity. But are these emergent properties just another class of random phenomena, or are they guided or directed in some manner by some agency of purpose?”

“To gain necessary insight, we need to examine a property that has been observed in self-organizing systems—the tendency to form feedback loops. Feedback brings about an exchange of energy and information between a system and its environment, enabling the system to become self-regulating or autopoietic. A familiar example of a self-regulating system is a thermostatically controlled heating system. The system monitors the temperature and turns itself on and off to maintain a near-constant temperature in a room. Information from the system’s output is fed back to control its (name removed by moderator)ut.” ******

Nash on Random Consistency;

“Complex systems of interacting components can become self-organizing, developing much faster than would be possible through unaided random permutation. Crystals*****, avalanches, and tornadoes are examples of self-organizing structures, and so are biological and economic systems. Self-organizing structures may exhibit randomness*****, but still they belong to recognizable structural families. No two snowflakes are the same, but everyone knows that they are snowflakes.” ******

“The notion that purpose……. has far-reaching implications. Perhaps the Cartesian division between physical and nonphysical phenomena is finally coming to an end. If the world’s intellectual leaders can accept that the universe is purposeful, nobody’s life will be the same again.”******

John Nash** **(Expression of Purpose in Evolution) depicted in the movie – A Beautiful Mind, Genius and Nobel Laureate, / Fine Hall, the bldg. of Department of Mathematics at Princeton University. www.uriel.org/articles-presentations/essays6.htm

Yours in Christ,****
 
Kevin Walker:
Consider the eloquence and beauty of the reasoning behind this Cosmological argument for the existance of God:

The Prime Mover:

This argument for the existence of God proceeds as follows:

“Nothing can move itself, hence everything that moves is moved by something other than itself. If this is also moving, it must be moved by a third, and so on ad infititum. But an actual infinite series of things moving and being moved is impossible, and unless we ultimately arrive at a first link in this chain, all motion is impossible.
Hence there must be a first to account for the motion we observe in the world. This first must not itself be subject to motion, for it would then have to have another before it to make it move, and it would not be the first we supposed it to be.
We have thus proved, therefore the existence of a *primum movens immobile, *a first unmoved mover.”

And this unmoved mover is God.
Click to expand...
The existence of life tells me that God is real. The simplest creature, a single cell amoeba has many complex functions (e.g., food capture, mobility, digestion, reproduction, etc.) all of which are necessary to its survival. Each of these functions by itself is highly complex. But you need all of these functions working together (an even higher level of complexity) to form a living organism. Inanimate matter would need the knowledge of these functions to form itself into life, which is absurd. The only rational explanation is an engineering mind, and one far above ours, given that we still don’t know how to make an amoeba. Even if we eventually figure it out, we will have done so only after learning how he did it. QED.
 
JMJ
Quotes taken from: Originally Posted by Jimmy B
It’s as simple as 1+1=2***

”How could God exist in the past, present and future? Is it merely faith that we can believe this, or is there an explanation?”

”There are not very many “truths” as we know it. People can be wrong and often are. Science can be wrong and often is, example “the world is flat”. The only truths are math and God.” *

”A mathematical formula is often referred to as a “truth”, a constant. God has been referred to as the “Truth”…The truth the(life)light and the way. God is infinite and numbers are infinite.”

”The simplest mathematical formula (truth) 1+1=2,”**
***“1+1=2 existed before the universe. It will exist when we are all long gone and it exist now, in the present, because we know is exists. No matter what has ever happen or what will ever happen 1+1 will ALWAYS! Equal 2. It is a truth. Like God.”
*Yours in Christ
 
JMJ
Did God give us math and the binary code? Does this prove the existence of God?
**Quotes taken from: Originally Posted by **Jimmy B
***“the only two numbers a computer knows are zero and one, 0 & 1. A program consists of long lines, series of zeros and ones in a specific sequence.”

”Computer animation is achieve by entering a long sequence of code, zeros and ones, numbers, a specific code that equal an image of an animated character, like “Schrek”. No matter how many times you re-enter the “Schrek” code an image of Sleeping Beauty will never materialize.”

”Remember numbers are infinite and possible sequences are also infinite. These infinite, possible sequencings have always existed; some exist now, as we know them, and will always exist. The sequence for Schrek existed before computers, before man thought and wrote them down. If you use the same computer program a million years from now and re-enter the “Schrek” code, now long forgotten. Schrek we re-appear, not Sleeping beauty!”

“I’ve got your number”. “God has your number”. “God knew you before you existed in your mother’s womb”. Have you ever heard these expressions before? How is this possible?” ***
***“Remember, 1+1=2.” ***
***“God is infinite and the gift he gave to man, MATH is infinite. If man had the technology, a super, super, super computer 10x. (to the tenth power) A series of numbers, zeros and ones, in a specific sequence could be assigned to who you are, what you are, what you look like and every thought or action you have ever had or will ever have. “

” But when everything is all said and done the sequence of numbers will always equal one life,” ***yours!
“ Remember God is infinite. Infinite Love, Power, Intelligence, EVERYTHING!. God has my number and your number, as well as the entire universe. “
***Yours in Christ
 
Many beautiful have been written on this thread. It was : “How do you know God exists?”

On a human level with obervations and through the use of our senses, we do not know that God exists. Rational thinking doesn’t proove the existance of God. But if we extend all of these into the metaphysical - we get a glimpse of God.

God speaks a simple language. He speaks with clouds, little birds, the Mass, puppies and yes, babies. None of these can be made by a man.

Where did all the atoms that make up the earth come from? Only God could do these things.:yup:
 
I think the greatest proof of God is the human mind. A scientist can explain how species have descended from eachother and have become more complex by modification, and ultimately a human is produced. But they can not explain the human mind.

They can not tell me how I can decide to hit the k rather than the m. They can’t explain a creative thought. These are things that, if they do not, then they seem to contradict all of science and the way it is defined. Science is based on natural phenomenon. Physics is based on the atom and how it works. Chemistry is based on reactions between different chemicals. Biology is based on how this works to create life. All of these are based on ordered processes that have reason for why they occur and why they occur the way they do. But decision making seems to have no order to it. What I mean is that I can decide to do what I want. It is based on what I want or what I feel rather than on what would naturally occur.

Everything in science follows some pattern and rules. For example, when two oppositely charged magnets come close they attract eachother. When same charge magnets come close, they repel. But my decisions do not follow any set order or rules. For example, decision is supposed to be spelled as I spelled it but I could spell it desision if I feel like it. I have made thousands upon thousands of desisions in this post, from how to say something to what keys to press.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top