Proof of God

[DJ_Adam]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

 

[VociMike]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

Can you even prove beyond doubt that you exist? If so, can you prove to me beyond doubt that you exist? If so, can you prove beyond doubt that I exist, or anybody else exists? I’m serious. Your requirements are awfully high.

As for proof of God, what would proof beyond doubt for God look like to you?

Anyway, you might want to take a look here: (note that he calls these “arguments” for God’s existence, not “proof”)

peterkreeft.com/featured-writing.htm

 

[cheese_sdc]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

None. Yet I still believe.

 

[mosher]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

Read these articles. If you have difficulty with the language we can speak about them and help with your understanding on the issue.

newadvent.org/summa/100200.htm

 

[VociMike]

Let me just add that many of us here are former atheists or agnostics. Myself included. So we understand your question. What I found, to my surprise, is that when one is not looking for God, one does not see Him anywhere. But when one starts looking for God, He is everywhere. The world is saturated with God. Like I said, this was a big (and pleasant) surprise to me.

 

[LilyM]

First of all if God exists then a) he created you and gave you life b) he created a heck of a lot of other things as well - the world and everything in it for example.

Given that you’ve never created anything on remotely the same scale in your life, this fact alone makes him worthy of worship as a being far greater and more powerful than you.

As for proof beyond doubt that he exists - even the law isn’t so strict. It only demands proof beyond reasonable doubt. This is to allow for the fact that the human intellect and senses are puny at best and usually leave plenty of room for doubt even in the best of circumstances.

I wouldn’t rely on your own resources if I were you. Why not simply ask God to show you if he exists. He’s more than capable of that. Like I said, though, keep an open mind and heart rather than simply looking for intellectual proof.

 

[LittleRose]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

If we believe because we have proof beyond doubt, then it wouldn’t be faith, would it?

I would ask this–Can anyone prove beyond a doubt that God doesn’t exist more than anyone can prove that he does? Many people think science is the answer, but I have seen people use science to attempt to prove both sides of the argument.

And, as someone posted above, how do we prove that WE really exist? For all we know “reality” could be an illusion. Most of us believe it isn’t, of course, but do we really “know”?

 

[VociMike]

I would ask this–Can anyone prove beyond a doubt that God doesn’t exist more than anyone can prove that he does?

Atheists will typically invoke Occam’s Razor here, saying (more or less) that since God cannot be either proven or disproven, one should choose the simpler alternative, which is “no God”. I disagree strongly that the simpler alternative actually is “no God”. The way I look at it, if one chooses the “God exists” alternative, then one only has one unprovable fact to accept, the existence of God. The entire existence and structure of the universe, life and the human person all flows from that one fact. Whereas if one chooses the “God doesn’t exist” alternative, then one must believe in a nearly infinite chain of incredibly unlikely and quite unprovable “rabbits out of a hat” to explain the existence and structure of the universe, life and the human person. Given the actual world we live in and observe, Occam’s Razor clearly favors the existence of God over the non-existence of God.

 

[DJ_Adam]

Thanks for the replies and links everyone.
I had stumbled upon the one posted by VociMike on my travels and is pretty much the same sort of arguments found all over the internet, or rather an elaboration of Thomas Aquinas’ “proofs” from C13th. All of which aren’t proof in the slightest in my eyes.

For example, the argument of design: just because the odds of a created universe are astronical for it to be chance, doesn’t mean God did it.

Can you even prove beyond doubt that you exist? If so, can you prove to me beyond doubt that you exist? If so, can you prove beyond doubt that I exist, or anybody else exists? I’m serious. Your requirements are awfully high.

As for proof of God, what would proof beyond doubt for God look like to you?

I can’t prove beyond doubt I exist to myself or to others, as I can’t with God.
Proof for me would be an appearance on TV doing something impossible. Maybe make the moon dance around the sky

LilyM:

First of all if God exists then a) he created you and gave you life b) he created a heck of a lot of other things as well - the world and everything in it for example.

Given that you’ve never created anything on remotely the same scale in your life, this fact alone makes him worthy of worship as a being far greater and more powerful than you.

That is presuming he created me and all life. There’s no proof he did. If He proved to me He did, I’d worship him. Until then, he isn’t worthy of my worship.

I also appriciate LittleRose saying it wouldn’t be faith with proof.
But again, what drives someone to have faith in a supernatural being?

As an atheist I don’t believe in God as it just doesn’t sound plausable to me, and neither have any arguments to support His case.

With an infinite timescale to produce infinite results, chance will always occur.
Also, if God is omniscient, he already knows how to intervene to change the course of the universe and everything in it using His omnipotence. But that means he can’t change his mind about his intervention making him non-omnipotent.
With such paradoxes as these, I find it hard to believe in His existance.

 

[Mystophilus]

I’ve been reading and reading and reading and I’ve found nothing on the internet that proves beyond doubt God exists or if He does is even worthy of my worship.
What proof do the people who believe in Him have?
Thanks

As noted by other posters here, even proving one’s own existence is challenging. When pushed, anyone with any dialectical skill can retreat into solipsism, and the fact that the only thing which we can logically demonstrate with absolute surety is our own personal existence, and that we can only demonstrate it so surely to ourselves.

I would strongly suspect that a few people, on reading your post, would leap to the conclusion that you are trolling: an atheist looking for proof of what cannot be proven. I apologise for this.

Assuming that you are not such a creature, I would like to expand upon what some others have said. Belief is called belief because it is not knowledge. There is no method known to humanity by which one can prove to another the existence or nature of God.

Why, then, do we believe? For some, it is because they were brought up within a culture of belief, and they have never rejected that. For others, it is because they value the security of being in the larger group, the church of their choice. For yet others, experiences in their life have led them to believe in something beyond the limits of their physical sight. Ultimately, for all rational beings, it comes down to a choice.

I have been an agnostic, an atheist, and a fundamentalist. I have studied several religions in considerable depth, and have read as much as I could of their Scriptures. I now believe that the Bible represents an honest attempt by imperfect mortals to explain what they thought was true, and that it is not necessarily the literal, absolute Truth.

I choose to believe in a God, because I believe that such a being presents the most coherent explanation of the data: one will is more probably than an inordinate number of fortunate chances. I choose to believe in an omnipotent God, because I see no purpose in worshipping something which is merely a stronger version of myself. I choose to believe in Jesus as the Incarnation of God because I have never seen a more beautiful representation of how I would like the Divine to be: a God who does descend to an imperfect world and takes on suffering merely to rescue us mortals from our own mistakes.

Can I prove the truth of any of this to you? No.

You have to make your own choice, but, quite frankly, I choose to believe in a just God who will not condemn either of us merely for a flaw in our philosophies, and, when we are dead, we can all find out who was closest.

 

[VociMike]

I can’t prove beyond doubt I exist to myself or to others, as I can’t with God.
Proof for me would be an appearance on TV doing something impossible. Maybe make the moon dance around the sky

Ahh, you clearly don’t know about the Miracle of the Sun, witnessed by an estimated 70,000 people less than 100 years ago:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun

I’m just honestly curious, would you rather that God, in particular the Christian God, existed or not? And why, or why not?

 

[mosher]

Thanks for the replies and links everyone.
I had stumbled upon the one posted by VociMike on my travels and is pretty much the same sort of arguments found all over the internet, or rather an elaboration of Thomas Aquinas’ “proofs” from C13th. All of which aren’t proof in the slightest in my eyes.

What about the proofs of Thomas do you not find proving? I would be more than happy to discuss this issue while others speak on other topics that are bound to come up in this conversation.

 

[DJ_Adam]

I would strongly suspect that a few people, on reading your post, would leap to the conclusion that you are trolling: an atheist looking for proof of what cannot be proven. I apologise for this.

The thought had crossed my mind before I posted so I tried to come across as non-aggressive as possible in my wording, as I’m genuinely interested in having a rational debate with people about their beliefs, and thankyou for your reply

VociMike:

I’m just honestly curious, would you rather that God, in particular the Christian God, existed or not? And why, or why not?

Personal choice on the matter is almost irrelevant, as He either exists or not and I’ll find out when I die. Or not as the case may be.
If I arrive at the gates of heaven when I die, I’ll hold my hands up and say I was wrong and beg forgiveness and open my heart to the glory of the lord. Or Buddha. Or Muhammad. Or maybe Bragi in Valhalla.
Because I don’t know what happens when I die, and nobody does because there’s no proof of life after death, I’ll be fine with the idea of oblivion. I’m made of matter and will become nothing when I die which is the most plausable explanation for this flimsy shell of flesh and bone.

My life is my life to lead as I see fit without having to worry about what God thinks.
I do good deeds not because it’s the Christian way that God teaches; I do it because it’ll benefit the person I help. The warm glow I get is a bonus!
I don’t murder people or steal just because it’s forbidden by God in the Ten Commandments: I don’t do them because I respect other people and wouldn’t want it happening to me or the people I know.
I didn’t thank God when I survived a nasty car accident without a scratch, I thanked my airbags and Herculean strength on the steering wheel. Nor would I thank him if my numbers came up on the national lottery; I picked some numbers by chance and got lucky.
God doesn’t come into any of my decision making.
I feel personally that makes me a “better” person for want of a better word, because I do it for the good of other people rather than the threat of going to hell.

So would I rather God existed?
I’d have to say no. It would take away the magic of life by thinking something supernatural was throwing good things in my direction. It would take away my sense of personal achievement because God would have made it happen. It would also make me angry that something supernatural made bad things happen to me and the people I know.

As for the sun incident, I wish I’d have seen it. As it stands, it was an unexplainable phenomenon, and more importantly, if God really did it “so that all may believe”, He could have said it to more than three children. If He really wanted all to believe, He’d do it now.

 

[DesertAscetic]

The thought had crossed my mind before I posted so I tried to come across as non-aggressive as possible in my wording, as I’m genuinely interested in having a rational debate with people about their beliefs, and thankyou for your reply

DJ Adam,

I don’t want to hijack your topic, but I just wanted to present another perspective for you. I don’t want to be redundant to what other great posters have presented you either.

For years I was atheist. This coincided with my university studies in cognitive neuroscience. I don’t want to sound flippant when, in response to your question “What proof do you have of God?”, I say to you “Free will and the existence of The Self.”

Again, I don’t want to hijack your topic into a philosophical discussion on free will vs. determinism, but basically, the argument goes as follows: Free will exists, free will is not possible with materialism/determinism, therefore, the world cannot be purely material. Now, this doesn’t necessarily give a proof of God. And, of course many scientists don’t believe in free will. Which leads to the second philosophical paradox–the existence of The Self. Now, in this one, the argument is similar–that materialism cannot give an account for the existence of The Self-- but since it must be an immaterial reason, outside of physical laws, what sort of immaterial thing could create a thing like the Self. I think we can see it would have to be a God. Again, many scientists also don’t believe in the existence of The Self.

I struggled with this for years, and finally I just had to accept (in faith) that I truly have free will and I am “me”–I am a self. From this came the intellectual belief in God. Now, how I got from that to the “Big 3 in 3” (i.e. omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Triune God) is a whole other journey.

If you want to explore these perspectives more, let me know before I hijack and bore everyone with the philosophical paradox.

Pax,
Shaunna

 

[Nullasalus]

As for the sun incident, I wish I’d have seen it. As it stands, it was an unexplainable phenomenon, and more importantly, if God really did it “so that all may believe”, He could have said it to more than three children. If He really wanted all to believe, He’d do it now.

You realize that the sun incident happened in front of tens of thousands of people, right? This wasn’t some miracle reported by three children.

But that’s not good enough - it would have had to have been worldwide, right? Why limit a miracle to tens of thousands if billions of people are in the world, after all. And of course, those people die, new ones are born… so you need yet more miracles.

So what we really need is a miracle that is more or less in constant, neverending effect. Something absolutely everyone can experience. And it has to be something amazing, without explanation - miraculous, in fact.

We’ve got one. ‘The universe exists.’

 

[VociMike]

…I do good deeds not because it’s the Christian way that God teaches; I do it because it’ll benefit the person I help. The warm glow I get is a bonus!
I don’t murder people or steal just because it’s forbidden by God in the Ten Commandments: I don’t do them because I respect other people and wouldn’t want it happening to me or the people I know.

But that’s not the way you do everything. When you take a job you’re taking it away from somebody else, somebody who may have needed it more. When you buy a house you may be taking that house away from somebody who wanted it more. When you marry a woman you may be taking her away from somebody who loves her more, and with whom she’d have a better life. In every case, you are treating people the way that you would not, if the situation were reversed, want them to treat you.

So not everything you do regarding other people is based on the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule, frankly, doesn’t cut it as a moral code, because nobody actually lives it, and nobody actually expects anybody to live it.

As for the sun incident, I wish I’d have seen it. As it stands, it was an unexplainable phenomenon, and more importantly, if God really did it “so that all may believe”, He could have said it to more than three children. If He really wanted all to believe, He’d do it now.

So 70,000 witnesses isn’t enough for you? That’s a lot more people than saw us land on the moon (actually saw, with their own eyes). But I bet you believe we landed on the moon.

 

[DJ_Adam]

What about the proofs of Thomas do you not find proving? I would be more than happy to discuss this issue while others speak on other topics that are bound to come up in this conversation.

Thomas basically says that something can’t come from nothing, be it physical or movement. Therefore God exists.
For me that is no argument for the proof of God.
It’s equally plausable to assume something was always there. If God just “Is”, then why can’t the physical universe and movement within it just “Be there” strething back into infinite? If God can be infinite, why can’t the universe?
Also, taking that argument of Something must create something from nothing, then what created God? Why was God there before the creating of everything? The answer of “Because He’s God” isn’t an answer; if anything it highlights the blindness of faith which I find incomprehensible. It also begs the question of what did he do for an eternity before the beginning? It’s a long time to just be there and twiddle His thumbs.
Thomas’s argument for design I sort of mention in a previous post: With an infinite timescale to produce infinite results, chance will always occur.
If the matter making up the universe has been there for an infinite length of time, possibly with an infinite number of big crunchs and big bang universe creations before this one, there’s plenty of chances for what we have in the universe now to be created.
As for the argument of Degree claiming that the maximum amount of perfect goodness is God requires no rebut.

 

[Nullasalus]

If you want to explore these perspectives more, let me know before I hijack and bore everyone with the philosophical paradox.

Pax,
Shaunna

I’m not the one who started this thread, but count me in for someone who would really like to hear your story. Sciences are something I read up on a lot, particularly neuroscience and quantum physics lately. Someone who has a backgruond in such things and came to the theistic conclusion would be a pleasure to hear from.

 

[Mystophilus]

God doesn’t come into any of my decision making.
I feel personally that makes me a “better” person for want of a better word, because I do it for the good of other people rather than the threat of going to hell.

I agree completely, and so did Jesus, and many of the authors of the Bible texts. It is a pity that, being a believer, I can never reliably make the same claim .

 

[DJ_Adam]

I’m not the one who started this thread, but count me in for someone who would really like to hear your story. Sciences are something I read up on a lot, particularly neuroscience and quantum physics lately. Someone who has a backgruond in such things and came to the theistic conclusion would be a pleasure to hear from.

I’ll second that
No reason why we can’t keep up with several things going on in here at once.

VociMike:

So 70,000 witnesses isn’t enough for you? That’s a lot more people than saw us land on the moon (actually saw, with their own eyes). But I bet you believe we landed on the moon.

Nullasalus:

You realize that the sun incident happened in front of tens of thousands of people, right? This wasn’t some miracle reported by three children.

I don’t dispute that 70,000 people saw it.
Not all 70,000 people were told it was a miracle though, only 3 children.
The whole world could have watched it live on TV. It doesn’t make it a miracle. It would have been a miracle if God had told everyone He was going to do it beforehand. Instead he told three children “so that all may believe”.
Again, if He wants all to believe, he’d do it now and he’d tell more than just a few children in a field He was about to show us. The sun incident will be a miracle to the 3 children, the other 69,997 people saw something unexplainable.

I would also like to add I’m thoroughly enjoying this conversation with very friendly people, so thankyou for having me!