Proving God Exists

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You need to HOLD the hypothesis AS a hypothesis for you to USE the scientific method to TEST the hypothesis!

Faith is merely HOLDING to one’s hypothesis, one’s belief, while it is still provisional (unproved) during the experiment.

This doesn’t really work other than as a loose analogy. I try to be objective. I think it’s possible that a god exists, but I don’t think anyone would call what I have faith.

Your BELIEF is that God may exist. You are (apparently) FAITHFUL in holding to that belief over time, for whatever reasons.

I would certainly call what you have FAITH, as you are being faithful to your belief (holding it) even though you don’t SEEM to have any REAL evidence to hold your belief.

You are HOLDING to your hypothesis while it is still provisional. That IS “faith”.

It’s good to be objective, but what does “objective” mean to you in the realm of religion?

 

[AquinAugustine]

I don’t know why I didn’t answer this way in the first place, but my belief that I am aware of what is Divine Revelation is faith-based.

 

[AquinAugustine]

In summation, what I intend to convey is that nothing can be absolutely known, but can be arrived at through faith in Divine Revelation, which one must exercise faith to accept as authentic. Also, constancy, a given for the Christian faithful, aside from the eventual complete absence thereof, cannot be assumed by way of a science-based belief system, solely because there is no authoritative source of assurance within such a belief system. So, my point is that, faith-wise, those who believe in God have a basis for assuming some degree of security, while atheists have no such basis. Previously, I got caught up in trying to reason from within a paradigm that I don’t apply to myself, and which I felt I had inadvertently rendered myself subject to, which resulted in some aspects of my previous answer.

 

[catholicbuckeye]

Super Grover, that is utterly fascinating. I would absolutely love to talk about this experience of yours and how all this works for you. That is just really, really interesting really. I probably won’t be on much if at all this weekend, but I’ll definitely try to get back to you so that we can talk about this if you don’t mind. I’m not going to blow off your idea on prayer even if it does sound boring because it obviously affected you. Perhaps at another time you can give further detail in what happened.

Thanks a ton. That was really - really frickin’ interesting.

Please tell us what would have to happen to prove to you that God exists.

 

[Anticontrame]

First off, the conclusion that anything absolutely is cannot be achieved apart from what God reveals concerning His creation, in my view. That is what I mean by atheism precluding the establishment of absolutes.

In answer to your second question, I believe that in the practical sense, things can be trusted with regard to their ability to allow one to recognize Divine Revelation, provided that one seeks it, as well as other things, but I tend not to believe that anything can be known absolutely by any but God.

Ah, I understand. My own view is that there are absolutes, but that in almost all cases, there’s no way to obtain certain knowledge of what those absolutes are. I try to refine my mental model to match reality, but I can’t think of how I’d be able to know for certain whether or not I’m 100% in alignment with it.

Also, I have the Church’s testimony as to its origin, which, in my experience, is only denied by those who seek to continue sinning unabated, and who, resultingly seek to discredit the Church, or Christianity in general, in order to create within their own minds a certain level of non acceptance of the immorality of the aforementioned sins. Also, I believe that God has the ability to gift one with faith which supercedes understanding.

I disagree with you here. I obviously don’t believe the teachings of the Church, but it’s not because that allows me to sin more, or because I want to sin. The same goes for morality. Of course, I can’t expect you to take me for my word on that if you think I’m prone to sinning in the form of lying.

There is also the fact that, to my knowledge, there is no more reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe than that it was created by an Omnipotent, Omniscient Being, especially considering that the only popular alternative argues that the universe is the product of nature and time, neither of which possesses consciousness, much less intelligence, and, yet, are credited with the development of life forms and an ability within the aforementioned to develop adaptations which benefit them with regard to survival within their respective habitats, an ability which would seem to portend some kind of cognizance.

I understand what you’re saying, but from the position of someone who doesn’t believe in God, that I don’t understand/know where things came from isn’t a convincing reason for me to attribute them to God. I think that would require me to have faith to start with.

Also, I did not claim that certainty is possible.

Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you meant by “achieving security”.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
Because of the self-arrogated “definitional monopoly” of the religious scientistic quasi-“scientist”, the actual scientific method is NEVER applicable to any religious experimentation in their opinion (one of their religious beliefs).

I agree with that: that the scientific method isn’t applicable to the existence of gods. Science works by measuring the measurable and describing the physical. The supernatural just isn’t something that we have the ability to test. We can use the scientific method to test claims that involve measurable effects, such as the effects of prayer on the world, but even in cases where answers elude for centuries, we can never really deduce that no natural explanation exists when there’s no list of all natural explanations.

Science is knowledge of reality.

The supernatural as experienced by humans is knowable by individuals, though most probably not communicable from person to person AS knowledge but only as “hint”, and therefore IS a subject of science.

The scientific method DOES function in this area of knowledge, as any non-scientistic religious person will most happily tell you, as the method which confirms those “hints” given to him by his brother humans.

 

[Anticontrame]

The experimenter and the subject of experimentation in a religious experiment are all the same “object”, the person who is searching for a religious experience.

“Confirmation bias”, and the placebo effect, are not relevant to the validity of the religious experiment because they are elements OF the experiment.

Religion is a subject area where materialistic scientists deem inherently out-of-bounds because of the impossibility of eliminating the placebo effect. No “proof”, which IS given by religious experimentation, is communicable AS proof as materialistic scientists define proof to another person.

You can “write up” your experiment, which is what you see in religious mystical writings, but they are seen simply as “imaginings” by those who refuse to do the experiments themselves. The “proof”, which WAS experienced by the experimenter, is no proof at all to any other person until they prove the experiment to themself by doing it.

Because the religious scientistic “(not-really-a) scientist” has prejudicially decided that all religious experiments are “self-fulfilling wish fulfillment by placebo effect” they will NEVER do that kind of experiment willingly, and therefore self-fulfill their own prophesy that religion is bogus.

Their methodology in coming to that conclusion is not scientific, but scientistic, which is bent on protecting the ego from being “demeaned” by what it sees as the threat of anti-science, but which is actually true appropriate science.

The goal of scientistic religion is to protect it’s practitioners from making decisions about personal mortality.

The requirements for a “pass” are ANY result whatsoever. This kind of “pass” invalidates the experiment AS an experiment if the experiment is any experiment other than a religious experiment, of course.

The “prediction” is ALWAYS NOT a variant of “I expect to get **THIS **result”, but rather “I expect to get **SOME **result”.

…

Prayer is the exemplar of this kind of experiment, of course. Actually, all religious experiment IS in fact prayer, so that statement may be a bit redundant.

The crux of the “Is it real science?” question is whether it gains the experimenter real knowledge?

The answer is that IF the experiment is actually done as described, which is impossible to do if one is a religiously scientistic person, by the way, then the experimenter will ALWAYS gain real knowledge of a fascinating and inspiring, and potentially very dangerous, realm of knowledge.

I’m trying to stretch my definitions, but I still can’t match up what you’re describing with the scientific method. It sounds as if you’re defining a special case when dealing with religion in which normal scientific practices don’t apply. IMO the strength of science is in its constant endeavor to be objective and eliminate subjective elements that might result in bias. I think our disagreement is really just semantic on this point.

I don’t think that science is the only way to gain “knowledge”, or that any means of gaining it should be called science.

 

[bolsheviks]

In response to the OP:

Well, I’m influenced from Protestant theology and so the Church’s dogma on this subject I will opt to ignore.

But let’s get something straight. The type of proof demanded by atheists on the internet is a strawman. It’s absolute proof, which everyone knows full well does not exist. To suggest that this is the nexus of our belief, and by not having such proof, we’ve no reason to believe in the sense we do is flawed not only from a common sensical standpoint but from a theological standpoint. From common sense, I believe this argument faulty because it assumes that everything in life demands certainty. I’d challenge someone, especially from a materialistic-centered viewpoint, to show a single certainty in life. Especially with the advent of GR, and QM, certainty can hardly be said to exist anymore. The pillar of atheism, naturalistic evolution, is so far from certain top to bottom (cosmology all the way down to human morality). It is a wonderful example of not knowing and just-so stories, yet this is most likely just as fundamental to their belief system as the Bible is to ours. But that’s another story.

I believe this is a silly and pointless question from a theological standpoint due to the Christian doctrine of freewill. Why, oh why, would a God who we know from basic and minor theological inquiry, want to spoil the entire point of us being here? (That is, to have faith in Him). In other words, God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Any lack of proof of His exiestence in our finite minds must therefore be His doing, so as to give us the freewill to either accept or reject Him. This is comparable to asking why a teacher who trains you all semester would want to give you a cheat-sheet for the final exam.

Now if you’re looking for things that suggest that God exists, there are plenty:

1. Design
2. Fine-tuning
3. Big Bang cosmology
4. Philosophical necessity arguments (Aquinas)
5. The Bible’s message (defy’s man’s reasoning)
6. The Bible’s fulfilled prophecy (for instance, read Isaiah 53)
7. The Jewish people: God’s chosen people who have survived without a nation longer than anyone and yet continued to thrive under all circumstances
8. The survival and flourishing of Christianity

Those are off the top of my head, but there’s plenty of GOOD websites out there, for starters:

1. reasons.org
2. godandscience.org
3. tektonics.org

And of course, there’s plenty of excellent books out there as well, I’d recommend starting with Lewis’ Mere Christianity. You could also check out Lee Strobel’s works. He’s a former atheist who converted based on evidence (his words). Sound’s pretty appropriate for what you’re after.

 

[Anticontrame]

Your BELIEF is that God may exist. You are (apparently) FAITHFUL in holding to that belief over time, for whatever reasons.

I would certainly call what you have FAITH, as you are being faithful to your belief (holding it) even though you don’t SEEM to have any REAL evidence to hold your belief.

You are HOLDING to your hypothesis while it is still provisional. That IS “faith”.

Is that faith? Isn’t it just the default: not knowing whether a preposition is true or not until you have sufficient reason for doing so? If you’re using faith that loosely you’d have to say that every person has faith in each of their positions, including positions of ignorance.

It’s good to be objective, but what does “objective” mean to you in the realm of religion?

I’m not sure what you mean. Regarding our conversation, the subjectivity of what you were describing is the reason I don’t think it’s synonymous with the scientific method.

 

[Anticontrame]

In summation, what I intend to convey is that nothing can be absolutely known, but can be arrived at through faith in Divine Revelation, which one must exercise faith to accept as authentic. Also, constancy, a given for the Christian faithful, aside from the eventual complete absence thereof, cannot be assumed by way of a science-based belief system, solely because there is no authoritative source of assurance within such a belief system. So, my point is that, faith-wise, those who believe in God have a basis for assuming some degree of security, while atheists have no such basis. Previously, I got caught up in trying to reason from within a paradigm that I don’t apply to myself, and which I felt I had inadvertently rendered myself subject to, which resulted in some aspects of my previous answer.

I don’t think science is the only reasonable method of forming a belief. I think what you’re saying is that I am stuck in the position of being a solipsist. The only thing I can be absolutely certain of is my own existence, in that I can’t ever know that any observation or memory is genuine (the brain in the vat idea), but I do operate under the assumption that my experiences are real approximations of an objective reality until there’s sufficient reason not to. I think that if you get down to it, we’re all have to make that assumption. I can’t think of what any alternative assumption would mean, anyway.

I do think that accepting the fallibility of what you remember, or even what you’re experiencing, is key - that’s really the main reason for the scientific method. If you do have any semblance of an accurate mental model of reality, repeated hypothesis testing should lead to you bringing it more in like with the real world.

 

[Anticontrame]

Please tell us what would have to happen to prove to you that God exists.

I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I’ve been thinking about this tonight. A few years ago I probably would have said that a personal, spiritual revelation would do it. Since then I’ve had experiences that turned out not to be real (I’d rather not be specific on this point), so I don’t think that alone would do it.

I think that the most convincing thing would be a sound, knock-down, proof-style argument, after I’ve had enough time to understand it. I also think that enough objective evidence -observable to both myself and others- such as writing in the sky, or something like that, would sway me towards that direction. It’d have to be REALLY unexplainable for a long time, and I’d never be able to be sure that it wasn’t something natural playing a trick on us (alien pranksters?), so I’m not sure if that would be 100% convincing. I wouldn’t accept anecdotal evidence of this occurring though, due the potential fallibility/dishonesty involved. I’d also believe if a god rearranged the pertinent neurons. (I’m half-joking here, but I would encourage that possibility.) I know you’re probably going to get on my case for being too strict here, and I almost didn’t chime in for that reason, but that’s what I think right now.

I’d need that much convincing because the idea of a god seems so extraordinary relative to everything else I experience and believe to be true, because it seems self-contradictory in places, and because it’s an extremely appealing idea: that there’s something watching out for us, or that there’s a potential afterlife.

Of course all that varies depending upon how you define the god.

 

[BlaineTog]

The only thing I can be absolutely certain of is my own existence, in that I can’t ever know that any observation or memory is genuine (the brain in the vat idea), but I do operate under the assumption that my experiences are real approximations of an objective reality until there’s sufficient reason not to.

Actually, you can’t even have absolute certainty of your own existence, either, because that requires, if nothing else, belief in the law of noncontradiction, in logic, which, strange though it may sound, is a belief just like any other.

I think that if you get down to it, we’re all have to make that assumption. I can’t think of what any alternative assumption would mean, anyway.

In a single word, Zen Buddhism.

(See what I did there? Clever, no?)

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

I jump in, admitting that I have read only the first post and none other. One thing I like to point out requires simple logic. Look at the watch on your wrist. Look at the most complex machine ever created by man. Could these have just happened. Logic says no. Now look at man. Man can reproduce himself, grow in his mothers womb, communicate with other men, if broken, (as in a fracture or laceration) heal himself, can create machines that can fly, go to the moon and beyond, can reason, can know the abstract and understand their concepts, such as beauty, goodness, etc. All this logically tells me that if a mere mechanical machine could not just happen, but has to be created by man, and can do none of the things that man can do, then man himself would have to have been created by a higher power. That higher power is God.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

 

[bolsheviks]

I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I’ve been thinking about this tonight. A few years ago I probably would have said that a personal, spiritual revelation would do it. Since then I’ve had experiences that turned out not to be real (I’d rather not be specific on this point), so I don’t think that alone would do it.

I think that the most convincing thing would be a sound, knock-down, proof-style argument, after I’ve had enough time to understand it. I also think that enough objective evidence -observable to both myself and others- such as writing in the sky, or something like that, would sway me towards that direction. It’d have to be REALLY unexplainable for a long time, and I’d never be able to be sure that it wasn’t something natural playing a trick on us (alien pranksters?), so I’m not sure if that would be 100% convincing. I wouldn’t accept anecdotal evidence of this occurring though, due the potential fallibility/dishonesty involved. I’d also believe if a god rearranged the pertinent neurons. (I’m half-joking here, but I would encourage that possibility.) I know you’re probably going to get on my case for being too strict here, and I almost didn’t chime in for that reason, but that’s what I think right now.

I’d need that much convincing because the idea of a god seems so extraordinary relative to everything else I experience and believe to be true, because it seems self-contradictory in places, and because it’s an extremely appealing idea: that there’s something watching out for us, or that there’s a potential afterlife.

Of course all that varies depending upon how you define the god.

For me, it seems that the existence of the finite must require the existence of the infinite (not necessarily God, but He fits the bill). Your thoughts? I think the existence of just finite matter, including humanity, must point to something beyond itself. Sure you have theories like the multiverse, but that simply shifts the problem from a single universe to many universes.

 

[catholicbuckeye]

I know this wasn’t directed at me, but I’ve been thinking about this tonight. A few years ago I probably would have said that a personal, spiritual revelation would do it. Since then I’ve had experiences that turned out not to be real (I’d rather not be specific on this point), so I don’t think that alone would do it.

I think that the most convincing thing would be a sound, knock-down, proof-style argument, after I’ve had enough time to understand it. I also think that enough objective evidence -observable to both myself and others- such as writing in the sky, or something like that, would sway me towards that direction. It’d have to be REALLY unexplainable for a long time, and I’d never be able to be sure that it wasn’t something natural playing a trick on us (alien pranksters?), so I’m not sure if that would be 100% convincing. I wouldn’t accept anecdotal evidence of this occurring though, due the potential fallibility/dishonesty involved. I’d also believe if a god rearranged the pertinent neurons. (I’m half-joking here, but I would encourage that possibility.) I know you’re probably going to get on my case for being too strict here, and I almost didn’t chime in for that reason, but that’s what I think right now.

I’d need that much convincing because the idea of a god seems so extraordinary relative to everything else I experience and believe to be true, because it seems self-contradictory in places, and because it’s an extremely appealing idea: that there’s something watching out for us, or that there’s a potential afterlife.

Of course all that varies depending upon how you define the god.

Hi there — thanks for the reply - that was directed at ranier but obviously open for discussion to all. I guess I am just convinced that there are those who could never be convinced (of the existene of God). My reasoning is that since God created the natural world in which we live, anything we could experience would be perceived in the context of the natural world and thus understood through our own limited capacity for understanding the natural world. There was the miracle at Fatima witnessed by tens of thousands of people over a period of many months but has the world converted based on that? No, there are still people who try to explain it off as some freak event of nature or mass psychosis. I think since we are so limited by our five senses and our finite minds to process the stimuli received through our senses in a way to grasp the world around us, that it is strictly through faith that we can come to believe in God. I pray for all those who lack that gift of faith.

 

[AquinAugustine]

I still feel as if my previous posts contained a distortion of what I actually believe as a result of over identification and enjoining upon myself certain parameters that are not a part of my perception of the world. My point of view, overall, is that it is possible, in reality, for everyone to assume that, in a relative sense, things will continue as they have in a day-to-day, moment-to-moment sense. My argument is, essentially, that the forming of a sense of security and reasonable expectation from one’s surroundings, is something that atheists have no external confirmaton of, whereas, being a believer in an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent Trinity of Yahweh, I have a certain basis for relying upon reason in order to come to the conclusion that things can be depended upon and trusted not to change to my ultimate detriment, a basis which seems as though would not exist for the atheist or pagan. However, in spite of any insiginificant point I attempted to get across, I do not wish to be a source of unpleasantness for anyone, especially for those who, according to my beliefs, assuming that their viewpoint be maintained unrepentantly unto death, have no possibility of experiencing pleasantness apart from that experienced during their mortal lives, but I don’t know whether or not this is a theologically correct position.

 

[Super_Grover]

I’ve got to do this in two posts again.

A few years ago I probably would have said that a personal, spiritual revelation would do it. Since then I’ve had experiences that turned out not to be real

I wouldn’t accept anecdotal evidence of this occurring though, due the potential fallibility/dishonesty involved.

First of all, “signs and wonders” should not be the bases for our Faith, but for some us who are weaker (myself included) something profound is what was necessary to make us believe. I believe because I have seen, but “blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe.” That being said, I am going to address you where you are today, a person who would need evidence or signs and wonders in order to believe (although you seem to say that even that might not do the trick).

You should not simply accept the experiences of others. Other people can be mistaken, deluded, dishonest, etc. Nor should you uncritically accept your own experiences because you can be mistaken and deluded (as you say you have been). But when a number of people, unrelated to one another, report strikingly similar experience that they believe to be profound, you should at least start to take notice. As for your own false “spiritual” experiences, place those experiences side by side with the experiences of Catholic saints and see if they are similar. [And you are probably not at all disposed to accept this hypothesis, but as a Catholic, I believe that there are diabolical forces who are particularly interested in deceiving intelligent people who would otherwise make great soldiers for Christ.]

While you may have reasons not to believe this Bible that recounts a man dying and then coming back to life, consider what happened afterward. Maybe Jesus’ followers stole his body, or whatever theory you want. [And yes, I know you are talking about an Intelligent Creator in general, not Christianity in particular, but indulge me.] Those who knew Jesus can not credibly be accused of faking the resurrection. Those closest to Jesus and this event believed it was a resurrection. I say that because 11 of the 12 Apostles went to their deaths because of this belief. Yes, apocalyptic cults have willingly died, but they are typically as the final measure of “making something happen” while following a leader in whom they still believe (Think Jones, or that UFO cult, of Branch Davidians). If Jesus had died and NOT resurrected, they would have known he was a fraud and not gone to their deaths for a lie. Consider that for whatever value you want to give it.

(continued)

 

[Super_Grover]

(continued)

I think that the most convincing thing would be a sound, knock-down, proof-style argument, after I’ve had enough time to understand it. I also think that enough objective evidence -observable to both myself and others- such as writing in the sky, or something like that, would sway me towards that direction. It’d have to be REALLY unexplainable for a long time, and I’d never be able to be sure that it wasn’t something natural playing a trick on us (alien pranksters?), so I’m not sure if that would be 100% convincing.

Yes, I’ve considered the prankster alien possibility. I suppose sufficiently advanced, natural beings could even send a cyborg or something back in time to say a lot of revolutionary things and then “die” on the cross and be “resurrected” just to see what we would do. And then these aliens could send “experiences” to people for their own reasons. I can’t DISPROVE that. But think about that a little bit. While knowing an infinite mind (such as that of an Infinite God) would be impossible, natural beings such as these hypothetical aliens would be finite, and we might explore their motivations for something like this. I haven’t come up with motivations that are satisfactory to me. If it is an alien experiment, what a wonderful experiment it is. It is an experiment in which the experimenters appear to have provided an answer to every spiritual question, provide meaning in suffering, revealed beauty where none could be seen before the subject embraced the “experiment.” I cannot disprove this.

But by your standards, you could never come to believe in God. Indeed, you really should not believe ANYTHING, except maybe that you have some sort of existence, perhaps radically different from your PERCEIVED existence. I think, therefore I am, but I am not necessarily what I think I am. So, if you saw the writing in the sky, and then a huge being with a long flowing robe, a long white beard, sandals, and a booming voice, grabbed you and held you to his face and said that he was God, and that he loved you, and you felt the love, and you were shown a vision of Heaven, and he set you back down telling you love other people and to follow his commandments, you would still not believe, by your standards. You still might be in a simulacrum, or the transient dream of some other being. Maybe your mother and father are not real, this world does not exist, I am not actually a person typing to you from some other part of the world. But come on, search yourself, this is infantile stuff for stunted Philosophy professors. At some point most of us make choices that we will believe that our experience, although affected by our own sensory filters, has some semblance to reality. If you never make that choice, then you will always be exist in your own created world of uncertainty where nothing is to be believed, not the speed of light, or the value of Planck density, or quantum fluctuations, or even the hand in front of your face.

I’d need that much convincing because the idea of a god seems so extraordinary relative to everything else I experience and believe to be true, because it seems self-contradictory in places, and because it’s an extremely appealing idea: that there’s something watching out for us, or that there’s a potential afterlife.

Of course all that varies depending upon how you define the god.

Yes, religion, and belief in God, and Christianity all seem to be rife with self-contradictions. That is, until you have “eyes to see.” Most of the things that I assumed were contradictory I have learned, or I coming to learn, are actually consistent, and that the crazy, outdated, Church run by guys in dresses, really does have the answers.

 

[Super_Grover]

The Church says this (plucked from your statement above):
“The Church teaches dogmatically that the existence of God may be known with certainty by the light of human reason alone.”

The certain existence of God may be KNOWN by reason, but the certain existence of God can not be DEDUCED (actively reasoned from evidence from natural law) without a “hint” from direct revelation via gift from God or instruction from one given that gift from God.

You can deduce SOMETHING that is without certainty God-like from natural law, but only by being “informed”, in one way or another, usually by a brother human being who himself was informed likewise, of what is to believed about God, which we then find confirmed and expanded by holding that belief in faith over time, can we reason (backwards if you will) that God certainly does exist.

That people choose to NEED to have reasons before they will believe, which is precisely backwards, instead of faithfully believing until that belief is confirmed, is due to a basic misunderstanding of how to “do science” (the scientific method).

First we observe a phenomenon which repeats, then we form a hypothesis as to why it repeats (we BELIEVE we know why), then we test our hypothesis (while FAITHFULLY holding to our BELIEF we see if our belief proves true), and if our hypothesis proves true we have confirmation that it IS true (our FAITH is confirmed giving us REASONS for our BELIEF).

So, FIRST we BELIEVE without tested reasons for doing so, THEN we find those REASONS by being FAITHFUL to our beliefs through trial.

First comes revelation (observation), then comes belief, then comes faith, then come reasons [nouns], which give us “items” to use in our process of reasoning [verb].

Reasoning comes after reasons which come after faith which come after belief which come after revelation.

Without the observation of revelation, the “chain” does not start.

Without faithful belief in that observation, no proof in the truth of that observation will be presented (by God), and one is left with only a “wish” to believe if the belief is attractive, or a lack of evidence to believe if the belief is dubiously valued.

God offers no “super-proofs” of His existence because that violates the goal of the “LESSON” of the task He gives us by this situation arising!

A “super-proof” violates our free will, while the goal of the lesson is to see that the **correct use **of our free will is a path to Him, and to all knowledge that is not His mystery, and that the initial KEY to this path is acceptance of revelation, and our humilty in putting trusting this path (His gift to us inbuilt in us) before our WANT to be assured a “reward” before following His path.

CatsAndDogs, you asked me to comment on this post. I’ll try, but a lot of this discussion is beyond me. So, this can certainly be nitpicked, but here goes. I think that what you are saying, without doing it justice, is that those who embrace scientific method almost as a religion unto itself, and who would usually approach a question with some working hypothesis that they then prove, disprove, or reach inconclusive results, don’t employ that approach with respect to the notion of an Intelligent Creator. That is to say, they don’t hypothesize “there is an Intelligent Creator” or “there is no Intelligent Creator”, and now I will test that hypothesis. Then, reaching results which should at least leave God open as a valid theory, impose higher standards, and say that since God cannot be proven, there is no God. Is that about right?

Yeah, I don’t quite understand that. I can understand agnosticism, even a those who tend toward atheism. I don’t understand pure atheism, a faith in no god, because God simply cannot be disproved.

The infinite and hidden God reveals himself as He wishes. Science will never prove or disprove His existence. If He was smart enough to make this vast universe, He is smart enough to hide from our microscopes, telescopes, genome maps, and mathematical equations. And he would no more offer “super proofs” for scientists, than He would call a press conference in front of the United Nations for the rest of us. I believe that scientific advancements will continue to cause some to see evidence of God, and others to see evidence of no god.

Again, for the finite to truly appreciate the existence of the Infinite requires something other than finite, human tools such as scientific method. The Church teaches that the existence of God may be known through human reason, and that is, of course, true. But for every argument from logic in favor of His existence, there are arguments that will tossed back at you against His existence. I think that to actually BELIEVE and have Faith, and therefore truly understand Church teachings, requires supernatural intervention. If there is something dogmatically incorrect in what I’ve said, someone please correct me.

 

[Anticontrame]

Actually, you can’t even have absolute certainty of your own existence, either, because that requires, if nothing else, belief in the law of noncontradiction, in logic, which, strange though it may sound, is a belief just like any other.

Hmm, that’s an interesting concept (and an annoying one: You can’t say it’s inconsistent. ) I suppose if that’s the case, we’re all up the creek without a boat. Might as well enjoy the swim.

In a single word, Zen Buddhism.

(See what I did there? Clever, no?)

Lol. I’ve already got my first koan too: Do I exist and not exist? Ohmmm