Proving the Existence of God

[FaithInTheSon]

We still don’t understand gravity fully.

Just thought I would throw that in there.

 

[bitterreality]

“An agent” signifies a rational being that might decide to participate in an act, where “participate in” means “engage in” or, as you have said, “do”.

You might find that I was also sloppy in my wording in other ways – for instance, instead of saying that ‘if the act of stealing were a potential thing’, it would have been better to say ‘if the act of stealing were an actual form in which agents may potentially partake’. But I digress, this is why it is good that we come to a common understanding of terms before ‘reeling in the big one’.

Sorry, I still don’t quite get what “an agent” is. Whether a thief is an agent, you haven’t answered it with yes or no. Care to provide an example for “an agent” ?

 

[bitterreality]

Intellectual dishonest remarks like this are what makes apologetics a near impossibility. This is proof that you simply haven’t done the homework to find out exactly what the Church’s authority is, how it is defined and exercised, and the laity’s proper response to her authority.

The remark just simply demonstrates your ignorance.

Sorry if you find it sounds offensive (you think I’m dishonest.) I didn’t think there’s another way to express the fact. Fact is sometimes bitter, hard to accept, that’s also why my username is bitterreality.
What I want to address is not limited only to the Church. I chose it just to make it simple to say. I meant all source of your dogma, whatever such as Bible, pope, saint, preacher, evangelist, etc. It seems as if you only try to find my writing mistake, don’t want to touch the subject, avoiding the subject matters.
Regarding ignorance, blind faith equals ignorance.

Human doubts don’t even come close to being “proof” against God’s existence.

I never said nor support that doubts can be used as proof.

So then you must agree that the “dogma”(discovered truths) of gravity inhibits the rationality of the science of physics.

Your sentence only shows your ignorance. (and you laugh at it)

1. Dogma = discovered truths, a false statement. Look up the meaning of dogma in English dictionary.
2. Gravity is a dogma, a false claim. Gravity is proven, but dogma - let alone proven, it’s even incontrovertible.

Another baseless charge.

Motives for unbelief are manifold. Many of them simply have to do with some people’s refusal to “be converted”, to submit their lives to something bigger than themselves. Instead they’re addicted to “freedom”, or license, to “do your own thing”, “looking our for number 1”-IOW acting like a self-centered child and calling it the psychology of maturity.

Others are addicted to power, to lust, or to greed.

You should be aware of the scope of people’s comment. I was talking about your fellow Christians who have doubt in their faith regarding God (specific about God, not general issue including moral, etc.) Since you fail to prove God, you’re unable to convince them. How can that be baseless?

Disbelief is a matter of the heart, not the head. If atheism was merely an intellectual problem then all anyone would need to do is hand every atheist/materialist Thomas Aquinas’ Summa and they would be converted.

Head does have something to do with psychological qualities, hearth doesn’t. Hearth’s function is to deal with poisonous compounds in blood. Clearly you’re delusional.
Thomas Aquinas’ Summa doesn’t prove anything, thus it’s your problem, not atheism’s.

Or to flip it on its head, the reason why we retain our faith is because of YOUR failure to convince us. Therefore atheism/materialism(or whatever your position) is false.

Your ignorance is the reason of the failure to convince you. It shields you from accepting the fact/reality, no matter how hard one tries to convince you.

Your answer is self-refuting. If “no one will ever know” then there’s no way you can know that positively, because to know that “no one will ever know” necessarily requires the ability to think outside of thought’s limits. IOW-is your belief probable or certain? If certain, it contradicts itself; if probable, then is that certain or probable? Etc, ad-infinitum.

Finally you can come up with a quality comment. Good job! An outstanding analysis. I thought no Christian can do such pretty deep analysis. I added the “no one will ever know” claim. The fact that “no one knows” has been last for quite long time makes me think the claim is reasonable. But to make you happy, I don’t mind to drop that claim. I’d admit it was a mistake and sorry for that. Hope you can find another one like this since it’s good for you to exercise your rationality.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Sorry if you find it sounds offensive (you think I’m dishonest.) I didn’t think there’s another way to express the fact. Fact is sometimes bitter, hard to accept, that’s also why my username is bitterreality.
What I want to address is not limited only to the Church. I chose it just to make it simple to say. I meant all source of your dogma, whatever such as Bible, pope, saint, preacher, evangelist, etc. It seems as if you only try to find my writing mistake, don’t want to touch the subject, avoiding the subject matters.
Regarding ignorance, blind faith equals ignorance.

1. Stop putting words in his mouth. He never said he found it offensive, he called you out on your ignorance.
2. You keep accusing us of having “blind faith”, which is just not true. This is blunt, but you’re either not making a real effort to learn the truth, intentionally misleading yourself to avoid accepting the truth, or lying. Because you’re not right. This is not a debate point, it’s a fact.

Your sentence only shows your ignorance. (and you laugh at it)

1. Dogma = discovered truths, a false statement. Look up the meaning of dogma in English dictionary.
2. Gravity is a dogma, a false claim. Gravity is proven, but dogma - let alone proven, it’s even incontrovertible.

I’m not sure where you get this bizarre notion that dogma=false.

You should be aware of the scope of people’s comment. I was talking about your fellow Christians who have doubt in their faith regarding God (specific about God, not general issue including moral, etc.) Since you fail to prove God, you’re unable to convince them. How can that be baseless?

Er, it’s baseless because there can be lots of reasons people don’t accept proofs for God’s existence whether or not the proofs actually work. Is this really a difficult concept to grasp?

Head does have something to do with psychological qualities, hearth doesn’t. Hearth’s function is to deal with poisonous compounds in blood. Clearly you’re delusional.
Thomas Aquinas’ Summa doesn’t prove anything, thus it’s your problem, not atheism’s.

That’s not an argument, just a baseless claim. The Summa is not something that can casually be tossed aside as false. At the very least the intelligent atheist needs to take it seriously. You don’t, so frankly I’m finding it hard to believe that you’re really much of a philosophical threat to theists.

Your ignorance is the reason of the failure to convince you. It shields you from accepting the fact/reality, no matter how hard one tries to convince you.

No. See, we can make unsubstantiated statements too!

Finally you can come up with a quality comment. Good job! An outstanding analysis. I thought no Christian can do such pretty deep analysis. I added the “no one will ever know” claim. The fact that “no one knows” has been last for quite long time makes me think the claim is reasonable. But to make you happy, I don’t mind to drop that claim. I’d admit it was a mistake and sorry for that. Hope you can find another one like this since it’s good for you to exercise your rationality.

Your condescension is astounding.

 

[markeverett49]

No more absurd than a being that was not created and has been in existence for all eternity.

Far from absurd, many great philosophers have considered this necessarily true.

 

[JDaniel]

1. Stop putting words in his mouth. He never said he found it offensive, he called you out on your ignorance.
2. You keep accusing us of having “blind faith”, which is just not true. This is blunt, but you’re either not making a real effort to learn the truth, intentionally misleading yourself to avoid accepting the truth, or lying. Because you’re not right. This is not a debate point, it’s a fact.

Marc:

Yes. It is important to recognize that there are things that human beings accept because they seem to be true, or right. Why? Because there’s no evidence for the proposition, nor is there any evidence against the proposition. Now, this does not mean that such things should be taken uncritically. It is always possible that acceptable evidence might appear - for one position or the other. But, to propose that “blind faith is not true,” is to propose something for which there is no evidence. It might be fact, or it might not be.

I’m not sure where you get this bizarre notion that dogma=false.

“Dogma = false” is another statement for which there is no evidence. There are many foundational propositions, upon which all humans rely, that become more certain because they become foundational statements, i.e., statements upon which other statements depend. The Trinity is dogma precisely because the statements about it, in Revelation, have no meaning otherwise. From such foundational statements, human beings have been able to make sense of thousands of propositions in Revelation, that are, for us, life forms. That is, we live our lives to them.

These propositions have been promulgated for several thousands of years, by human beings that, likewise, lived them. It matters not that some humans got it wrong.

There are few or no foundational propositions for atheists. And because of this, there are no statements of fact.



God bless,
jd

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Sorry if you find it sounds offensive (you think I’m dishonest.) I didn’t think there’s another way to express the fact. Fact is sometimes bitter, hard to accept, that’s also why my username is bitterreality.

Someone seems to have a rather high opinion of himself…

I could really care less about your personal opinion of your cleverness in the selection of your screen name. In fact the whole statement seems rather narcissistic.

As far as your “facts”, I doubt your knowledge of the Catholic Church extends beyond the merely superficial or baselessly absurd. By calling you “intellectually dishonest” I was pointing out the “bitterreality” that you obviously haven’t done your homework on anything and are merely regurgitating things you’ve heard from others.

What I want to address is not limited only to the Church. I chose it just to make it simple to say. I meant all source of your dogma, whatever such as Bible, pope, saint, preacher, evangelist, etc. It seems as if you only try to find my writing mistake, don’t want to touch the subject, avoiding the subject matters.
Regarding ignorance, blind faith equals ignorance.

And again, you show your ignorance, because the truths discovered from science come from writings, publications, journals. And who writes these things? People who have observed and tested them and found them to be true.

IOW, you base your beliefs on science on the authority of others.

Your sentence only shows your ignorance. (and you laugh at it)

1. Dogma = discovered truths, a false statement. Look up the meaning of dogma in English dictionary.
2. Gravity is a dogma, a false claim. Gravity is proven, but dogma - let alone proven, it’s even incontrovertible.

Sorry, but the term “dogma” and its true definition is not subject to your opinion. That is just proof franky of your own stupidity. In any argument there are words(terms) and those words have established definitions. You don’t get to change the definition to fit your theory. To do so is irrational and illogical as well as dishonest, low, and crude. And to hide behind sophism makes even engaging with you almost pointless.

You should be aware of the scope of people’s comment. I was talking about your fellow Christians who have doubt in their faith regarding God (specific about God, not general issue including moral, etc.) Since you fail to prove God, you’re unable to convince them. How can that be baseless?

If by “proof” you mean “to prove according to the scientific method” then your assertion is self-refuting. Is assumes that empirical demonstration is the only possible kind of “proof”, which is fallacious. Obviously there are other ways, other kinds of demonstrations, that “prove” things. Philosophy claims to have “proofs”-proofs giving us certain knowledge-that are not empirical. In fact what counts today as the scientific method doesn’t even claim to deliver what we mean by certain knowledge.

So, yet again, its NOT that the arguments fail to convince due to any lack on the part of the arguments, it has to do with the individual’s motives for unbelief. The person who disbeleifs has already closed their mind to the possibility before they have even encountered the argument.

IOW, they become as “fundamentalist”, they adopt the same close-minded “blind-faith”, of those believers who you vilify.

Head does have something to do with psychological qualities, hearth doesn’t. Hearth’s function is to deal with poisonous compounds in blood. Clearly you’re delusional.
Thomas Aquinas’ Summa doesn’t prove anything, thus it’s your problem, not atheism’s.

By “heart” I mean the human will. Either you’re really that dim or you’re being purposefully obtuse.

Your ignorance is the reason of the failure to convince you. It shields you from accepting the fact/reality, no matter how hard one tries to convince you.

Ther reason you fail to convince me has NOTHING to do with any supposed “ignorance” on my part. It also has nothing to do with any merit in regards to your arguments.

In fact it is nothing to refute the arguments of modern atheists because your arguments are nothing new; they are the same, old, tired arguments that were refuted centuries ago.

I became a Catholic after living as an atheist. Instead of being an intolerant atheist bigot I opened my mind and actually examined the claims of real, (mere) Christianity as epitomised in the ancient Church.

Catholic Christianity set me free from the close-mindedness of atheism/agnosticism.

It is the purposelessness of a life as an atheist that made me search beyond the material.

But I doubt you’ve even gotten even an inch beyond your little ideological bubble to much less actually stretch your mind to find out what is actually true or not.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Finally you can come up with a quality comment. Good job! An outstanding analysis. I thought no Christian can do such pretty deep analysis. I added the “no one will ever know” claim. The fact that “no one knows” has been last for quite long time makes me think the claim is reasonable. But to make you happy, I don’t mind to drop that claim. I’d admit it was a mistake and sorry for that. Hope you can find another one like this since it’s good for you to exercise your rationality.

If you actually exercised any rationality then the self-refuting nature of your belief SHOULD have been self-evident. It follows the same absurd self-refuting rhetoric as “nothing is true” or “there are no moral absolutes”.

And your snide and sarcastic remarks say more about you than about me. I really doubt you care about my “happiness”, nor do you care about any sort of intellectual consistency on your part. You’re probaly just a troll here to stir the pot because you’re bored. Either way, spare us all your feigned attempts of ingratiation; you give honest atheists a bad name.

 

[bitterreality]

@The GreyPilgrim
You only exhibit the rage when a Theist has nothing more meaningful to say to defend their view. You bring up nothing new, nothing conducive, nothing useful to the thread’s subject - God remains unproven. Such attitude is common in some Christians, understandable.
So, express at least one meaningful, worthy, quality argumentation, instead of playing with words and using harsh words. Only then I will reply to your arguments.
Btw, I repeat, I’m not an atheist.

 

[norain]

Far from it:

kiekeben.com/firstcause.html

Sarah x

atheistgirl,

I have a simple question for you, after reading bits of that link you posted. I’ve heard the argument before and it is nothing new.

The atheist cannot accept the simple notion of an uncaused mover. I’ll give you one such uncaused mover: causality. Can you postulate a cause for causality itself?

 

[ManRay]

We still don’t understand gravity fully.

Just thought I would throw that in there.

Not understanding something demonstrable is a world away from claiming that you understand something that not only isn’t demonstrable - but exists outside of any known parameters of understanding i.e. time, space, and logic. BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION!!

THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF BLIND FAITH, and completely absurd.

 

[ManRay]

atheistgirl,

I have a simple question for you, after reading bits of that link you posted. I’ve heard the argument before and it is nothing new.

The atheist cannot accept the simple notion of an uncaused mover. I’ll give you one such uncaused mover: causality. Can you postulate a cause for causality itself?

Causality is defined as a relationship between the happening and the effect of that happening. You are forgetting the whole other half of the equation. (or leaving it out to promote your incorrect argument)

 

[markeverett49]

.The atheist cannot accept the simple notion of an uncaused mover. I’ll give you one such uncaused mover: causality. Can you postulate a cause for causality itself?

You may not but it is wrong to suggest no atheist can. Antony Flew, the best-known atheist philosopher in the English-speaking portion of the Western academic world for forty years, found David Conway’s treatment of Aristotle’s unmoved mover argument convincing and changed his mind about the existence of God. (See Conway’s “The Rediscovery of Wisdom” and Flew’s “There Is A God” for much more on this.) As Hume would say, if something is actual, it is certainly possible.

Speaking of Hume, he is germane to your closing question. Along with casting great doubt on several arguments for God’s existence, he also cast doubt on the coherence of the notion of causality. Many philosophers still hold that Hume’s critique of causality cannot be answered and thus, causality is a certifiable problem for a legion of modern philosophers.

G.E.M. Anscombe has written well about what is wrong with Hume’s argument. See her “‘Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause’: Hume’s Argument Exposed” for a lot more on this.

 

[norain]

Causality is defined as a relationship between the happening and the effect of that happening. You are forgetting the whole other half of the equation. (or leaving it out to promote your incorrect argument)

You are neglecting that causality is itself an object, a member of the set that includes everything.

If “everything has a cause” is true, and “everything includes causality” is also true, then the second statement contradicts the first, for causality cannot have a cause.

Therefore, I would place my bet that the second statement is true, the first is not. Problem solved.

If you elect to believe statement 1 and reject #2, I wish you good luck proving statement 2 to be false.

 

[ManRay]

You are neglecting that causality is itself an object, a member of the set that includes everything.

If “everything has a cause” is true, and “everything includes causality” is also true, then the second statement contradicts the first, for causality cannot have a cause.

Therefore, I would place my bet that the second statement is true, the first is not. Problem solved.

If you elect to believe statement 1 and reject #2, I wish you good luck proving statement 2 to be false.

Causality is NOT AN OBJECT. YOU ARE MAKING THINGS UP. Causality is a word that describes the process of cause and effect. When I defeat you in this argument, it may hurt your feelings. The cause of your hurt feelings were my correct assertions - the whole process is called causality. It’s just a descriptor. ALSO correlation alone does not imply causality. Even if what you were saying was true. I would state that I don’t know. Which would be the only logical position. If every thing has a cause then what caused the originalcause…Heck If I know if you are talking about what caused the universe. I could be intellectually dishonest and claim that I KNOW FOR A FACT IT WAS GOD…but my mind doesn’t work that way.

 

[norain]

Causality is NOT AN OBJECT. YOU ARE MAKING THINGS UP. Causality is a word that describes the process of cause and effect. When I defeat you in this argument, it may hurt your feelings. The cause of your hurt feelings were my correct assertions - the whole process is called causality. It’s just a descriptor. ALSO correlation alone does not imply causality. Even if what you were saying was true. I would state that I don’t know. Which would be the only logical position. If every thing has a cause then what caused the originalcause…Heck If I know if you are talking about what caused the universe. I could be intellectually dishonest and claim that I KNOW FOR A FACT IT WAS GOD…but my mind doesn’t work that way.

An object can be a physical thing, an idea, a concept, a variable, a number, a field of study, a word, anything.

from plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/ :

Russell, in a well-known passage, singles out just this notion in the Principles of Mathematics:
Whatever may be an object of thought, or may occur in any true or false proposition, or can be counted as one, I call a term. This, then, is the widest word in the philosophical vocabulary. (1937: 43)

 

[johnnyjones]

Infinite God or infinite matter, most non believers simply focus on the latter. I favor complexity with purpose but it proves little to the doubter.

Why not follow the scriptures. “The evidence of God are the things made.”

 

[ManRay]

An object can be a physical thing, an idea, a concept, a variable, a number, a field of study, a word, anything.

from plato.stanford.edu/entries/object/ :

Russell, in a well-known passage, singles out just this notion in the Principles of Mathematics:

Whatever may be an object of thought, or may occur in any true or false proposition, or can be counted as one, I call a term. This, then, is the widest word in the philosophical vocabulary. (1937: 43)

That is a complete bastardization of what you originally implied though. That would be tantamount to calling the color blue an object because it is in fact a thing - this is not analogous to what you were talking about. Causality in the correct respect is part of existence. Existence is axiomatic - it cannot be proven nor does it need to be proven, as any attempt to refute it would lead to contradiction. The term Object philosophically is actually really just a thing, being, or concept. You would be begging the question anyway (playing along here) by assuming that this concept is already true, and then asking for someone to prove it…which is contradictory thought six ways to Sunday. It also further explains how the religious mind works…in a nutshell.

 

[clem456]

I like this quote:

If you find the god you think you understand, you’ve made yourself an idol.

Benedict Groeschel used it and attributed it to Augiustine I believe.

 

[norain]

Causality in the correct respect is part of existence. Existence is axiomatic - it cannot be proven nor does it need to be proven, as any attempt to refute it would lead to contradiction. The term Object philosophically is actually really just a thing, being, or concept. You would be begging the question anyway (playing along here) by assuming that this concept is already true, and then asking for someone to prove it…which is contradictory thought six ways to Sunday. It also further explains how the religious mind works…in a nutshell.

The problem lies in trying to prove something by itself. It cannot work. Like building the first hammer with a hammer. I’m not trying to “prove” causality or insist on its creator. On the contrary, I’m saying it is indeed unprovable, uncaused, “axiomatic” if you prefer.