What do you consider proof of God, if anything?

[Charlemagne_II]

liquidpele

*As I stated earlier in this thread, I see God like I do Love. It’s an abstract concept that humans create. It’s real because it encourages us, inspires us, and it moves us to effect the world on it’s behalf. However, without us to keep the ideas around, the ideas woud not exist - they are tied to us in our memories and imaginations. Surely things like Love, Hate, Longing, Envy, and Sorrow have inspired works of art as well, yet these are not physical things. *

Here you are placing God on the same existential level as our emotions. You know the emotions exist, and you do not deny them. Yet when you see the “abstract” God, you deny Him.

Which is it? Our emotions are not illusions. If God is just another abstract like Longing and Sorrow, why should God be an illusion? And how is it (you have yet to answer) that an illusion such as God can inspire such powerful emotions and grand works of art?

I think the reason is that the artist has entered into a relationship with God that the atheist cannot understand because he refuses to understand. Isn’t this the reason the atheist has no reasonable answer to the question of why God can inspire great tributes to Himself?

 

[tonyrey]

We can see something beautiful, like a sunset. We can also create something beautiful… like a painting of a sunset. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder… although there is strong consensus among many major themes.

Why is there a consensus if beauty is **totally **in the eye of the beholder? Doesn’t a consensus suggest there are principles - like the Golden Rule, harmony, proportion and symmetry - which determine whether something is beautiful?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

We theists claim Mozart. :yeah_me: The atheists claim Shostakovich. They can have him. :nope:

 

[johnmagurn]

Because everything that exists has been caused by something that existed before it, something or someone must have always been. Some assume the “big bang” theory explains how “everything” began but something or someone caused the big bang. What, having never had a beginning, could have created everything else that exists? Someone supernatural, an all powerful being we know as God. There is no other plausible explanation for the creation of all we know. If that isn’t proof, what is?

 

[DavidHume]

Because everything that exists has been caused by something that existed before it, something or someone must have always been. Some assume the “big bang” theory explains how “everything” began but something or someone caused the big bang. What, having never had a beginning, could have created everything else that exists? Someone supernatural, an all powerful being we know as God. There is no other plausible explanation for the creation of all we know. If that isn’t proof, what is?

I think you would be interested in reading this thread from the beginning, if you haven’t already.

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

I have always thought the question was peculiar on its face.

What do you consider proof of the sun and moon? What?

Am I real? Do I actually exist? Proof ?
Again, I ask, What?

The sun and the moon are rather things we can identify,see. Look to see God, he is not tangible, or can he be seen to most of us. If someone has seen him, we cannot prove it., We must believe what is told to us. I once tried to tell an Athiest, you dont believe in God because you cannot see him, but you never seen yourself being born did you? “NO she replied” I said but your mom told you it, and so you believe. Nancy

 

[alacoque]

DH: You wrote: No, my objection is based on the idea of eternal torment without respite, regardless of the form that the torment takes. I don’t think a benevolent God would do that, and I don’t want to worship a malevolent God.

If hell is, as the Catholic Church teaches, the eternal separation from God, caused solely by the (misuse of) the free will of man, why does God’s benevolence come into it? Per your statement: “I don’t think a benevolent God would do that.” Do what? Allow and respect the free will of each soul?

We all agree, I think, that love is not love if it is not free, and that there is no freedom of choice if the option does not exist to choose ‘against’ the good. So, I don’t understand why you seem to take the position that God is to blame for the logical consequence of the free choice of any person.

There are those who take the position that God should leave us free, unless we choose something that would hurt us and/or, most especially, hurt us eternally, but I don’t think you are one of those persons, because the irrationality of that position is obvious and you are very astute and well informed.

The bottom line is that I don’t get your position…or am missing something in what you intended by your statement.

Thank you for your posts and interesting thoughts…

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

When you see the vastness of the universe and all the stars in their paterns still true to the heavens, true to man,when you see a new born baby smell the sweetness of it’s hair and face. When you see nature at it’s best or the songs of the whipowill, when you see the seasons and the love and careing that pepole realy hidden away just incase(jus in case you might have to be nice sometime)Come out of their way to help another go that extra mile just for you. When people get toghther to pray for your needs and when you seet that miracal you know what happened could not have unless devine intervention played a big part in this, yes you know your not alone in the universe, the world, in your sorrows, the good times, and in your love for country, family and friends, You know we never realy do walk alone, for he sends his ministering angels to camp out all around leading us, guiding us, ans directing us, ever closer to the prize. God is in the wind air, to breath,sun to keep warmpth on the eart, rain to replinish the earth stars to light the way, every kind of food and fruits and flowers of differnt kind, there has to be a better reason then, what some poeple say,it was an accident. Life is no accident it is a plan of higher calling of eternal life and likeness of the God family, and those who believe will becalled the children of God, and will dwell there with the Holy of Holy’s forever and for ever Amen!

 

[bobzills]

When you see the vastness of the universe and all the stars in their paterns still true to the heavens, true to man,when you see a new born baby smell the sweetness of it’s hair and face. When you see nature at it’s best or the songs of the whipowill, when you see the seasons and the love and careing that pepole realy hidden away just incase(jus in case you might have to be nice sometime)Come out of their way to help another go that extra mile just for you. When people get toghther to pray for your needs and when you seet that miracal you know what happened could not have unless devine intervention played a big part in this, yes you know your not alone in the universe, the world, in your sorrows, the good times, and in your love for country, family and friends, You know we never realy do walk alone, for he sends his ministering angels to camp out all around leading us, guiding us, ans directing us, ever closer to the prize. God is in the wind air, to breath,sun to keep warmpth on the eart, rain to replinish the earth stars to light the way, every kind of food and fruits and flowers of differnt kind, there has to be a better reason then, what some poeple say,it was an accident. Life is no accident it is a plan of higher calling of eternal life and likeness of the God family, and those who believe will becalled the children of God, and will dwell there with the Holy of Holy’s forever and for ever Amen!

yes.

 

[alacoque]

When I created this thread, I stated I didn’t want to try and explain away things, and that wanted to hear other people’s opinions and logic regarding the subject. Thus I didn’t feel it was appropriate to go into detail about why I think it’s wrong.

Since I’ve made a big fuss over it though, I suppose I should answer. While I certainly cannot speak for everyone, I think claiming that Mozart’s work must prove there is a God is a bit ridiculous. By that logic, any complex thing that is defined by people as beautiful would meet that requirement… sunsets, rain on a tin roof, thunderstorms, the great barrier reef, etc. I think that complexity does not require design, and beauty is a classification provided by humans.

When I hear Mozart, look at fine artwork, or see the triumphs of man, I see the emotion and beauty that we can create. God is perhaps an inspiration for much of it, but I think in this sense God is just an idea in the person’s mind - still powerful and influential, but not quite what some believe Him to be. I also think people take a lot of inspiration for the beauty in the world around us, and when looking at such things I see a curious and wonderful world, but I don’t choose to ignore the parts that are ugly or decide that my classifications of beauty and ugly are meaningful beyond human thought and communication.

Mentioning rain on a tin roof made me think of this… I think you may like it. It’s a chorus simulating a thunderstorm… very neat

wimp.com/choirhands/

Just my two cents’ worth…There is much, much more to Mozart (just to select one item being discussed) than complication and beauty. To not see that is to reduce anything and everything to whatever definition you want to give it or to give it adjectives that only you want to apply to it.

It doesn’t matter how many eons we wait or how many scientific theorems we generate, chaos and/or randomness will never produce order in any repeatable, predictable fashion. Neither will inanimate objects produce self-conscious, self-reflecting beings, arbitrarily and through a random process. It’s an impossibility. So, you must account for order, harmony, purpose, design, etc., some other way. Yes, Mozart is complicated (intricate is probably a better concept) and beautiful, but why? It’s deeper than just those words.

Mozart is not complicated just because most of us non-Mozarts find it impossible to duplicate, nor is it beautiful just because it evokes emotion. Intricacy and order are far deeper metaphysical concepts and terms. They are not just whatever we want to make them. They have their own meanings.

On your other point, if God is not a being who exists but rather an ‘idea’ in our minds that we ‘use’ to inspire lovely creations, then it still remains that WE and our own minds are doing the creating. Why would we need the inspiration of a non-existent entity or thing to inspire us to do what we can already do? Needing or using a non-existent “middle man” is not a logical idea.

 

[Dameedna]

The proof…

The only “proof” that I would ever accept is dying…and still existing. At that point…I might begin to suspect there’s something more.

I can however accept ideas or possibilities of the existance of a “higher” thingy, but it will be unlikely anything would be enough proof for me at least in this materialistic world.

Quite frankly, if there is a God, I doubt he’s be so much of a nitwit to expect faith in something that we cannot see, hear, touch , taste smell or feel. I doubt what created this universe has the ego of a human and requires worship or faith.

If there is a point to life, it’s built into life itself. That’s the only conclusion that I can draw from this quagmire we call life

Cheers

 

[DavidHume]

DH: You wrote: No, my objection is based on the idea of eternal torment without respite, regardless of the form that the torment takes. I don’t think a benevolent God would do that, and I don’t want to worship a malevolent God.

If hell is, as the Catholic Church teaches, the eternal separation from God, caused solely by the (misuse of) the free will of man, why does God’s benevolence come into it? Per your statement: “I don’t think a benevolent God would do that.” Do what? Allow and respect the free will of each soul?

But the common description of hell doesn’t allow and respect the free will of each soul. As far as I am aware, people in Hell are – by definition, since it’s not purgatory – unable to reconcile with God even if they wanted to at some point in the afterlife.

There are those who take the position that God should leave us free, unless we choose something that would hurt us and/or, most especially, hurt us eternally, but I don’t think you are one of those persons, because the irrationality of that position is obvious and you are very astute and well informed.

See above. If we are “hurt eternally” then our free will is no longer relevant. In fact, come to think of it, whether one ends up in heaven or ends up in hell, this “free will” of which you speak is taken away from us. So obviously it is not particularly important.

It is a dogma of faith that the happiness of the blessed is everlasting. This truth is clearly contained in the Holy Bible (see Section I); it is daily professed by the Church in the Apostles’ Creed (credo . . . vitam aeternam), and it has been repeatedly defined by the Church, especially by Benedict XII (cf. Section III). Even reason, as we have seen, can demonstrate it. And surely, if the blessed knew that their happiness was ever to come to an end, this knowledge alone would prevent their happiness from being perfect.

In this matter Origen fell into error; for in several passages of his works he seems to incline to the opinion that rational creatures never reach a permanent final state (status termini), but that they remain forever capable of falling away from God and losing their beatitude and of always returning to Him again.

To me it seems Origen is less in error than Church teaching, so it’s probably fortunate that I’m already an apostate.

 

[alacoque]

But I think it does exist! I think God is a real thing, in a sense

As I stated earlier in this thread, I see God like I do Love. It’s an abstract concept that humans create. It’s real because it encourages us, inspires us, and it moves us to effect the world on it’s behalf. However, without us to keep the ideas around, the ideas woud not exist - they are tied to us in our memories and imaginations. Surely things like Love, Hate, Longing, Envy, and Sorrow have inspired works of art as well, yet these are not physical things. The “greatest” works of art are in the eye of the beholder. I like Picasso myself, mostly because it reminds me of my Mother’s work, fun and imaginative.

Humans create love? This gets more bizarre by the minute. It sounds like you view anything that is conceptual and invisible as not a reality, but an invention. If this is truly your point and view, you’ll never get anywhere. …assuming you want to get anywhere…

 

[Dameedna]

But the common description of hell doesn’t allow and respect the free will of each soul. As far as I am aware, people in Hell are – by definition, since it’s not purgatory – unable to reconcile with God even if they wanted to at some point in the afterlife.

Exactly. No-one chooses an eternal punishment. They make mistakes in their finite life but no-one chooses an eternal punishment.

That punishment must be given to them. After all…I certainly don’t choose it. I just happen to disagree with the catholic church. Doesn’t mean I’m choosing eternal hell!!. And for this punishment to remain in place, if a person then realizes they are wrong…it’s too late. The capacity for change is stripped, and human will is no longer important.

It’s contradictory. You’ve chosen it…err…nope, sorry. Didn’t chose THIS!!

Ah but when they say choice they don’t really mean choice. They think your eternal torture is justified because you disagree with them. Amazing, how much love christianity encourages in other’s sometimes. Yes, that is vitrolic, but heaven and hell justifications never cease to amaze me.

It really is a shocking doctrine isn’t it? I suspect there are a lot of believers out there that are rather embarrassed and ashamed of it. The depth of the horror of this dotrine is 2nd to none.

We would be better off…all of us, never having existed, if even one of us…could end up in an eternal torment.

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Alacoque, I agree: Ecclesiastes 3 There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant a time to uproot,
A time to kill a time to heal. A time to tear down a time to build.
A time to weep an a time to luagh. a time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to gather stones a time to gather them.
A time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear down and a time to mend,a time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war, a time for peace.
What does a worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has layed on men.
He has made everything beautiful in it’s time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.
Yet they cannot fashion what God has fathomed what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for man then to be happy and to do good while they live.That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God. I know that everything that God does will endure forever: nothing can be added to it nothing taken away from it. God does it so thay men will revere him.
What ever that has been and that will be has been before, and God will call the past into account.’ And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgement- wickedness was there.
I thought in my heart.God will bring to judgement, both the righteous and the wicked.for there will be a time for every activity,a time for every deed. Gods universe is in order and no where else will you find such order, such well set plans so accurate, so perfect, nothing is out of order or balance. Love of Christ Nancy

 

[alacoque]

Exactly. No-one chooses an eternal punishment. They make mistakes in their finite life but no-one chooses an eternal punishment.

That punishment must be given to them. After all…I certainly don’t choose it. I just happen to disagree with the catholic church. Doesn’t mean I’m choosing eternal hell!!. And for this punishment to remain in place, if a person then realizes they are wrong…it’s too late. The capacity for change is stripped, and human will is no longer important.

It’s contradictory. You’ve chosen it…err…nope, sorry. Didn’t chose THIS!!

Ah but when they say choice they don’t really mean choice. They think your eternal torture is justified because you disagree with them. Amazing, how much love christianity encourages in other’s sometimes. Yes, that is vitrolic, but heaven and hell justifications never cease to amaze me.

It really is a shocking doctrine isn’t it? I suspect there are a lot of believers out there that are rather embarrassed and ashamed of it. The depth of the horror of this dotrine is 2nd to none.

We would be better off…all of us, never having existed, if even one of us…could end up in an eternal torment.

To take your last sentence first, how can it possibly benefit you to not exist? If you don’t exist you can’t benefit from anything!

Other than that, I’m sorry you disagree with the Church…maybe you should consider that the problem lies in your understanding of the teaching. Because your statement that we do not choose eternal separation from God is false. That’s all ‘hell’ can be and it’s why the Church teaches this.

God does not ‘send’ souls to eternal damnation! It is, indeed, a choice we make. I understand completely that people have a very difficult, if not seemingly impossible time understanding this teaching because none of us (at least the ‘us’ I know) can imagine that we would ever NOT choose God.

But Jesus taught this fact and therefore the Church teaches it. Because we have difficulty understanding does not make the teaching false. I am not the least embarrassed or ashamed of this teaching because I think it’s a great mercy that we should be aware of it and know what it means.

All I can say is that for those who study, learn and come to understand the true teaching of eternal separation from God, by our own choice, the teaching is utterly compatible with reality.

God bless you

 

[Dameedna]

To take your last sentence first, how can it possibly benefit you to not exist? If you don’t exist you can’t benefit from anything!

This is extrodinary to you isn’t it? That I would actually give up my own existance…that I would choose to not exist and not benefit, if even ONE human…would suffer eternally.

This…my friend. Is the athiest mindset.

Yes, we reject your religion, because we care about strangers…that much.

Other than that, I’m sorry you disagree with the Church…maybe you should consider that the problem lies in your understanding of the teaching.

This is a very common statment made by the majority of the religious. I do not agree with you, because I do not understand.

I’ve heard many. I am not christian because I worship the devil apparently. I am not christian because I have an unresolve ophedious complex. I do not agree, because I am wilfully ignorant.

I’ve heard them all.

I do not agree with you. It has nothing to do, with a lack of understanding.

Because your statement that we do not choose eternal separation from God is false. That’s all ‘hell’ can be and it’s why the Church teaches this.

I know what the church teaches. I disagree with your church about the nature of God, the nature of reality, and it’s heaven and hell doctrine.

Quite frankly, your church can teach whatever it wants and it can teach it for whatever reason it wants. I disagree.

God does not ‘send’ souls to eternal damnation! It is, indeed, a choice we make.

No, it is a result of conditions , according to your church that God set up.

We…never chose to exist. We never chose free-will.

God, chose it all, including the punishment that he knew would be inflicted upon us, because he knew before we were created what we would do.

But he chose, to create anyway. As I said above. If you created something , knowing that it’s “free will” would cause “eternal seperation” , then a loving God, would not create it in the first place.

To create something you know will “suffer”, even through choice is an abomination. This is the actions of a monster. Not a loving God.

I understand completely that people have a very difficult, if not seemingly impossible time understanding this teaching because none of us (at least the ‘us’ I know) can imagine that we would ever NOT choose God.

You make a mistake in believing we do not understand. We do. We get it.

We do not agree with it.

I would, for the first time suggest that there is something that you do not understand.

There is a difference between “understanding” and “agreeing”. You cannot pressume that when some-one differs in their opinion than yours, that they do not actually understand you. They do understand you. They do not AGREE with you. Two people can have access to exactly the same information and draw different conclusions from it.

It is all too common for the religious, when confronted with a non-believer, to make the “assumption” that we don’t understand. You think…that this is why we dont’ agree.

This is an assumption you make. We DO understand and we DO NOT agree with you.

But Jesus taught this fact and therefore the Church teaches it.

The bible is a book, held up to scrutiny is found wanting. What Jesus actually taught and what you church claims, is up for debate.

Because we have difficulty understanding does not make the teaching false. I am not the least embarrassed or ashamed of this teaching because I think it’s a great mercy that we should be aware of it and know what it means.

If you honestly think that patrionizing people, will “trick” them into agreeing with you, then you…my friend have never honestly debated with an athiest.

Let’s have some fun shall we? lol!!

 

[tonyrey]

Quite frankly, if there is a God, I doubt he’s be so much of a nitwit to expect faith in something that we cannot see, hear, touch , taste smell or feel.

Do you have faith in truth… or goodness… or freedom… or justice… or love? Can you see, hear, touch , taste, smell or feel them? Can you see the mind or the laws of science?

 

[Dameedna]

Do you have faith in truth… or goodness… or freedom… or justice… or love? Can you see, hear, touch , taste, smell or feel them? Can you see the mind or the laws of science?

Of course.

I never flew to the moon, nor did I actually witness it.

Before you try and be too clever , and try and convince the athiest they have “faith”, I have already heard that argument and I will agree with you. There are things I have not seen, heard, touched, tasted or held that I believe are probably real.

This…is not actually the problem.(scientific method being what it is).

It is the “THING” that I am told to believe in and it’s NATURE that I am told to accept, that I do not agree with.

I am only concerned with truth. I can have an easy faith in many things, because they do not affect me greatly. But as soon as they do, I want proof.

So do you. As an example…

If my child is in trouble medically, I will choose the medical practitioner that relies on irrefutable evidence that their techniques work and not the faith based doctor who “believes” their cure will work through a revelation from God. I would suspect you will do the same.

The questions of life, meaning and the afterlife…well, this is as big as it gets.

If I’m not going to base my childs life on belief of a medical cure, then I am hardly going to base my eternal soul, on a beleif that one religion got it right over any other, just because they say so.

You are kidding yourself, if you think an athiest would be that foolish.

Let me base the possibility of my eternal soul…on he-said…she saids.

Please.

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Of course.

I never flew to the moon, nor did I actually witness it.

Before you try and be too clever , and try and convince the athiest they have “faith”, I have already heard that argument and I will agree with you. There are things I have not seen, heard, touched, tasted or held that I believe are probably real.

This…is not actually the problem.(scientific method being what it is).

It is the “THING” that I am told to believe in and it’s NATURE that I am told to accept, that I do not agree with.

I am only concerned with truth. I can have an easy faith in many things, because they do not affect me greatly. But as soon as they do, I want proof.

So do you. As an example…

If my child is in trouble medically, I will choose the medical practitioner that relies on irrefutable evidence that their techniques work and not the faith based doctor who “believes” their cure will work through a revelation from God. I would suspect you will do the same.

The questions of life, meaning and the afterlife…well, this is as big as it gets.

If I’m not going to base my childs life on belief of a medical cure, then I am hardly going to base my eternal soul, on a beleif that one religion got it right over any other, just because they say so.

You are kidding yourself, if you think an athiest would be that foolish.

Let me base the possibility of my eternal soul…on he-said…she saids.

Please.

May I please ask you,? did you ever believe in anything in all your whole life? Did you try it and were you scared away or treated unkind? Please be truthful in your answer. Thank You! You are Loved Nancy