Why the h*** would God want to create Earth???!
Hey maybe we thought of TV before he did?
From: phenomenal graffit
To: Blutag
Probably not
Hey atleast i know God created the real world before MTV did rimshot
The world around us is very complex indeed. Some argue that the “apparent design” observered in nature means there is an intelligent designer. Well, the oak leaf can be as complex as you want it to be, but by looking at things in that perspective, aren’t there things that we could easily have designed better? Why not have it in our DNA that we couldn’t get sick, or couldn’t get physically hurt? Or that we couldn’t commit acts of evil? The point is that there are facts about nature, like the complexity of the oak leaf. These can’t be denied. The oak leaf is a complex structure. The question is what best explains the facts. This is where using GOD comes into question. There are ways to explain that oak leaf and it’s complexity based on science, physics, evolution etc. None of these require the blatant appeal to faith that a solution based on GOD does. So, with the two options on the plate, GOD or no GOD, which best explains the facts? Science does for one main reason. It can explain the world around us and it’s complexity, or it has the possibility of doing so, without the necessity for us to make a leap of faith, putting GOD in the spotlight. Any theory that can explain something with less on the needing end of assumption by the believer has more weight in the world of truth, does it not? Faith is needed because there is no direct link from the natural world to the supernatural world of GOD. That link is forged from the material of faith, and science comes along and suddenly the question turns from did GOD create the world to the question of GOD even existing. That distinction alone puts GOD’s position of CEO of reality and existence into doubt from the get-go, let alone his existence and role in the Universe as concrete and absolute, and we are told that we need faith in GOD, so right back at square one…
I agree with this, if I have understood it correctly. Are you saying that God is possibly the product of our fear of the unknown?
If so I think that is possible. But if we look at how fear and ignorance are interlinked:
part education (leaarning something but not all) leads to
partial ignorance which encourages imagination which can lead to
fear which with the help of opinions and imagination can lead to hate and
prejudice and eventually to
discrimmination.
This is only a question (I think)
but which way is this going? against the Christian faith or is the Christian faith encouraging this towards other things?
To: Sparky and Twolegsforwalking
From: phenomenal graffiti
It is indeed entirely possible (and even necessary) that belief in God arose from a psychological response to the fear of eternal oblivion, as some sort of supernatural middleman to wake us up after death.
But in all of the minds of all of the reflective or speculative humans that have existed in the history of the world, are we to expect that belief in God hinges ultimately and solely on fear of the unknown?
It would seem that it is equally possible that to some theists, belief in God persists because the concept ultimately stands the test of “whether or not exists” because God as conceived is a being that is naturally imperceptible on some views. There is only one other “substance” in the real world that is naturally imperceptible regardless of the existence of God or not: consciousness.
If God is conceived as a disembodied consciousness rather than some mystical “superghost” as described in some biblical texts we have the perfect nomologically (naturally) imperceptible being that resists atheistic assertions of nonexistence due to failure to show up to empirical court.
Most theists hold that while the world around us can certainly be explained by physical phenomena(and psychophysical phenomena) wholly without invoking “the Diety”-nothing in known science, philosophy, and epistemology does not rule the Creator out, as I argue that under the Disembodied Consciousness Criterion, borrowing interactionism to give this God causal powers over the physical world per Chalmers, we have cloned two indistinguishable worlds that for all we know could be the real world: An atheistic world and a theist world(following the Disembodied Consciousness Criterion and throwing away the “supernatural” and “spiritual” conceptions of God)
So the reason that the philosophy of God is divided between theist and atheist is the imperceptible nature of God, making it equally impossible to either prove or disprove God’s existance.
What would your conclution be if you were on niether side? Would you say that there may very well be no proof that there is a God, but there is no proof that there is not a God, therefore God must exist? 
I’m not actually against God’s existence, I just think that ‘but there’s no proof against God either’ is logically sound but is a weak retort.
I also think that to call God a consciousness is to try and make connections to familar concepts to try and explain God. It would be using ‘consciousness’ as a metaphore, as consciousness is a term used for the mindstate of humans, and God is not human.
Are there many theologists here? It seems to me (from reading other posts here) that Christian people argueing for the existence of God overlook a valuable resource, being the texts of other religions. I say this assuming that a lot of christians seem to be fine with other religions on the basis that they’re all the same God anyway. One source I would like to hear about (if anyone here knows about it already) is about Kabbalah, as some sources I’ve read have said that Kabbalah is where Judaism orginated from. Could anyone here verify that? If that is true then as Christianity comes from Judaism then Kabbalah might be an excellent place to learn about the roots of God.
There are also sites that say Kabbalah stems from Judaism, though that was too long ago to be accurately established. Either way it’s a good source.
To: Mentat Monkey
From: Phenomenal Graffiti
As God is naturally imperceptible, it is impossible to “prove” whether or not God exists. But this is a far cry from saying: “Since you can’t prove God does not exist, then God exists.” No one (at least I’m not) jumping to ontologically committed grounds because one cannot prove a negative.
I simply claim (again and again) that based on the imperceptibility of God, just as it is conceptually wrong-headed for a theist to INSIST that there DEFINITELY IS a God, it is just as wrong-headed for the atheist to DEFINITELY INSIST that there isn’t…because the imperceptibility of God leaves the question open.(Matt from Laguna Beach in another philosophy room stated this excellently)
Ultimately, we determine what exists and what does not exist (primarily) by the use of the five senses. Why do we say that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, because we do not discern the tooth fairy with the five senses apart from representations of the entity in books, on television, or by word of mouth. We do not see the tooth fairy independently and spatiotemporally manifested apart from two-dimensional or verbal mediums.
This is what I call: “demonstrativism”(my term) for the fact that we determine what exists and what does not primarily by the senses. If a real physical entity is too small to be perceived by the senses, such as atoms or electromagnetic phenomena, we depend on CAUSAL effects of such phenomena on macroscopic (and sensorily perceivable) machines and instruments.
In short, anything that is not demonstrativist by nature is either deservingly imaginary( in the conceivability of beings that would be sensorily perceivable were they ever to show up, like Santa Claus, Superman, and the Tooth Fairy)-or perhaps logically possible, such as God under the Disembodiment Criterion.
As for consciousness, my view is that belief that God is consciousness without a brain and body is ultimately a CAUSED view, as beliefs are indeed caused by the brain. This does not rule out the logical and metaphysical(the way things might be in the world for all we know) possibility that a God is causing belief and nonbelief in the same God, or that all other “gods” in other religions for all we know are only metaphorical of the one God.
But this is only my view,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffiti@yahoo.com
To: Phenomenal Graffiti
I should perhaps have been more pointed in what I meant as nothing I said was intended to prove anything. What I intended to say was that the deadlock between theist and atheist is not as logically even as it appears as a conceptually unbiased observer, having no pre-determined conclutions either way would have a harder time understanding the theist’s conclutions than those of the athiest.
To: Mentat Monkey
From: phenomenal graffiti
I suppose seeing things from a theist viewpoint is admittedly harder because the theist proposes something over and above the evidence and information gained by the senses.
Atheists invoke Occam’s razor to do away with this because the reasoning behind such an epistemological shortcut is simple( and this is what Skeptic claims all along-which I can sympathize with to a degree):
“Why postulate over and above the apparent world of sensory perception and mind/body coherence?”
The atheist world is admittedly the simplest world, requiring nothing more than fundamental transformations between matter and energy and consciousness supported only by the brain as long as it functions. You can’t get any simpler than that.
The theist, on the other hand goes over and beyond to postulate or speculate about the existence of beings that fail discernment by the senses and hold that consciousness might be able to exist independent of physical brain process in principle(even if not in practice).
I think ultimately the theist has some ground on the basis of the absence of a tie between knowledge and belief and existence, and imperceptible concepts. A theist is caused by (God?) (Nature?) to always believe in the existence of a God, and cannot shake the suspicion that a God for all we know might exist. Try as he (or she) might, a theist cannot for long live happily and freely the atheist lifestyle,or happily and freely support atheistic nonbelief…something just doesn’t feel right about it.
I think it all comes down to ontology beyond knowledge to settle all of the relevant issues, and we just don’t have what it takes for total knowledge to settle the question once and for all.
But that is only my view,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffiti@yahoo.com
Phenomenal graffiti-
I am under the impression that you and I hold exactly the same beliefs; at least regarding the imposssibilty of absolutely knowing whether God exists or not. People can have a “relationship” with God, and perhaps they do, however no one knows if they are having a relationship with God, or are merely experiencing a psychological placebo effect. With that in mind, do you believe in God? At this moment I am unsure, and perhaps I always will be. I’m just curious as to what your thoughts on the matter are, and if you do not mind disclosing such personal information, could you explain why you hold the opinion that you do?
Faults in the bible:
To find fault in the bible all you have to do is look in the very first Chapter;Genesis.
If you follow the lineage of Adam you will find that according to the bible the world is only 6,000 years old. Yet all the dating methods that scientist use show that Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
Genesis also states that humans and animals were born on the same day. Yet how do you explain dinosaurs? They lived 200 million years ago. Homo-sapiens as we are today first appear in the fossil record around 150,000 years ago.
“The “Big Bang Theory” and the Evolution Theory have less evidence to back them up than saying there is a supreme being that created everything”
Exactly what evidence is there for a supreme being that created everything? Is the only evidence for this that you can’t believe that after 15 billion years of evolution a leaf can’t come into being?
“The facts lead to this: God made everything.” Again, what facts?
A problem pondered by many philosophers throughout time, is that of the existence of God. I feel that there is an obvious problem in proving the existence of God. I myself I’m an atheist and will try hard to put forth a non bias account of the argumentation for the existence of God. Through my reading I have found that there are two arguments for the existence of God, the first very famous one developed by St Anselm has worldwide recognition and I will look at the reason for this. The second is built on similar grounds by Descartes, who also goes about proving the existence of God. The argument developed by St Anselm is known as the Ontological Argument. I find it a major problem in any acquisition of knowledge that only exists in a definition, which you will see later.
The Ontological Argument originated in Anselm’s Proslogian. This is what Anselm has said about our position before the argument. Sin has so darkened our minds that we cannot hope to reach the truth unless God graciously leads us to it. He does so by offering us the truth through revelation and by inspiring us to accept that revelation in faith. Once we accept the truth on that basis, however, we can hope to reason out proofs for what we have already accepted through faith. God is rational, and what he does is rational, and we ourselves are blessed with reason. Thus we should be able to discover the rationality of God’s actions, at least to some extent. We are like students who, unable to solve a mathematical problem, are given the answer to it and then discover they can reason out why that answer is correct . Straight away I see a problem in this statement, Anselm seems to believe that the only way going about proving God’s existence is by letting faith guide us, he clearly states above that “Once we accept the truth on that basis, however, we can hope to reason out proofs for what we have already accepted through faith.†I do not believe that we should have to believe in God to be able to prove his existence, whether what he means is that it will drive us to excel is not the point, this statement is faulty. I personally find it a weakness, that your belief will cloud your judgement and in that way hinder you from a conclusion. This is however not his ontological argument so I will move on. These are the premises of the ontological argument:
Premise 1: God is perfect in a sense which implies that no greater being is imaginable. This is taken true by the definition.
Premise 2: A merely imaginable being is not as great as a real one. This is also true by definition.
Premise 3: If God did not exist, then he would not be the greatest thing imaginable.
Conclusion: It becomes probably that “since by definition he is the greatest being imaginable, it follows that the fact that he exists†is true.
The first premise states that God is the extreme; this I suppose is to stop arguments from philosophers like Gaunilo (who stated that one can say the same out a perfect island ), that he is all knowing and a force of Good. So the first premise has correct a priori reasoning. The second premise is quite like the first, the definition is taken to be true, that a picture of God for example is not a great as the supposed reality of God. The next premise is the most controversial, saying that if God did not exist then he would not be the greatest thing, the conclusion being that we have just stated that God by definition (a truth?) is the greatest thing imaginable. Technically this can be seen as a truth, for its premises are proven by definition in the beginning, and the conclusion analytically states that God exists in the definition of God, therefore he exists outside the mind as well. I feel that the problem is the distinction between the features of God and his existence. How can one prove his existence by describing his might? If I say that a unicorn has a horn on its forehead, that by definition is true, I can still not say that it exists. There is the major flaw in proving the existence of God. One can not possibly confuse the predicates of God, and claim that existence is a predicate. Basically what I’m trying to say is that when you are listing certain features of God, that he is all knowing, brilliant, good and then stating in the premises his existence must be wrong, for a statement of existence is stating that it is true or false, this is to be a conclusion not a premises, therefore the whole argument is incorrect and uncertain. This is also said by Immanuel Kant through ‘existence adds nothing to the essence of a thing’ . Furthermore my source concluded that “a real £50 note adds noting to the essence of a £50 note.†Although I believe that we are talking about God and that the reality of God does in fact add to the essence. Also I find this to be a matter a spirituality, the fact that Anselm is saying that God exists in the definition of God, this is utterly spiritual, and also shows no sense of reality, is God real if all that exists of him is in a definition? I say no, this is where the belief in God clearly clouds reason. The Ontological argument is just going around in circles, as stated to me by a friend, which I fin is true, the argument brings forth incorrect use of deduction, including existence as a predicate, also if the conclusion is that God exists, because of its place in a definition, then its existence has not been proven. So we can clearly see a problem in proving the existence of God.
Btw, Twolegswalking; you my firend are an idiot, you put forth claims but give no evidence, why do you bother?
I’m going to comment on the “God was invented for psychological reasons” argument.
Basically, it occurs to me that that has very little impact on modern religious belief. No one living today, as far as I know, would claim to have invented or discovered the concept of God, we all have gotten the idea from people that came before us. So, even if the first cavemen who believed in supernatural stuff did it to make them feel better about the scary world, people nowadays certainly didn’t come up with God for that reason. Now, we may adopt a pre-existing religion for that reason, but it can’t be properly said that that’s where religious belief comes from anymore.
Also, most people who believe in God, if asked why, will not say, “I believe in God because I am, at heart, scared of my own mortality, and project a father-figure that rules over it so that I can feel safe”. They will give some other explanation, perhaps about personal experience, or prayer, or maybe even a rational argument. So, do we tell these people. “Nuh-uh, you don’t believe because of that, you believe because of this theory I have”. That seems absurd, that we can know better why a person believes something than the person themselves. That would be at least as hard to prove as the existence of God Himself, I would think. So it seems this theory can only be applied to ‘the masses’- the body of religious believers about whom we can say anything we like because we’ll never have to look them in the eye.
A serious look at where religious belief comes from has to begin with where the believers themselves say it comes from, not from theories we invent about what goes on in other people’s minds. Many religious believers have theories about the ‘real’ reasons atheists fail to see the Truth of God, and we’ve no trouble seeing in that situation that it’s silly for them to pretend they know what’s in someone else’s heart. It goes both ways.
I really like the complexity argument. First let me say “Relativity” and second lets just think about this for one second. The existence of a supreme being is reflected by the fact that maple leaves are complex? I am not trying to bring anyone down to reality. What other maple leaves are you comparing them to? They are the way they are because that is how they have developed to cope with their local interactions. Many simple leaves have developed also. “natural selection” If we think about this clearly enough to create is a very anthropomorphic word itself since we tend to only create, I think this is very shady though, and everything else seems to be a result or product of some interaction. Just dabbling.
The design argument (what you guys sem to be calling the complexity) is perhaps the most utterly trashed, dismissed and sneered at view available to the creationist. Any creationist adopting such a position knows nothing about evolution at all. The easiest rebuttal is, why do we have an appendix? There are actually thousands of “useless” bits in our body, as well as animal responses that any half intelligent designer would have got rid of. So if one relies on the design argument you’re actually accusing God of being thick! Nice and ironic huh 
Man I could reel out about 20 anti-design argumnet examples, but they’re so easy to find on the web so if you’ve actually shown any real interest in finding out about the subject that I’m not going to post them here. Oh, and avoid virtually every pro-creationist’s writings on the subject as unfortunatly they’re all quacks. The set up there own unaccredited universities, award themselves professorships and then make up evidence, I spent a long long time ooking for an argumnet against evolution and the only ones that even had a chance of standing up were three I thought of myself and all of them were tenuous and have since fallen from further investigation.
If you even hope to believe in such an argment I would suggest you read some Dawkins, one of the top zoologists around at the moment. Then you won’t believe in it anymore.
I don’t think any argument can prove the existence of God. I’ve never seen an argument that could prove the existence of any concrete thing outside of empirical evidence of the thing. Could someone construct an unrefutable logical argument for the existence of Joan of Arc, Mt. Rushmore, or beans without referring to some physical proof? Theists should probably stick to arguments that show that God is possible, or that some version of atheism is impossible, or to refuting arguments against the existence of God. Whatever proof for the existence of God that an individual has, it is merely anecdotal to anyone else.
For any christian it is really very unnessecary (and impossible) to proof the existence of God by some rationalist argument, because God’s existence ain’t knowledge, but belief. And belief is, as Paul defined it, knowing for sure that what you can’t see. Or, to put it another way: Credo quia absurdum (I believe it because it is absurd). You might also think of Kierkegaard, who said that faith is something like jumping into the depths if God asks you to, trusting his decision more than your own reason.
I don’t say I believe in God, but I don’t think the problem is solved by just denying the ‘proofs of God’s existence’. And I definitely want to KNOW if God exists or not. Any reactions?