Argument for God's existence.

[cvanwey]

anyway back to the topic. What I don't understand is how can a multiverse gain the power to create a universe? I mean rocks and asteroids and black holes don't have power's do they? God fill this gap. Again, why does anything exist at all? What purpose would a completely different multiverse have for creating a different universe, inside of time? Isn't it just a wast of energy? If there is no loving diety, there is really no purpose. Again God fills this gap. I say this for a reason. Because there is a fallacy called the God of the gaps fallacy. I don't recognize it as a fallacy. Because it's just logical deduction in general that God is the only answer, not a god of the gaps fallacy.

'The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the Universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the Universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the Universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the Universe should have looked like when it started—it would still be up to God to wind up the clock and choose how to start it off. So long as the Universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the Universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundaries or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?—'

Stephen Hawking

 

[Moral Orel]

you cannot place time restrictions on a timelessness. We all existed in the mind of God prior to being created. But I look at it as placing a body into timelessness, it existed before that point. It would not be a beginning as we know, because we are in time. But it would be a beginning of sorts.

But God is eternal. Everything "in His mind" is eternal. There is no "prior to being created" because, as you've said, time has no effect on our souls because they aren't made of matter. If a soul is timeless, you can't place time restrictions on it by saying it had a beginning. It didn't have a beginning, it always existed.

Or, we could just say that time can apply to more than just matter. I'm just trying to point out the absurd conclusions that follow from thinking that everything other than matter is timeless.

 

[gaara4158]

dp

 

[gaara4158]

anyway back to the topic. What I don't understand is how can a multiverse gain the power to create a universe? I mean rocks and asteroids and black holes don't have power's do they? God fill this gap. Again, why does anything exist at all? What purpose would a completely different multiverse have for creating a different universe, inside of time? Isn't it just a wast of energy? If there is no loving diety, there is really no purpose. Again God fills this gap. I say this for a reason. Because there is a fallacy called the God of the gaps fallacy. I don't recognize it as a fallacy. Because it's just logical deduction in general that God is the only answer, not a god of the gaps fallacy.

It’s only a logical deduction if all other conceivable options are logically impossible, meaning they invoke some kind of contradiction. All you’ve been able to say about other options (like a multiverse, an eternal universe, a cyclical bang-crunch universe, a simulation, a now-dead god, pixies, etc.) so far is ask “well how would that work?” And that’s not logical deduction, that’s argument from incredulity and shifting the burden of proof.

If you don’t recognize the god of the gaps fallacy as actually being fallacious, I would suggest you do some online research to see what’s been said about it. You might learn something.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

anyway back to the topic. What I don't understand is how can a multiverse gain the power to create a universe? I mean rocks and asteroids and black holes don't have power's do they? God fill this gap. Again, why does anything exist at all? What purpose would a completely different multiverse have for creating a different universe, inside of time? Isn't it just a wast of energy? If there is no loving diety, there is really no purpose. Again God fills this gap. I say this for a reason. Because there is a fallacy called the God of the gaps fallacy. I don't recognize it as a fallacy. Because it's just logical deduction in general that God is the only answer, not a god of the gaps fallacy.

Well, it goes like this.
I'm quite comfortable saying "I don't know how the universe came to exist". I'm also quite comfortable saying our greatest scientists don't know. Not knowing is to be regretted, but it's nothing shameful.

Now then, just because I don't know how the universe came to be, does that follow that God did it? Not at all. If you think some omnipotent being described in the Bible created the universe, then you have to provide evidence for it.

Are you familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? A humorous satire with a serious point. How about if I say He exists, and that He created the universe. How would you go about proving that I was wrong? Well, I suppose you could do it by proving that God created the universe, but apparently you don't have any such proof.

That's what's wrong with the God of the Gaps fallacy. You say that if we don't know how the universe was created, then it "must" have been God. But that doesn't logically follow. It could have been God. It could have been the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It could be that "coming into existence" is just something that universes do. It could have been a wizard who cast a spell in the future to create a universe in the past. It could have been Doctor Who.

Or, perhaps we could just say "we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the Big Bang, so let's leave the question open for now".

 

[createdtoworship]

Well, it goes like this.
I'm quite comfortable saying "I don't know how the universe came to exist". I'm also quite comfortable saying our greatest scientists don't know. Not knowing is to be regretted, but it's nothing shameful.

Now then, just because I don't know how the universe came to be, does that follow that God did it? Not at all. If you think some omnipotent being described in the Bible created the universe, then you have to provide evidence for it.

Are you familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? A humorous satire with a serious point. How about if I say He exists, and that He created the universe. How would you go about proving that I was wrong? Well, I suppose you could do it by proving that God created the universe, but apparently you don't have any such proof.

That's what's wrong with the God of the Gaps fallacy. You say that if we don't know how the universe was created, then it "must" have been God. But that doesn't logically follow. It could have been God. It could have been the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It could be that "coming into existence" is just something that universes do. It could have been a wizard who cast a spell in the future to create a universe in the past. It could have been Doctor Who.

Or, perhaps we could just say "we don't have any evidence as to the cause of the Big Bang, so let's leave the question open for now".

a giant spaghetti monster creating the universe is more rational than an empty multiverse doing it. Just sayin.

I mean how can emptiness, create anything?

Why does anything exist?

why would empty space expend energy to create another universe? For absolutely no reason?

it's hilariously sad.

so at least you are providing better answers, thats a start.

 

[createdtoworship]

No it isn’t. I suggest you read up on what that actually means.

thanks, I never heard that before, I thought it was an insult.

anyway, if it's too much, just take section at a time.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

I mean how can emptiness, create anything?
Why does anything exist?
why would empty space expend energy to create another universe? For absolutely no reason?
it's hilariously sad.
so at least you are providing better answers, thats a start.

But I'm not. I'm not providing any answers at all. Because I don't know. All I'm doing is saying that the fact that you don't know the answer to a question is no reason to make up one.

This isn't the only "God of the gaps" fallacy, you know. Once, we lived in a world where "God did it" would be accepted as the simple and obvious answer. But as science came along, we found that God does not do many things. Here is an essay that I find explains this rather well:

"Once, in the ages of superstition and ignorance, the hand of God was seen to be at work everywhere. Everything humanity did not understand, which was everything, was ascribed to the inscrutable will of the Deity. Divine purpose was discerned in the cycles of life and death, health and sickness, feast and famine. Mythological stories were invented to explain seasons, eclipses, day and night. The mad were possessed by spirits; the wise were prophets guided by the divine. Demons caused disaster and tempted us into evil. Angels safeguarded us from harm. Humanity was ruled by fear of the supernatural. People crept towards the shadows, heard the rustling and scrabbling of gods just out of sight, and hurriedly drew back.

It was the scientific revolution that gave us a candle to peer into the dark. And to our very great surprise, when we illuminated the shadows, we discovered that there was nothing there – that there never had been. The scratchings in the night were nothing more than our imagination. The light of science fell upon the world and revealed that it ran according to the regularities of natural law, not to the whims of an inscrutable cosmic intelligence. The more we investigated, the more phenomena we learned were governed by changeless physical principles, not divine dictators. If there were gods running the show, they were keeping well out of sight.
...
Some believers have recognized this pattern and swung into action accordingly. Though one would think an all-powerful entity needs no one’s protection, they have taken great pains to safeguard him. They have declared his activities ineffable, mysterious, off-limits to scientific investigation. They have protected the last few areas of darkness where a deity might be lurking as if they were the habitat of an endangered species. The pattern is unmistakable. “See! You can’t explain this!” they proclaim, pointing triumphantly to places where our knowledge is incomplete, as though scientists claimed omniscience. “And you never will be able to! That proves our god is at work!” Invariably, however, someone eventually does find a way to peer into the latest patch of darkness and finds it too is empty, pushes the borders of human knowledge a little bit further and discovers there was no god hiding just beyond them. And what do the believers do – do they admit defeat and give up their god hypothesis? Of course not. At first they rail against the new discovery, fighting it with all their strength and labeling the discoverer an enemy of the faith. Then, when the evidence mounts and the knowledge becomes impossible to deny any longer, they hurriedly usher their god into the next patch of darkness, declare once again that they see his hand moving where science falters, and the pattern repeats."

And today, Christians say, "Maybe science can explain lightning. And how animals came to be as they are. And what space is like," forgetting that they once said that God caused lightning, and created animals, and that "planets" were blasphemy. "But there's one more thing you can't explain!" they say triumphantly. "Where did the universe itself come from? It must have been God! Why? Because...it must have been! It can't have created itself. The only possible answer is that the whole universe was created by the local God of a primitive people in the Middle East. What else could it possibly be?"

Sorry. It doesn't work like that. Christians are free to believe that it was God, of course; but if they come to the rest of us and say, "You should believe this too," it's natural to ask what evidence you have for your views.

 

[Moral Orel]

Why does anything exist?

Why does God exist?

 

[createdtoworship]

But I'm not. I'm not providing any answers at all. Because I don't know. All I'm doing is saying that the fact that you don't know the answer to a question is no reason to make up one.

This isn't the only "God of the gaps" fallacy, you know. Once, we lived in a world where "God did it" would be accepted as the simple and obvious answer. But as science came along, we found that God does not do many things. Here is an essay that I find explains this rather well:

"Once, in the ages of superstition and ignorance, the hand of God was seen to be at work everywhere. Everything humanity did not understand, which was everything, was ascribed to the inscrutable will of the Deity. Divine purpose was discerned in the cycles of life and death, health and sickness, feast and famine. Mythological stories were invented to explain seasons, eclipses, day and night. The mad were possessed by spirits; the wise were prophets guided by the divine. Demons caused disaster and tempted us into evil. Angels safeguarded us from harm. Humanity was ruled by fear of the supernatural. People crept towards the shadows, heard the rustling and scrabbling of gods just out of sight, and hurriedly drew back.

It was the scientific revolution that gave us a candle to peer into the dark. And to our very great surprise, when we illuminated the shadows, we discovered that there was nothing there – that there never had been. The scratchings in the night were nothing more than our imagination. The light of science fell upon the world and revealed that it ran according to the regularities of natural law, not to the whims of an inscrutable cosmic intelligence. The more we investigated, the more phenomena we learned were governed by changeless physical principles, not divine dictators. If there were gods running the show, they were keeping well out of sight.
...
Some believers have recognized this pattern and swung into action accordingly. Though one would think an all-powerful entity needs no one’s protection, they have taken great pains to safeguard him. They have declared his activities ineffable, mysterious, off-limits to scientific investigation. They have protected the last few areas of darkness where a deity might be lurking as if they were the habitat of an endangered species. The pattern is unmistakable. “See! You can’t explain this!” they proclaim, pointing triumphantly to places where our knowledge is incomplete, as though scientists claimed omniscience. “And you never will be able to! That proves our god is at work!” Invariably, however, someone eventually does find a way to peer into the latest patch of darkness and finds it too is empty, pushes the borders of human knowledge a little bit further and discovers there was no god hiding just beyond them. And what do the believers do – do they admit defeat and give up their god hypothesis? Of course not. At first they rail against the new discovery, fighting it with all their strength and labeling the discoverer an enemy of the faith. Then, when the evidence mounts and the knowledge becomes impossible to deny any longer, they hurriedly usher their god into the next patch of darkness, declare once again that they see his hand moving where science falters, and the pattern repeats."

And today, Christians say, "Maybe science can explain lightning. And how animals came to be as they are. And what space is like," forgetting that they once said that God caused lightning, and created animals, and that "planets" were blasphemy. "But there's one more thing you can't explain!" they say triumphantly. "Where did the universe itself come from? It must have been God! Why? Because...it must have been! It can't have created itself. The only possible answer is that the whole universe was created by the local God of a primitive people in the Middle East. What else could it possibly be?"

Sorry. It doesn't work like that. Christians are free to believe that it was God, of course; but if they come to the rest of us and say, "You should believe this too," it's natural to ask what evidence you have for your views.

so you can prove that these things are not done by a God that has control over all dimensions and can appear inside locked rooms, exists in a timeless domain, is everywhere at once, has all power and compassion. You have evidence that that being cannot do all the things in the article (positive actions)? Note evil things are not positive actions, but negative actions. Evil is a lack of Good. Not an actual value itself.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

so you can prove that these things are not done by a God that has control over all dimensions and can appear inside locked rooms, exists in a timeless domain, is everywhere at once, has all power and compassion. You have evidence that that being cannot do all the things in the article (positive actions)? Note evil things are not positive actions, but negative actions.

You are the positive claimant. The burden of proof is yours.

Evil is a lack of Good. Not an actual value itself.

No, a lack of good would just be innocuous - neither good nor evil.

 

[createdtoworship]

You are the positive claimant. The burden of proof is yours.

a very common definition for God is omnipresent, omnicient, and omnipotent. I argue if a God is not those three things, they are not God at all, per definition.

No, a lack of good would just be innocuous - neither good nor evil.

now you are changing the bars here. I was talking about evil of commission. Not evil of omission. That is an entirely different evil. See if an old lady is crossing the road, and a car is coming fast. An evil of omission would be not doing good and not warning her, or pushing her out of the way. In that case not doing good was evil. And there are many situations like that. So evil in all of it's forms is a lack of good. Agreed?

 

[InterestedAtheist]

so you can prove that these things are not done by a God that has control over all dimensions and can appear inside locked rooms, exists in a timeless domain, is everywhere at once, has all power and compassion. You have evidence that that being cannot do all the things in the article (positive actions)?

@Eight Foot Manchild
As His Supreme Holy Correctfulness pointed out, the burden of proof of yours. We can all see the universe, Christians and non-Christians are all in perfect agreement that we exist in a physical universe. But then, when the Christians say, "And there is an invisible conscious power called God," it is perfectly reasonable to ask for evidence.

Perhaps you haven't heard of Russell's Teapot? The twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell famously explained the reason that religions have the burden of proof when claiming that God or God's exist.

 

[createdtoworship]

As His Supreme Holy Correctfulness pointed out, the burden of proof of yours. We can all see the universe, Christians and non-Christians are all in perfect agreement that we exist in a physical universe. But then, when the Christians say, "And there is an invisible conscious power called God," it is perfectly reasonable to ask for evidence.

Perhaps you haven't heard of Russell's Teapot? The twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell famously explained the reason that religions have the burden of proof when claiming that God or God's exist.

so you do not have evidence that God (by nature is everywhere at once, all powerful, all knowing) to do those things. You said that He didn't do it.

Why does God exist?

It makes more sense for a God to exist, than a meaningless multiverse. Just logically speaking. But I would not know the answer to your question. But I don't think God exists inside of anything else. I think He is, He is existance. So to say He exists is a little wrong.

 

[createdtoworship]

As His Supreme Holy Correctfulness pointed out, the burden of proof of yours. We can all see the universe, Christians and non-Christians are all in perfect agreement that we exist in a physical universe. But then, when the Christians say, "And there is an invisible conscious power called God," it is perfectly reasonable to ask for evidence.

Perhaps you haven't heard of Russell's Teapot? The twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell famously explained the reason that religions have the burden of proof when claiming that God or God's exist.

actually the burden lies on you, you said

we found that God does not do many things.

so you have evidence that God doesn't do things, again please provide it. As I said before, evil is not a thing, it's a lack of a (good thing).

 

[bhsmte]

Cognitive dissonance, at its best.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

actually the burden lies on you, you said "We found that God does not do many things"
...
so if you have evidence that God doesn't do things, again please provide it.

Certainly.
People used to think that God threw lightning.
Then we found out it was caused by static electricity charges in the air.
People used to think that God was responsible for creating the Earth six thousand years ago.
Then we found out that the Earth formed out of a cloud of dust and gas, four billion years before the Bible was written.
People used to think that God lived in the sky, a few hundred metres up above the clouds.
Then we found out that existence was much bigger than that.

Now, if you're going to say something like "Well, of course! But it was God who made the atoms rub together to make lightning, God who caused the Earth to form, and God who lives in another plane of reality, called Heaven," then I'm afraid you're just using the God of the Gaps fallacy, exactly as described above.

I think you should note that I didn't say "We can prove that God doesn't exist." If I had said that, then yes, the burden of proof would be on me. But I didn't. All I did was listen to you say that God exists, and then point out that the burden of proof is on you to show how what you say is true.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

so you do not have evidence that God (by nature is everywhere at once, all powerful, all knowing) to do those things. You said that He didn't do it.

It makes more sense for a God to exist, than a meaningless multiverse. Just logically speaking. But I would not know the answer to your question. But I don't think God exists inside of anything else. I think He is, He is existance. So to say He exists is a little wrong.

Okay. Please provide your evidence that the universe is conscious.

 

[createdtoworship]

duplicate

 

[createdtoworship]

Certainly.
People used to think that God threw lightning.
Then we found out it was caused by static electricity charges in the air.
People used to think that God was responsible for creating the Earth six thousand years ago.
Then we found out that the Earth formed out of a cloud of dust and gas, four billion years before the Bible was written.
People used to think that God lived in the sky, a few hundred metres up above the clouds.
Then we found out that existence was much bigger than that.

Now, if you're going to say something like "Well, of course! But it was God who made the atoms rub together to make lightning, God who caused the Earth to form, and God who lives in another plane of reality, called Heaven," then I'm afraid you're just using the God of the Gaps fallacy, exactly as described above.

I think you should note that I didn't say "We can prove that God doesn't exist." If I had said that, then yes, the burden of proof would be on me. But I didn't. All I did was listen to you say that God exists, and then point out that the burden of proof is on you to show how what you say is true.

you saw the earth being created four billion years ago? You were there, and got pictures, and took samples. And can falsify that information, and can duplicate the tests done in a laboratory setting? If not, why then should I call stellar evolution science? And yes God does do all those things. Why can't God rub atoms together? If He exists as we say He does, why can't He who is all powerful do those things? Again the God of the gaps saves the day. I don't acknowledge that fallacy. It was created while doing debate with creationists. Evolutionists, when they don't have answers anymore, create new phrases, that no one has heard, label it a fallacy and expect us all to honor them. It's begging the question.