Best Argument For or Against God's Existence

[Achilles6129]

Then just describe for me how god thinks in a non-temporal fashion. Even a single thought is created in-time...with a beginning and end.

Without any such description of how a "conscious being exists outside of time"...the very notion of a "conscious being existing outside of time" becomes utterly meaningless.

Aha! You're thinking in terms of this universe again, according to your own experiences of reality. Remember that God created this universe! Your understanding of how things work in this universe (sequences of thoughts and so on) doesn't necessarily apply beyond this universe!

 

[Achilles6129]

It sounds like you're referring to some version of the cosmological argument in some way that you understand it. If you'd like me to show you where it fails and where you leap to the conclusion that god exists (because even in the cosmological argument you're leaping to that conclusion from the onset), just lay it out how you understand it.

It would be easier if you number it as well, such as...

1. Premise.
2. Premise
3. Premise.
4. Therefore god exists.

I know it probably seems redundant to you, but I've heard so many versions of the cosmological argument that I'm not entirely sure which one you're claiming. So, pretty please, humor me on this.

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2) The universe began to exist
3) The universe had a cause
4) The best explanation of that cause is God

 

[TillICollapse]

All physical reality - everything that one can grasp or experience with the five senses.

Why does your definition of God involve the necessity of being "outside the universe" ?

Big Bang happens THEN a creative force emerges from that, which then creates life on earth in some form, etc. Why not ? Why can God not be a product of the universe in some fashion ?

What if you asked God, "What created you ?" and God responds with, "Chance." Why not ?

 

[Ana the Ist]

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2) The universe began to exist
3) The universe had a cause
4) The best explanation of that cause is God

I'd like to know why you think the first premise is true. I'm going to assume for now it's because you believe it based upon what's observable in the universe. If that's the case, I'll explain to you why this first premise fails and therefore so does the rest of the argument. If there's some other reason you believe the first premise is true, let me know.

Let's assume though that 1-3 are all true....why does that lead to conclusion 4? It doesn't. Anything imagined as the cause of the universe, including entirely natural processes, has just as much validity as your conclusion based upon the logic you've used. The only reason you made the conclusion you did is because you're implicitly starting with the idea god exists.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

...and? How does that refute the concept of God? God, by very definition, is outside of the universe. The "Divine Flame," or whatever else, isn't.

It makes it a useless concept. Your definition of God being outside the universe is totally pointless and explains nothing and does not need to be considered until you can show that anything exists outside the universe. Until you can show that anything can exist outside of time and space, we have no reason to believe a magical, creator being exists there.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Aha! You're thinking in terms of this universe again, according to your own experiences of reality. Remember that God created this universe! Your understanding of how things work in this universe (sequences of thoughts and so on) doesn't necessarily apply beyond this universe!

Maybe if I rephrase this you'll understand better....

All you're telling me is what god is not...you're saying god doesn't exist in time. That doesn't say anything about what god is. If you cannot explain what it is to be "outside of time"....then the very idea of "outside of time" becomes meaningless.

Several others have pointed this out already, but maybe you just haven't gotten it yet.

 

[Mediate]

God is defined as a "maximally great being" whose existence is necessary. A being who necessarily exists is a being on whom everything else is contingent. God would be such a being. God is the creator of everything who alone eternally exists. Therefore he is a necessary being.

Everything's existence being contingent on God is true only in the mind of a theist who believes God exists in the first place. Your belief that God exists means that you're prone to the presupposition that everything is contingent on him. That everything is contingent on him is not fact, nor is his existence proven.

God is an abstract idea, and the modal S5 argument Plantinga uses could be applied to any abstract idea:

"Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are necessary because the existence of everything (in a Hindu paradigm) is contingent on their existence. Thus, Brahma Vishnu and Shiva are necessary beings".

That's logically fallacious because there's no proof Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are even real. The modal S5 argument is often used for mathematics, but we know maths, we use maths, we understand maths and maths ''exists", proven so. God has none of those qualities. We can't verify his existence in order to be able to assume him as an inherent thing able to be used in tangible logical ways.


It's all apologetic, abstract, logic-bending nonsense.

If you claim that it's possible that a necessary being like God exists then you are claiming that God exists in some possible world. But, being a necessary being, if he exists in some possible world he exists in all possible worlds. Hence, he exists in the actual world.

Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva might possibly exist, because we have no way of knowing that they don't exist, and as an open minded person, I'm open to the idea that anything is possible if we take the view that universes can exist that exist in different states to the one in which we exist. That doesn't mean Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva exist, it means I'm open to the idea that they exist. Being open to it is far from it being fact. I'm open to evidence. Read: The Anthropic Principle.

Arguments from the possibility of universes that exist different to the universe in which we exist are by their very nature, not applicable in this universe.

God is not a "necessary being" any more than Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are.

Any person whom you define as necessary would essentially be God. You're more than welcome to claim that God is a leprechaun. Plantinga's Ontological Argument makes no such claim.

Plantinga's Ontonolgical argument is an argument starting from the assumption that the idea of "God" has logical merit in an argument. Yet "God" has no discernible, tangible, inherent "realness" like, for instance, an equation or a number does.

 

[KCfromNC]

For example, someone could claim that it was an extraterrestrial with super-advanced technology, or a really clever human being playing tricks, and no-one could disprove them. For that reason, any manifestation of God has to be a personal experience where only the person who receives it knows for a fact what has happened. It's outside of the five senses.

How does having a thought or feeling prove that thought or feeling comes from a god and not simply from normal brain function, super advanced aliens, other humans playing tricks, brain disease, optical illusion, or any number of other non-divine sources?

 

[GrimKingGrim]

What is that difference then if not the passage of time? True we can only experience now, and remember then... but the existence of both seems to prove a change in time.

Right. But they both do not exist now. Only one "exists" unless you can pull the past version of say a rock from 3 seconds ago you only have the rock of now and the rock of 3 seconds ago is no longer in existence.

Does that make sense?

It's not that I don't get what you're saying about it only being "now"...but if now was all that existed or ever existed, wouldn't we stand frozen... unmoving...stuck in an eternal now?

No. The idea of time helps break this down and organize events too. Which is why time is an essential concept in humanity.

But we cannot exist and exist again one second later. We only exist. There is no past version of us that we can present to us, just who we are.

We use time as a means of recording and taking note of change. Because without that concept we'd be lost. So many changes happen and without time as a tool to explain them it'd nonsense.

We understand more about time than we used to, we seem to have a tenuous grasp on its relation to space...but I'm not sure it's a phenomenon we've been able to completely understand yet.

Agreed. I believe we're in a constant recycle of everything that ever was and will be. The same atoms from the beginning are what we are now and it's really trippy to think about how I could be comprised of atoms that came from the first grasses.

 

[Achilles6129]

Why does your definition of God involve the necessity of being "outside the universe" ?

Big Bang happens THEN a creative force emerges from that, which then creates life on earth in some form, etc. Why not ? Why can God not be a product of the universe in some fashion ?

What if you asked God, "What created you ?" and God responds with, "Chance." Why not ?

What started the Big Bang? How'd that come about? And how did the Big Bang (something physical) create something non-physical and immaterial, like God?

 

[Achilles6129]

I'd like to know why you think the first premise is true. I'm going to assume for now it's because you believe it based upon what's observable in the universe. If that's the case, I'll explain to you why this first premise fails and therefore so does the rest of the argument. If there's some other reason you believe the first premise is true, let me know.

OK, explain it to me. I didn't see an explanation in your post.

Let's assume though that 1-3 are all true....why does that lead to conclusion 4? It doesn't. Anything imagined as the cause of the universe, including entirely natural processes, has just as much validity as your conclusion based upon the logic you've used.

Because the nature of the universe itself strongly suggests that whatever caused it has a great deal of intelligence. That strongly suggests a Creator instead of something inanimate.

All you're telling me is what god is not...you're saying god doesn't exist in time. That doesn't say anything about what god is. If you cannot explain what it is to be "outside of time"....then the very idea of "outside of time" becomes meaningless.

I don't know what it means to be "outside of time," nor do I have to. The only way I perceive and understand reality is through the five senses, like everyone else. That's how I, and everyone else, perceive and understand time. The only thing that's necessary to understand is that the way we perceive reality in this universe doesn't necessarily have to apply to God, who created this universe and time itself.

You can't take concepts within the universe, which the Creator created, and then apply them to the Creator himself and say that he's bound by them. If he's bound by them, then how could he create them?

 

[Achilles6129]

How does having a thought or feeling prove that thought or feeling comes from a god and not simply from normal brain function, super advanced aliens, other humans playing tricks, brain disease, optical illusion, or any number of other non-divine sources?

What we're talking about here has nothing to do with something physical, but rather with something spiritual. It's off limits to the physical world.

 

[TillICollapse]

What started the Big Bang? How'd that come about? And how did the Big Bang (something physical) create something non-physical and immaterial, like God?

WHY assume all these characteristics about "God" ?

Does your concept of "God" only "work" in your mind, so long as God meets such and such criteria of outside time/reality/immaterial/etc ?

Let's go with the Hartle-Hawking state theory (armchair understanding version): the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe as we know it in it's current state, yet before that ... it existed in a boundless space in imaginary time, marking a singularity Big Bang state along that timeline which from our perspective would be the "beginning of time" after the Planck era. However before that, it would merely be yet another moment along the imaginary timeline of boundless space-time.

So let's say at some point in the early history of the universe, a consciousness evolved that would become what may be recognized as "God", and this consciousness then went on to create lifeforms, etc.

Why can't God be "physical" in your concept ? Again, why can't God tell you, "I came about by chance. A mish-mash of chemistry lead to my existence."

Why don't you consider such a possibility as that ? If you keep appealing to, "What started the Big Bang then ?" ... why do you stop those questions when you get to "God" ? Why do you suddenly find the idea of an uncreated being, existing outside of reality and time, suddenly the rational choice ? If you're going to posit a "God" ... why go with one that has those attributes ? On what do you base such a decision to go with those choices ?

 

[Achilles6129]

Your idea violates the very definition of "God." The very definition of God is that he is the Supreme Being and subject to no-one and nothing. If "God" were created by the universe, then he would be subject to something.

The only way your idea would work is if you were talking about a lesser god (a "deity") and not really "God" at all.

 

[TillICollapse]

Your idea violates the very definition of "God." The very definition of God is that he is the Supreme Being and subject to no-one and nothing.

Who says this is the very definition of God ?

If "God" were created by the universe, then he would be subject to something.

Why ? And what would God be subject to ?

The only way your idea would work is if you were talking about a lesser god (a "deity") and not really "God" at all.

Really ? So such a being coming about in some fashion in a physical world, would be a lesser deity in your opinion, if they would even be recognized as a deity at all ?

 

[TillICollapse]

Your idea violates the very definition of "God." The very definition of God is that he is the Supreme Being and subject to no-one and nothing. If "God" were created by the universe, then he would be subject to something.

The only way your idea would work is if you were talking about a lesser god (a "deity") and not really "God" at all.

So the idea that a being could come about in the natural universe, and then usurp some aspect of the universe in order to be deemed "God" in some fashion ... that's a no go ?

 

[Ana the Ist]

OK, explain it to me. I didn't see an explanation in your post.



Because the nature of the universe itself strongly suggests that whatever caused it has a great deal of intelligence. That strongly suggests a Creator instead of something inanimate.



I don't know what it means to be "outside of time," nor do I have to. The only way I perceive and understand reality is through the five senses, like everyone else. That's how I, and everyone else, perceive and understand time. The only thing that's necessary to understand is that the way we perceive reality in this universe doesn't necessarily have to apply to God, who created this universe and time itself.

You can't take concepts within the universe, which the Creator created, and then apply them to the Creator himself and say that he's bound by them. If he's bound by them, then how could he create them?

I just wanted to be sure you're first premise was constructed for the reasons I outlined. You haven't objected or corrected me...so I'll explain....

First of all, there are things in our universe which do come from nothing without any real cause. I'm sure this is a bit of a shock to you, so here's a short and very basic article explaining the phenomena.

Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence? Or are they merely a mathematical bookkeeping device for quantum mechanics? - Scientific American

So just this little bit of knowledge annihilates your first premise and subsequently your entire argument. Secondly though, logic dictates that the the properties of members of a set are not necessarily also properties of the set. In the argument you outlined, the universe would be the set and everything in the universe would be the members of the set. So even if everything that begins to exist in the universe has a cause (and the link I provided shows this isn't actually true) that doesn't mean the universe itself must have a cause. The universe cannot be considered a member of itself.

Here's the most important thing you brought up....

"I don't know what it means to be "outside of time," nor do I have to."

You don't know what it means to exist "outside of time". Wonderful. We're now in agreement that the idea of being "outside of time" is meaningless...and as such, it's not worthy of consideration nor useful in explaining anything.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

What started the Big Bang? How'd that come about? And how did the Big Bang (something physical) create something non-physical and immaterial, like God?

How ever it happened, it was most likely a natural occurrence and not the magical powers of a cosmic deity.

 

[BL2KTN]

Your idea violates the very definition of "God." The very definition of God is that he is the Supreme Being and subject to no-one and nothing. If "God" were created by the universe, then he would be subject to something.

The only way your idea would work is if you were talking about a lesser god (a "deity") and not really "God" at all.

That's not the definition of God.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

...and? How does that refute the concept of God? God, by very definition, is outside of the universe. The "Divine Flame," or whatever else, isn't.

No, by definition, the Divine Flame is also outside the universe. It requires no source of fuel or ignition and radiates eternally.

Again, you're defining God by your ideas of and experiences in this universe. God is outside of the universe, so the realities of this universe simply do not apply to him.

So is the Divine Flame. So the natural requirements of flames within the universe do not apply to the Divine Flame.