What are the best arguments for the existence of God?

[SocratesNow]

Believing that God exists is a good first step, but it has to get further than that. There's a million unanswerable questions. Laws of physics cause things to behave in a certain way. Why do they? Why don't objects with mass repel each other?

Thanks for responding!
I'd just ask one question here, which may at first seem odd; why does there have to be a reason for the laws of physics? We are beings which are psychologically programmed to desire a meaning, a reason behind things, but I fail to understand what reason there is for the necessity of things like the laws of physics to have a reason for operating the way that they do. Do you have a reason for this need?

 

[section9+1]

Why does there have to be a reason for God? He just is. And the only person in the world who needs to know if he is, is the one who is asking the question. Whoever isn't asking, the question is irrelevant.

 

[solid_core]

Did I not disprove the contingency argument in its statements and conclusions? Did I not specifically point out that the argument is logically flawed because it assumes that if the theory of God's existence explains something, therefore it must be the only and true explanation for that thing? Did you not make a claim, proposing that the leibniz contingency argument was one argument which supported the existence of God? And did I not, as I have repeatedly outlined, state my specific critique of the argument, namely that there is an inherent assumption within this argument which disqualifies it from the start? And in regards to the idea that arguments are only valid if they fit some arbitrarily prescribed format, I must fully disagree. While structure is crucial within a debate, no argument should be disqualified or held as invalid for the simple fact that it doesn't fit an arbitrary structure for what an argument should look like. Finally, the idea that my critique of your claim is somehow a claim that I myself must defend, instead of it being treated as what it is, a critique of a theory, is simply illogical. I have presented my case against the leibniz contingency argument, and there is no reason for trifling issues such as the specific structure of my said critique, nor illogical ideas of what argumentation should look like, to distract from that.

Sorry, I do not have time to read rhetorical bunch of text. Let us let it be, then, if you are unwilling to present your thoughts in formal and simple manner.

 

[SocratesNow]

Why does there have to be a reason for God? He just is. And the only person in the world who needs to know if he is, is the one who is asking the question. Whoever isn't asking, the question is irrelevant.

On the contrary, it seems that it's extremely important to ask how we support God's existence for everyone, since if God does exist, it would be very valuable to be able to have a reasonable basis for proving or believing so, and if God does not exist, all those who believe he does are wrong, and often doing or not doing things for no reason at all. It seems that no matter which side you're on, the debate is an important one.

 

[SocratesNow]

Sorry, I do not have time to read rhetorical bunch of text. Let us let it be, then, if you are unwilling to present your thoughts in formal and simple manner.

I remain thoroughly confused as to how my previous single sentence description of my critique was not simple and specific, but if that was not sufficiently simple I suppose all my other comments were irrelvant as well.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

Thanks, that was a great comment!
I am curious about what you believe faith means, since many people have faith in various ideas, despite the evidence against them, or in favor of contradicting ideas, and it is often used as a way to excuse a lack of reason behind an argument, although I am not saying that that is what you're doing here, and found your response incredibly insightful and respectful. I would also say that most if not all of the beauty and balance in nature (which I also find wonderful) can potentially be explained as a matter of necessity, in the sense that for millenia, members of species which, say, didn't have clots when they started to bleed, bled out, and thus died. In short, nature forces "coincidences" to occur, because without these "coincidences" species and members of species die, leaving only those who do have these traits to continue living and continuing their species. I would also contend that the bible has not in fact predicted everything, and however you cut it, many individuals believe it to be deeply contradictory. However, before delving into that discussion I'd love to hear your thoughts on what has been said so far!

I can only answer this from my personal experience. I was not a Christians and did not believe anything until December 2018. In summer 2018 my health declined, I had almost no hearing in my right ear, I had loud no noises in it, I would start losing balance to the point I would just randomly collapse and then everything would spin for days. You can imagine how worried I was, couldn't sleep because of the constant high pitch noise in my ear, sick worried what is wrong with me, at that time I couldn't even eat. All I had was maybe a sandwich, I couldn't cook, my body didn't listen to my brain. Doctors were puzzled, they recommended me to go and see a specialist. He did some tests and results didn't make any sense. He then said we have to scan your brain. I returned to home and I completely lost it. I sick worried it's a brain tumour or some kind of irreversible brain injury. I thought that was it. And nothing I ever done, achiever mattered. I cried to God and then total peace like I never felt before happened. And God told me to stand up, go and eat etc. He told me I will be ok. I have no idea why, or why I believed God that I would be ok, I just did. Shortly after I had my brain scan and I was diagnosed with a 4 cm brain tumour that was pressing on a vital part of my brain and thus become deadly. I don't think I had so much time. I was told about the consequences of the surgery, lose hearing in that ear, half the face would be paralysed etc. But I was ok with it all, I was confronting everyone around me, people asked me how I could be so calm and happy in life? Because I now had a relationship with God. Tumour was removed, I am deaf in my ear, how even louder noise in it, half the face is paralysed, my right eye is half stitched etc. And I am happier that I could ever imagine. Everything in my life has turned in better direction and I haven't even lifted a finger. Thus I knew God is God.

Why the biblical God? Because once I believed everything in there made perfect sense, and everything predicted everything. Even explained my tumour, that God uses something terrifying as a brain tumour for something good, and He did indeed. What other God people believe in does this? Of course there is more to things.

Nature....and what did create nature? Nature didn't just happen.

 

[section9+1]

On the contrary, it seems that it's extremely important to ask how we support God's existence for everyone, since if God does exist, it would be very valuable to be able to have a reasonable basis for proving or believing so, and if God does not exist, all those who believe he does are wrong, and often doing or not doing things for no reason at all. It seems that no matter which side you're on, the debate is an important one.

Not to me. The belief in God is internal. The HS provides that. I'm not going to convince someone of something he cannot grasp. And I don't care to. If you seek you will find. If you don't seek, then it doesn't matter. I have no interest in convincing those who are simply looking for an intellectual or philosophical exercise. You come to God on your knees. There is no other way.

 

[SocratesNow]

Not to me. The belief in God is internal. The HS provides that. I'm not going to convince someone of something he cannot grasp. And I don't care to. If you seek you will find. If you don't seek, then it doesn't matter. I have no interest in convincing those who are simply looking for an intellectual or philosophical exercise. You come to God on your knees. There is no other way.

I suppose if that's your perspective there really isn't any way to pursue the truth. Once you feel that you have found perfect truth and no matter the evidence, reason, or logic, your mind is made up, then dogma is the winning voice in the discussion, and there's no way for anyone to progress their thought. I do appreciate your participation in the discussion up until now, however!

 

[SocratesNow]

I can only answer this from my personal experience. I was not a Christians and did not believe anything until December 2018. In summer 2018 my health declined, I had almost no hearing in my right ear, I had loud no noises in it, I would start losing balance to the point I would just randomly collapse and then everything would spin for days. You can imagine how worried I was, couldn't sleep because of the constant high pitch noise in my ear, sick worried what is wrong with me, at that time I couldn't even eat. All I had was maybe a sandwich, I couldn't cook, my body didn't listen to my brain. Doctors were puzzled, they recommended me to go and see a specialist. He did some tests and results didn't make any sense. He then said we have to scan your brain. I returned to home and I completely lost it. I sick worried it's a brain tumour or some kind of irreversible brain injury. I thought that was it. And nothing I ever done, achiever mattered. I cried to God and then total peace like I never felt before happened. And God told me to stand up, go and eat etc. He told me I will be ok. I have no idea why, or why I believed God that I would be ok, I just did. Shortly after I had my brain scan and I was diagnosed with a 4 cm brain tumour that was pressing on a vital part of my brain and thus become deadly. I don't think I had so much time. I was told about the consequences of the surgery, lose hearing in that ear, half the face would be paralysed etc. But I was ok with it all, I was confronting everyone around me, people asked me how I could be so calm and happy in life? Because I now had a relationship with God. Tumour was removed, I am deaf in my ear, how even louder noise in it, half the face is paralysed, my right eye is half stitched etc. And I am happier that I could ever imagine. Everything in my life has turned in better direction and I haven't even lifted a finger. Thus I knew God is God.

Why the biblical God? Because once I believed everything in there made perfect sense, and everything predicted everything. Even explained my tumour, that God uses something terrifying as a brain tumour for something good, and He did indeed. What other God people believe in does this? Of course there is more to things.

Nature....and what did create nature? Nature didn't just happen.

Well, that is definitely an amazing story, and may I say that I am extremely happy that your surgery worked out well, that truly is an incredible situation, although it sounds very challenging. However, while that may satisfy your personal convictions of God, stories of personal satisfaction and belief can't create a reason-based foundation for God's existence as a whole.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

However, while that may satisfy your personal convictions of God, stories of personal satisfaction and belief can't create a reason-based foundation for God's existence as a whole.

I partly agree. However too many things in life suddenly gone my way, I am just always happy, don't even know why. Even though I was a non-Christian before, I read some bits of the bible, people close to me that were Christians were talking to me about it but nothing ever made sense, absolutely nothing and now suddenly God saved me and I understand things in Christian lives and bible makes sense to me? And why do all the Christians that were saved how similar experience like me. If Jesus wasn't true then why those who believe in Him change in better?

 

[SocratesNow]

I partly agree. However too many things in life suddenly gone my way, I am just always happy, don't even know why. Even though I was a non-Christian before, I read some bits of the bible, people close to me that were Christians were talking to me about it but nothing ever made sense, absolutely nothing and now suddenly God saved me and I understand things in Christian lives and bible makes sense to me? And why do all the Christians that were saved how similar experience like me. If Jesus wasn't true then why those who believe in Him change in better?

That's understandable, but it's also true that in many ways religion, not only the belief in God, but also organized denominational religion, has made people change for the worse, in the sense that perfectly good, moral, and loving human beings can be gradually and sometimes radically corrupted in order to say and do horrible things they would never say nor do without the belief that what they believe, say, and do is in alignment with God's will. Religious conflicts, persecutions, the inquisition, horrible and hateful conqeusts, have all been some of many members on a long list of incidents which a convicted belief in God has generated. Obviously this doesn't mean that most religious people or even most religious beliefs produce bad things, but it does mean that organized religion has and does have more than enough negative influences to "counteract" it's benefits. In short, there are good people and there are bad people in the world, and it seems to me an illusion to declare that religious individuals have a monopoly of any kind upon any kind of morality (not that that's what you did in your response).

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

That's understandable, but it's also true that in many ways religion, not only the belief in God, but also organized denominational religion, has made people change for the worse, in the sense that perfectly good, moral, and loving human beings can be gradually and sometimes radically corrupted in order to say and do horrible things they would never say nor do without the belief that what they believe, say, and do is in alignment with God's will. Religious conflicts, persecutions, the inquisition, horrible and hateful conqeusts, have all been some of many members on a long list of incidents which a convicted belief in God has generated. Obviously this doesn't mean that most religious people or even most religious beliefs produce bad things, but it does mean that organized religion has and does have more than enough negative influences to "counteract" it's benefits. In short, there are good people and there are bad people in the world, and it seems to me an illusion to declare that religious individuals have a monopoly of any kind upon any kind of morality (not that that's what you did in your response).

Yes religious people cause a lot of bad bad things in this world. Because all religions are false, only following Christ is the truth and light of this world. See the problem with people and their gods, and same applies for many people who believe in the Biblical God (the trinity) is that they defy who God is. God is the solid one, we are not. God was, is and forever will be, we are not, we are like a mist that is gone in a moment, we are not God, God defies us not the other round, because well we are God's creation. Too many people are playing God, that's our sin, that was the sin of Adam and Eve that they believed the seprpent (satan) when he told them that they can be God that they can define good and evil themselves. But of course that was a lie, deception. And thus defines many people who are telling God how to be, that He is there somewhere in heaven and that they defy their own good and evil. I think you can see that your self, that no one knows what's good and evil in this world anymore, because we are not God. I know this doesn't prove to you in any way God, but this is the part of the Christianity, this is faith this is why it's called a believe and you cannot see God because that would be no faith, and God operates on faith and not deeds. Well...we did see God in Jesus and look what we did to Jesus, His own (Israelites) rejected Him, because many of them thought Jesus would behave according their authority and their believes not the believes of God which are ultimate. Oh and if people think they are doing any good to God by doing horrible things to others, they are not. Their deeds will not be justified.

You say there are good and bad in this world. And I hate to break this to you, you might completely disagree here. But there are no good people in this world, only God is good, we are all sinners, and it only takes one sin for us to be bad, because God is holy he is without a sin. Therefore we are all sinners. That's why God sent Jesus to die for once and for all for our sins so we are as sinners washed in His blood. If you believe that you are saved, if you don't believe in the only Son of God then your sins are not washed away. - this is what Christians believe.
Please feel to agree/disagree accept or reject things.

 

[Lost4words]

I am very curious what arguments you all find most convincing for the existence of God, especially in the face of arguments individuals such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, or others bring up when contending with God's existence in the exchange of ideas. If you could share it would mean a lot, and hopefully we can find which ones are best!

Us. Made in His image.

 

[Jok]

Thanks for responding!
So, for the sake of argumentation, couldn't the same be said of anyone else making predictions which happen to come true at a later date? After all, the Bible makes an extraordinary number of prophecies, predictions, and assertions about the future, and their fulfillment rate isn't perfect, nor even reliable. Furthermore, specifically in regards to prophecies, it seems common for interpretations of biblical text to be inconsistently literal or subjective, in the sense that if and when the Bible includes a statement similar to the one you referenced, which appears to be fulfilled verbatim, we interpret it literally, while in other, non-fulfilled prophetic instances, we declare that said text was symbolic, or didn't mean exactly what it said, no matter how specific it was. In short, how are the fulfillment of certain biblical prophecies true if our metric for determining prophetic fulfillment is inconsistent, and if there are many times more biblical prophecies which have not as of yet been fulfilled rather than the other way around?

Well I’m only gonna speak for myself here, but I’m not that demanding of prophecies (as far as needing a bunch of them), because if only some things were predicted centuries before the fact that actually turned out to happen, I would be way more interested in dissecting just those few things to come to a conclusion for myself on whether or not just those few things were too difficult to guess at, or if those few things were just overly vague instances of getting lucky. In other words I’m not going to dis the few clues that are worth my investigation due to the fact that I think that many of the other clues aren’t worth my investigation because they are too vague.

Let’s say that I was pretty well off and I bought myself a 1500 year old castle in Romania. Then I discovered one of the rooms had a bunch of old writings carved into the walls, and I was also able to decipher them to a decent degree, yet not perfectly. For the sake of argument let’s say that I found myself blown away by 4 predictions written on the wall, for the life of me I was not capable of summing these 4 predictions up as being vague lucky guesses. IMO it would not make sense for me to disregard how impressed I was at the 4 predictions in the room because I thought that the rest of the carvings in the room are capable of being explained away as being ambiguous & vague.

It’s kind of like watching a documentary where you’re told 25 things, but at the end of it only 2 of the things really caught your attention and really impressed you. Whatever the subject matter of the documentary may have been, you find yourself (even years after the fact) bringing up those 2 factors that impressed you if the conversation ever gets raised.

Personally I’m never able to think about Isaiah 53 and say to myself “Well it’s not that impressive since I consider 1000 other verses in the Bible that are said to be prophecies to be vague.” I’m of the opinion that there’s only supposed to be small bread crumbs of evidence anyway, which are custom made hints towards each individual that are inductive in nature, and these hints are combined with a history of personal experience for that individual. And those factors intersect well for that individual, but they don’t do that great in argument form towards other skeptical people because they are not deductive forms of reasoning, nor do I think coming to belief was ever meant to be deductive. I think by design you’re supposed to subjectively wrestle with certain concepts and get pulled around by them, and have them intertwined with your emotions and your life experiences. Such a process/journey is not gonna take place with a deductive checklist of proofs. Finding belief is meant to be an experience, not a math equation.

So what about the old brain teaser of proof vs faith? How can it be both? It can NOT be both if your means to belief is deductive. But it can be a mixture of both faith & proof if your reasoning is only inductive. Inductive reasoning is very often used by people as a reliable means to reach conclusions, however with induction a conclusion does not NECESSARILY follow! This is the only way that I’ve been able to harmonize the proof vs faith question. So you do have proof, but the proof is not airtight so that is where the faith comes in.

The faith involved also comes packaged together with some strong euphoric moments of mystical understanding. These moments of inner enlightenment are virtually impossible to use as argument in a debate, making it even more difficult to give purely objective reasons for your belief to a skeptic.

 

[public hermit]

Welcome!

You seem to have found your way.

 

[Jok]

Welcome!

You seem to have found your way.

Hello!! Oh wait you’re not talking to me lol

 

[public hermit]

Hello!! Oh wait you’re not talking to me lol

Haha! This is one busy "Introduction" thread. Good stuff.

 

[Jok]

I just now noticed that this was an intro section. I just refresh pages and type away without looking lol

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I am very curious what arguments you all find most convincing for the existence of God, especially in the face of arguments individuals such as Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, or others bring up when contending with God's existence in the exchange of ideas. If you could share it would mean a lot, and hopefully we can find which ones are best!

Personally, I'm an Existentialist, and my praxis is to simply raze the opposing side's epistemology that is pervasively used against the Christian faith. So, let's just say I don't feel the need to spend more time on Christian apologetics than has already been done, especially not to 'show more evidence' than what we have now. No, it's enough to apply hermeneutics on one hand and epistemic criticism on the other.

'Nuff said.

 

[Deade]

Well, if God cannot be proven scientifically, is there any way to prove God's existence at all?

Hello SocratesNow,
welcome to CF.

I hope you'll enjoy your stay here. Look at it like this, if we could scientifically prove God's existence we would not need faith. God requires faith from us all, so He won't let science find Him.