What are the best arguments for the existence of God?

[Jok]

And I just realized that I included some of my responses in the quote of your response, trying to do the same thing you did, and managed to place it all into the quote, not my text, sorry! Again, I am new to this platform and its functions. So I'll just briefly address the most important points I made, which are that 1) faith is not always a bad thing, and certainly not in individual lives, but if we agree, as I believe(?) we do, that faith is dogmatic, and dogma is dangerous, we can conclude that faith is dangerous, insofar as it is dogmatic. 2) Again, insofar as faith is dogmatic, it is not only a manifestation of humanity's worse traits (of course, persecutions and atrocities absolutely occur against religious individuals all the time), as humanity has terrible potential regardless of religious faith. However, it is because, as again we seem to agree, that dogma, and therefore faith, do in fact have dangerous traits, that religious faith has been, and can easily become, a facilitation for humanity's worse traits. It is for these reasons that I am merely proposing that religious faith is at the very best an unreliable and inconsistent manner of obtaining truth, and at worst a dangerous and dogmatic form of intellectual stagnation and societal regression.

I would separate dogmatically believing something vs dogmatically imposing those beliefs on people. Although that is even going too far because you can’t completely treat dogmatic like a dirty word across the board. Many people love how the ruling class dogmatically opposes some things, like child abuse or property theft for instance. There are a lot of dogmas that are good, but I definitely agree with separating church & state. However, as a non-believer I’m sure that you would even agree that some religious beliefs are woven into society for both the religious and non-religious, and they’re impossible to pull apart. For instance many non-religious people like to say “All religions are basically the same. Basically their golden rule is do unto others as you would have done to you.”

I’m sure that it depends on your social circles, but I find that Christians are actually less dogmatic at imposing their beliefs onto society, I think they can err on the side of placing so much focus on the afterlife that they are under involved in the here & now. A good example is that I talk to this one Christian sometimes about what should be done in this world about something, and he likes to answer with “Oh we’re just passing though.”

Technically speaking, I need at least some degree of faith for absolutely everything besides DeCarte’s “I think therefore I am.” My own existence is technically the only thing I need zero faith for. I need very very little faith for many other things, and then moving even further down the line we would reach the level of faith required for you position on God no matter which position it is. Yes I then believe that Christianity needs more faith even still than the general belief in God. But even though I have moved this far away from my faithless I think therefore I am, I still am showing equivalent levels of faith towards everyday non-religious things.

 

[SocratesNow]

Although that is even going too far because you can’t completely treat dogmatic like a dirty word across the board.

I would completely disagree here. If dogma cannot be considered backwards, broken, and detrimental in every instance wherein it exists, I don't know what is. I'd love for you to provide an example of dogma which has not in fact been a negative thing for the progress of the human species.

However, as a non-believer I’m sure that you would even agree that some religious beliefs are woven into society for both the religious and non-religious, and they’re impossible to pull apart.

I believe that arguments for or against religion are by and large completely separate from religion's current grounding within our society - after all, I'm not advocating for the brainwashing of anyone against religion, I am merely exploring the increasingly perceived lack of reasoning behind any and all religious belief.

For instance many non-religious people like to say “All religions are basically the same. Basically their golden rule is do unto others as you would have done to you.”

Again I must take heated issue with this idea. Is it commensurate with the golden rule for vast numbers of muslims throughout the west and the world to believe in dogmatically imposed sharia law, or for various religions to condone and facilitate the practice of female genital mutilation , the practice of which is common through dozens of nations not only in Africa and the Middle East, but also certain European nations, according to Pew Research Center? Is it in alignment with the golden rule to launch an inquisition, to proclaim that non-believers will go to hell, or to prop up institutions such as slavery by teaching they are in accordance with scriptural and divine teachings? These are all verifiable atrocities, historic and current, which have been and are being committed by religions all around the world. And of course, none of this means that religious individuals commit these atrocities, nor that religions have changed their beliefs and their stances on issues, which they most definitely have. It does mean however, that religions have in fact played a dangerous role throughout the course of human history, and a key aspect of this is that the entirety of religious organization is grounded in one thing; dogma.

Technically speaking, I need at least some degree of faith for absolutely everything besides DeCarte’s “I think therefore I am.”

I am not sure this is a defensible claim. If you have all the evidence in the world, that, say, gravity exists as a force of the universe, that we can explain its properties, describe its effects, and understand and predict its impact on the world around us and the future and past implications it causes, is it not true that faith is not a factor in a 'belief' in gravity? Of course, it would dogmatic to believe that it is impossible for gravity to be disproven, as of course it is technically possible for that to occur. However it does not seem a matter of believing in something without seeing it, or believing in something without there a perfectly reasonable and rationalistic perspective in the belief of that thing.

 

[SocratesNow]

Ok. So we are all guilty of sin. Yes there are people who sin less, and yes just because we are sinners doesn't mean we are not capable of good things or loving one another (this is however nowhere near as God who loves us who is aware of every single of our sins and of every consequence that sin has on the world, yet God sent His Son Jesus to bear our sins and to take our punishments, and all who believe in Son and what He did on cross are forgiven of every single sin. We sin against God, we play God, we hate God and He is still merciful and loving) because we are but that not makes us justified. There is a religion I'm not going to name that says that as long as you do more than good then bad you go to heaven. First of all, we often don't even know what's good and bad, how many times people tried to justifie their sins, 'oh I only lied because I was protecting you' 'oh I only cheated because I was going through terrible time and I thought our relationship is over' etc etc. Or it makes me laugh when a millionaire cheats he goes and donates I don't know a million and now it's all ok...and there are people like that. No good can wash up your sin. Only Jesus, who was Holy and sinless, who carried our sins is forgiven and righteous thus if you believe in Jesus, your sins will be washed up. Because there is absolutely nothing you can do to wash your sins and go to heaven and God knew this and therefore sent His Son (who is also God...one Godhead three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit) so our sins can be forgiven. Only God can forgive sins, only God can justify our sins, only He can bare them.

Now you are asking, how can a single sin be bad? Look at Adam and Eve, they only sinned once, they only ate from a forbidden tree. And now look at all of the bad that is going on right now in the World. See how bad their consequences of their one sin were?

I think we can both conclude that I cannot convince you of Christianity, nor can anyone in the world. We cannot make you a Christian, only Jesus has the authority to do so, only Jesus can convince you to be a Christian, like He did with my brain tumour. You cannot decide to be a Christian (yes anyone can call themselves one, but they must be Christian at their heart, soul and mind), only Jesus can make you one. Therefore I will pray for you, that Jesus shows you something in life that will convince you God is real. I know some things you might find confusing, but please keep asking. Or ask God in prayers, even better

I appreciate the sentiment, I would just also note that most if not all of the points you have made, with all due respect, have been grounded in either personal anecdotes, Biblical text, or religious teachings of God. In short, insofar as this is not just an opportunity for us to attempt to present our opinions to one another, but an opportunity for us to genuinely seek the truth, it seems to me an impossibility for you or many others I have discussed with to conjure up any measure of a reason-based case for the existence of God, let alone the legitimacy of religious thought and practice. And of course none of this is an expression of personal dissatisfaction with your arguments, but simply a note on the seeming incapability of anyone to defend the existence of God or the validity of organized religion with anything other than a) circular logic based largely upon their own experiences, Biblical text, or inherent assumptions regarding the existence of God, or b) logical fallacies which misrepresent currently limited scientific knowledge to mean God's existence is the only viable way to explain the universe. And frankly, the simple fact that the numbers of self-identified religious individuals has dropped significantly within the last decade alone, while the number of self-identified atheistic or agnostic individuals has risen sharply within the same time frame speaks for itself. Unreasonable theories eventually prove themselves to be just that - unreasonable.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

I appreciate the sentiment, I would just also note that most if not all of the points you have made, with all due respect, have been grounded in either personal anecdotes, Biblical text, or religious teachings of God. In short, insofar as this is not just an opportunity for us to attempt to present our opinions to one another, but an opportunity for us to genuinely seek the truth, it seems to me an impossibility for you or many others I have discussed with to conjure up any measure of a reason-based case for the existence of God, let alone the legitimacy of religious thought and practice. And of course none of this is an expression of personal dissatisfaction with your arguments, but simply a note on the seeming incapability of anyone to defend the existence of God or the validity of organized religion with anything other than a) circular logic based largely upon their own experiences, Biblical text, or inherent assumptions regarding the existence of God, or b) logical fallacies which misrepresent currently limited scientific knowledge to mean God's existence is the only viable way to explain the universe. And frankly, the simple fact that the numbers of self-identified religious individuals has dropped significantly within the last decade alone, while the number of self-identified atheistic or agnostic individuals has risen sharply within the same time frame speaks for itself. Unreasonable theories eventually prove themselves to be just that - unreasonable.

Yes, no one can convince you of God. You are right, no one can prove God to you. And nothing I wrote and I will write is conviction. And that is the point. I cannot prove God to you, only God can prove God to yourself. Something like if I tried to explain chocolate to someone who never had it. I can tell the person how good it is, I can use thousands of positive words and experiences but how would I convince the person who never tasted chocolate. And thus you are right, all I'm describing to you are from my experiences and from what I learned in the bible. I know what you mean I was not a Christian for most of my life, and people told me all these things and nothing convinced me, because that is the truth. But now I am convinced of God and only those who share that conviction understand this. Which I know is frustrating.

So how do I know God exists? Simply because God revealed it to me....I know what kind of answer is that. But that's just it.

 

[SocratesNow]

I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Not arguing with people who are TRYING to find out if God exists. Good for them. But I have no regard for those who are just playing games. You asked for MY reasons for believing in God. I gave them. If it doesn't satisfy you then what is that to me? Anyone who harlots around after he has found his savior will be spit out of God's mouth. Lot's wife left Sodom with him. She looked back and became a pillar of salt. I have no quarrel with atheists who are happy without God. They are where they belong and they can stay there. He only came for those who are lost sheep. No one else.

Well, let me begin by saying that I am not seeking personal satisfaction on the existence of God nor the validity of any religion. I am simply attempting to have a free and fair exchange of ideas with others in order to build the strongest case against my current opinions in order to refine my ideas and beliefs, as well as to genuinely attempt to discover if there is a viable case for the existence of God.
Given that, let me say that I believe every atheist or agnostic in this world would find your response does nothing but reinforce their beliefs, as you may have intended or assumed it to be. After all, to claim moral superiority above others in the same breath that you unironically mention the Biblical stories you referenced seems deeply troubling to me. The callous acceptance of a woman's "divine" execution for merely turning her eyes towards her old home, the heartless tolerance of the unyielding and instantaneous damnation of billions upon billions of souls for not believing in the Christian God, these are intellectual and moral crimes which will forever draw a glaring distinction between religious and secular morals. It seems impossible and outrageous to me that in the same moment you proclaim God has come back for those who are "lost sheep", you freely condemn all those who do not believe as you do to the awful damnation which you so faithfully and fervently believe in. Let me conclude by saying that I am not one typically drawn to emotion within a discussion such as this one, and yet your response seems to me a reflection of a much deeper, troubling, and abhorrent problem within religion, one which I cannot and will not allow to stand unscathed. I will only say that if there was a God, I would pray to him this moment to tell his followers that this is not the sort of inhumane immorality which he condones.

 

[SocratesNow]

Oh, there's not much to say about "my" opinion, other than that I side [more or less] with Eugenie C. Scott and Stephen J. Gould (or similar minds) rather than with Richard Dawkins or Jerry A. Coyne.

And that's the short of it since we're not really supposed to carry out elaborate discussions here in the Introduction Section of CF.

Oh, and welcome to CF!

Well, thankfully a moderator has managed to rectify the misplacement of this discussion, and it is now within the appropriate location, so I hope we can continue this discussion at length. Thanks for your involvement!

 

[SocratesNow]

Yes, no one can convince you of God. You are right, no one can prove God to you. And nothing I wrote and I will write is conviction. And that is the point. I cannot prove God to you, only God can prove God to yourself. Something like if I tried to explain chocolate to someone who never had it. I can tell the person how good it is, I can use thousands of positive words and experiences but how would I convince the person who never tasted chocolate. And thus you are right, all I'm describing to you are from my experiences and from what I learned in the bible. I know what you mean I was not a Christian for most of my life, and people told me all these things and nothing convinced me, because that is the truth. But now I am convinced of God and only those who share that conviction understand this. Which I know is frustrating.

So how do I know God exists? Simply because God revealed it to me....I know what kind of answer is that. But that's just it.

Well, I'd like to thank you sincerely for your contribution to this conversation. In the meantime I will do my best to continue engaging in conversation with others in order to allow them the opportunity to explain if there is any way other than faith to believe in God. It's been an honor sir, best of luck to you in the remainder of your adventures.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

Well, I'd like to thank you sincerely for your contribution to this conversation. In the meantime I will do my best to continue engaging in conversation with others in order to allow them the opportunity to explain if there is any way other than faith to believe in God. It's been an honor sir, best of luck to you in the remainder of your adventures.

Thank you for the conversation, it did challenge some of my thoughts. All the best in life.

 

[jamesbond007]

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!

Mine is the Earth, universe, an everything in it is here. One can't just have space and time appear when there was a void. Next, would be we have life, i.e. life spirit, in front of our nose every day. We have God's breath, the supernatural, existing next to the natural. We find through the scientific method that only life begets life. Furthermore, Earth could not possibly exist for billions of years as rock and fossil would crack, crumble, and turn back into carbon through weathering, chemical processes, and mechanical processes. It's just common sense. Moreover, we would have had some kind of catastrophe to our galaxy, sun, planets, moon, or other heavenly bodies we observe galaxies, suns, planets, moons, and more collide, explode, experience destruction, or speed away from us never to be seen again on a daily basis.

 

[Jok]

I would completely disagree here. If dogma cannot be considered backwards, broken, and detrimental in every instance wherein it exists, I don't know what is. I'd love for you to provide an example of dogma which has not in fact been a negative thing for the progress of the human species.

I believe that arguments for or against religion are by and large completely separate from religion's current grounding within our society - after all, I'm not advocating for the brainwashing of anyone against religion, I am merely exploring the increasingly perceived lack of reasoning behind any and all religious belief.


Again I must take heated issue with this idea. Is it commensurate with the golden rule for vast numbers of muslims throughout the west and the world to believe in dogmatically imposed sharia law, or for various religions to condone and facilitate the practice of female genital mutilation , the practice of which is common through dozens of nations not only in Africa and the Middle East, but also certain European nations, according to Pew Research Center? Is it in alignment with the golden rule to launch an inquisition, to proclaim that non-believers will go to hell, or to prop up institutions such as slavery by teaching they are in accordance with scriptural and divine teachings? These are all verifiable atrocities, historic and current, which have been and are being committed by religions all around the world. And of course, none of this means that religious individuals commit these atrocities, nor that religions have changed their beliefs and their stances on issues, which they most definitely have. It does mean however, that religions have in fact played a dangerous role throughout the course of human history, and a key aspect of this is that the entirety of religious organization is grounded in one thing; dogma.

I am not sure this is a defensible claim. If you have all the evidence in the world, that, say, gravity exists as a force of the universe, that we can explain its properties, describe its effects, and understand and predict its impact on the world around us and the future and past implications it causes, is it not true that faith is not a factor in a 'belief' in gravity? Of course, it would dogmatic to believe that it is impossible for gravity to be disproven, as of course it is technically possible for that to occur. However it does not seem a matter of believing in something without seeing it, or believing in something without there a perfectly reasonable and rationalistic perspective in the belief of that thing.

If we want to just forget all examples of anything other than dogmas that cause hell on Earth we are going to be throwing out secular and religious examples alike. The 20th century is often used as examples of secular forms of governments that were responsible for the murder of millions of innocent citizens, mass starvation, etc. State is God in these examples.

America dominates the world, and America has never been as secular as it is today (the ongoing trend). I’m not calling America a dogmatic hell on Earth, but I hardly see the world gravitating more & more towards a utopia because the world’s #1 superpower keeps becoming more secular. And as I mentioned earlier, so many people in power are so fake and they are just playing the part of what they are pretending to represent. I always shake my head or laugh at this idea that Republicans are Christians lol. I think divide & conquer is the main strategy in government.

When Western Imperialism was wreaking havoc on the world under the guise of Christianity, it was similar to killing people in the Middle East for oil under the guise of spreading freedom. Both cover stories were bogus. You can not judge a belief system by pointing out examples of its perverted abuse.

Look at China! That is exactly the hell on Earth dogmatic regime you have been describing. That country couldn’t be any further from a nation founded of Christian tradition. Then look at all the Western nations founded on Christian traditions and compare them to China, a regime where the state is God.

Jesus didn’t exactly leave us preaching for theocracies! Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s he said. Respect government so long as it doesn’t violate Biblical morality he said. So again, the only way you can really attack dogmatic Christian atrocities throughout history is to use examples of people actually perverting Christianity. Which isn’t even Christianity!

 

[SocratesNow]

If we want to just forget all examples of anything other than dogmas that cause hell on Earth we are going to be throwing out secular and religious examples alike. The 20th century is often used as examples of secular forms of governments that were responsible for the murder of millions of innocent citizens, mass starvation, etc. State is God in these examples.

I absolutely agree that dogmas cause hell whether they are grounded in secularism or religious institutions and beliefs, and I certainly wasn't attempting to imply that secular dogmas don't exist, and haven't been just as horrific and damaging as religious ones have. Instead, my point was that religion specifically facilitates dogma through its teaching of faith and absolute belief in religion regardless of evidence or reasoning against it, which is a claim that I believe religious and secular thinkers alike can agree upon.

America dominates the world, and America has never been as secular as it is today (the ongoing trend). I’m not calling America a dogmatic hell on Earth, but I hardly see the world gravitating more & more towards a utopia because the world’s #1 superpower keeps becoming more secular. And as I mentioned earlier, so many people in power are so fake and they are just playing the part of what they are pretending to represent. I always shake my head or laugh at this idea that Republicans are Christians lol. I think divide & conquer is the main strategy in government.

This seems to me a classical misunderstanding of the true state of the world. As not only America, but the entire world, particularly the West, has grown more and more secular, virtually every metric we can fathom has shown nothing but an improvement within the world. Poverty, genocide, crime rates, infant mortality, illiteracy, all have plummeted in the past decades. Of course, I am not claiming that this is mostly or all due to the secularism, however it seems to be unequivocally refute the idea that increasing secularism is somehow worsening the human condition, that concept simply isn't supported in any way by any part of the human state. And I certainly agree with your analysis of problems, even corruption, within governments, althoguh again, I do not see how this constitutes a truly solid argument that secularism is somehow the cause of an increasing array of detriments in the world.

When Western Imperialism was wreaking havoc on the world under the guise of Christianity, it was similar to killing people in the Middle East for oil under the guise of spreading freedom. Both cover stories were bogus. You can not judge a belief system by pointing out examples of its perverted abuse.

I 100% agree with you on this principle, as any truly reasonable person would. However, as with all things, there is a definitive limit to this argument, in the sense that it is irrefutably the case that if one were to provide a sufficient number of examples of atrocities and abuses rising out of any given belief system it would in fact begin, if not complete, a perfectly sound argument against that belief system. This case seems reminiscent of a common Marxist argument, which defends Marxism as a theoretical ideology by saying that it has never been implemented "the right way", when addressing the fact that there has never been a single nation which has implemented the Marxist ideology and succeeded in formulating a sustainable economic situation. In this same way I would suggest that there is not a single mainstream religious denomination, and certainly not a Christian one, upon the face of this Earth which has not been party to mass atrocities, including deception of followers, encouraged violence and hatred, blatant misinformation and prejudice, and much, much more. If you would like to contend this point I would love to provide a list of examples, or better yet, refute any example of such a pristine christian denomination which you have in mind.

Look at China! That is exactly the hell on Earth dogmatic regime you have been describing. That country couldn’t be any further from a nation founded of Christian tradition. Then look at all the Western nations founded on Christian traditions and compare them to China, a regime where the state is God.

Again, I agree that China is in many ways, specifically in regards to freedoms and rights, is a less than ideal societal situation. However, I never intended (and forgive me if I was unclear) to propose that all dogmatic dangers arise from religion and religion alone. Instead I was stating that religion generally facilitates dogma for the various reasons I set forth previously. And I would also mention that even in a world in which Christian 'tradition' is more beneficial or advantageous for a free society than secularist 'tradition', while proving or supporting the value of Christianity, still does not in fact prove its actual truthfulness. After all, there are individuals who have experienced life-changing desires to improve themselves (practically beneficial) from psychedelics, which do not accurately represent the world around them (still objectively false).

Jesus didn’t exactly leave us preaching for theocracies! Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s he said. Respect government so long as it doesn’t violate Biblical morality he said. So again, the only way you can really attack dogmatic Christian atrocities throughout history is to use examples of people actually perverting Christianity. Which isn’t even Christianity!

Again, this rings out in the same tones as the previously mentioned defense of Marxism. This is the same defense which cries out that the inquisitions, the mass slaughters, the slavery, the rampant bigotry and prejudice, the anti-scientific crusades of thought, and countless other religiously condoned atrocities, which, as I again stated previously, have been in some way or another a part of every single religious denomination's teachings at some point in its history, can be explained away as perversions of Christianity, or religious belief as a whole. And even more stunning is the fact that this argument is made when many of these atrocities were supported if not carried out by the highest of leadership within the very Christian/religious institutions in question. And again, I would ask for you to provide a single mainstream and relevant Christian denomination which you believe is free of this accusation, and discover whether or not I am capable of proving its guilt in certain of these proceedings as well.

 

[section9+1]

Christianity is offensive to the world. If it wasn't it would not be Christianity.

 

[Hawkins]

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!

An argument is based a common understanding. The problem is that today's educated people failed to realize that history cannot be proved nor evidenced, especially in terms of historical individual activities such as the contents of meals you ate in the past (mind you, you ate more 10,000 meals by the age of 31, how many out of them you can provide with the evidence?). The encounters of God falls to the same category.

Today's humans also failed to realize that we humans read info or facts from testimonies instead of evidence, whether it is histories, our daily news or even science they don't convey in forms of evidence but rather in forms of testimonies. For example, only few scientists can have access to the expensive equipment to get to the evidence of the existence of the black holes. The rest of human kind rely on putting faith in the scientists' works to get to the truth. Scientists are our eyewitnesses (a direct contact who encountered the truth itself) with their works as testimonies. The only difference from the encounters of God is that the nature of science is that it is repeatable for everyone to examine as he wishes, but the encounters of God as a piece of history is not repeatable to subject to repeated examinations.

The next then is if history (especially about individual activities) cannot be evidenced, if humans rely mostly on testimonies to get to the truths of different kind, then the most fundamental way to reach the truth of God is through the testimonies from the direct contacts (the prophets as eyewitnesses of God) under the circumstance that God has a covenant saying that "men need to be saved by faith". If God goes public humans cannot be saved. So the only which works is for Him to show up to His chosen human eyewitnesses then for their testimonies to flow through a religion till they reached human in the line of humanity.

The next, if God has an important message for humans then He must have a popularity. Most gods don't even have enough followers to call themselves gods. Moreover, He needs to direct the way how His important message to be conveyed. As an analogy, if the US government has an important message for its citizens what it should do? It needs to broadcast the message through the media such as CNN in each and every state, not just one or two of them. Only Christianity is with such a command to broadcast/preach the news (gospel) to each and every nations. That's why Christianity went international ever since day one while Muslin remained in the middle east and Hinduism remained in India. Only Christianity (the CNN of God) broadcast His message in a global manner.

Only Christianity can possibly a truth, while humans are better summarized as in Isaiah,

Isaiah 6:9 (NIV2011)
Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I've just started reading a "Teach Yourself" book on "Philosophy for Life" which indicates the level of academic non-qualification I'm at. Anyway I skipped to the bit about the philosophy of religion when I saw this topic.

Before I go further I'll make it clear that I know beyond doubt that God is all around us - I've had too many personal spiritual experiences to doubt that. But proving it is another thing. My experience is not another person's experience.

Another factor we need to take into account is a person's background. Are they just interested in an intellectual argument for the existence of God. Or are they in dire straits, wanting God to be there to meet an urgent need? I partly became a Christian because of personal circumstances - not a cool logical outworking of some esoteric philosophical concept.

But I assume the OP is interested in an intellectual "proof".

Be that as it may, it seems the American Theologian Paul Tillich wrote in his Systematic Theology "The question of the existence of God can be neither be asked nor answered. If answered, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as to deny it. God is being itself, not a being."

The book's author (Mel Thompson) goes on to add that "If you prove that God 'exists' in a way that would satisfy a logical positivist (ie. testable by empirical evidence) .... Then 'God' becomes part of the world ... So He is no longer 'God'."

So we're up between a rock and a hard place when it comes to intellectual proof. I'm well aware of Pascal's wager for example, but the problem with Pascal's wager is that he had personal experience of God (as clearly stated in the note found in a lining of his coat), so he had faith to begin with.

An intellectual "proof" of God would have to be such that a person with no faith whatsoever would be forced to acknowledge the correctness of the proof through logic alone.

I remember talking to my old Presbyterian pastor about this, and he thought the "proof" of God might lie with the antithesis somehow ie. "Zero", or the absolute negation of God. There may be an intellectual proof of God floating around out there somewhere which relies on proof by contradiction ie. if A is not true, then B must be true.

But I have no idea how to go about it.

 

[1213]

I am very curious what arguments you all find most convincing for the existence of God, ...

Generally, one of the best reasons is that God is the creator, because we can see the creation, creator also exists. This leads to question, why Bible God and not something else? And I think best argument is the Bible. Why so? Because things go as told in the Bible. For example, it was told long before that Jews will be scattered and later as we now can see they are gathered back. Other “gods” have nothing meaningful to say.

 

[SocratesNow]

Today's humans also failed to realize that we humans read info or facts from testimonies instead of evidence, whether it is histories, our daily news or even science they don't convey in forms of evidence but rather in forms of testimonies. For example, only few scientists can have access to the expensive equipment to get to the evidence of the existence of the black holes. The rest of human kind rely on putting faith in the scientists' works to get to the truth. Scientists are our eyewitnesses (a direct contact who encountered the truth itself) with their works as testimonies. The only difference from the encounters of God is that the nature of science is that it is repeatable for everyone to examine as he wishes, but the encounters of God as a piece of history is not repeatable to subject to repeated examinations.

Firstly, I would reply that scientific evidence is more reliable than Biblical evidence for the very reason you yourself cite, namely that scientific evidence is subject to repeated examinations. To simply claim that it isn't in God's nature to have this same attribute in order to justify the clear disaprity in terms of relaibility between scientific study and Biblical text is illogical and unreasonable. Furthermore, I would also disagree with the point made about how we have "faith" in scientists. This is simply not true insofar as it is being used as a point to compare and contrast scientific truth with Biblical truth and their comparative reliability and truthfulness, for the following reasons. Firstly, scientists provide all their reasoning and evidence to the public, in order to, as you yourself stated, expose their ideas to repeated examination from the public and from their peers. Secondly, scientific study is itself inherently correcting, in the sense that it acknowledges human fallibility and continuously progresses its schools of thought in order to improve its understanding of the world, while the Bible is proclaimed to be the word of God and infallible truth, even if its statements and accounts contradict or suspend the rules of reality.

The next, if God has an important message for humans then He must have a popularity. Most gods don't even have enough followers to call themselves gods. Moreover, He needs to direct the way how His important message to be conveyed. As an analogy, if the US government has an important message for its citizens what it should do? It needs to broadcast the message through the media such as CNN in each and every state, not just one or two of them. Only Christianity is with such a command to broadcast/preach the news (gospel) to each and every nations. That's why Christianity went international ever since day one while Muslin remained in the middle east and Hinduism remained in India. Only Christianity (the CNN of God) broadcast His message in a global manner.

I would also seriously disagree on this point. THe idea that the Christian faith specifically somehow gains validity through the fact that it has managed to "broadcast" itself throughout the world moreso than other religions is blatantly false on numerous levels. Firstly, religions such as Islam are absolutely global forces as well as Christianity, there simply isn't anything exclusively Christian about global presence, especially since Christianity is divided more than many other schools of religious thought into various denominations, which all have differing and in many cases competitive presences throughout the world. Secondly, and in many ways even more importantly, this claim is simply a misrepresentation of reality and a misunderstanding of how Christianity has itself spread throughout the world. Was it God's broadcast of his message for Charlamagne to impose widespread forced conversions throughout Europe, threatening people's lives to declare loyalty and devotion to Christianity? Was it God's broadcoast to commit a nearly unending list of colonialist atrocities in the name, and for the benefit, of Christianity? It seems clear that either God is more than willing to freely use violence and force to "broadcast" his message to his creations, or Christianity was largely spread throughout the world by the use of violence and force on the part of us human beings for immoral and selfish reasons, without any say from God.

 

[SocratesNow]

I've just started reading a "Teach Yourself" book on "Philosophy for Life" which indicates the level of academic non-qualification I'm at. Anyway I skipped to the bit about the philosophy of religion when I saw this topic.

Before I go further I'll make it clear that I know beyond doubt that God is all around us - I've had too many personal spiritual experiences to doubt that. But proving it is another thing. My experience is not another person's experience.

Another factor we need to take into account is a person's background. Are they just interested in an intellectual argument for the existence of God. Or are they in dire straits, wanting God to be there to meet an urgent need? I partly became a Christian because of personal circumstances - not a cool logical outworking of some esoteric philosophical concept.

But I assume the OP is interested in an intellectual "proof".

Be that as it may, it seems the American Theologian Paul Tillich wrote in his Systematic Theology "The question of the existence of God can be neither be asked nor answered. If answered, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God. It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as to deny it. God is being itself, not a being."

The book's author (Mel Thompson) goes on to add that "If you prove that God 'exists' in a way that would satisfy a logical positivist (ie. testable by empirical evidence) .... Then 'God' becomes part of the world ... So He is no longer 'God'."

So we're up between a rock and a hard place when it comes to intellectual proof. I'm well aware of Pascal's wager for example, but the problem with Pascal's wager is that he had personal experience of God (as clearly stated in the note found in a lining of his coat), so he had faith to begin with.

An intellectual "proof" of God would have to be such that a person with no faith whatsoever would be forced to acknowledge the correctness of the proof through logic alone.

I remember talking to my old Presbyterian pastor about this, and he thought the "proof" of God might lie with the antithesis somehow ie. "Zero", or the absolute negation of God. There may be an intellectual proof of God floating around out there somewhere which relies on proof by contradiction ie. if A is not true, then B must be true.

But I have no idea how to go about it.

I appreciate your candidness and frankness! I will just ask, if it is fundamentally contradictory to pursue a proof or reasonable argument for the existence of God from an intellectual (objective) standpoint, is it not possible that God is a flawed concept? After all it seems that God is the only theory of which we are willing to bypass reason and logic in order to blindly maintain belief. In short, any other theory which could not provide an iota of objective reasoning behind its validity is therefore found to be false, not to be accepted as something that one simply believes for the sake of believing.

 

[Jok]

I absolutely agree that dogmas cause hell whether they are grounded in secularism or religious institutions and beliefs, and I certainly wasn't attempting to imply that secular dogmas don't exist, and haven't been just as horrific and damaging as religious ones have. Instead, my point was that religion specifically facilitates dogma through its teaching of faith and absolute belief in religion regardless of evidence or reasoning against it, which is a claim that I believe religious and secular thinkers alike can agree upon.


This seems to me a classical misunderstanding of the true state of the world. As not only America, but the entire world, particularly the West, has grown more and more secular, virtually every metric we can fathom has shown nothing but an improvement within the world. Poverty, genocide, crime rates, infant mortality, illiteracy, all have plummeted in the past decades. Of course, I am not claiming that this is mostly or all due to the secularism, however it seems to be unequivocally refute the idea that increasing secularism is somehow worsening the human condition, that concept simply isn't supported in any way by any part of the human state. And I certainly agree with your analysis of problems, even corruption, within governments, althoguh again, I do not see how this constitutes a truly solid argument that secularism is somehow the cause of an increasing array of detriments in the world.


I 100% agree with you on this principle, as any truly reasonable person would. However, as with all things, there is a definitive limit to this argument, in the sense that it is irrefutably the case that if one were to provide a sufficient number of examples of atrocities and abuses rising out of any given belief system it would in fact begin, if not complete, a perfectly sound argument against that belief system. This case seems reminiscent of a common Marxist argument, which defends Marxism as a theoretical ideology by saying that it has never been implemented "the right way", when addressing the fact that there has never been a single nation which has implemented the Marxist ideology and succeeded in formulating a sustainable economic situation. In this same way I would suggest that there is not a single mainstream religious denomination, and certainly not a Christian one, upon the face of this Earth which has not been party to mass atrocities, including deception of followers, encouraged violence and hatred, blatant misinformation and prejudice, and much, much more. If you would like to contend this point I would love to provide a list of examples, or better yet, refute any example of such a pristine christian denomination which you have in mind.


Again, I agree that China is in many ways, specifically in regards to freedoms and rights, is a less than ideal societal situation. However, I never intended (and forgive me if I was unclear) to propose that all dogmatic dangers arise from religion and religion alone. Instead I was stating that religion generally facilitates dogma for the various reasons I set forth previously. And I would also mention that even in a world in which Christian 'tradition' is more beneficial or advantageous for a free society than secularist 'tradition', while proving or supporting the value of Christianity, still does not in fact prove its actual truthfulness. After all, there are individuals who have experienced life-changing desires to improve themselves (practically beneficial) from psychedelics, which do not accurately represent the world around them (still objectively false).


Again, this rings out in the same tones as the previously mentioned defense of Marxism. This is the same defense which cries out that the inquisitions, the mass slaughters, the slavery, the rampant bigotry and prejudice, the anti-scientific crusades of thought, and countless other religiously condoned atrocities, which, as I again stated previously, have been in some way or another a part of every single religious denomination's teachings at some point in its history, can be explained away as perversions of Christianity, or religious belief as a whole. And even more stunning is the fact that this argument is made when many of these atrocities were supported if not carried out by the highest of leadership within the very Christian/religious institutions in question. And again, I would ask for you to provide a single mainstream and relevant Christian denomination which you believe is free of this accusation, and discover whether or not I am capable of proving its guilt in certain of these proceedings as well.

I’m afraid that a reply would spin completely off topic from God’s existence. I do see a trend towards the world getting better & better up until about WW1, after that I see things reversing course and slowly but surely becoming better & better for the top .1%, but getting worse for many many others. I do believe in the horrors of what central banks can (and have) done to the world, I do believe that corporations officially own America now and that because of our Dollar being the world reserve currency you can’t just say well America is only one nation, and I believe that Eisenhower was dead on in his farewell address about how we were becoming a new world paradigm of a military industrial complex. So yes this would not even be touching the topic of reasons for beliefs in God lol. I never thought I’d see the day where schools, cities, states, and even countries in Europe started falling apart and going bankrupt. Where financial bubbles would be in the trillions, those aren’t just numbers, lives all over the world are destroyed because of it. History has never seen such a high concentration of world resources in such few hands before.

 

[Ayenew]

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!

The best argument is letting them see Him working in them. Unfortunately many of them may not have the heart God requires to reveal Himself. So, the best way is trying to change their hearts.

 

[Bruce Leiter]

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!

It depends to whom you would present such statements. How much of a relationship do you have with them? It takes a close, personal relationship to talk about such things without building a barrier between you. Unconditional love with active listening builds bridges instead of barriers. The best argument for God's existence is living a life of love with an atheist or doubter and praying with patience for that person.