Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God (page 5)

drwtsn32

Well, me too, I am just saying that the Universe came from a Cause. I have never heard of an uncaused effect, or that anything with a beginning was without a cause. Have you?

Quantum mechanics... effect sometimes happens before or without a cause.

You say you don't believe in anything that has no scientific evidence to back it up. I would respond that you are deluding yourself-- because whether you realize it or not-- you believe in things that science cannot prove.

Not sure where you're going with this, but scientific evidence and scientific proof are quite different things. I might believe something that has not yet been proven (in as much as science proves anything).

Homerovah the Almighty

"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy."

Tuesday

Well, me too, I am just saying that the Universe came from a Cause. I have never heard of an uncaused effect, or that anything with a beginning was without a cause. Have you?

Ah but you have heard of uncaused effect or a beginning without cause...God. Postulating God has no beginning is like postulating that Matter had no beginning. Just because our universe possibly began with a big bang, doesn't mean that the materials that made it did. They could've already been in existance forever, they just happened to be re-arranged in this pattern at the point of the big bang. This material could'be been in another universe that was destroyed by some catastrophic event that in turn caused our universe to exist. In which case, yeah God could've been the cause to re-arrange them, but there's no evidence of that. It's either saying I'll believe when theirs evidence, or believing without evidence. Is there any point to these 20 arguments, don't they all boil down to argument via ignorance anyway?

drwtsn32

Is there any point to these 20 arguments, don't they all boil down to argument via ignorance anyway?

Yeah, that's what I got out of them too. "We don't know how XXX happened so god did it!" Attributing things like that to god does not in itself provide evidence for that god.

BurnTheShips

Quantum mechanics... effect sometimes happens before or without a cause.

Give an example.

Not sure where you're going with this, but scientific evidence and scientific proof are quite different things. I might believe something that has not yet been proven (in as much as science proves anything).

No, I am saying that you believe in things that science can never prove. I'm not saying these things are necessarily unreasobable, just unprovable, scientifically.

Is there any point to these 20 arguments, don't they all boil down to argument via ignorance anyway?

Not really.

BTS

Midget-Sasquatch

Like Satanus said before:

For which God? And to further that: What is the character of the God of Pascal's Wager?

To me at least, Pascal's Wager is unmotivating, not only by its easily countered argument, but from an ethical position. Sure the only reason I should behave and live my life in particular ways is to assure my freedom from eternal torment. Not so much because its the humane thing to do. Just makes me want to sing Kumbaya.

Now I'm all in favour for redemption (small "r" peeps). So a murderous, thieving scoundrel for most of his life makes a death bed conversion and makes one morally charitable act to atone and picks the right god in his gamble and wins out. Fine. But an atheist or agnostic whose always tried to help people in the here and now will rot ad infinitum? Lovely chap that god.

cameo-d

Yes, God does exist.....

he's just not who you think he is!

drwtsn32

Give an example.

Look up quantum entanglement and causality.

But it really has no bearing on your point. You say everything must have a cause, including the universe and all it contains. That cause is "god." Through special pleading you then say that this god doesn't itself require a "cause" because it exists outside of time.

This just doesn't make sense. First of all, it is true that our physical laws as they are now were "created" at the big bang. They did not exist this way before the big bang. But whose to say that they did not exist in some other form before the big bang? You don't think it's just a bit speculative on your part to say all these things about the nature of god, that he is outside of time, etc.?

No, I am saying that you believe in things that science can never prove. I'm not saying these things are necessarily unreasobable, just unprovable, scientifically.

Ok, I'll bite. What do I believe in that can and never will be proven scientifically? And please don't insult me by saying something philosophical or sappy like my love for my son.

BurnTheShips

Look up quantum entanglement and causality.

Explain how these violate causality.

You don't think it's just a bit speculative on your part to say all these things about the nature of god, that he is outside of time, etc.?

Not at all. It is reasonable that if he exists that these would be some of the properties.

Ok, I'll bite. What do I believe in that can and never will be proven scientifically?

I''ll take a stab at what you probably believe:

The Universe obeys laws. That these laws can be deduced by human reason. That the logic and reason employed by the human mind is true and correct. That the laws that the Universe obeys are revealed by how it behaves. That the human senses present an accurate representation of this behavior to the human mind.* That these laws do not change and that therefore, the past is explainable in terms of the behavior of the present, and that the future can be predicted in the same way.

Prove the scientific method, scientifically. It rests on empirically unprovable philosophical premises..assumptions...beliefs.

*Since you probably believe we have been put together by completely unguided evolution, it is possible that your view of the world is inaccurate: blind natural selection is would largely be interested in adaptive behavior, an adaptive delusion would be preferable to an unadaptive perception.

BTS

hamilcarr

If there's something in this world which doesn't rely on believing it's the rigor of the scientific method. I don't say though that all scientists have the discipline to do so.

Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God

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