Sort of like others have said. Everything must come from something. Nothing can be created from nothingness. As time goes forward so we can assume that there is a beginning. If there is a beginning to all things which is logical, then there must be nothing before the beginning of all things. Something from nothing being an impossibility, it must be created. Proof that G-d exists.

This is all I get…

Every one seems to talk about their beliefs as if they are personal, incorporeal or subjective yet from their beliefs come statement that are carnal in nature.

“God guides some of my actions through feelings and intuition”

“Everything must come from something. Nothing can be created from nothingness.”

Both these statement imply knowledge of god in our reality, can any one tell me how such knowledge was obtained?

Why does everybody assume there is a begining? Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it has always exsisted and always will.

About the flood thing, any culture will experience a flood eventually, and when they do, they will most likely write about it. Just because lots of culture write about a flood doesn't mean they all shared the same flood. Its been proven that for the entire world to flood in 40 days it would have to been raining at such a force that a human would be pulverized very quickly.

Also, I think my soul is broken or something because I don't get any warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.

There need not have ever been a beginning or First Cause. If you can conceive of infinity into the future, why not into the past? And even if an entity or being of some kind created the world in which we live, who's to say that was the one and only creation? We don't begin to have the knowledge to even have a conversation about God, which is why it always comes back to faith.

Several people have mentioned "why does everybody assume there is a beginning?"

I would have to say "I don't know." In fact, I think a beginning is an impossibility. Since you can't get something from nothing, there couldn't have been a beginning because then something would have come from nothing. The only conclusion that you can come to is that there is no beginning and no end to "time" (which is a human invention anyway).

Mantus, The knowledge of God is obtained thru personal spiritual growth, and an understanding of the limitations of human perception. No one person can offer difinative proof of the existance of a creation entity, or supreme being. Proof of your God comes from within yourself and is as personal as life itself.Most of this thread consists of religious debate and has little to do with proof. .....God and Religion, need to be seperated, to understand either one.

Therefore god is just a subjective concept. God is theoretical. We have no knowledge of an objective god that actually exists and interacts which humanity.

I am arguing for such a devine being; a god that is opposite of the one[s] which so many religions portray and sell to humanity.

Yet? I don't plan on believing at all.



Coulden't have said it better myself, Mantus.

frist off doward sprial i agree with you

but you cant disprove the existince of god either not 100%

I don't have any imaginary friends, and I think unquestioning faith leads only to manipulation. Only the weak willed and the corrupt need religion to justify their actions.

You can't disprove the existince of flying, invisible, space monkeys either, but I'm not going to lead my life based on a book someone told me they wrote, would you?

St. Thomas Aquinas came up with five very good "proofs" of the existence of some sort of a god. In skimming this thread, I get the impression that many of you think that if you find a problem with the Christian definition of God there is no god. Aquinas was very clever in applying almost no doctrine to his proofs, making it more universal.

Here is a link to a summary of this text.

http://members.aol.com/plweiss1/aquinas.htm

Aquinas attaches objects (movement, design, humans) to a concept (god) and claims that the reality of the object proves the reality of the concept. The problem is that there is no proof of a link between the objects and the concept.

I will give another example of this. Take the statement “God is life”. Life exists while god is questionable; there is no proven link between the two. While “life”, by itself will exist with or without “god” attached to it, “god” becomes a subjective concept as soon “life” is removed.

We gain no objective knowledge and god remain hypothetical.

Let me go though each of Aquinas' arguments to illustrate this.

First Way: The Argument From Motion

1) Nothing can move itself.
2) If every object in motion had a mover, then the first object in motion needed a mover.
3) This first mover is the Unmoved Mover, called God.

Movement is created though forces. Therefore the first motion can be set by the first force and god is not necessary.

Second Way: Causation Of Existence

1) There exists things that are caused (created) by other things.
2) Nothing can be the cause of itself (nothing can create itself.)
3) There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.
4) Therefore, ther must be an uncaused first cause called God.

Why can nothing be caused by itself? If it can be assumed that god was caused by itself then why cant anything else do the same? Also the universe is unified. It follows not chains of cause but rather everything interacts to create one cause.

Third Way: Contingent and Neccessary Objects

1) Contingent beings are caused.
2) Not every being can be contingent.
3) There must exist a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
4) This necessary being is God.

Same as the creation argument; why is god needed to create a contingent being?

Fourth Way: The Agrument From Degrees And Perfection

St. Thomas formulated this Way from a very interesting observation about the qualities of things. For example one may say that of two marble scultures one is more beautiful than the other. So for these two objects, one has a greater degree of beauty than the next. This is referred to as degrees or gradation of a quality. From this fact Aquinas concluded that for any given quality (e.g. goodness, beauty, knowledge) there must be an perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. These perfections are contained in God.

The fact that qualities can be infinite is an assumption in itself. Beauty for example can have limits on any particular object. Just as perfection; for example a circle cannot be any more perfect then it already is. Also if there was such a thing as an ultimate quality then it is not necessary that it resides in one being, or any being at all. It is quite possible that the potential is held within the universe itself.

Fifth Way: The Agrument From Intelligent Design

The final Way that St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of has to do with the observable universe and the order of nature. Aquinas states that common sense tells us that the universe works in such a way, that one can conclude that is was designed by an intelligent designer, God. In other words, all physical laws and the order of nature and life were designed and ordered by God, the intelligent designer.

Lets say that there is a one in infinity chance of everything falling into place just right so that the world we have around us exists. While the odds may seem very slim, it can happen and obviously it did happen. One might say that this is more extreme then the concept of god. I would argue that, because god does not explain existence. For what intelligent designer created god, and the god that created that god and so on? If god in all his complexity and infinity always was and always will be, then the universe can always be in the same fashion without the existence of god. Omitting god from the universe simplifies the model.


Each of St. Thomas Aquinas' arguments assume that god is necessary. That is the flaw.

From whence came the first force?

In the universe, scientists have made it patently clear that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation. The difference here is subtle, a deity, by definition, is not bound to such things as they are not limited to physicality.

Sticking to your circle example, mathematically speaking, there is a more perfect circle than a circle, its a sphere. There is a more perfect sphere than a sphere, its a hypersphere, and so forth. In a logical frame of reference, qualities are infinite.

Again, refer to the unmoved mover, you are requiring that the deity be limited to our plane of existence. Also, were the universe infinitely old, since there IS a slim chance of a deity existing, he would HAVE to exist. And if the universe isn't infinitely old it has to come from somewhere.

Peace be with you,
G.

Why can’t something come out of nothing? Science says that it is imposible, perhaps it is, or perhaps we are missing a peice of knowledge. You for example say that a “deity, by definition, is not bound to such things as they are not limited to physicality”. Therefore you say that a deity created something out of nothing. I follow this same logic and say that something came out of nothing. I exclude the deity as it simply complicates things. The necessity of a deity is not proven.

Then there is the assumption that the universe had a beginning. Why does it need a beginning? There would be no need for a creator if the universe has no beginning. Though I can argue against the necessary existence of god in both cases.


I am not a big math or geometry buff so correct me if I am wrong. But isn’t a circle a part of a sphere? A circle within a sphere seems no more perfect then it was before. Therefore a circle is perfect and a sphere is perfect and neither make’s the other any less perfect. All I am trying to illustrate is that perfection can be a subjective concept in itself. Though my main point is that the perfection does not have to come from a god; it can be inherit in the universe.

I apologize, I misled by using the word “universe”. I was not referring to the universe of our plane of existence. I was using the word universe in referrence to existence as a whole.

If god came into existence after the universe, would this deity qualify for the concept of a supreme being? Also even in infinity it is possible for odds never to happen.

I went over this above.



Also, tell me what you people think of this:

It kind of bothers me that we use subjective concepts to describe another subjective concept. For example we don’t know if the universe is finite or infinite, yet both are used in arguments for god. We can’t agree on what love really is yet we attribute it to god. We are not sure if there is an afterlife or what it could be like, yet we call god the gatekeeper. Omniscience, omnipotence, perfection, afterlife, soul, all these concepts and more are often used to prove god. I think that two subjective concepts can’t be used to create an objective item. We need a link to objectivity.


Cheers.

A deity can create something because it is free of that burdensome thing known as causality. An extrauniversal something is necessitated by the existence of causality in our universe. SOMETHING had to move unmoved which is impossible by physics.

Calling a circle part of a sphere is like calling a grain of sand part of an infinitely long beach. There are infinitely many circles in a sphere. A sphere surpasses the two dimensional world of circled. I suggest reading Flatland by A. Abbot Abbot (not a stutter). In the same way, you can create unbounded attributes.

Our plane of existence IS existence as a whole. The astral plane and such are as much beyond our world as a sphere is beyond the xy plane.

Incorrect, in infinite time all possible outcomes occur with equal probability - I believe 1. Brush up on your statistics and calculus.

If it could be done purely objectively at this point it would be science not philosophy. Until then, all you can do is create comparisons. FUrthermore, I find the fact that proofs of the existence of god are independant of so many of our hypotheses is evidence that a deity must exist TAUTOLOGOUSLY.

Peace be with you,
G

Oh, boy where to start.......
A lot of you I have read your thoughts on proof of God and some of you believe there IS no God, just because of what others have told you and/or CANNOT show you proof of His existance. I could respond to this in a thousand different ways, but I wish to bring up some questions & ideas here:
The proof is not out there, you will never find proof- the answers have always been there about God, but the answers are not found outside of yourself. When one person may say God is one thing, while another says something completely different. All people have different "beliefs" and "facts" about God. Some say that Jesus dies for their sins, while others don't believe in worshiping a person. There are so many different religions and belief systems out there, and they all claim they are the one, true faith- that their way is the right way. So which is right? Are ANY of them the RIGHT one? Also, if there is a God, many of people immediately think "superior being", higher than us. Well, let's take for instance, this: "God created man in the image and likeness of Him". So, how could we be less superior, even born with sin? Couldn't we, for a minute, imagine outside of the box here and think that maybe we were created for His experience? That He experiences through us? And that with our experiences, we are recreating Him at every moment? And that it says that God has no ONE form- that He is everything and everone you look at? Every noise you hear? Every breath you take?
This God- called to be perfect, and to love every one of us unconditionally, yet this God is said to punish us by sending us to "Hell" if we disobeyed him or disbelieved Him? Well, "unconditional" is such a strong word and many don't stop to realize what it means: without condition or exception. I asked myself time and time again while attending church with my parents- So which is it? Does God love us unconditionally or doesn't He? Never did I understand that whole theory. How could we be loved unconditionally, yet we are given commandments to abide by, and if we break those, that we would be sent to Hell. I tell ya, for a while I was just as confused as some of you are.
Also, who says there has to be a "beginning"? How about- it could have always "been"- a continual spiraling cycle of recreation? God always has "been" and always "will be" even if a flower dries up, even if a human passes on. And all of everything in life is in that cycle.
I studied every religion and belief out there to try to get an idea of what I believe in, but finally I realized that there was no answer "to be found", and that nothing seemed true. But the closest religion I came upon that represented how I felt inside was Taoism, which my Philosophy classmate practiced. Yet, still I wasn't comfortable with any specific religion.
But- back to the topic at hand- it honestly takes an open mind to realize and understand that you will find answers when you start listening to the questions you have and listen to yourself for answers. They are there, and they well come to you if you let them. The best way to do this is by distinguishing your feelings about certain things. Ask how you feel about God? The idea of there being a God- what feels "right" to you? Don't be afraid to explore yourself and don't be ashamed of what your feelings are about something. When you are not afraid, confused or embarrased, you will know that is your truth- finding answers from outside sources (which are not always the same which leads to confusion) will steer you away from Your Truth.

I didn't know whether to post this here or on the Darwinism thread, so I'll post it on both, because I have never heard this but it really made me think and I hope it generates discussion. It come from Greg Easterbrook, a guy that writes a football column, called the TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback), that has football anaysis and alot of his thoughts on a wide range of topics. You can find threads about him and his column, and the controversy surrounding it in the politics or sports forums (fora?) Anyway, here it is.


article mentioned in column

link to full TMQ

i dontthink tehre can be proof of an higher being like od because he is a HIGHER BEING we cant see air but wwe know its there its kinda like that you cant see it but you know its there....

Why does there have to be a "beginning" to time? Or a "beginning" to the universe? Perhaps it has always been.

Time is a human invention anyway...

edited--i wanted to start a new thread.

As I said in my previous post. :)

*oops- this is actaully :::OshnSoul::: I keep doing that!

Giltwist, sorry for not responding here for a while. I have been working on the Modal Ontological Argument for the past few days. As a break let me take another stab at trying to explain the flaw in St. Thomas Aquinas' argument. My last attempt ended with nitpicking about unrelated subjects, hopefully this will go better.

The flawed cosmological argument embodies Aquinas’ arguments.

The cosmological argument:

We assume that everything needs a purpose. Purpose is defined as a reason to exist which is given by another object. For example a gear exist because a clock exists. A clock exists because humanity exists. If we didn’t exist the clock would not exist. So the assumption is made that this has to stop somewhere because sooner or later some one is going to ask: why does it all exist? So some one came up with the idea that world exists because a deity exist who is outside “it all” and therefore doesn’t follow our rules of purpose.

The critique:

- Objects exist because of god. If it is conceivable that god exists with it’s own purpose then it is equally conceivable that objects exit with their own purpose as well.

- God is as complex as the world. If the complexity of god can exist without purpose then it is equally possible that the complexity of the world can exists without its own purpose.

- The world is the sum of all objects in it. If everything is One then purpose is a flawed concept. Purpose is an allusion created by our minds as we try to subdivide the world in order to try to understand it better. To use Giltwist’s analogy, we are trying to subdivide a sphere into circles.

- There is no need for god if infinity is introduced to the world. Such a concept can be conceived as a an infinite chain of purpose or circular infinity where: X because of Z because of Y because of X. In such a case there would be no need for G as there would never be an end to the chain of purpose.

- If creation did happen from an outside non-purpose bound entity. The entity does not need to be a deity. It could simply be some other phenomenon.


Lastly I would like to state that I am not trying to disprove the concept of god, as that cannot happen. I am trying to illustrate that we have no objective knowledge of a deity and therefore the existence of one remains a hypothesis. I am also pointing out that the hypothesis in question (St. Thomas Aquinas arguments) is unlikely or at least as likely as any other hypothesis out there.

I don't like that argument. Isn't it possible, nay likely, God is MORE complex than the world? And from that excess of complexity, may come the ability to be self-purposeful.

But wouldn't such an entity seem like a deity to us causality-bound beings?

Explain this reasoning please?

X implies Y implies Z implies X is the format for a the following are equivalent proof. All that this means is that they all hold the same truth value, it doesn't say ANYTHING about causality. Also, there are kinds of infinity which do not encompass everything. For example, the interval (0,1) is infinitely big. In fact, its uncoutably big. And yet, I think we can all see it hardly encompasses everything involved with numbers.

“I don't like that argument. Isn't it possible, nay likely, God is MORE complex than the world? And from that excess of complexity, may come the ability to be self-purposeful.”

- You know I said, “as” complex to be on the safe side…anyways, please read the next sentence.

“But wouldn't such an entity seem like a deity to us causality-bound beings?”

- Yes, but we would not know if it has intelligence, consciousness or any other human quality that seems to be so sheik in our gods.

“Explain this reasoning please?” [concerning: “If everything is One then purpose is a flawed concept.”]

- All right ill try again. There are no boundaries to be found. Mankind imagines the boundaries that create what we call “objects”. There are no objects everything is simply one. The gear does not exist because of the clock, which does not exist because humans made it. They all exist because they are part of the whole universe. Therefore purpose is an allusion. The same applies for causality. Everything is in motion as a whole. We may see that the objects A, B and C all seem to hold their own cause and effect yet they are part of the whole and they are effected by the whole. To make a long story short everything is One.

“X implies Y implies Z implies X is the format for a the following are equivalent proof. All that this means is that they all hold the same truth value, it doesn't say ANYTHING about causality.”

- Sure it does. X caused Y, which caused Z, which caused X.

“Also, there are kinds of infinity which do not encompass everything.”

- Therefore I hope I was talking about the kind of infinity that DID encompass everything.


Giltwist, for god sakes, I am not trying to tell you that my theories are laws. They are only ideas. I am stating them to illustrate how the same arguments that are used to prove a creator, can be used to prove a world without a creator.

What my ideas do show is that there is no objective knowledge of god. This is what this thread is all about.

It would seem to me that we should look at the underlying problem so obvious in this discussion. Generally speaking, those individuals with strong faith in"God", will have to ignore much of the theory worked up by science. If not they would have to accept the destruction of said faith under the scrutiny of the data. whereas, those of a more analitical nature would never be able to accept the faith based arguments due to the very nature of blind faith.Although this is indeed an interesting thread due to the opinionated replys it will inevitably create, it is also impossible to resolve the differences without resorting to the religious tactic of converting each other.As a debate it may be entertaining(and I realize that is the intent) but, the phylisophical value is limited to endless bickering and dogma recital.Obviously this "god" is either far to smart to show itself to such a violent creature as mankind, or could simply care less, as it rarely has an impact on the 25% of us bright enough to truly understand what it could mean.

tecoyah: Why the heck would I need to abandon science to believe in a god?

mantus:

Ok, so you are talking about monism. Gotcha. So let me ask the question in another way, why does the One exist?

That is not what it means, a the following are equivalent proof says that you cant have one without the others, it doesn't mean they all cause each other. The definition of x->y is ~x OR y, there is no causality there. When you do the appropriate reductions on [((x-y)&(y->z))&(z->x)] and take advantage of the selfcontradicting (x&~x), you are left with [(x&(y&z)) OR (~x&(~y&~z))]. Logically speaking, the implication need not be used.

Giltwist....I should have been more precise in terminology, this thread has much debate between "christian" faith and science, in an attempt to be civil, I simply used faith an god in place of the words christian, or christianity. I also made it quite clear that I was generalizing my input, my opinion will certainly not apply to everyone, as no opinion does.

Understood, but I still don't understand why science should inhbit the ability to have faith.

Also
One of my favorite quotes deals with this. It comes from Calvin & Hobbes. "Sometimes I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

You seem to be grasping something here. Science within the years of existance has not even come close to inhibiting the ability to have faith, but moreso discovering the innevitable ways of the essence of Life- scientific explainations aren't too far off the beaten path of such things as the paranormal, gravity, and our bodies. Also, in recent years, scientists have found it hard to deny that everything and everyone is mainly made up of one thing: energy. The faster it vibrates, the more solid it becomes.


Well, what if we were to think of it this way for a moment: Let's stop blaming an outside or superior entity and possibly think that "God" (or the Source) communicates with us in every given moment, mainly through experience (the things we usually take for granted) and that we sometimes ignore that communication, sometimes we don't.
And that this Source is not "outward" from us, but within and all around us. Possibly, we could see a connection of this "Source" as not being superior, not being any type of form, and not being "outside" of us- but it is that which runs through everything and everyone. That IS everything and everyone. The purest, truest, innevitable, infinite Source that can never cease to exist that you cannot see with the naked eye, but feel it, move it, change it, spread it, push it, pull it, what-have-you. It is perfect, because it just IS. And what we create of it are the results of our life and what happens.
I know to some, this may sound far off, but that's just the thing. Comprehending such a thing seems so impossible- that energy is "God", so to speak, and that we don't have to keep thinking that there is an outside, superior being that either ignores us, loves us, or damns us to "Hell" depending on what we do, although this "God" is told to be all-loving, loving us all uncondionally (without any conditions, rules, exceptions, or commandments) and that this Source created us all equally and in the "image and likeness" of him (as a spiritual entity in a physical form).

Wow. Now, you may not understand or agree with this, but this is something I have felt deep down all my life, sitting in church, sitting in Philosophy class, and reading books. Then I happened upon a series of books that absolutely and clearly spelled it all out for me- as if everything I felt deep down was written on those pages. It all makes sense to me now. This is just my view, my Truth. I wanted to share it with you all.

Well put....damn good articulation of those things no one can really explain.

Woohoo! I am not the only Gnostic around here. Oshnsoul, if you haven't you really need to look into Gnosticism, it is based around exactly what you are talking about, God within, Gnosis. Now, having been raised Christian, you could say I am a Christian Gnostic. Which, amoung other things, means I believe that existence is as it was intended to be by the demiurge, not a mistake.

Peace be with you,
G.