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Does God exist? (11 Viewers)

do you believe in god?


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mcflystargirl

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I do not understand why people think God is such an abstract concept, to me it makes perfect sense, the more i look into the idea there would be no god, the more i think that is abstract and strange
 

Nashie

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i was going to say i dont know, but now the pope is staring me down... *panic* umm my parents are at mass right now... ummm....

probably...

on a serious note, i like to think that there is something up there and stuff
 

BradCube

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Oh sure. Of course, the perspective of science is to keep looking, as we'll find the answer anyway. It isn't a coincidence as to why we're here - why? Because we're here.
Simply showing that we're here doesn't remove any burden of proof when weighing up the likelihood of our existence - it begs the question. You're assuming naturalism when asserting that our existence is proof of our non-coincidental nature.

Imagine we're playing poker together and every single game I have a royal flush. Is it legitimate for me to claim that "it isn't a coincidence that I have a royal flush every game because I have a royal flush every game"?

The perspective of you? "Oh, God did it, let's leave it at that." Pathetic.
What theists on these boards actually suggest that? I don't understand why you're fixed on the idea that belief in God and participation in science are mutually exclusive.
 

Kwayera

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Simply showing that we're here doesn't remove any burden of proof when weighing up the likelihood of our existence - it begs the question. You're assuming naturalism when asserting that our existence is proof of our non-coincidental nature.

Imagine we're playing poker together and every single game I have a royal flush. Is it legitimate for me to claim that "it isn't a coincidence that I have a royal flush every game because I have a royal flush every game"?
The likelihood of us being here is an irrelevant question, because it has already occured. Any probabilities you seek to put on it (and then use them to argue "Hey, we're so improbable, we must have been created!") are meaningless. Statistically improbable things don't mean they're impossible.

What theists on these boards actually suggest that? I don't understand why you're fixed on the idea that belief in God and participation in science are mutually exclusive.
Because that's the implication of "well, we don't know, so we'll say God did it"/God-of-the-gaps hypothesis.
 
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Empyrean444

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What I think about the matter is irrelevant; the simple fact is we currently don't have definitive evidence or futurology to say that we necessarily will know all the 'answers'.
 

BradCube

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The likelihood of us being here is an irrelevant question, because it has already occured. Any probabilities you seek to put on it (and then use them to argue "Hey, we're so improbable, we must have been created!") are meaningless. Statistically improbable things don't mean they're impossible.
You are correct, statistically improbable things are not impossible (one imagines the amazing improbability of you reading this post at this exact time when compared to all the other things you could have done). However, this is not what a typical design argument states. It's when an improbable event conforms to an independent pattern (such as a "royal flush" or the "requirements for life") that we are tipped off to intelligence of some sort.

If what you're saying was true, then we could continue the parody of poker;

"The likelihood of my getting a "royal flush" one hundred times in a row is an irrelevant question because it has already occurred."

The fact that it has already occurred doesn't rule out my cheating unless you have presupposed that I haven't cheated. In the same way, our current existence doesn't rule out design (tipped off to us via improbability conforming to the necessary requirements for life) unless you are presupposing that design did not occur.


Because that's the implication of "well, we don't know, so we'll say God did it"/God-of-the-gaps hypothesis.
- Typical arguments for Gods existence don't say "we don't know, therefore God", they usually go more along the lines of "the only way this is possible is if God, therefore God". For example, one does not argue that since we don't know how to cure all forms of cancer, it must be God, therefore God.

- Even if the arguments always worked in a god-of-gaps scenario, how is science any better? Wouldn't the claim simply change to "we don't know, therefore science"? Also note that at least the god-of-gaps has the possibility of being falsified whereas science-of-gaps is unfalsifiable (surely something which works against your own ideas of what a good theory entails?).

- If we take it a step further and assume that science-of-gaps is better than god-of-gaps, I still don't see why scientific investigation would stop for a theist. Surely one could continue pursuing science to discover "how" or "why" God had done things in a certain way. Or possibly even researching further to make sure they don't falsely attribute the supernatural to the natural in an effort to maintain honesty in responsible study.
 
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Iron

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Why not? You think that in the far-flung future, spread across the galaxy, we still won't know the answers to how and why?
Lol yes. Yours is the futile arrogance that is the root of all sin

Cmon guys, real truth is just around the corner! I know it is, I have faith it is, my science god is plenty powerful! All answers will he provide! Change we can believe in!
 

Kwayera

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You are correct, statistically improbable things are not impossible (one imagines the amazing improbability of you reading this post at this exact time when compared to all the other things you could have done). However, this is not what a typical design argument states. It's when an improbable event conforms to an independent pattern (such as a "royal flush" or the "requirements for life") that we are tipped off to intelligence of some sort.

If what you're saying was true, then we could continue the parody of poker;

"The likelihood of my getting a "royal flush" one hundred times in a row is an irrelevant question because it has already occurred."

The fact that it has already occurred doesn't rule out my cheating unless you have presupposed that I haven't cheated. In the same way, our current existence doesn't rule out design (tipped off to us via improbability conforming to the necessary requirements for life) unless you are presupposing that design did not occur.
Your presupposition, however, is flawed - that the requirements of life are something that had to line up in a row for us to exist. While it's true that we never would have existed without them, individually they are not that unbelievable and governed by simple laws: expansion of the universe, gathering by gravity of material to form galaxies, accretion of gas and dust around a star to form a planet, our planet having a certain mass that placed it in the "Goldilocks" zone around our star, the formation of our atmosphere, and the evolution of life from amino acids. All not necessarily very special events. Personally I don't get the obsession with the supposed "slight chance" of us existing, because it clearly wasn't slight enough - we're here, aren't we?

Typical arguments for Gods existence don't say "we don't know, therefore God", they usually go more along the lines of "the only way this is possible is if God, therefore God". For example, one does not argue that since we don't know how to cure all forms of cancer, it must be God, therefore God.
What? You're very good at obfuscation. And no, the arguments generally go "we don't know how this happened, the only possibility we see is through God, therefore God."

Even if the arguments always worked in a god-of-gaps scenario, how is science any better? Wouldn't the claim simply change to "we don't know, therefore science"? Also note that at least the god-of-gaps has the possibility of being falsified whereas science-of-gaps is unfalsifiable (surely something which works against your own ideas of what a good theory entails?).
Because the perspective of science (if a process can have a perspective) is "we don't know how this happened, but let's try and find out, not ignoring all apparently impossible ideas". How is this perspective unfalsifiable? Certainly less so than the presupposition of God, which can never and will never have any proof either way.

If we take it a step further and assume that science-of-gaps is better than god-of-gaps, I still don't see why scientific investigation would stop for a theist. Surely one could continue pursuing science to discover "how" or "why" God had done things in a certain way. Or possibly even researching further to make sure they don't falsely attribute the supernatural to the natural in an effort to maintain honesty in responsible study.
Fair.
 

Smile_Time351

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Lol yes. Yours is the futile arrogance that is the root of all sin

Cmon guys, real truth is just around the corner! I know it is, I have faith it is, my science god is plenty powerful! All answers will he provide! Change we can believe in!
I think "arrogance" might be too strong a term here. It is simply being acknowledged that we have enormous potential for discovery... potential we have hitherto squandered as a consequence of arguments like yours.

This is not to diminish from your faith, or even to say that faith is intrinsically bad, merely that it has its place, and that said place is not here. Discovery- particularly in the context of Space and Beyond- is the realm of science. Condemning the will to fullfil this as "arrogance" is weakness. Essentially it creates an unnecessary crutch that inhibits our power to find these answers. Believe that you need God for every action... soon enough you end up needing God for every action. To think otherwise is not arrogance... merely the dispelling of delusion-driven mediocrity.
 

spyro14

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I think "arrogance" might be too strong a term here. It is simply being acknowledged that we have enormous potential for discovery... potential we have hitherto squandered as a consequence of arguments like yours.

This is not to diminish from your faith, or even to say that faith is intrinsically bad, merely that it has its place, and that said place is not here. Discovery- particularly in the context of Space and Beyond- is the realm of science. Condemning the will to fullfil this as "arrogance" is weakness. Essentially it creates an unnecessary crutch that inhibits our power to find these answers. Believe that you need God for every action... soon enough you end up needing God for every action. To think otherwise is not arrogance... merely the dispelling of delusion-driven mediocrity.
So what you're saying is that Christianity is not intriniscally bad, just that it stands in the way of the progress you feel we must make and which also generates "delusion-driven mediocrity". Am I to understand that delusion-driven mediocrity is a good thing and if not, how is that not to diminish his faith?
 
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molmont

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God stands as man's first meager attempt to explain existence. But since it is our first attempt, it is also our worst.
 

Smile_Time351

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God stands as man's first meager attempt to explain existence. But since it is our first attempt, it is also our worst.
To take this into slightly more romantic terms: I like to think that when cavemen first emerged from their caves and gazed up at the stars, after realising that they in fact weren't food, they decided that there must be something bigger than themselves, and God was born.

So, I wouldn't exactly call it a meager attempt...
 

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