Why forums arguing the existence of God are pointless.

People who start these kind of forums do so with some goal of pounding on their own chests about why God does or does not exist.
There are those religious people who think they can some how prove to the world that God exists.
There are those irreligious people who think they can some how prove to the world that God does not exist.

Do either of these kind of forums ever satisfy or persuade anyone to change their position?
No.
Why? Because it is not my burden to prove to you that God exists or does not. If God wants to prove his existence to you personally, he will.
But there is something deeper here. What god in particular are you trying to discover? Or rather, what is the notion of God that you are exploring? To simply say that this or that God does or does not exist fails utterly to explore the notions of God that are being so haphazardly tossed around in the forums of this kind.
Someone says “God” and everyone automatically seems to be agreed as to what is being referred to with the term “God.” There are countless varities in the doctrinal notions of the Christian God and they are all hotly debated.
So, whether or not a particular notion of God is more valid than another is precisely relevant to this kind of inquiry, but I fail to see this kind of exploration taking place.
First, if you are going to prove “God’s” existence, define what you mean by God. What “God” are you trying to prove exists or does not exist?
In other words, what is your notion of God?
Second, just because someone’s notion of God is logically suspect, does not mean that God’s existence is in jeopardy. So, we can all calm down, because God’s survival does not depend on whether or not our philosophy is well grounded.
Third, most of these religious exchanges are a kind of word play. There is a major difference between a logical possibility and an ontological possibility for those of you who care not to sound foolish. “Can God make a rock so big he cannot lift it?” This kind of question confused the vital distinction between logical possibilities and ontological possiblities and the later depend heavily on your particular notion of God.
Fourth, as I said previously, if you want to find out if a particular notion of God has merit then I suggest that you follow the steps set forth by adherents of that God as to how that God is personally approached. It says nothing about you that you can fling words around the internet as though you wield cosmic power over the Almighty. Now, if you are willing to follow the prescribed steps to approach a particular God and then let us know how it went and what you learned, then please do so. But this kind of approach to the divine is not going to occur within the confines of the ilovephilosophy.com religion forum.
Getting God to respond to you requires more exertion than typing and ranting. You want the Master of the Universe to respond to you, to prove his existence to you personally? This is a very ambitious goal indeed.
Fifth, even if you manage to have that intimate personal revelation that proves to you that God does indeed exist, the experience is precisely that, personal. This characteristic of personal revelation is also what makes in non-transferable. I can’t just speak a few words to you and presto give to you or transfer to you my divine witness that I received. I had to work to get my own witness. You will have to do likewise, or not at all.
This is important religiously because while I can speak with you about God, ultimately I can neither be your obstacle nor your crutch in your relationship to the divine. Philosophers often speak of this distinction as the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. I can describe God to you, but you must acquaint yourself personally with him. These two kinds of knowledge are quite different.

Ya, I would agree with you to a certain extent that it’s not really our job to make people either believe or not believe in a God/gods. However if it a part of one’s belief system to give an answer for the hope that lays within them and to tear apart arguments that would contradict the knowledge of their faith then shouldn’t they do just that?
I am a christian and ya I can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that God exists, but if someone doesn’t want to let go of their faith in Atheism, then what can I really do? I’m not told in the Bible I should make them believe or make them perish or anything like that. If they want to believe or not is between them and God. I only provide an easier understanding of the person of God because Christians are supposed to be “Christ’s ambassaders” (messengers from God). We are told to tear apart arguments that would try to establish themselves above the knowledge of God.
I would also disagree that God exists and does not exist at the same time in the same respect. That is called contradiction. Either he does exist or He does not. It cannot be both. Also, you cannot prove something that isn’t true and so if you can prove God is real it is true, if you can prove He doesn’t exist then that is true. It is however one or the other, not both. The reason you cannot prove something that isn’t true is in the fact that it isn’t true. One can however give good evidence for things that may not be true, although proof is the highest way of knowing. Using reason is probably the best source of this evidence and proof.
I would have to say though that you do bring up a good point about people trying to MAKE others believe or not believe, that’s pretty stupid eh?!?

-The Brain

I do hope you are not referring to what I have said as stupid, because if so, then I am likely to say that is what I feel about anyone who thinks they can prove the existence of God to a nonbeliever “without a shadow of a doubt.”
Please, don’t reply if you have nothing substantial to add.

Everyone else, please, take note that this reply from “light_eclipseca” is precisely typical of the problem I am pointing out. This person thumps on their chest, claims to be a follower of Jesus, and calls me “stupid” all in the same breath. It is unbelieveable really that this is typical Christian behavior in a religious forum. It is not Christian. It is not philosophy. It is patent irony that this kind of person would be the first to respond to me and have the nerve to speak to anyone this way.

let me guess god has come to you personally and touched your life.

the statement you posted here is of course a contradiction. If god wanted to prove his existence?

Let’s see… Christ says god welcomes all back into the flock who come. He’d rather have us come to god then goto hell, so on those two premise, god is more than willing to prove his existence to the world yet… Nothing. overwhelming nothing. Humanity crying, religion saying “we’re helping”.

how’re you helping really? by enslaving mankind to sin?

Is that what mankind needs to be saved, to constantly be reminded that we’re human and we’re going to fuck up? Give me a break, it’s complete spiritual control.

again a contradiction, god wants himself to be proveable according to the christian model, and (you missed some of my arguments on this) our model of god has changed. God used to be a completely physical entity, I mean the Roman catholics of the first millenium absolutely and truly believed that christ was god. He lived up in the sky with the other 2 trinitarian figureheads. Now… christ is a supernatural being that lives either somewhere else or in another dimension.

Here’s another thing constantly overlooked by christianity. Early christians (especially the writers of the new testament) felt that christ would be returning WITHIN their lifetimes and if not shortly after they died to resurrect their bodies from the ground. Now I’m sure you can imagine that if all of the christians who ever were, were resurrected the earth would be filled with skeletons walking around.

IMO, christ wasn’t teaching about resurrection of the physical body, he was talking about resurrection of the spiritual body, the confusion came with the blending of east and west. Eastern philosophy knew that the spirit was not of the body, western (judaism/muslim) thought the spirit WAS the body.

first off, you don’t have “faith” in atheism, if you have faith in ANY type of supernatural thing you are not atheist.

second off Atheists can see the contradictions of god, and compare him to other “mythical” gods, like Zeus, Santa Clause, Thor etc.

Uh… the knowledge of god being what exactly? Hopefully not what’s in the bible.

Christ,
jesus never said he was god.
That came later with the pagan trinitarian documents. I seriously wish Arius would’ve won out at the nicaea council, at least a belief in a supernatural god is more logical then believing in “man-god”. Christ was a teacher at most, a rebel at worst.

You know I used to think that you could be a solid christian and still have alot to offer as far as religion goes, but, if you are solid in your beliefs then nothing anyone says is going to change that, so your only point of coming here is to be confrontational, and to spread your christianity to atheists.

in conclusion.

Philosophers question gods’ existence, christians don’t. so unless your an agnostic christian, you’ve got to seriously ask yourself what you gain from coming to a place where the majority of the people here are either agnostic or atheistic, and with VERY FEW people that consider themselves “hard” christians.

and while I’m on the subject of enlightened questions. What is the point of pointing out josephs lineage, if he’s not the father of jesus? That’s a real head scratcher aint it?

This is not correct. Jesus says, Knock and it shall be opened unto you. I don’t see how you have demonstrated a contradiction. The point is that you have to be proactive in your movement towards him. It is his will that will determine whether or not he decides to reveal himself.

This comment is senseless.

Where did this come from? If you are going to exchange with me in my threads, you need to watch your language and elevate your dialog.
You are making a straw man out of Christianity. I am not responsible for the chip on your shoulder.

But this does not respond to the obvious vacuum of evidence for a universally acceptable proof of God’s existence in a particular manner that is accepted by all humankind. God has not provided proof of his existence to everyone.

Are your point is . . . ?

Well, you are entitled to an opinion however misguided.

FYI, you are responding to a quote here that is from someone else, not me. I do not agree to this statement and since it isn’t mine, your comment has no bearing on my views.

See above. You are still responding to someone else’s comment.

Again, you are responding to someone else’s position that I do not agree with. You really ought to pay more attention when you make posts.

This is not accurate. Have you read the New Testament. “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Does that ring a bell? Judging by the reaction of the Jews they felt otherwise. Jesus was accused of blasphemy for comparing himself to god and he never denies this. He goes on to quote a Psalm that affirms the divinity of all humans.

I’m not sure who you are responding to at this point. But you are free to believe whatever you want.

Actually, I would ask you the same thing. If you are so dead set against religion, just exactly what are you doing in a philosophy of religion forum? God is going to come up. And I think you are just wrong to say that most of the people here must be agnostic or atheistic that have an interest in philosophy of religion. News flash: God is going to come up a lot in a religion forum. Get used to it.
Furthermore, if you had actually read my piece thoughtfully you might have noticed that the point is to demonstrate why I have neither the inclination nor the goal of spreading my Christianity in your direction. If you don’t like my philosophy ignore it. Move on.

There are a couple of reasons for this if you think it is so mind-boggling. (1) Both Joseph and Mary were of royal lineage. In other words, if the Jews had been autonomous at the time of their marriage, they would have been rightful hiers to the throne of Judah, king and queen over Israel. (2) Jesus as their son would have also been hier to the throne of Judah. This is why you never find the Pharisees questioning Jesus’s legal right to be King of the Jews. They are questioning his spiritual claims. His royal right is never debated in the New Testament.
(3) If you had read the Old Testament, you would have noticed that God promised King David that the Messiah would be born through his lineage and he was.

Sounds like Christian Fundie-talk to me…and that bit about the “watch your language” part was a dead giveaway…heh.

It is hardly fundamentalist to ask someone to be civil. Do you have any formal education in philosophy? If yes, have you ever heard anyone use the f-word in a formal educational context?
That is a poor means of expression in any event, totally uncalled for.

Did you have anything worthwhile to add? I mean, philosophy-wise?

yes I realized that I thought I’d respond to two posters in one thread, I figure your smart enough to figure out which thing you said and respond to it accordingly. instead you repeatedly use the overused term “straw man” tell me I’m “flawed in my opine” probably because it doesn’t agree with your absolute truth of christianity.

The same thing your doing debating.

yes he’s going to come in topic but not in reality. Religion doesn’t need god, and god doesn’t need religion. both topics could applicably fit under religion.

and do you expect to come to religion and NOT be challenged on your belief in god? if you don’t want to be challenged go where the waters are safe on the apocolyptic christian forums.

ok, horrible grammer for starters. This paragraph is nearly impossible to read in it’s present form. I’m assuming you mean that your not trying to shove your beliefs down other peoples throats?

dude, do you even know what your talking about? He was killed for calling himself king of the jews. Of course that is all frosting added to the layered cake that is the christ myth.

not that you’ll believe a word I say on that.

in conclusion.

Am I dead set in my ways?
no.

Are you?
yes.

so again, WHY are you here?

I came to the philosophy forum to discuss new ideas, and such.

For future reference, this doesn’t work if you are trying to respond to two opposing posts simultaneously. Think about it.
Furthermore, I never used the phrase “flawed in my opine” in reference to you or anyone else. Again, you must be confusing me with someone else.

You missed the point. You said that religion is the opiate of the masses following Marx. Marx was a political philosopher, not a religious one. So, I repeat, if that is your position, why are you debating in a religious forum, if you are already convinced that religion is all false? That is not a consistent position. This is a religion forum, by the way. There is a political forum if you genuinely have a Marxist view.

More importantly, I am not here to debate. You are. For you philosophy and debating appear to be the same thing. That is your conception. That is not how I conceive of philosophy. You call yourself a philospher. You are a self-certifide debator.
Arguing is not philosophy.

Challenge? Challenge? Did you actually manage a challenge somewhere in all of this? I’m still looking.
Oh, so you are interested in religion. I really can’t tell if you have a coherent position on religion yet. One moment you decry it, the next you are clearly in its thrall.
God without religion? That is indeed a strange and question-begging position. Saying it doesn’t make it true.

You are not exactly the person I would call on to judge grammar. I left out an “I.” Now can you read it? And you get the gist of it.

“Dude” do you even know what you are talking about? He was refering to a kingdom not of this world. He claimed to be God, the heavenly King. Again, have you ever read the New Testament from start to finish since you are claiming to be an authority on it. You might recall the passage “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36 KJV). He didn’t claim an earthly throne, but he had full legal right to the throne of David precisely because of his earthly genealogy whether you trace it through Mary or Joseph. No one ever disputed that. They disputed his claim to divinity. Clearly, we simply disagree on this point.

I cannot even discern “a way” in what you have stated. Yes, I agree that it would be difficult for you to be dead set if you are set no where and free from maintaining anything resembling a consistent position.

well first of all I don’t agree with Marx’s political philosophy it’s critically flawed.

Secondly I think we got off on the wrong foot, I was just trying to goad you into showing you how ridiculous this thread was, a thread about how ridicolous it is to argue about the existence of god in a forum.

thirdly.

It’s great that christ said that there, but according to matthew:

so why did matthew say that christ said nothing, and john said christ gave this nice long speech?

Do we consider John more valid than matthew who generally matches the other 3 gospels?

I take it you’re of the second type

Cybersage- I may agree with you, but I’d like a little clarification. Do you mean to say that all talk of God’s existence is fruitless in this context, or just specifically arguments trying to (dis)prove his existence? For example, I agree that “God doesn’t exist!” type threads don’t accomplish much, but what about more specific topics like the Problem of Evil, or the nature of omnipotence, and suchlike? Do you think skeptics and believers can have useful discussions on more narrow topics like these?

ucc,

I thought about it, I think cybersage has a good point. (that doesn’t mean it’s a valid one that we should drop these arguments)

let’s think about it logically.

God has been discussed to death, and some atheists become believers and some believers become atheists. and some of each side become agnostic.

So why do we continue arguing? These topics have been done to death.

Can god have an orgasm?

Can god know the future, if he does how is free will possible?

Can god do this and why doesn’t he? etc.

so what’s the point?

well, The point is simple. The point is to disprove god for those who don’t believe in him, and to prove god for those who do. This is our meeting ground. The believers perfect their arguments for the existence of god, while the non-believers sigh, and perfect their arguments against god.

Then you have those religious athemics, who say “you can’t really know the true nature of god because we are only human.” If you believe that, you don’t know the nature of god yourself, and thus it shouldn’t matter WHAT religion you follow.

but that’s a topic for another thread, and as long as god doesn’t exist the argument about his existence will continue.

as the old saying goes:

“god is dead” - signed Nietzche.
“nietzche is dead” - signed God

Hi Cybersage,

Are you actually arguing the point or just giving an example? You seem to be arguing the existence of God going hot and strong at it.

This is probably where a genuine problem arises. How do you define a Mystery? Isn’t it exactly what you can’t do? In my opinion, when people are arguing for a monotheistic God, they are generally all arguing the same point. They all mean the Mystery, even if it has different names and different Mythologies. It is in actual fact one of the biggest single sin to fall into idolatry by arguing ‘your’ God and ‘my’ God. If God was ‘mine’ he wouldn’t be God.

The point about the biblical God is that judeo/christian religions should actually be stressing this point. How many stories in the OT and NT demonstrate the fact that it isn’t a question of whether Yahweh is Israel’s God, but whether Israel is God’s people. It isn’t a question whether Yahweh is the strongest God, but that there is only one and we all mean that one. He isn’t on ‘my’ side – I have to be on his ‘side’.

I think you are missing the point here. People are not arguing about God’s survival, but whether God is a transcendant entity that is actively involved in the lineage of time. They argue for or dispute that God interferes with the laws of nature, changes the course of events, makes one-to-one contact. Those who claim that this is what God does should bring some proof of it. There are many explanations for occurrence in this world, why should a rational person believe that the rules of nature he observes daily should be pushed aside to appease the whim of some molly-coddled western christian, when millions of people have to fight for their lives from birth?

Most of these ‘word plays’ are the result of boredom or the attempt to appear intellectually sound whilst such statements play no vital role in existence. If these people were to get down to earth, they would argue differently or keep their mouths shut. You don’t have to drift up into the sky to gain insight, but you have to have two feet on the ground.

In view of the variety on offer, it would be very committing to follow one particular notion. On the other hand, it is binding commitment that we need, secure in a community following a clear direction. This kind of commitment would be far more convincing than a thousand words.

The mystic experience is also personal and an experience, which is particularly ‘non-transferable’. The result is however insight, not knowledge. It is an awareness, not understanding. It is intuitive, not unambiguous. It shows the direction, not the goal. It is the ‘Way’ not the objective.

I think it is harmful to claim to have some kind of Authority when speaking of God, in actual fact we are all only seekers and refer to scripture because it is venerable and tried, and known to be inspirational. Scripture has been found to assist the spiritual search and give us a direction for our exploration of the numinous because there is a common moral background in the Bible to other cultures that can almost be regarded as universal.

Shalom
Bob

I take it that your are refering to Scythekain as being someone set on proving to the world that God does not exist as though he/she can?

proving god doesn’t exist is easy.

Proving it to a devoutly religious person is not. They’ll come back with “no god exists” or “it’s impossible to know the nature of god”

I’ve already proven that god can’t exist. Hell I didn’t even prove it the ancient greek philosophers proved it before the rational thought period was wiped out by roman catholicism and we entered the dark ages and forgot our rationality for a millenia and a half.

skythe you cant disprove god any more than i can (hmm it sounds like somebody has said that before…)

if you think you can, where are your posts in my omnisoul thread?

i think debating about god is only good if you either talk directly about the characteristics of god, or you make sure that all agree on the characteristics.

ive found too often that ill be in an argument and the atheist will all of a sudden jump out and be like “well if hes omnipotent and omnibenevolent then why does he allow pain!?!?” and i suddenly wish i could just ban him without saying a word like some kind of philosphyforums.com idiot fuhrer.

we should focus on what exactly are the sticking points with god theories. if an atheist says “there is no evidence for god, there is evidence for everything that we know exists therefore god doesnt exist” then i can clearly easily destroy you. if you say “god lets bad things happen, therefore he doesnt exist” again i will destroy you.

whenever any atheist makes an argument besides the unbeatable “well if you believe that, you believe in the tooth fairy! haha nyah nyah you believe in the tooth fairy!” then i can destroy it with my omnisoul thread. the only way the argumet doesnt get anywhere is if the people dont agree on the definition of the terms. somebody already said this, i felt it needed reiterating after challenging skythe.

I wouldn’t really say that it is ‘pointless’ to argue on if God exists or not. Maybe to some people, it is pointless, and maybe to others, it is a plausible argument that could go on until someone finds an answer!

It all comes down to one’s true definition of what ‘God’ is! Is he some old man sitting in the clouds, or is he a moral principle? Like the Golden Rule?

More often than not, the God people argue against, is the Christo/Judeo/Islamic God. And this is plausible, since the existance of THIS God, can be proven wrong, using simple logic.

Many people may believe in God, but not see him as one who is really Omnipotent, Omniscient, and almighty. It all comes down to definition!

For example: Future Man believes in a God known as the ‘OmniSoul.’
And you can study more about the OmniSoul by clicking on
the link in his signature.

Even read my definition. My view of God, which has changed over the past few weeks, is not like that of the Monotheistic Religions of the world. It is not applicable to them.

I can’t provide any better of an explanation than anyone else as to why the Bible is not more internally consistent. The gospels are a collection of personal accounts from the Apostles. There are others that weren’t included in the Bible for whatever reasons the church fathers felt were convincing.
My comment originally came up in our discussion of what kind of kingship Jesus was claiming, earthly or heavenly. It isn’t a topic for this thread, but my point is that he had a right to both given the combination of his royal earthly parentage and divine siring.

Good question. I am more that ready to discuss the different notions of God that people affirm. I think you have set a list of useful topics as well. However, the POE discussion and the others often turn into arguments for or against God’s existence, but I probably don’t need to point that out to you.
In philosophy, you can’t argue everything at once. Some times you just have to take somethings for granted for the moment to discuss some other things, such as “I exist.” I’m not going to rehash Descartes every time before I go on to discuss other things.

I do think it is fruitless to speak in unconditional terms about a concept that is intrinsically abstract and imprecise such as “God.” Everything takes on a conscending tone and it becomes a contest to see who can make who look more stupid.

With respect to this topic of God, I would like to see a thread that explores the problems and inconsistencies with the Classical concept of God. I don’t think the God of Aristotle can be melded with Jesus Christ as Augustine would have us believe. But that is the tradition of Christianity, that some how Augustine did the right thing mingling the two traditions. He wasn’t the only one.

Finally, God is a sensitive issue for most people. I think whether or not he exists we ought to be very deliberate and thoughtful when approaching someone else’s fundamental beliefs.