Im searching for arguments for the existence of God. (I hope I posted this in the right place)
I’m agnostic meaning I am neither convinced that God doesn’t exist nor that he does. I simply haven’t seen any convincing arguments for either claim.
I’d invite any theist to give me their best argument for Gods existence. I think the best way to display any argument is in propositional form so here’s an example for an argument for God:
(a) The universe has a beginning.
(b) Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
(c) Thus: The universe has a cause.
(d) This cause has to be powerful enough to create the universe.
(e) To be powerful enough to create the universe you have to be omnipotent.
(f) Thus: The universes cause is omnipotent.
(g) Anything omnipotent, we call God.
(h) Thus: The universes cause is God.
(i) If X has a cause Y and X exists, Y exists.
(j) The universe exists.
(k) Thus: God exists.
Thanks in advance! I’m always looking forward to possibly becoming a theist if I ever see a convincing argument.
Thanks for the response. Here is my critique to the example argument I made:
(a) This isn’t proven (contrary to popular belief, the Big Bang is not a theory that asserts this event marks the beginning of the universe)
(e) would be something I’d request further reasoning for. Why does creating one universe require infinite power and not finite power?
(g) This defines God as just „anything omnipotent“ but that’s not what people usually mean by God. This argument does not prove the cause to be an entity with agency, will, purpose, omniscience or a personal relationship to its creation. Additionally this sneaks in the assumption that the cause is an entity at all because only such can have the property of omnipotence. What if it was some cosmological event that created the universe?
(i) This asserts that the cause still exists. It could be that something has a cause but that cause doesn’t exist anymore even if the thing itself still exists.
Additionally, I find the notion of „cause“ and „effect“ quite vague. In my opinion (b) isn’t as obvious as people think. We never actually see anything begin to exist. All we see is more fundamental parts reorganize (atoms and particles) into new things.
First step is google the evidence for the standard model (Big Bang). Come back with a summary.
Then…do you insist it began whole (like I do) so that every moment is a kind of beginning, and the whole is “eternal”? Do you think the whole, or each moment, began itself?
If not, do you think the eternal being with which the whole is co-eternal has zero power, &/or zero (personal) will, to initiate the universe (as a whole, or each moment)?
What is your best explanation, if not an eternal personhood with the ability to initiate and subsume the universe in their being? Why would it stop existing?
And yet… here’s the universe. Please summarize the evidence for its beginning after you google it. Or use Bing.
If the event is physical, it’s part of the universe after it already began.
Sorry but I’m struggling to extract your point from that comment. It’s not me that’s making a claim. I’m waiting for someone else to make an argument for Gods existence. All I did in the critique of my own example argument is clarify where I would ask for further elaboration. If someone made the argument that the universe had a beginning, I would ask them for proof.
The cosmological argument is deductive, but evidence for the beginning from science is inductive (does not provide proof, but probability). You would have the burden, either way, because the standard model has stood up. I’m not humoring you further until you google it & summarize.
I don’t have the burden because I’m not claiming anything . If anyone makes my example argument they are claiming „The universe has a beginning“. They have the burden of proof to substitute that claim. All I’m saying is that they will come up empty handed. Just try it.
He’s saying awareness (ego) is ISness (thinker), action (superego) is OUGHTness (actor), and consciousness (id) is VALUEness (feeler).
SOMEbody DO SOMEthing!
AKA…there are no upstanding bystanders.
Right, Schmupiter? How can communication BOTH advance away from the data AND reduce to data??? Almost like it all adds up & boils down to person=person or somethin!!!
Atheists exist and claim that reality is a misrepresentation of reality ArbitrarAxion…..You don’t still believe in the religious cult atheism’s farcical nonsense do you?….lol…come on you are being left behind…..philosophy has moved on now…..
The religious cult of atheism is dead now……It claimants only exist.
Watch the progression based on a ridiculous, erroneous, presumptuous starting premise…
Really?
How so?
Prove that existence, the universe, has a beginning. or that it requires one.
Where is it? What existed before this hypothetical ‘beginning’?
The Big Bang is NOT a beginning….it is an event within a continuity. Existence is a continuity, and universes are iterations of a continuum.
All temporal concepts, like beginning/end, before/after, are meaningless outside space/time….or existence. There can never be a before nor an after existence…..there can only be what exists.
Non-existence is, by its own definition, non existent. It only exists in the minds of men, as a vague, abstraction with no external referents….like the cocnept of frozen fire…or unicorns…or square circles…or centaurs…or your god of the bible.
Since you’ve presumed a convenient lie, you show your motive….you aren’t interested in truth….are ya?
It is that simple and you are going to hear it again and again going forward whether you like it or not.
Atheists exist and claim that reality is a misrepresentation of reality.
The world needs to let that nonsense sink in.
I know what truth is Silenus and I don’t claim that reality is a misrepresentation of reality…LOL!!!
There was no such thing as a single big bang Silenus….HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU NEED TELLING!!!
All matter is entering and exiting the cosmos from/into the multiple holes at the centre of the multiple galaxies as now definitively confirmed by the JWT.
If all matter were to disappear into these multiple holes then where are you going to get your matter from for your mythical single big bang?
Don b. deyoung who is the author of 8 books on biblical science, has a Ph.D. in physics and has published technical papers in the Journal of Chemical Physics .His scientific belief in creation is largely based on two thermodynamic laws of nature, which in fact are the two most basic laws.The first law states that energy is conserved or constant at all times. Energy, in whichever of its many forms absolutely can be neither created nor destroyed. This rule ensures a dependable and predictable universe whether for stars or for human life. This fundamental energy law cannot be disobeyed like a man made law.
The second basic law of nature also involves energy. It describes unavoidable losses in any process whatsoever which involves the transfer of energy. The energy does not disappear but some always becomes unavailable often as unusable heat. Stated in another way, everything deteriorates, breaks down and becomes less ordered with time. Ultimately death itself is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics
Energy conservation implies that the universe did not start up by itself. Energy decay further implies that this universe cannot last forever. Secular science has no satisfactory explanation for such laws of nature. These principles simply transcend natural science. Their origin is supernatural which by definition does not require a long time to develop. The addition of long ages of time is an unnecessary and confusing complication. Instead these laws are entirely consistent with the biblical creation.
All matter levitates reason4motion….It’s expanding and contracting due to VIBRATION!!! Movement in the cosmos is down to vibration.
All matter vibrates at varying frequencies depending upon the spin speed its particles which in turn determines the frequency of the electromagnetic vibratory interactions between particles and thus the amount of electromagnetic energy waves emitted from it.The electromagnetic energy waves contain unique binary data specific to the matter type.So all matter has its own unique binary code characteristics.
The physical body senses pick up varying frequency analogue energy waves emitted from vibrating matter and its internal mechanisms convert these waves into binary digital electrical signals which are converted into a binary software for operating the biological machine body.
Read my posts because you will learn more from them than any of the nonsense being churned out at CERN I can assure you.
My qualifications are a belief and faith in God that truth will be revealed by him ultimately.
Why would I desire a qualification in a known and freely admitted cognitively biased atheistic pseudoscience which has all now failed reason4motion?…..so scrap all the atheistic qualifications which were nonsense anyway.Who wants a certificate in known nonsense?
I’m a very very good philosopher…….philosophy preceded science so I know how science works…..it’s easy to understand.
Which bit of my philosophy and science are you disputing because it’s all perfectly ok.
. If anyone makes my example argument they are claiming „The universe has a beginning“. They have the burden of proof to substitute that claim. All I’m saying is that they will come up empty handed. Just try it.