Evidence of God

[Lúthien Séregon]

My question is not so much "Is there a God?" because that just depends on personal belief and no-one can be proved right or wrong, but my question is "how can we know that God exists aside from faith?" What evidence is there in nature? Or is it in maths and science? Is there no evidence at all?

[Dr. Ransom]

Here is a famous book that discusses this very subject. But what sets this book apart from others is that Michael Behe is an extremely repected Biochemist, and from what I've heard, has no ties which the creationist movement anyway. lol, the amusing thing is that I've read a book about this book, but I've never actually read this book... :-) (confused yet?!?)

DARWINS BLACK BOX: THE BIOCHEMICAL CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION
by Michael Behe (Author)

Anyway, I personally believe that nature itself is tribute to God. For the complexity of literally everything is beyond human grasp. I am guessing that you are not wanting to get into a intelligent design vs. non-intelligent design debate, so I'm not sure exactly what you would like us to post.

[Eriol]

Er... as much as Behe's argument is intriguing, I unfortunately don't "buy it". I encourage everyone to read it, especially hard core materialists, for it may shake some of their premises. But it's not hard evidence for design, and even less for God. And it does not refute "loose" Darwinism, Darwinism as Darwin would have stated it...

I would give some major philosophical "hints" for God. I call them hints because they do not have the strength of a syllogism, and an alternate explanation may be given. But they are very strong hints.

1) nihil ex nihilo fit, nothing comes from nothing. The fact that there is something (the Universe) must be explained, for the most parsimonious (economic) way to run a Universe is to have it being full of nothingness. Why is there anything? There are really only two alternatives for this question: (a) everything has always been around. The Universe is eternal, and everything has been around forever. Nothing was ever created. (b) the Universe had a clear beginning, with the creation of everything. But since nothing comes from nothing, creation implies a creator, which would be God -- not the all-loving Father, but simple a Prime Power that created everything.

Please note that scientific evidence for the Big Bang does not tilt the scales in favor of (b). We can very well picture a "cyclic Universe", that expands and contracts, and that would be, itself, eternal. We would be on one of its "pulses". No reason to assume a creator in this scenario. you have to judge whether the eternal existence of matter or a creator is more likely, no certainties around here. This argument may be spun in several ways. Not only creation must have come from something, but movement also, and change. It is an analogous argument. What made the Universe "pump", expand and contract? What gave it its movement? Either you say "it has always been so" or you accept the Prime Creator/Mover/Changer.

(side note: A common way to refute this reasoning is to say that it leads to an infinite chain of creators/movers/changers. But this is precisely why this reasoning is correct. An infinite chain of these beings is simply a sentence, it is not a workable concept in our minds -- in other words, we can't imagine an infinite chain of these beings, there has to be a first one.)

2) Ethics. The existence of good and evil as absolute realities is a very strong pointer towards God. Otherwise there would be no absolute criterion to define Good and Evil. Of course, you can say that Good and Evil is a creation (really, a delusion) of the human mind. This is a long road to tread... my conclusion is that Good and Evil are real.

(The Kasparov thread on the LotR forum was supposed to be about that, but we get sidetracked with many interesting questions... I hope we can get back to it someday ;) ).

3) Revelation. This is a "weak" argument in the minds of a strict rationalist, but it can be very convincing to an average person. Miracles, Providence, in short, the hand of God in our world as a loving Father. This is much easier to be accepted by a mind who already accepted the All-Powerful Prime Mover, God (who may or may not love us).

[Niniel]

I don't believe in God, since almost everything there is can be explained logically, by the laws of nature. There are some things that cannot be explained logically, but I am confident that in the future they will be understandable. Religion leaves many more things unexplained, and the explanations it does offer are not acceptable to my (logical, empirist) mind. The only valid proof of the existence of God would be if I saw God myself, with my own eyes, in situation that can be explained by natural laws. But the problem with most religions is that God is spiritual and not subject to natural laws, so such proof is not usually part of any religion. And in case God does exist, I will only see Him after my death (unless he chooses to appear to me earlier), and then it will be too late for me to be saved, I suppose. But that is a risk I take by not believing in God.

[Dr. Ransom]

As usual Eriol, I got entirely outclassed before I even woke up.. lol

I'd love to have you in my ethics debate group in one of my classes.

An interesting side note about philosophy was Immanuel Kant. For he was the first one to truely seperate God and philosophy, and they are seperate to this day. The interesting thing though, is once he had reasoned God out of exisitance, he knew that his ethical base had shifted. So he designed a strange theory of ethics that nobody really bought anyway. As some Theistic writters later remarked: "he kicked God out the front door and than ran and let him in the back door." lol, I can't help but laugh at this statement.

Great post man. Let me know if Behe's book is worth reading as I haven't actually read it.

[Eriol]

Thanks... By all means, read Behe's book. It is always good to read "counter-establishment" books, they call attention to things we never thought about.

As for ethics debates in class, I was the ban of those :D. I got on the nerves of at least three teachers. I studied on a Catholic University, in name at least, for it was just as any other University. The only noticeable difference was the presence of "religious" classes, such as "Man and the Religious Phenomenon", "Morality", "Humanisms", "The Person and the Message of Christ" (this last one had an atheist professor !). Remember, I was studying Biology there -- Imagine defending in front of biology students the notion that "life" is a notion of little to none ethical value... Of course, they all knew me and were my friends, but they got infuriated all the same :)

Hehe, good times...

[elfgirl]

Here is some evidence: One guy said that there was no God, the Bible was lying, and publicly said that if there was he should be struck down that instance. Well, 2 days later, he was at an archeology site, and he saw aome older rocks on top of some younger rocks. He said that the only way they could have gotten there was if a massive flood had happened around the time the events in the Bible were said to have happened. LET'S HEAR IT FOR FUZZY MATH!!!

[Dr. Ransom]

Well, just to be a punk, I feel the need to point out that while your story shows the inconsistancy of the athiest, it provides little evidence as to the existance of God.

:-p

Funny story though.

[Robin]

Wait a little second now... Do you think has anything to do with God? Proof enough has been found for that there was a great flood, but would htat necessarily prove your holy book right? And not, for example, the last stone tablet in the books of Gilgamesh in which the Gods start a great flood to exterminate man but a few are saved by a God that tells them to build a boat... Almost all the mythologies from the area speak of a great flood, but because you want to, you believe in the Christian version. Iron age is by some scientists said to have been spread to Europe by people who ahd their homes destroyed by the flood.

[Gandalf White]

Almost all the mythologies from the area speak of a great flood, but because you want to, you believe in the Christian version. Actually, the Christian version is the true one, as accounted by Noah (or his son Shem, can't remember at the moment.) As the people scattered over the face of the earth they eventually turned away from God, remembering their deliverance from the flood only by stories passed down and changed to fit their new beliefs.

[Lúthien Séregon]

I am guessing that you are not wanting to get into a intelligent design vs. non-intelligent design debate, so I'm not sure exactly what you would like us to post.

Well, the type of debate I was going for was one similar to the "Hell" post, but this time about Evidence of God instead of Hell, although they're quite similar. Any views are welcome though...

[Celebthôl]

here try out these websites they explain a lot, though they dont corobirate (sp) with most religions:

http://home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/creator/awareness.htm

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/

they are very good for explinations :)

[Dr. Ransom]

I'm not sure why you gave us those links... but as far as I can figure out, they're psudo science and some kind of new age pantheism combined. How this is evidence of anything other than the ability of humans to stoop to superstition is beyond me.

http://home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/creator/awareness.htm

This Awareness indicates that when It speaks of mental consciousness, It is referring to the ultimate frequency, the vibration that is the highest frequency in existence. There are many who would like to attribute to their own master the concept of the master being higher than anything else that is; and many would like to state, and some do, that their master is higher than this Awareness, and this Awareness indicates that it is all right for them to believe this, but it also reflects on their inability to understand what this Awareness is.

Anybody with a basic understanding of physics knows this is rediculous. Also, this entire webside seemed to have some type of vauge universalism, but I couldn't figure it out, any ideas anyone?

This Awareness indicates that there is in these higher frequency levels, a universality evolved, for these frequencies are everywhere present within each universe, and resonates within each universe in harmony with all frequencies throughout the 170 billion universes. This Awareness indicates that it is a matter of fact that is a matter of reality. It does not matter whether entities recognize this Awareness or not. As far as this Awareness is concerned, It is not trying to do one-upmanship on other beings who claim to be higher; It does not care.

The heck?

Next site:

2. Statements given by mental mediums under stringent scientific conditions which furnish evidence of personal survival.

I lauged out loud when I read this. These people don't even have a basic understanding about what "science" even is. This statement is a contradiction. "Mental mediums under...scientific conditions?!?" :rolleyes:

The phenomena studied in psychical research are incompatible with current scientific paradigms. A detailed scientific theory is therefore required to (1) explain survival and other psychic phenomena, and (2) to promote the incorporation of psychic phenomena into mainstream science, eventually accumulating in the recognition of psychical research as a legitimate branch of scientific research to be studied in respected universities and educational centres.

Over my dead body... :mad:

Enjoy!

Ransom

[Eriol]

God is a vibration, a frequency, which is also an Awareness... it is amazing the extent to which people will go in order to avoid confessing that God is God. They build idols, and name them History, State, Science, when they are clever -- or "vibration", "frequency", and the like, when they are naive.

It's food for one's thought...