Arguments for the existance of God that don't fall into the "God of the Gaps."

[leibowde84]

If you are looking for someone to prove it too you; you may never find Him. You have to have the experience to truly believe. Man wants to think everything has an explanation and that is not a truism in science either. Yet God is obvious in right in front of everything you do, see and are. While we are not puppets we can do nothing without him. Man can not create anything on his own. One would say well he makes computers, cars etc. but all of these things began with a brain. We joke that if you put enough monkey's in a room they can create things but the spark of the original idea came from somewhere. Do you know that science began with men who priests and Monks ( Religious Thinkers trying to explain the Universe and God). Then it became secular and now science realized they can not explain anything. They have went from one extreme to another and we now realize we know less than what we thought we knew. Yet there are people with very little education who have a great sense of God. If you like reading try reading the Science before Science. It's a guide for thinking in the 21st. Century by Anthony Rizzi. Perhaps he can help your doubting soul. I myself don't need proof because I look at life and know He is present. For me it is comforting that no matter what happens He is with me Good or Bad. I have no fear I have God. I am not a religious nut; I don't go around trying to save anyone. I just try to be the best friend I can be a good daughter, sister and I smile at a lot of people on the street and they probably wish they had what I do. I will answer questions about my belief but I am not usually the first person to speak and I don't argue. I guess one could say I am at peace if that means anything to you. I just hate to hear people that there is no God because to me it means they have given up on Him while He is still there waiting for them to turn to Him. He doesn't push or want to force a belief. Perhaps some humans in churches do and that is not necessarily God. I am a member of the BIG ONE - the Catholic Church and I know like many churches we are made up of sinners.;after all would you find healthy people in a hospital. No matter what church you look at there are some who have it and others who wish they had it and then there are those who use the church to look good to others. Then the last group is those who want to mess up the church and say they don't believe in that sort of thing. Because God gave us choices and even He won't try to manipulate us He allows us to turn away from Him. So it's your choice whether to dig deeper or not; but remember you were the one who brought up the question. Peace Shalom Salaam Midget01

Btw, I have a close relationship with God myself. This board is not a discussion on faith or how to "find God" subjectively. It was questioning the validity of any cosmological argument, which I do not think you have an issue with.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Enlighten me. What does it mean specifically?

Point being, multiverses rely on flukes, i.e. no mechanism that is somehow tuned to create our universe, no loaded dice or stacked deck, just a vast amount of random tries until this universe is accidentally created.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Lol. Isn't that just scientific progress ... continually figuring out our assumptions are wrong?

scientific progress yes, but it would clearly have progressed faster without so many incorrect atheist assumptions.. and those explicit assumptions still drive modern cosmology- barking up the same tree which has never produced anything but dead ends.

 

[leibowde84]

scientific progress yes, but it would clearly have progressed faster without so many incorrect atheist assumptions.. and those explicit assumptions still drive modern cosmology- barking up the same tree which has never produced anything but dead ends.

What assumptions are you referring to? Imho Theists seem to be making assumptions in that what cannot be explained is believed to be supernatural. Atheists do not necessarily believe that God doesn't exist, that classification merely indicates that they do not have a positive belief in God. Although I am not an atheist, I do hold them in high esteem, as they seem to be the only group that is OK with the answer "we just don't know yet, and we may never know." The God of the gaps argument is based on the assumption that the supernatural should be an option in scientific reasoning, but, in my opinion, that would be a step backwards. If scientific discovery was OK with ending a search when "God made sense," they might miss out on something that can be understood by man. That idea scares me.

 

[rusra02]

No, I got your point. It is a God of the gaps argument. You are saying that, because we have not yet discovered how (if even possible) something could come into existence without a creator/designer, we should assume that one exists. I would argue that it merely proves that we simply don't know yet, and that science discovers what we thought impossible all the time. See how that is using God to "fill in the gaps?" So, that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid in this board. I am searching for a substatiated argument.

I find this idea that even though the evidence points to a Designer, some future as yet unknown truth will prove the evidence wrong, to be unconvincing and fallacious. The hard evidence of what exists points unmistakeably to an intelligent mind. Any speculation that somehow science will one day prove the evidence wrong is simply that, unfounded speculation, IMO.

 

[leibowde84]

I find this idea that even though the evidence points to a Designer, some future as yet unknown truth will prove the evidence wrong, to be unconvincing and fallacious. The hard evidence of what exists points unmistakeably to an intelligent mind. Any speculation that somehow science will one day prove the evidence wrong is simply that, unfounded speculation, IMO.

You are putting words into my mouth. I am not saying that we will prove that God doesn't exist or even that specific instances of confusion aren't actually the work of the divine, just that we simply do not know yet. I think we should keep searching for physical/natural explanations until we have more information.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I find this idea that even though the evidence points to a Designer, some future as yet unknown truth will prove the evidence wrong, to be unconvincing and fallacious. The hard evidence of what exists points unmistakeably to an intelligent mind.

What hard evidence?

Any speculation that somehow science will one day prove the evidence wrong is simply that, unfounded speculation, IMO.

You're shifting the burden of proof. If you haven't made your case to the point where this speculation - unfounded or not - creates logical contradictions with known facts, then you haven't met your own burden. It isn't necessary for objections to be backed up with evidence; if your conclusion needs premise X to be true, then if you can't come up with a good answer to the question "how do you know that premise X is true?", this is a problem for your argument even if we have no actual evidence that premise X is false.

 

[rusra02]

What hard evidence?


You're shifting the burden of proof. If you haven't made your case to the point where this speculation - unfounded or not - creates logical contradictions with known facts, then you haven't met your own burden. It isn't necessary for objections to be backed up with evidence; if your conclusion needs premise X to be true, then if you can't come up with a good answer to the question "how do you know that premise X is true?", this is a problem for your argument even if we have no actual evidence that premise X is false.

Please read my previous posts in this thread for what I consider irrefutable evidence that an intelligent Creator exists and is the source of all life.

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

I find this idea that even though the evidence points to a Designer, some future as yet unknown truth will prove the evidence wrong, to be unconvincing and fallacious. The hard evidence of what exists points unmistakeably to an intelligent mind. Any speculation that somehow science will one day prove the evidence wrong is simply that, unfounded speculation, IMO.

May i respectfully suggest that Einstein was on the right track with his E= .... etc.
let us consider the nature of this Creator or in fact nature of all things ...
It has been suggested that G-d is Light , Peace, Love and all things emanate from
or by Him ... In the Beginning ....
Now consider that all things (matter, life, thought, conciousness ) have one common
need ... energy, in all frequencies at its most micro that which keep atoms revolving
in their configurations to be matter in all its forms ...

So perhaps the energy that initiated the so called Big Bang, could be our Creator.
all that combined energy, one force .... if it includes the energy of all including thought
and conciousness ,,, well there you have an all knowing G-d ... E= I am that which I am.

Now the will or desire to create is perhaps another discussion ...

Shalom ... Eliab.

 

[Koldo]

Please read my previous posts in this thread for what I consider irrefutable evidence that an intelligent Creator exists and is the source of all life.

It is rather odd when this irrefutable evidence is not considered irrefutable by ( at least ) nearly half of the scientists on biology, chemistry and physics...
Don't you think so?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Please read my previous posts in this thread for what I consider irrefutable evidence that an intelligent Creator exists and is the source of all life.

You haven't posted any evidence at all in this thread, let alone "irrefutable" evidence.

 

[rusra02]

It is rather odd when this irrefutable evidence is not considered irrefutable by ( at least ) nearly half of the scientists on biology, chemistry and physics...
Don't you think so?

Not at all. I think the intense propaganda campaign being waged against anyone who rejects the ToE has been effective.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Not at all. I think the intense propaganda campaign being waged against anyone who rejects the ToE has been effective.

Maybe you folks and the flat-earthers can get together and start a support group.

 

[rusra02]

You haven't posted any evidence at all in this thread, let alone "irrefutable" evidence.

I believe the intelligent programming in DNA, far superior to any computer program designed by intelligent minds, is proof positive of an intelligent Designer. So did Antony Flew, one time atheist who let the evidence lead him.

 

[leibowde84]

It is rather odd when this irrefutable evidence is not considered irrefutable by ( at least ) nearly half of the scientists on biology, chemistry and physics...
Don't you think so?

Not at all. I think the intense propaganda campaign being waged against anyone who rejects the ToE has been effective.

It's not just a "theory," it is a "scientific theory." The threshold for which is extremely high compared to a hypothesis or a philosophical theory, which must only "make sense."

1. A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.

 

[Koldo]

I believe the intelligent programming in DNA, far superior to any computer program designed by intelligent minds, is proof positive of an intelligent Designer. So did Antony Flew, one time atheist who let the evidence lead him.

Please, don't talk about Antony Flew as if it gives some strength to your point. It will only make you look silly.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I believe the intelligent programming in DNA, far superior to any computer program designed by intelligent minds, is proof positive of an intelligent Designer.

Why do you assume that DNA has "intelligent programming"?

Even if you can clear that hurdle, you're still committing a logical fallacy. Effectively, what you're saying here is that you can't think of any natural process that could result in DNA, so it must have been designed. This is an argument from ignorance (as well as just plain wrong, since all the evidence we have tells us that DNA *can* be created by natural processes.

So did Antony Flew, one time atheist who let the evidence lead him.

Wait... Antony Flew? THE Antony Flew?

Never mind what I said - even though your arguments seem to have no merit at all, if Antony Flew accepted them, that's good enough for me.

Forget what I said earlier. There's no way that the great and powerful Antony Flew could be wrong!

 

[Koldo]

Not at all. I think the intense propaganda campaign being waged against anyone who rejects the ToE has been effective.

To the point where almosty every scientist accepts the ToE ? Really ?

 

[leibowde84]

To the point where almosty every scientist accepts the ToE ? Really ?

Even the Pope acknowledged that it is undeniably the best explanation that we have.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Even the Pope acknowledged that it is undeniably the best explanation that we have.

While they're better than some other churches in this regard, I think that the Pope's acceptance of evolution needs an asterisk, since the Catholic Church still considers polygenism (i.e. something without which the evolution of humans wouldn't have happened) to be a heresy.