Before You Ask, "Does God Exist?"...

[1robin]

Before you ask, "does god or the gods exist", shouldn't you be asking, "If god or the gods exist, then how would we know that they exist?"

Isn't the latter the more fundamental question? Why or why not?

These are questions which have over lapping magisterium but are both equally in need of an answer but there might be an order requirement here. However both questions are not equal.

Does God exist is an ontological question, where as how would we know is an epistemological question. However before we discuss those types of questions we need to get the order they should be asked.

It is impossible to answer how we would know if God X exists before we define what God X is like. Some types of God's are impossible to discover all together, some have a certain kind of evidence, where as others have another kind of evidence expected.

So please first qualify your questions by at least supplying the type of God you are asking for evidence of.

1. Are you asking about a personal God as in Islam and Christianity?
2. Are you asking about an impersonal God as in deism?
3. Are you asking about a God which is co-equal with nature as in Pantheism?
4. Are you asking about a certain God within many God's, as in Paganism?
5. Or how about a God which can take multiple forms including philosophy as in Hinduism?

Clarity is necessary before your questions can have any answers.

 

[1robin]

I didn't see you do this, nor has anyone I know seen this. I can't even prove I exist with this evidence.

Actually that is the only thing you can know with certainty. If you think then no matter what else is true or false, you exist.

 

[BSM1]

Actually that is the only thing you can know with certainty. If you think then no matter what else is true or false, you exist.

Or as George Carlin said:

"I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.”

 

[1robin]

Or as George Carlin said:

"I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.”

Descartes got nothing on that.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Or as George Carlin said:

"I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.”

Moody Blues (Grahame Edge) may have beat George to that one:

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Better question for me is, "does anything transcendent, anything unknowable, exist?"

Or, "does anything which you cannot describe exist?"

In the first case, well, who knows if anything transcendent or unknowable exists? To be transcendent is to be beyond experience, and you cannot know what you cannot experience. And to be unknowable is even easier -- you can't know what you can't know. The question is unanswerable -- and therefore probably not even worth asking.

So, the second question becomes the one to deal with, "does anything which you cannot describe exist?" Well, guess what -- we'll never know until you describe it. This is the essential point of the "does God exist" question. Who can answer that question without knowing what you mean by "God." And if you can state anything at all that defines or describes God, then we can begin to look for the ways in which we might answer the question.

I have said before, and I continue to think, that every definition of "god" which I have yet seen -- absolutely without exception -- contains within it the contradictions that lead to its own self-destruction. The Christian God first and foremost, followed just about immediately by the Islamic version. Those gods, as they are described in their respective religions, immediately disintegrate on consideration of the reality that they are said to have created and maintain.

 

[savagewind]

Does the future exist before it is experienced? I think yes it does. It exists because God is there.

 

[Desert Snake]

exception -- contains within it the contradictions that lead to its own self-destruction. The Christian God first

By Christian G-d i assume you mean trinity, can you tell me who is in the trinity, the distinction

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

By Christian G-d i assume you mean trinity, can you tell me who is in the trinity, the distinction

You misunderstood me if you think I meant the trinity. To me, that's just nonsense, completely illogical, and totally uninformative. I don't care "who is in the trinity," because it doesn't make any sense, ever, to say that this one person is three people who are one person, who is... oy veh!

By "contradictions which lead to its own self-destruction" I meant rather that a deity assumed to be all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful creating and presiding over a world which contains as much unutterable misery as it does is just specious nonsense.

Nobody can use the "free will" argument to explain why that God allows child cancers. Nobody can use the "free will" argument to explain volcanos, earthquakes, flood, fire, famine -- in the face of presumed omniscience, omnipotence and at the same time (and incongruously) omnibenevolence.

 

[Desert Snake]

You misunderstood me if you think I meant the trinity. To me, that's just nonsense, completely illogical, and totally uninformative. I don't care "who is in the trinity," because it doesn't make any sense, ever, to say that this one person is three people who are one person, who is... oy veh!

By "contradictions which lead to its own self-destruction" I meant rather that a deity assumed to be all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful creating and presiding over a world which contains as much unutterable misery as it does is just specious nonsense.

Ok, I have to ask what people mean by 'Christian G-d', /because i don't know what they mean,, ie trinity something else etc

It's an interesting argument, but I don't think its a refutation to Deity.

 

[निताइ dasa]

Of course. Before you have knowledge of any claim, you need to examine the source of the such claim and deem it authentic or not.

 

[Kemosloby]

Or good story telling.

Spinning a yarn and spinning a yarn over thousands of years are two different things.

 

[savagewind]

Spinning a yarn and spinning a yarn over thousands of years are two different things.

Ya but, it's in a book.

 

[Kemosloby]

Ya but, it's in a book.

A book that was compiled over thousands of years, and oddly enough that those in charge of the book didn't want to hear anything about Jesus. So if the old testament prophecies about Jesus the Jewish authorities sure didn't write it.

 

[Milton Platt]

You don't see me , but I am exist

I do not believe you to be a god......

 

[Milton Platt]

Before you ask, "does god or the gods exist", shouldn't you be asking, "If god or the gods exist, then how would we know that they exist?"

Isn't the latter the more fundamental question? Why or why not?

We could only determine that they exist if they directly interfered with the natural order. If they do, we could measure that effect. We have measured prayer, for instance, and found it to be ineffectual.

 

[clerick]

Actually I would say the supernatural needs to exist first before you go up the chain of ghosts, elementals, fairies, angels, demons, gods, goddesses then one specific god or goddess roughly in some order of lesser beings.

 

[Godobeyer]

I didn't see you do this, nor has anyone I know seen this. I can't even prove I exist with this evidence.

I am not psychology doctor to solve this problem

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You misunderstood me if you think I meant the trinity. To me, that's just nonsense, completely illogical, and totally uninformative. I don't care "who is in the trinity," because it doesn't make any sense, ever, to say that this one person is three people who are one person, who is... oy veh!

By "contradictions which lead to its own self-destruction" I meant rather that a deity assumed to be all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful creating and presiding over a world which contains as much unutterable misery as it does is just specious nonsense.

Nobody can use the "free will" argument to explain why that God allows child cancers. Nobody can use the "free will" argument to explain volcanos, earthquakes, flood, fire, famine -- in the face of presumed omniscience, omnipotence and at the same time (and incongruously) omnibenevolence.

Ok, I have to ask what people mean by 'Christian G-d', /because i don't know what they mean,, ie trinity something else etc

It's an interesting argument, but I don't think its a refutation to Deity.

It's not meant to be a refutation of Deity. It's meant to suggest that even if there were something that we might reasonably call God, since there's nothing to be actually known or experienced about it, it really doesn't matter.

What really matters is what people believe, and how there belief's then inform their actions. This is explained at more length in a piece I wrote elsewhere called "The God in Your Head is Real." I repeat it below:



The God in Your Head is Real

The vast majority of people on earth believe in the existence of God. But what sort of “god” is it? What characteristics does it have? How should this “god” be defined and how should it be known? What sort of claim to a separate reality can we find?

The answer to this is very difficult for atheists like myself, and probably for agnostics, too, although I won’t claim to speak for them.

So, what if I were to ask someone if “fratchly” exists? I think that the first answer I would get would not be either “yes, fratchly exists” or “no, fratchly does not exist,” but rather, “what do you mean by ‘fratchly?’ ” In fact, until I was prepared to provide some sort of definition for “fratchly,” I am unlikely ever to get a response as to whether it exists or not. Is it animal, vegetable or mineral, or perhaps spirit? Is it big or small? Is it here on earth, in the sky, in space, etc?

It has been estimated that humans have created over 100,000 religions in the last 10,000 years. Some of our religions have had multiple gods with their own specific responsibilities; some religions have had only a few or even just one god. Some of our gods have been palpably real: they’ve lived on mountains, under the seas, in caves, or in the sky. Other gods have been intangible spirit only, some coherent spirits, others amorphous, everywhere at once. Some have been omnipotent, some had their powers limited and could be beaten. Some were loving, some cruel, some indifferent. The variety is endless.

Every single one of them, without any exceptions whatsoever, have had – in the minds of their believers – human-like characteristics, whether those were physical, psychological, or both.

And almost every single one of them has since passed out of favour, and thus out of existence. They are all dead and buried in the crypt that we call “mythology.”

But for every human believer, there is, I think a “god” fitting some sort of description, known only to the believer, existing in their head. And inasmuch as this “God-in-the-Head” is perceived as having wishes, desires and needs, and inasmuch as it seems to issue commandments to lead the believer to satisfy those wishes, desires and needs, and inasmuch as the believer feels compelled to act on those wishes and commandments, then this “God-in-the-Head” is very real, and very potent.

Some of those wishes are benevolent, and to the extent that they are acted upon can be of great benefit to humanity. Not always, though, as can be seen through the very benevolent desire of missionaries to “bring the heathen savages to God.” For the sake of their immortal souls, of course! This has frequently resulted in a few saved “souls,” and many, many merely dead ones.

Some of the commandments of the “God-in-the-Head” are not so benevolent. The perceived “command” to kill witches, heretics and apostates has resulted in endless misery around the world for millennia. The perceived antipathy of the “God-in-the-Head” to those who are not quite like the rest of us has cast thousands into prison, or death. The perceived unwillingness of this "God-in-the-Head" to countenance independent thought, leading to differing world-views, has too often led to legitimate inquirers after truth being excommunicated or disfellowshipped or shunned by their communities. This has all too often come at terrible cost to individuals and their innocent families.

Yes, as I think about it, because this “God-in-the-Head” has such power to act in the world through its host, it is very, very real. And it frightens me.

 

[savagewind]

Does the future exist? Can it exist without God? I say it is impossible to both exist and not exist. I have seen lots of evidence that the future does exist, therefore, God exists.

Simply stated, God is what the future IS. I am sure it is why the ancients have said that we must respect God.