Good Arguments that are Pro-God

[RedDragon94]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

 

[Polymath257]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

I've seen some arguments for pantheism and panentheism that were not completely horrible. Usually they are combined with some sort of description of consciousness where almost everything is conscious to some degree.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I've seen some arguments for pantheism and panentheism that were not completely horrible. Usually they are combined with some sort of description of consciousness where almost everything is conscious to some degree.

Pretty much this for me too.

 

[George-ananda]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

When I was an atheist-materialist, the Near Death Experiences especially those claiming people saw real world events they shouldn't have been able to know about, my skepticism was shaken.

 

[RedDragon94]

I've seen some arguments for pantheism and panentheism that were not completely horrible. Usually they are combined with some sort of description of consciousness where almost everything is conscious to some degree.

This makes sense, because nature is probably the closest thing you have to actually seeing something divine. If the world was (however figuratively you want to imagine it) created by the God then nature is the deities' fingerprint. And you don't even have to mentally think of an argument for them being complete other, they are in everything. Pantheism does make sense.

 

[RedDragon94]

When I was an atheist-materialist, the Near Death Experiences especially those claiming people saw real world events they shouldn't have been able to know about, my skepticism was shaken.

Have you actually talked with people who had those experiences or did you just research?

 

[George-ananda]

Have you actually talked with people who had those experiences or did you just research?

Just from a book by Raymond Moody browsing at a bookstore and hence purchased. It was the 1970's and the concept of Near Death Experiences was practically brand new to the general public.

 

[Srivijaya]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?

If by faith + god you mean "Believing in God", then no, because the kind of people who push for belief are necessarily believing in an anthropomorphized proposition, which doesn't exist. This is very prevalent among western Christians, especially of the sola scriptura/fide kind who propose that god is a super-sized sentient being.

That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism. Discuss.

The concept I've outlined above is always going to be wrong, so I dismiss it out of hand.

However, Kashmiri Shaivism has made me consider the option of the divine which does not correspond to the above definition. I've recently also discovered that an entirely different approach is taught within the Orthodox Church. They teach (amongst other things) that the creator transcends this existence and is uncreated. They use apophatic theology and their path is theosis, both of which are staggeringly different to anything in western Christianity.

I've always personally considered that the only god that could possibly exist would be one that didn't (if you know what I mean)... would be uncreated. After all, even in Genesis, God didn't create God. That's one to ponder.

 

[Liu]

I've seen some arguments for pantheism and panentheism that were not completely horrible. Usually they are combined with some sort of description of consciousness where almost everything is conscious to some degree.

Pretty much my reason for believing in pantheism.
Makes more sense to me to assume that subjectivity is a general property of being than that it somehow only appears in certain arrangements of molecules in an otherwise completely objective and mindless universe.

Regarding (personal) polytheistic deities/spirits, still very much a skeptic, but at least entertaining the possibility now. Reason: Other people's descriptions of their experiences. If those people aren't lying nor victims of either delusion or a mountain of conformation bias there seems to be something going on that can't be explained with the standard psychological models at least. Unless I get such experiences myself I'll remain very much a skeptic, though (and even then probably).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?

Nope. Not a single one.

That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

No argument has done that, but there is something that did: realizing that intelligent people who I respect and admire believe in God.

... however, this generally goes away when I actually find out why the person believes.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?

That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

Well, experiences, really. If I didn't have any brain conditions no chronic depression and no epilepsy, I'd say all my experiences came from god. I learned the psychological part from listening to people talk: I say think you grandmother when she/spirit pushed me from getting hit by a car. I tell my friend "maybe that wasn't her" and my friend says, "go with it. don't question it."

Then you have on RF where one member talks about his supernatural experience and another christian member says, "you gone through all that and you still dont believe in god."

Which makes me think it's all in the person trying to relate to the world. Skepticism helps me not to be gullible to think an experience come from X when it came from Y; but, it doesn't make me belittle my experiences. That's is as much argument for god as I can think of: mind, environment, upbringing, culture, and personal bias. I have yet to meet anyone who described god outside of these things regardless the time period.

 

[Nakosis]

When I was an atheist-materialist, the Near Death Experiences especially those claiming people saw real world events they shouldn't have been able to know about, my skepticism was shaken.

Do you see an acceptance in the metaphysical aspect of NDE as an argument for God?

I don't think there is necessarily a connection.

 

[Sapiens]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

No. There are no good arguments for a god. In the end, after much waving of hands and wasting of time, they all reduce to one or another form of a logical fallacy.

 

[Sunstone]

I've seen some arguments for pantheism and panentheism that were not completely horrible. Usually they are combined with some sort of description of consciousness where almost everything is conscious to some degree.

This about sums it up for me too, although I would add that mystical experiences, while in no way conclusive evidence for deity, are evidence of a sort that, I believe, cannot be ignored by appropriately informed, fair-minded, and rational people.

 

[George-ananda]

Do you see an acceptance in the metaphysical aspect of NDE as an argument for God?

I don't think there is necessarily a connection.

Not directly, but the experiencers often talk of a being of light in their experiences and this puts it on the track. As a pantheist I probably don't believe in God exactly the same way as a Christian either.

The 'argument for God' in western culture is usually the Christian God versus Atheism. This NDE experiences argues more for some form of loving higher intelligence though.

 

[Brickjectivity]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

Yes I have heard a good argument in the book 1 Samuel chapter 2 in the Bible where Hannah talks (sings) about it, and it is not faith based. It is more of the 'Taste and see that the lord is good' variety. Along the same lines the book Ruth talks about a woman who converts not out of faith but out of love. These and other examples demonstrate I think that the modern emphasis upon believing every little thing that the preacher says inherits from the clerics and nobles seeking control rather than from a real God-based model. The modern 'Believe me I am telling you the truth' is dissonant from how things actually work. Preaching today is so judgy and so controlling, but people have become insensitive to it, like they don't even see it. Everyone is afraid, and that comes from an intensive focus on believing instead of loving. Sometimes its believing in miracles or in success or heaven or whatever. Arguments from philosophy are also cold and tinny sounding. That is not why people believe. Its not why people go to church and put their children into sunday schools. So yes if you leave the belief-based axis there is a much stronger ground where love comes first and belief is icing. People believe in God, because they like it.

 

[RedDragon94]

Just from a book by Raymond Moody browsing at a bookstore and hence purchased. It was the 1970's and the concept of Near Death Experiences was practically brand new to the general public.

Cool. I just wondered. I'm about to post a thread about ghosts.

 

[syo]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

actually yes. when i was an atheist, i was sure that god was part of time. but everything changed with the thought that god is beyond time. and god being beyond time has sense, because how time started then, if not for god.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If you are a skeptic about the whole concept of faith, have you ever heard a good argument for God?
That is, an argument that enlightened you more about the concept and made you skeptical toward your own skepticism.

Discuss.

The closest that ever came was the time Brad Warner mentioning the universe is not entirely comprised of dead matter.

Of course I suspect the version of God Brad Warner referred to is by no means close to what people think a God is or should be.

 

[Liu]

actually yes. when i was an atheist, i was sure that god was part of time. but everything changed with the thought that god is beyond time. and god being beyond time has sense, because how time started then, if not for god.

How can anything start if there is no time? Time = change.
So from outside of time, nothing ever changes, nothing starts, nothing ends.
All moments in time are basically simultaneous when seen from outside of time.
Or so I'd assume - things of that nature are speculative and probably beyond human understanding.

Also, could you please elaborate on how would that be an argument for the existence of a deity? Just because you don't have another explanation it must be a deity that caused it?