Looking for arguments for the existence of God

[emiliano]

You can, but why? Gravity is a characteristic of nature. To suggest the the falling raindrop is operating purposefully is anthropomorphic delusion. To then argue that this purposeful raindrop is evidence of supernatural agency is ludicrous.

Ok let reason this one “Gravity is a characteristic of nature” Two thing comes out of this 1) Gravity exist and we know that it does by observing it effect on other objects in and around our environment. 2) Nobody had to present visible (physical) evidences that it does exist, yet we all know it. So yes I can say that by observing our environment and the orderly way in which everything works, we can know that there is a designer and creator that is God.

To suggest the falling raindrop is operating purposefully is anthropomorphic delusion.

I am sure that you can work out the purpose of rain, but I’ll state it for the purpose of clarity, it is to feed and nourish plants, so that seeds germinate and produce plants and seed that are food for animal, and new seeds to continue the cycle.

To then argue that this purposeful raindrop is evidence of supernatural agency is ludicrous.

Does it? Just think of all the cycles that spring out of this statement (your purposeful raindrop) rain comes from clouds that are evaporated and condensed raindrop, there is an atmosphere that hold them so that they will come down to earth to serve it purpose again and again, to think that all these wonders are the result of blind, directionless, purposeless, random occurrence, is irrational.

 

[BucephalusBB]

So yes I can say that by observing our environment and the orderly way in which everything works, we can know that there is a designer and creator that is God.

"We" can? You mean "you" can..
Because I can't..

I am sure that you can work out the purpose of rain, but I’ll state it for the purpose of clarity, it is to feed and nourish plants, so that seeds germinate and produce plants and seed that are food for animal, and new seeds to continue the cycle.

Different way of looking at it.. You start with the flowers and try to see what they would need. I would start with the rain, and see that the flowers benefid from it. The flowers don't need it for starter, they are like they are because they used it. And now they need it. Doesn't make it the purpose of rain though..

Does it? Just think of all the cycles that spring out of this statement (your purposeful raindrop) rain comes from clouds that are evaporated and condensed raindrop, there is an atmosphere that hold them so that they will come down to earth to serve it purpose again and again, to think that all these wonders are the result of blind, directionless, purposeless, random occurrence, is irrational.

All these wonders? Nope, patterns..
directionalless? Nope, they are going down. Because of what happened before.
Random? I don't think so, if you have all factors together, you can calculate preciselly where it is going to fall..

 

[emiliano]

{sarcasm}
But that is COMPLETELY different.
Why, you ask?
Because the <insert name of holy text here> does not say that God made the rain.
{/sarcasm}

This is a curious post, and I can’t resist curiosity and may die like a cat, but here we go. Strangely enough God create rain when He create the great flood, it did not rain before that event Gen 2:5 And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.
Gen 7:4 For in seven more days I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights. And I will destroy from off the face of the earth every living thing that I have made.
It didn’t rain from the sky in Noah’s time and vegetation was watered by Gen 8:2 Also the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and rain from heaven was restrained.
In this fashion Gen 2:6 But there went up from the earth a mist and watered all the face of the ground.
The holy text is called Genesis, but you have never read it, and you debate like a pigeon

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I am sure that you can work out the purpose of rain, but I&#8217;ll state it for the purpose of clarity, it is to feed and nourish plants, so that seeds germinate and produce plants and seed that are food for animal, and new seeds to continue the cycle.

What a childish and ignorant comment. Just think of all those sad, purposeless raindrops winding their way from their lofty heights and crashing ignominiously on the rocks of a planet millennia before the advent of plant life ...

Your inability to distinguish between purpose and effect is remarkable ...

 

[emiliano]

"We" can? You mean "you" can..
Because I can't..


Different way of looking at it.. You start with the flowers and try to see what they would need. I would start with the rain, and see that the flowers benefid from it. The flowers don't need it for starter, they are like they are because they used it. And now they need it. Doesn't make it the purpose of rain though..


All these wonders? Nope, patterns..
directionalless? Nope, they are going down. Because of what happened before.
Random? I don't think so, if you have all factors together, you can calculate preciselly where it is going to fall..

I am not clear on why should I need to start from the rain and the flower because without seed there would be no flower and the rain would have no purpose. The order is water> seed > plant> flower seed and again seed and plant, a self-sustained system. And they are not what they are because they use it, but because is the intelligent order of the system. All throughout the process there is direction, purpose/goal, order and intelligent design. If we reason this is like Aquinas said “Things in the world move toward goals, just as the arrow does not move toward its goal except by the archer's directing it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If we reason this is like Aquinas said “Things in the world move toward goals, just as the arrow does not move toward its goal except by the archer's directing it.

Yawn ...

 

[BucephalusBB]

I am not clear on why should I need to start from the rain and the flower because without seed there would be no flower and the rain would have no purpose.

My eyes are perfectly fine thank you, whatever you type will not become more real if it's bigger.. :flirt:
Maybe you should try colors or "comic sans" as font..

And I can think of reasons perhaps why there is rain, but I can't think of purposes either.
Than again, I don't feel the need for everything to have purpose..

 

[emiliano]

What a childish and ignorant comment. Just think of all those sad, purposeless raindrops winding their way from their lofty heights and crashing ignominiously on the rocks of a planet millennia before the advent of plant life ...

Your inability to distinguish between purpose and effect is remarkable ...

Now the existence of water in our environment has a purpose and is to nourish plant life, thus is was create before the plants “let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.
“Let the earth bring forth tender sprouts (the herb seeding seed and the fruit tree producing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself) upon the earth”
There is planing, direction, design, intelligent design.
Your inability to distinguish between purpose and effect is remarkable ??????
I am not arguing effect, but the purposeful intelligent design that is observed all around. I did mention effect in my response to you “1) Gravity exist and we know that it does by observing it effect on other objects in and around our environment”
Are you referring to that one?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Now the existence of water in our environment has a purpose and is to nourish plant life, ...

Read the following r-e-a-l s-l-o-w: repeating childish nonsense does not make it true.

 

[emiliano]

Read the following r-e-a-l s-l-o-w: repeating childish nonsense does not make it true.

I think that we exhausted this one, and really you are not debating, just insulting and glorifying yourself, so let look at 1. The "unmoved mover" argument. We know that there is motion in the world; whatever is in motion is moved by another thing; this other thing also must be moved by something; to avoid an infinite regression, we must posit a "first mover," which is God.

 

[BucephalusBB]

we must posit a "first mover," which is God.

Allright, first; who says there must be a first mover? Because you can't grasp it otherwise?

Second. I say, for example, the first mover was an explosion (not specially the big bang, just an explosion).
Now I don't need to wait for your answer, because again, you can't grasp that an explosion was first, because something must have made that explosion, right?
And you can't understand that an explosion just happened, but a mystical "something" wich you actually really don't know (AKA God) is much easier to understand :sarcastic

 

[McBell]

This is a curious post, and I can&#8217;t resist curiosity and may die like a cat, but here we go. Strangely enough God create rain when He create the great flood, it did not rain before that event Gen 2:5 And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.
Gen 7:4 For in seven more days I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights. And I will destroy from off the face of the earth every living thing that I have made.
It didn&#8217;t rain from the sky in Noah&#8217;s time and vegetation was watered by Gen 8:2 Also the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and rain from heaven was restrained.
In this fashion Gen 2:6 But there went up from the earth a mist and watered all the face of the ground.
The holy text is called Genesis, but you have never read it, and you debate like a pigeon

Wow.
talk about grasping at straws to protect ones box.

I think that we exhausted this one, and really you are not debating, just insulting and glorifying yourself, so let look at 1. The "unmoved mover" argument. We know that there is motion in the world; whatever is in motion is moved by another thing; this other thing also must be moved by something; to avoid an infinite regression, we must posit a "first mover," which is God.

Interesting.
But the problem lies with what moved God to be the 'First Mover"?
Oops.
God could not be the first mover then could he?

If you have to make exceptions in your line of reasoning for God, why can't others make the exceptions needed for their their opinions to work?

 

[Rioku]

I think that we exhausted this one, and really you are not debating, just insulting and glorifying yourself, so let look at 1. The "unmoved mover" argument. We know that there is motion in the world; whatever is in motion is moved by another thing; this other thing also must be moved by something; to avoid an infinite regression, we must posit a "first mover," which is God.

Your bold type makes me feel that this reasoning has to be more true then anyone else. But unfortunately like before this argument is one of two things. It is either a definition of god or an ignorant statement. In this context I will allow you to claim it is a definition of god but the rest of us here realize that it is just your ignorant statement.
If you say it is a definition of god then you are only saying that the fundamental laws of the universe are called God. This provides no evidence for a personal god that watched over everyone at all times.
On the note of an ignorant statement, you are saying that everything had to come from something and that something is god. Hence the ignorance, your statement only raises the question who created god? Others like you, hilariously, think a reasonable response to that question is god created god contradicting themselves altogether.

Side note: The ones like Jay who are not responding substantially do so because your argument is old and continually used and repetitively proven incorrect. So generally they do not bother with these basic arguments.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Allright, first; who says there must be a first mover? Because you can't grasp it otherwise?

Second. I say, for example, the first mover was an explosion (not specially the big bang, just an explosion).
Now I don't need to wait for your answer, because again, you can't grasp that an explosion was first, because something must have made that explosion, right?
And you can't understand that an explosion just happened, but a mystical "something" wich you actually really don't know (AKA God) is much easier to understand :sarcastic

I think this is a sad example of how people tend to associate "First Cause" with a series of events. There is another meaning to the term, you know. Sheesh.

 

[emiliano]

To Bouncing Ball, you wrote:

Allright, first; who says there must be a first mover? Because you can't grasp it otherwise?
Well, this got to do with the fact that this exercise (our discussion) has to have a subject, nothing is not a subject, therefore with can not proceed.

Second. I say, for example, the first mover was an explosion (not specially the big bang, just an explosion).

That&#8217;s an answer! You stated a first mover and you answer your question, there is a need to establish a first mover, now who will the mover/igniters/cause of the explosion? There is a theory around that says that it took two explosions, I call that one the Bang-Bang theory

Now I don't need to wait for your answer, because again, you can't grasp that an explosion was first, because something must have made that explosion, right?

By golly you are really good, your answer yourself again, it like you are talking to yourself. Do you do that often?

And you can't understand that an explosion just happened, but a mystical "something" wich you

actually really don't know (AKA God) is much easier to understand.

This is because effect without a cause is an illogical conclusion, if something happened it must have a cause, that is the observable reality that Aquinas uses in this proof. The bible put it &#8220;I am the alpha and the omega.

 

[emiliano]

To Rioku in answer to the Bold type, sorry but you are wrong, it nothing like that, it&#8217;s just that I am not a young person and need a big font to read what I am posting, and my dear fellow Aquinas five ways are not definition, they are proofs arrived to by natural observations and natural reasoning.
As for your side note, I had a look at Naturalism and found that is the revival of pre-Socratic philosophy that are mostly based on what is call the essential element, fire, water and other, and I understand his reasons for the eulogy for poor deceased rain drops &#8220;Just think of all those sad, purposeless raindrops winding their way from their lofty heights and crashing ignominiously on the rocks of a planet millennia before the advent of plant life&#8221; he is good sin&#8217;t he? A eulogy to the element, woe! water, all of this is a lot older than Aquinas argument, you seem to me as a very impressionable person and think that this is new knowledge and beliefs, but is not and reading them do not make you clever, or knowledgeable, there are not many naturalist.

 

[Rioku]

To Rioku in answer to the Bold type, sorry but you are wrong, it nothing like that, it’s just that I am not a young person and need a big font to read what I am posting,

Get Firefox and you can push Ctrl + "+" and you can increase the fount size.

they are proofs arrived to by natural observations and natural reasoning.

Incorrect, you may agree they are proof because you believe in god. However, they prove nothing, I will not bother to go step by step though them for it is meaningless. Rather I will point something out, he claims that the first mover is god. That is not proof that god exists that is a definition. So let us say, that there has to be a first mover and that first mover, is a natural law of the universe and the origin of which may never be found. My proof " which is not a proof at all" uses the exact same logic as your dear fellow Aquinas, the only difference is what I define as the first mover. Even more interesting they are equivalent if looked at as an equation. So like I said before all it does is provide a definition of God, which in my example God = as a natural law of the universe and the origin of which may never be found. And again I repete this provides no proof that there is a personal god who watches over everyone at all times.

Not to mention the argument is flawed in more then just the above explanation. You are claiming that god is the first thing and has always existed. Which it is sad that I have to remind you and all other theists how idiotic that idea truly is. Why do theists constantly refuse to accept that science can and has used the same logic but with fundamental laws as opposed to magical men in the sky? Why do you think it so crazy when scientists say there are fundamental laws that have always existed, and we may never find out where they came from?

 

[BucephalusBB]

This is because effect without a cause is an illogical conclusion, if something happened it must have a cause, that is the observable reality that Aquinas uses in this proof. The bible put it “I am the alpha and the omega.

You just gave me the the best answer you could give meh..

If God happened, what was his cause?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

If God happened, what was his cause?

Stupid question. Typical of atheists who doesn't know what they're talking about or think things through.

 

[Rioku]

Stupid question. Typical of atheists who doesn't know what they're talking about or think things through.

Stupid answer. Typical of theists who doesn't know what they're talking about or think things through.