Shoe is on the other foot: Prove there is not God.

[AK4]

The (idea) of god is substantiated but we have no evidence of God(s) so he/she/it/them is not substantiated.

...

Okay i got half of an admission. So you are admitting at least the philosophy and and rationale and science so far substantiates the "idea" of a God. So wouldnt that make all of creation itself evidence of God then? Be honest.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What is so difficult to understand? You CANT have nothing before the very thing that started everything. Its illogical.

But you're forgetting the eternal gopher. How can God be "the very thing that started everything"? The eternal gopher is eternal. God couldn't have "started" him.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Okay i got half of an admission.

No you didn't. You got a whole misunderstanding as to what I said or meant.

So you are admitting at least the philosophy...... substantiates the "idea" of a God

Yes. People believe "God" exist. He/she/it exist in their minds or has been thought into existence in an attempt to rationalize and understand the world around them.

and and rationale and science so far substantiates the "idea" of a God.

Yes. The science in the form of (Psychology). We have evidence that substantiates the belief in God. To date no one has been able to produce any testable physical evidence for God".

So wouldnt that make all of creation itself evidence of God then? Be honest.

Only in the mind of those who subscribe to blind faith. For the believer evidence of God is not a prerequisite.

 

[AK4]

And exactly the same reasoning applies to any necessarily existing, eternal concept! If the universe is self-existent, then there cannot be an external god.

But so far we know its not self existent. For the sake of argument, Self sustaining yes.

But there is no law of cause and effect! Do you see the dichotomy here? There is no demonstrable or logical law of causality and yet God is completely dependent upon it!

I believe the proper thing to say is there is no demonstrable or logical law of causality explainable on the sub atomic level yet. But let me ask ya, these things happening on the sub atomic level, do you believe there is a reason why they are doing what they are doing? That is what science is right? Now think about this, if there is a reason why, then that it the cause. Therefore cause and effect still stands.

This reasoning is known as the Cartesian Circle. Descartes reasoned that whatever he perceived clearly and distinctly was true, and these clear and distinct perceptions were true because God is good and he is not a deceiver.
Therefore a good God exists and that guarantees that his perceptions are true. And he knows this is the case because God is good and not a deceiver…and so on and so forth. Lol!
But God, if he exists, isn't all good as the Problem of Evil demonstrates. If evil exists then God, the supposed cause of all things existent, is directly implicated.

As you pointed out, this Descartes guy didn’t really know all about God then. He makes the common misconception about God. God does use things [people, angels, etc] to deceive. Heres a good verse that shows this

Pr 25:2 - It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

In the scriptures it shows God using lying spirits, satan, and other things to hide or conceal or blind or deceive someone from something it even says "I create evil". You are correct on your observation of that guy

I’m sorry but I believe you have the argument upside down. There is no evidence that material substances had a beginning. Things within the world come into existence and pass out of existence and then come into existence again ad infinitum, as matter takes on various forms. It is a constant chain of cause and effect, which is internal but contingent upon the world’s necessary continuing existence, not some unknown external being.So to prove your argument you need to show that the universe was caused. And then you need to show that it was caused to exist by a personal being

The Cosmic microwave background radiation is just one thing that shows the universe was caused. As for a personal being, although it states it in the bible I will say it with this analogy--- as some of the genes of the first man is still in your body to this day, working in you so as it is for God. God imparted some of His Spirit in man and is working in them pretty much the same way as my analogy except on a larger scale. I could show you many scriptures to back this up. In fact, the fact that we have no freewill shows that this being is personal. Everything we do is a reaction to circumstances and whatever first started everything is responsible for bringing in those circumstances. If we truly had freewill and this being created us outside of Himself and left us completely alone then one could say that He is not personal, but [using the “all paths lead to God” argument] we have writings that has Him “interfering” with creation, this shows Him as a personal being.

This is the very point I’ve made elsewhere. You need the world to argue to a Supreme Being who you want to believe created it, but if the world is the Supreme Being and self-existent, then it needs no explanation for its being and it needs no law of cause and effect! So if there is a personal God he needs a reason for creating the world, and if he has needs then he is not the Supreme Being, since by definition such a being has no needs, but has and is everything.

Theres a big difference between needs and wants. This personal being didn’t need a reason for creating the world, He wanted to. So in short, He wanted to create the world or universe because He wanted children and He wanted these children to be just like Him, in His image, to know good and evil.

Your fourth sentence is an example of question begging: you’re assuming what you want to conclude, which is that everything is in want of a cause! If that is to be the case then exactly the same applies to God! And if the response is ‘Oh, but God is the uncaused cause’, then precisely the same thing can be said of the universe, which happens to already exist in fact.

Okay lets give a cause for God the Father and this will show cause and effect also. Was God always a father before He created anything? Not possible. So God was caused to be a father after He had a Son, but God was not a father until He had a Son. And the Son being the very first thing ever created by God then right there would be a cause for the Father. Before that there was nothing else but God and in a sense, Him creating caused Himself to come into existence. BUT as you can deduce from this paragraph He always existed even before He started creating.

I don’t understand what you mean in sentence #1, but if something has a beginning it can only be described as such if we can observe the beginning. And there must first be nothing of X before X can be said to have begun.

Yes I think you just said the same thing here what I just said above. The true beginning of all things knowable is when God created His Son. Before that I don’t think its possible. The scriptures attest to how you can observe the beginning, and the beginning is in the Son and when you can observe the Son you are also observing the Father. Now them two are not a trinity or duality but when you observe one you observe the other because when the God created the Son, God became a Father. This explains the scripture where Jesus said “me and my Father are one”. One in spirit. This is how they both are the one God.

That really doesn’t address what I’ve written above. I’m saying if a thing is necessarily existent and eternal it doesn’t need a reason for it existence, be that God or the universe. But if the universe isn’t eternal, but was caused, then there must be a reason for its being caused.

Agreed

Yes, that’s right.

Basically the same answer as above. He wanted children and He started with His Son. This should also answer the personal being question.

 

[AK4]

But you're forgetting the eternal gopher. How can God be "the very thing that started everything"? The eternal gopher is eternal. God couldn't have "started" him.

Lol. Eternal gopher. Ah the bait game. Ill bite. There no proof of a eternal gopher because gophers were created, man has named gophers, and gophers get killed.

 

[tumbleweed41]

I think I am done wasting my time on a lost cause.......

 

[AK4]

Yes. People believe "God" exist. He/she/it exist in their minds or has been thought into existence in an attempt to rationalize and understand the world around them.

Like what i answered to another poster, where did they minds, the ability to think and reason, the circumstances that made them think the way they do come from or better stated, who or what started the whole thing.

Yes. The science in the form of (Psychology). We have evidence that substantiates the belief in God. To date no one has been able to produce any testable physical evidence for God".

All good science is evidence for God. Have you read the Finger print of God?

Only in the mind of those who subscribe to blind faith. For the believer evidence of God is not a prerequisite.

Yeah and thats why they easily get stomped by those who dont believe. Blind faith is the opposite what God teaches.

 

[AK4]

That is based on the pure assumption that they were created

No just the opposite, it is pure assumption to say they always existed. Again no evidence of ANYTHING in creation of being eternal. So which is the bigger assumption

For this argument we shall refer to the Christian Bible as scripture, after all, it is you who claimed that the Bible was able to be substantiated.
And your strawman of global warming is irrelevant to the discussion

.

Oh my analogies are strawmans but you guys aren’t? LOL. I believe you guys use this when you don’t have an answer.

1 Corinthians 10:11 refers to those who were struck down by snakes and angels for denying Jesus.
Hebrews 10:1 refers to the strict Hebrew Law.
So no, your cherry-picked references bear no fruit.

No matter how much try to context that, it is not just talking about the snakes and its not just talking about the law. You guys kill me. Cherry picking? Again you show me that the writers of the NT didn’t do this. I can show you what God says about “Cherrypicking”. By your definition, Jesus cherry picked. You listen to this “scholars and theologians” and you end up being confused about the bible just as they are.

Show me what the Word says about "cherrypicking" if you can.

 

[AK4]

I think I am done wasting my time on a lost cause.......

It is a losing battle for you. Dont give up, think of the little engine that could. "I think i can, i think i can"

Just a little humor, nothing serious okay

 

[Demonic Kitten]

I think I am done wasting my time on a lost cause.......

I think you would have an easier time explaining things to a brick wall...

 

[AK4]

I think you would have an easier time explaining things to a brick wall...

I feel ya. A child understands sometimes more than adults.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Lol. Eternal gopher. Ah the bait game. Ill bite. There no proof of a eternal gopher because gophers were created, man has named gophers, and gophers get killed.

Not the eternal gopher. How can something eternal have been created or be killed?

 

[AK4]

Not the eternal gopher. How can something eternal have been created or be killed?

Nah it just turned into energy and later itll reform into a gopher again. See hes eternal

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Nah it just turned into energy and later itll reform into a gopher again. See hes eternal

So... can an eternal god do the same thing?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Like what i answered to another poster, where did they minds, the ability to think and reason, the circumstances that made them think the way they do come from or better stated, who or what started the whole thing.

Your assuming "some one" had to start the whole thing. No one is in a position to know. You attribute that which you don't know or have any understanding of to "God"....without having any evidence for the very thing you are attributing your understanding to.

All good science is evidence for God.

No it isn't. You sound like (http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/members/mickiel-15475.html).

 

[McBell]

Is there not enough evidence out there all around you to show you this? You had a beginning, are you saying nothing else came before you? How about the your parents? And before them. And before them. And before them. Etc etc etc all the way back to a very beginning point. Now is there something before that point? To say there is utterly illogical and silly.

You did not prove anything.
Who are you trying to convince with the above nonsense, me or yourself?

What is so difficult to understand? You CANT have nothing before the very thing that started everything. Its illogical.

If we go with your logic then God had to have a creator.
Who or what crated god?

You are real good at not answering direct questions.

Apparently you didn’t do what I said because if you did, youd see the utter nonsense of earth being in place of land.

Apparently you are not going to answer with anything other than non-sense.

 

[cottage]

But so far we know its not self existent. For the sake of argument, Self sustaining yes.

We do not know the world is not self-existent. To demonstrate that we would need to show an external creative and sustaining power. No such thing is evident.

I believe the proper thing to say is there is no demonstrable or logical law of causality explainable on the sub atomic level yet. But let me ask ya, these things happening on the sub atomic level, do you believe there is a reason why they are doing what they are doing? That is what science is right? Now think about this, if there is a reason why, then that it the cause. Therefore cause and effect still stands.

But that’s not really the argument. Nobody seriously denies the principle of cause and effect: all our reasonings from experience depend utterly upon causality, and were we not able to call upon that phenomenon we would be unable to get through a single day. Causation isn’t demonstrable (meaning it isn’t self-evidently true). Analytic or necessary truths are true because they cannot be false. ‘Gasoline is highly flammable’ and ‘humans can’t exist without oxygen’ are only contingently true statements, but ‘God cannot not be God’ is necessarily true just as a triangle has four sides is necessarily false. ‘God cannot not be God’ is necessarily true and ‘God is the omnipotent being’ is analytically true. We cannot conceive of God to be sometimes not God or lacking in power without uttering a self-contradiction, but there is nothing contradictory is conceiving of an object remaining stationary when struck, regardless of the power applied to it, or water bursting into flames. God cannot by definition be dependent upon any feature found in the material world. You could annihilate all the laws of nature and every scientific principle and God the Creator would not be in the least affected – with the sole exception of the law of causation! Annihilate causation and God is no longer the Creator, which means ‘God is not God’ is true! Traditionally the Problem of Evil has been the only argument that demonstrates that God, as he is understood by the three main religions, to be impossible. But now we can identify that God can be not God without self-contradiction, because if cause isn’t necessary, then neither is God!

As you pointed out, this Descartes guy didn’t really know all about God then. He makes the common misconception about God. God does use things [people, angels, etc] to deceive. Heres a good verse that shows this.

In the scriptures it shows God using lying spirits, satan, and other things to hide or conceal or blind or deceive someone from something it even says "I create evil". You are correct on your observation of that guy

Descartes reasoned from his own imperfections that perfection itself must lie outside of his being, and that God doesn’t deceive those whose faith is sound; hence a perfectly good God exists (which in turn underwrites the truth that whatever he clearly and distinctly perceives is true because a perfectly good God wouldn’t deceive him). But I agree that the Biblical God is bloodthirsty, racist, threatening and vindictive, and that the quotation from Isaiah confirms this.

The Cosmic microwave background radiation is just one thing that shows the universe was caused.

I respectfully disagree. A thing can be said to have had a beginning when it is observed to begin, but we can’t argue that the physical world began at point x because that’s saying the physical world observed its own beginning. And science isn’t an argument for science in the same way that logic cannot be used to argue for logic. But this thread isn’t a discussion about cosmology; it is about the existence of God, a supposed supernatural being. And the matter can only be settled ontologically. It is impossible to argue from the experiential world to some supposed world beyond experience. Prove God, not by speculative inferential arguments from the material world or by circular reasoning, but by logic: show how God, the Almighty creator of all existent things, the explanation for reality itself, cannot logically fail to exist?

Everything we do is a reaction to circumstances and whatever first started everything is responsible for bringing in those circumstances. If we truly had freewill and this being created us outside of Himself and left us completely alone then one could say that He is not personal, but [using the “all paths lead to God” argument] we have writings that has Him “interfering” with creation, this shows Him as a personal being.

That our will is subject to the nature and demands of the universe is undeniable. And there is no argument (that I’m aware of) that shows this not to be the case, or that there are further demands imposed on us by some other supposed external thing.

Theres a big difference between needs and wants. This personal being didn’t need a reason for creating the world, He wanted to. So in short, He wanted to create the world or universe because He wanted children and He wanted these children to be just like Him, in His image, to know good and evil.

But of course God would need a reason for creating the world, in this case his son. We don’t want things for which we have no need (although in the case of humans we might find afterwards that don’t really need them). But a ‘need’ logically precedes and then entails the reason.

Okay lets give a cause for God the Father and this will show cause and effect also. Was God always a father before He created anything? Not possible. So God was caused to be a father after He had a Son, but God was not a father until He had a Son. And the Son being the very first thing ever created by God then right there would be a cause for the Father. Before that there was nothing else but God and in a sense, Him creating caused Himself to come into existence. BUT as you can deduce from this paragraph He always existed even before He started creating.

Fathers bring sons into the world through biological means with a female person. But you’re presuming to argue by analogy from those physical events that occur in the experiential world to supposed mystical ones that are beyond experience!

Yes I think you just said the same thing here what I just said above. The true beginning of all things knowable is when God created His Son. Before that I don’t think its possible. The scriptures attest to how you can observe the beginning, and the beginning is in the Son and when you can observe the Son you are also observing the Father. Now them two are not a trinity or duality but when you observe one you observe the other because when the God created the Son, God became a Father. This explains the scripture where Jesus said “me and my Father are one”. One in spirit. This is how they both are the one God.

Forgive me, but these explanations from faith don’t explain God and nor do they explain how the universe could be observed to begin existing before it existed!

Basically the same answer as above. He wanted children and He started with His Son. This should also answer the personal being question.

A physical universe brought into existence by a non-physical being is difficult enough to explain. But a physical universe that is brought into existence by a non-physical omnipotent being who has everything and yet has needs to father children is completely incoherent; it is an example of absurdly projecting anthropomorphic qualities onto the concept of Supreme Being. The absurdity can be demonstrated by instantiating the concept without those anthropomorphic qualities, which means that a Supreme Being who is omnipotent and all sufficient but has no needs or wants is logically superior to one who does. And as there cannot be two Supreme Beings it will not be the anthropomorphic one.

 

[godnotgod]

Wrong. The scriptures say from Him [God]. So where do you find from nothing there?

As I said previously, if we discard the Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy, which state that you cannot get something from nothing, then God is a magician, unless he had a personal stash of matter laying around from which he produced the universe. Now, if that is the case, that original stash of matter is eternal and as old as God himself; that is to say, it has always existed. That means that the universe has always existed, as far as accounting for where its matter originated from. If you say that it came from God, what do you mean? That he pulled it out of thin air? In that case, God is a magician, and the conservation laws are out the window. Science is meaningless. So, in either case, whether God created the universe ex nihilo, "out of nothing", or whether he created out of his own being, we have a magician on our hands.

Where did your mind come from?

There is no such thing as "the mind": it is a self-created principle, so it did not come from anywhere. It is an illusion. Can you tell me the exact location of your "mind"? No one has yet been able to do so.

Who/what gave you the body to case your brain to have chemicals produce thoughts? Who/what gave you a universe to have a galaxy to have a solar system to have a sun to have an earth to have the elements to make your body so you can have a brain so you can have chemicals so you can even conceive something in your mind an entity called God?

I, like you, and everyone and everything else, grows out of the universe in exactly the same way that an orange grows out of an orange tree. The ego creates the idea that you are a separate entity, apart from the universe, that has a body, a brain, a mind, and that there is an entity called "I" that thinks. These are all concoctions of the ego. You are not a separate ego acting upon the world. There is no "self and other". "God" is but a projection of your own ego.

Can you tell me the location of this entity you refer to as "I"?

As Deepak Chopra explained:

"I" don't exist in the first place! Wisps of memory and threads of desire, which are specks of information, latch onto specks of consciousness and show up as recycled human beings. But in the bigger picture, the observer, the observed, the process of observation, is a single reality..."I" am a transient behavior of... the total universe."

James Randi's Swift - February 02, 2007

Lets just go with what you said. Then explain how this universe got there? Explain which state came first, the on or the off? You cant even at all say off because if it is off, what turns it on? If you say itself then there is no way it was ever off. Can a light switch turn itself on? Even a programmed timed light switch doesn’t explain what programmed it to turn back on. You may say it programmed itself when it was on. Okay you still face the conundrum of when it was off how did it turn on the first time because it was not even programmed yet. Your analogy fails also in trying to make the universe eternal and self existing.

Firstly, I buy neither the theist nor the atheist views of the nature of the universe. It is neither an externally created artifact nor fully automatic. It is alive and conscious. You are still caught in linear thought. What you call the universe is not the reality. You are looking at something and interpreting it through the filters of Time, Space, and Causation. You assume firstly that the universe is a created thing. The filters through which you see it is what is causing your distorted view, as when you hold a straight stick in water. It appears bent. You are looking at the distortion and calling the distortion the universe. It is an illusion, an apparition. Remove the filters of Time, Space, and Causation, and we find that the Universe is actually the Absolute itself. The problem is both that the Absolute is masquerading as the Universe, and that the observer sees the masquerade incorrectly. Now, if you can somehow grasp the idea that the Absolute is at one with the Universe, even though the forms that the Universe manifests itself as are temporal, you might begin to see how such a Universe can be both eternal, and have on/off phases. You have to get behind the Universe as it is manifested, to the stuff that all forms are made up of. Now, when science does this, if finds not much there at all, mostly empty space. So science seems to be confirming the illusory quality of matter! And the "stuff" behind what makes the Universe tick is intangible pure consciousness. You might say that the temporal is infused with the Absolute. They are actually one, but due to a defect in thinking of the rational mind, we conceive of them as separate, the one acting upon the other. We do not see how a Universe can, instead of having been created from the outside, unfolds from the inside out, and that the creative force, the Absolute, is the responsible agent. In other words, the Absolute is manifesting itself in temporal forms. Now you see it; now you don't. When we look at all of existence, we find that it follows this pulsating pattern of on/off, up/down. The light bulb, the Absolute, is still there even when the Universe is in the "off" phase. Otherwise, it could not be the Absolute, and it is the Absolute that flips the switch to turn the universe back "on", but, unlike a mechanical switch flipped on by the flipper, the universe is the Absolute itself, switching itself on and off from within. You and I are simply projected manifestations of the universe having switched itself back on. Cool, eh?

God is not a magician and By that logic, everything weve discovered then is dead. Do you really believe what you said is logical? Using what you said lets say “as a universe can be explained is a dead universe”. Now does that make sense?

Yes. Nothing that has ever been discovered and explained can account for a universe that is alive and conscious. All that can be said is how the universe behaves, but that tells us nothing about its true essence, its very nature. And the reason for that is because we imagine that God is a "maker", and that the universe is made from the outside, rather than manifested from within. A universe thus created, is subject to destruction. It is an artifact, in the same sense that a pot is an artifact of the potter. We cannot understand the true nature of the universe by explaining it in rational, logical terms. The logical, the rational, must ultimately be abandoned so that another kind of insight comes into play. Buddhists call this other kind of mind "Big Mind".

"I have learnt that the place wherein Thou art found unveiled is girt round with the coincidence of contradictories, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein Thou dost abide. The door whereof is guarded by the most proud spirit of Reason, and, unless he be vanquished, the way in will not lie open. Thus 'tis beyond the coincidence of contradictories that Thou mayest be seen, and nowhere this side thereof."

Nicolas of Cusa

Adventures in Philosophy: Classical Essay

Come on, are you really thinking this through before you type it? UNI verse means it’s the only one. This does not say there is nothing outside of it. UNI cycle, is there only one UNI cycle? Is there nothing beyond that UNI cycle? Come on now.

That analogy is incorrect. UNI cycle refers to the fact that it used only one wheel. Uni-verse means One in the sense that there is no other. That is what the universe is. It is singularly everything. Everything is everything. Nothing can exist outside of everything.

I showed how an on/off universe is not logical above

You have shown nothing of the sort. You are using human logic to try to explain the logic of the Absolute. In order for you to catch a glimpse of the logic of the Absolute, you must first abandon your own limited logic, and then have your mind raised to the level of the Absolute. That is what Jesus was trying to tell his audience when he told them they were mistaken to think they would find eternal life within the scriptures, ie; the explanation of the spiritual experience, rather than the spiritual experience itself. It is also what the serpent in the Garden was referring to when he told Adam and Eve that God did not want them to eat of the "Forbidden Fruit" because they would then "see as He sees". We are talking here about none other than Higher Consciousness.

 

[AK4]

So... can an eternal god do the same thing?

Apply this question to your question. Can a God destroy Himself and still exist? This is what you are saying of this gopher.

 

[AK4]

Your assuming "some one" had to start the whole thing. No one is in a position to know. You attribute that which you don't know or have any understanding of to "God"....without having any evidence for the very thing you are attributing your understanding to.

But you assume that no one can have an understanding of God. Not only is the science evidence and philosophy evidence so is what speaks to your inner spirit.

No it isn't. You sound like (http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/members/mickiel-15475.html).

If it aint for a God then what is it for? An ultimate starting point? Same thing. The good science is trying to show or prove that something is there is it not?