What is your best evidence for a god?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No. Science has unwittingly answered that question, in discovering that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” Which means that energy, in some form or another, has **always existed**. This would explain the eternal nature of God.

It's funny when theists with no understanding of science try to argue for their gods "scientifically."

You do realize that you just argued that your god is finite, subject to the laws of physics, and is doomed to inescapable death by entropy?

The funniest part: you didn't even properly argue that God has existed forever.

Wait... no. The funniest part is that you contradicted your earlier claim about how "nothing comes from nothing."

 

[nPeace]

The appeal to complexity is a logical fallacy. This does not lead to a god. Merely because we see something that looks complicated there are many naturalistic explanations. Did you eliminate all of the possibilities before “filling the gap” with a god.

I said nothing about complexity. Why have you created a strawman?

 

[nPeace]

would you say the mind of God is more or less complex than the mind of that mouse?

ciao

- viole

What does that have to do with anything I said.
Why do you create a strawman about complexity, whenever design comes into your focus?
Is it because you find the evidence for design problematic to your position?

 

[nPeace]

For me the Bible and this world is the best evidence for God.

Did you mean this earth / planet? 1 John 2:15-17

 

[Windwalker]

I personally don’t feel I have sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a god and I am genuinely interested to discuss what has convinced people that there is such a being.

First you have to clarify what you mean by God. Since you said "a god", then I assume you mean a cosmic entity somewhere in some other dimension that the "big guy" who thought up a bunch of stuff, came up with a plan, and spit it all out at Creation? That of course is a clear child's anthropomorphic idea of God. Others prefer to understand "God" as Ultimate Reality. Ultimate Reality can be understood and experienced in differing ways, and religions are mainly just a vocabulary to try to convey, describe, and invite people to investigate. Some are very child-like views of That, others more sophisticated views.

Is there evidence of this existing? Yes. People's experiences of it are. Researchers have mapped out these experiences and they all follow comparable patterns. The evidence of these patterns, is in fact something the rational mind can be satisfied with in accepting that they really do exist in human experiences, factoring out cultural and linguistic influences.

People who are advanced meditators can tell you of the reality of an Ultimate Reality, which can be called many things: God, the Tao, Oneness, Brahman, etc. All of which convey the sense of Absolute, or Ground Reality, from Zen Buddhism, to Christian mystics, to Hindu mystics. A mystic is an investigator of the Divine, or the Ground of Being that is in all of us. They are a following a discipline in their investigations of Ultimate Reality. And so these all point to the same underlying experiences common to each of them, within their own cultural symbols and languages.

So what you have then is something you can consider from a rational perspective as evidence that there is something there. You have the fingerprints of recognizable patterns as evidence. And then from a heart, or maybe better to say a human intuition, one can sense these things that are interconnected as reported by the mystics. It's something there for all of us as humans, simply waiting for the correct crack in the ground between our constant thoughts to speak to us from within ourselves. It is a matter of introspection to actually investigate it. And when you do enter into that state of Awareness, it is a taste, it is an experience of whole beingness, connected with everything, and Absolute Truth.

So, I use the term God to describe that. And I think when people imagine God as an entity, a being outside themselves and creation, they have not come to understand that the symbol is not a literal thing, but simply wings to carry you to something that cannot be described, other than to say it is Truth. So, yes, I "believe in God", in a sense. But it's really better said as I recognize God.

 

[syo]

what has convinced people that there is such a being.

Maya is barren. Alone it can do nothing.

 

[sun rise]

So, God is the dreamer? And when he wakes up he realizes that it was all fake? If that is the case, then the Universe and people/souls are not real.

Since you quote Ramana Maharshi in your signature, what I'm writing about is nothing other than the same understanding of maya and advaita as Bhagwan spoke about but without his realization and in my own words and thus without the careful precision of his speech.

That is not evidence for a God.

I did not claim that. I wrote that it was part of my personal understanding.

 

[osgart]

On the contrary- everything points to humankind being an accident. We live in a massive universe, in a very ordinary solar system (universally speaking) Around 9 billion years after the the universe is created the earth forms. Then for 4.5 billion years species come and go on the planet. If just one extinction level event had happened differently an ancestor that led to humans could have been wiped out. About 200,000 years ago against all odds humans appear to live in a world that is mostly too warm or too cold for us to survive, wild animals, disease, ice ages and our own desire to wipe ourselves out make life perilous. A human centric arrogance leads people to believe the world was made for us. However, we have been here for a blink of an eye in the cosmic scheme of things and I would say the dinosaurs have far more claim than us as they existed far longer. We are certainly a unlikely, if albeit lucky accident.

That totally skips over my point and asserts without any support that we are accidents.

I never said we were important to the universe we live in. Arrogance is a bald assertion.

You suggest that real humility is not finding significance in simply being alive. That's bogus.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

It's funny when theists with no understanding of science try to argue for their gods "scientifically."

You do realize that you just argued that your god is finite, subject to the laws of physics, and is doomed to inescapable death by entropy?

The funniest part: you didn't even properly argue that God has existed forever.

Wait... no. The funniest part is that you contradicted your earlier claim about how "nothing comes from nothing."

Wow! Must've touched a nerve. It made too much sense, huh?

 

[ratiocinator]

No. Science has unwittingly answered that question, in discovering that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” Which means that energy, in some form or another, has **always existed**. This would explain the eternal nature of God.

No. Energy is not some sort of eternal 'stuff' - it's a quantity that is conserved because the laws of nature do not change over time, just like momentum is conserved because the laws of nature do not change from place to place (Noether's theorem). Its conservation in special relativity gets mixed up with momentum in the same way as space and time do, so any frame of reference will see conservation of energy and momentum but won't agree on which is which (the invariant is the energy-momentum 4-vector). In general relativity its conservation is not well defined at all (Conservation of Energy - Relativity).

So, as @9-10ths_Penguin has pointed out, you've made your god entirely dependent on the universe at its laws.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

So, as @9-10ths_Penguin has pointed out, you've made your god entirely dependent on the universe at its laws.

I'm sure glad we have you to explain all the forms & facets of energy!
Tell me, what is the essence of energy? Define it, please.

 

[ratiocinator]

I'm sure glad we have you to explain all the forms & facets of energy!
Tell me, what is the essence of energy? Define it, please.

It's not very easy to put it into a simple English phrase because it takes many forms and one basically needs mathematics. If you have any actual interest, you could read this: Mass and Energy

 

[Fool]

Thought so. Some book told you.

i don't fall into the anthropomorphic, dualistic category regarding a god divided/separate from self. if you have a problem with books or someone else telling you something, then you have a huge problem because love is an underlying need in both science and religious books. the mind isn't something you can control so easily and as such, is outside of another's control.


research agrees that the nature of a person is to love and be loved. even psychopaths want to be loved. they are just incapable of returning it..


so in the sense of divinity love is a fundamental underlying cause. life and well being depend on it at all ages.


The Need to Love

How does love affect your well being? - Baltimore Magazine


so god, love, is like the universe. it isn't something you'll find separate from you but something you discover as something in you as a part of it.

you still believe it as something dualistic.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Wow! Must've touched a nerve. It made too much sense, huh?

Your deflection adds to the humour of your position.

 

[1213]

Did you mean this earth / planet? 1 John 2:15-17

Everything that exists.

 

[Quintessence]

I personally don’t feel I have sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a god and I am genuinely interested to discuss what has convinced people that there is such a being.

Existence is a painfully low bar to clear, honestly. Those who don't believe there is sufficient evidence for the gods have this happen to themselves because they hold to one or more of the following assumptions:

• On Defining Reality. Those who can deny the existence of gods hold an ontological perspective that defines existence and reality narrowly enough to exclude the possibility of gods from consideration.
• On Defining Gods. Those who deny the existence of gods hold an understanding of what gods are that is narrow enough to exclude them from consideration.
• On Defining Evidence. Those who deny the existence of gods must disregard or limit the forms of evidence they consider in order to maintain their position.

The converse of these are also true for those who accept the gods - they define reality in such a way that allows for gods, define gods in such a way that allows for gods, and assess evidence in a way that allows for gods. It's not really that complicated, honestly, but it does all rest on one's foundational assumptions that in of themselves are not provable one way or another. It's a matter of what story you want to tell and why. When it comes to the gods, "evidence" for the gods really isn't the point of embracing that idea in one's life. It's much more about recognizing there are forces in the universe bigger than you are and respecting that in some way.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Your argument is nothing comes from nothing therefore god. Can I ask what other possibilities you have explored and eliminated? How do you know that there is not an explanation that you have not considered?

Please tell me what other rational explanations you think there are?

For example we know, from repeated observation and experimentation, that only intelligence provides organization of functional complex systems.

If you've reached your conclusion that there is no god because of all the ill effects on this Earth and god's apparent absence....well, that's another topic for a different thread. And I can understand why a person would come to that belief based solely on such reasoning. (I found the Bible gave me a satisfactory answer, btw.)

To me, though...it's not just that 'stuff' exists. It's the organized, functional, and interactive nature of the 'stuff.'

Take care, my cousin.

 

[nPeace]

Because it bears marks of manufacturing.

Very good. Why though?
The intricate parts are all put together in a very ordered, or systematic way.
The other question is, does my circuit board work?
Well, if I put it into the computer for which it was designed, all the ports when connected, should fire up my machine.
Why? Because each connected component on my circuit board was specifically designed 1) according to a plan, 2) with specific requirements, 3) intended for reaching a specific purpose, or goal.

Because it doesn't bear any signs of manufacturing and instead, all the signs of evolution - a known, observed, explained and demonstrated natural process which literally results in natural design.

A "natural process which literally results in natural design"?
Please explain what natural design is.

The human brain contains, it is believed, at least about 10¹¹ neurons, and possibly more than 125 trillion synapses (or points of contact with other nerve cells.) just in the cerebral cortex alone (according to one source).
However, another source says...
The number of synapses in the brain is known much less precisely, but is probably about 10¹⁴. For instance Human-memory.net reports 10¹⁴-10¹⁵ (100 – 1000 trillion) synapses in the brain, with no citation or explanation. Wikipedia says the brain contains 100 billion neurons, with 7,000 synaptic connections each, for 7 x 10¹⁴ synapses in total, but this seems possibly in error.
Another way of saying, we don't know, but astounding.
According to this article though, they are really stretching assumptions.
So we'll bring it down to 50 trillion... to be fair.
.
Consider that the brain is our circuit board.
Are these components intricate, put together in a systematic way, according to plan, with specific requirements, intended for reaching specific purpose, or goals?
Would all the nays respond.
We are not aware of serious suggestions that cells other than neurons or glia play a computationally significant role in the functioning of the brain.

When plugged into the machine, our body, does the brain work?
No question. All its connections work, and what is more, there are other "circuit boards" working with it.
Consider...
The brain has to coordinate the movement of some 100 muscles in your tongue, throat, lips, jaw, and chest. All those muscles have to move according to precise timing if the words are to be understood. Regarding the ability to speak languages, a study published in 2019 showed that newborn babies can pick out individual words. This finding reinforces what many researchers believe - that we are born with the ability to recognize and learn languages.

That's just one area of the "machine".
If we were to zero in on the tongue alone, there is still a lot of unknowns, but with the brain, human can taste hundreds of different flavors, and can sense every object, even the tiniest bone, on the tongue... all with the connected "circuit board" - our brain.

If that is not enough evidence of a designer - as it is obvious our bodies give evidence of design - requiring a designer, then I see no need to provide further evidence, as great as it is.

Please explain how the above bear the signs of evolution.
Natural design? Let's see that.

This is nice.

Although I know that's not what you have in mind. Let's see what you have.

 

[nPeace]

Everything that exists.

Even the bad and ugliness?
Just teasing.

 

[Heyo]

Very good. Why though?
The intricate parts are all put together in a very ordered, or systematic way.
The other question is, does my circuit board work?
Well, if I put it into the computer for which it was designed, all the ports when connected, should fire up my machine.
Why? Because each connected component on my circuit board was specifically designed 1) according to a plan, 2) with specific requirements, 3) intended for reaching a specific purpose, or goal.


A "natural process which literally results in natural design"?
Please explain what natural design is.

The human brain contains, it is believed, at least about 10¹¹ neurons, and possibly more than 125 trillion synapses (or points of contact with other nerve cells.) just in the cerebral cortex alone (according to one source).
However, another source says...
The number of synapses in the brain is known much less precisely, but is probably about 10¹⁴. For instance Human-memory.net reports 10¹⁴-10¹⁵ (100 – 1000 trillion) synapses in the brain, with no citation or explanation. Wikipedia says the brain contains 100 billion neurons, with 7,000 synaptic connections each, for 7 x 10¹⁴ synapses in total, but this seems possibly in error.
Another way of saying, we don't know, but astounding.
According to this article though, they are really stretching assumptions.
So we'll bring it down to 50 trillion... to be fair.
.
Consider that the brain is our circuit board.
Are these components intricate, put together in a systematic way, according to plan, with specific requirements, intended for reaching specific purpose, or goals?
Would all the nays respond.
We are not aware of serious suggestions that cells other than neurons or glia play a computationally significant role in the functioning of the brain.

When plugged into the machine, our body, does the brain work?
No question. All its connections work, and what is more, there are other "circuit boards" working with it.
Consider...
The brain has to coordinate the movement of some 100 muscles in your tongue, throat, lips, jaw, and chest. All those muscles have to move according to precise timing if the words are to be understood. Regarding the ability to speak languages, a study published in 2019 showed that newborn babies can pick out individual words. This finding reinforces what many researchers believe - that we are born with the ability to recognize and learn languages.

That's just one area of the "machine".
If we were to zero in on the tongue alone, there is still a lot of unknowns, but with the brain, human can taste hundreds of different flavors, and can sense every object, even the tiniest bone, on the tongue... all with the connected "circuit board" - our brain.

If that is not enough evidence of a designer - as it is obvious our bodies give evidence of design - requiring a designer, then I see no need to provide further evidence, as great as it is.

Please explain how the above bear the signs of evolution.
Natural design? Let's see that.

This is nice.

Although I know that's not what you have in mind. Let's see what you have.

Just to get the distinctions right, what, in your mind, is not constructed?