Does God exist?

Saw this on Reddit, thought it was somewhat relevant although some points may be wrong.

http://i.imgur.com/YVOwZ.png

 

No matter what anybody says, there is scientific evidence on how the earth came around etc. Along with many other things such as evolution.

The god theory however suggests the world was built in 7 days and men came around all of a sudden.

Which seems the most likely? come on people, this is the 21st century.
If God is real then he is a liar, evidence shows how the earth really came around.

 

To me, Yes and I will forever believe in him no matter what people have to say about it. I leave people who don't believe alone so I'd hope they do the same to me.

 

Is there anything in particular that makes you believe in God so strongly?

 

This may be stupid, but it is the belief in God that makes God exist

 

This made me laugh a little bit. Screw logic!

 

I believe there must be some type of creator, but most of the
time when people look up to god & or religion is when they have
a bad obstacle they gotta pray and pour hope in a virtual being
just like a little kid keeps his teddy to be safe at night..

Science might be my best god. & we will all see @ death ^_^

 

The thing about "god" is that we don't know what it is. God, as most theists describe it is omnipotent, and not bound by space and time. Now, this means we can't see god in our own reality, which means it doesn't exist (in our reality). When theists claim that they know what god is, and how it is by giving him such characteristics such as "merciful", "forgiving", etc. they take away that omnipotence and its (for lack of a better word) credibility. It is impossible to know what god is or what he is. The truth is, if god does exist, "it" does not exist in our dimension/reality. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, maybe in another dimension or alternate reality, but I highly doubt the current theist's understanding of "god" is the correct one.

 

PEOPLE! God will not reveal himself on an open platter. We are just so insignificant to think we can demand proof. Why would ants demand proof from god, who are those ants to be asking those questions.

God exists. Something cannot come out of nothing. The only explanation is a god existing that us humans have no capability of explaining.

 

Then what created God if something cannot come out of nothing? ^^

 

Same question can be asked about the universe. If you can answer that, then your answer can be applied to God. But why include God in the equation, you may ask? Wouldn't it just complicate things even more? The thing is, some people may argue that there is a necessity for God to exist prior to the universe, because of evidences of intelligent design on the Earth (DNA, laws of Physics, and whatnot).

If God were to exist in a realm where the time dimension is nonexistent, there would be no 'creation' of Him. He'd simply be 'always there'.

Note that I'm not talking about 'God' of the scriptures. Just simply the idea of a higher, more intelligent being than us.

 

It can't in a metaphysical sense. The question over what created the totality of all existence is a nonsensical question.

It's not a question. God is an existent in the universe. The universe is the sum of all existents.

Right, Occams razor.

Again, an existent (God) cannot exist before existence (the universe). Also, there really is no evidence for Intelligent Design. Things are complex, things are 'perfect'. So what? Therefore something must have done it? That is a quintessential argument from ignorance.

Sure, but that does presuppose his existence, and the existence of said realm.

It doesn't make a difference. You are arguing over the existence of entity X. Substitute any noun you want for entity X, it's still the same thing.

 

Since "God" is a proper noun in the title I will assume it means the Christian God. If that's the case then no, it doesn't exist.

How could humans possibly know the existence of this God and his doings? They couldn't, it's impossible. Now, a god in general is a different beast.
Once you take away the human idea of god and their stories, you get something that's completely open ended.
God could be there, or god could not be there, it's impossible for us to know based on our relatively tiny standpoint in the universe, but it is impossible to deny the possibility.

The mistake that people usually make is the idea that this god has to have a purpose, or even direct involvement with the making of our world or other worlds.
What if it was all an accident, what if this god's existence mearly just set off a series of events that eventually led to us? What if it's all just coincidence?

We can't know the answers to these questions until we have more proof, which I doubt we will have sufficient amounts any time soon.

 

But I wasn't speaking in a metaphysical sense. Metaphysics deals with the essence/nature of 'being', not just 'being', or the 'being', itself. It essentially takes us a step backwards. Metaphysical arguments won't get us anywhere, as we can't really even prove that the computer we're using exists.

If you're going to take the definition of 'universe' as the essence of existing rather than a closed (yet possibly expanding) loop of what does exist, then God being the beginning of this universe and expanding upon it with more objects of existence fits in this definition. God being the biggest object of existence, where the other objects include the planets, stars, etc. also fits in this definition. Then we fall back into the question of where God came from. So, we remove God from the equation, and just assume the objects of the universe always existed, or had some scientific explanation of how they came into existence (Occam's Razor). Why can't the same theories be applied to God, if one concludes there could possibly be evidence of intelligence within our universe? Read on, I don't want to repeat points multiple times

You're assuming there is only one universe, and that nothing can exist outside of said universe, because you're defining 'universe' as to be all that exists. 'All that exists' is limited to our capability of understanding. Such definition completely ignores the concept of a multiverse, or infinite universes. I'd prefer to use the phrase 'the totality of all that exists' than 'universe' for what you're trying to say. The definition of universe is vague. Some sources define it as such (all matter and energy, including the earth, the galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space, regarded as a whole) - the definition I'm using, whilst others define it like this (the totality of everything that exists or is known to exist). Your definition of universe includes pretty much everything - including what could possibly be in other dimensions. In such a case, God wouldn't be the creator of the universe - rather, just a part of the universe, and possibly the creator of others parts of the universe, since 'universe' would really mean 'existence'. The definition I'm using is the universe as we know it - the planets, stars, etc. within our understanding of the world (3 dimensional space, with the possibility of a time dimension).

In any case, this still means that the theories that have been conjectured to apply to the universe as we know it can also be applied to God, especially if He exists within said universe.

Again, you're assuming there is only one universe, and you're taking the definition of universe too literally. We're not talking about the notion of existence - we're talking about what we know that does exist - the planets, the stars, possibly dark matter, etc. The universe can expand. If God exists, He could be the first object of existence, and later expand the universe with other objects of existence. Essentially, at one point in 'time', before these other objects of existence were created, God would be the universe.

If I were to make a huge ant farm and place it in a dark room for years, to the ants, their little farm would be the universe, and the darkness would be their 'dark matter' (assuming they develop into scientists and can determine that there are strong gravitational fields out there). I would, essentially, be their 'God', and the creator of their little universe. However, I could be in Jamaica, sunbathing in, what to the ants, would be a 'different universe'. I existed before the ants' universe existed. It may be hard for the ants to understand, but in such a case, it is true. Such case could also possibly be applied to us humans, just with a different point of view.

And not necessarily complex/perfect. DNA, for example, is a code - a language, much like binary. Binary required a designer. To our current knowledge, we don't know of any naturally occurring codes - abiogenesis cannot explain DNA or RNA. To say that DNA is evidence of intelligence is not ignorance, as we have examples in real life of codes that were created by intelligent beings (binary). To say that DNA proves there was intelligence beforehand is ignorant. Read carefully - in my initial post, I said 'evidences of intelligence', not 'proof of intelligence'. I'm open to changing my view point, but at science's current progress, there are no naturally occurring codes. If I'm ignorant, then so is science. DNA can always be considered as evidence of intelligence, and if science shows that codes can occur through natural processes, then DNA can also be interpreted as a byproduct of natural processes. Whichever type of evidence that DNA becomes essentially corresponds to the observer's viewpoint. Till this date, however, one can only view DNA as a sign of intelligence, or reject this and 'hope' that in the future, the other option of it occurring from natural processes will become available.

Of course! I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying it could fit in logically (to our current knowledge). That's why I began the sentence with 'if'. My point from the beginning, essentially. If you can explain where the mass of the universe originated from (which supposedly was 'always there' - the Big Bang was pretty much just the creation of time), then the same can be applied to God (my first point to the other poster). Then, the question comes of, "Why do we need God?" As I've said before, there are evidences (not proof), of intelligence. I'm open to science showing that all of these evidences can come from natural occurrences, but till our current knowledge, there is no reason to believe that they do.

Yes, exactly! Put anything you want in there. God, Pink Unicorn, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russell's Teapot, etc.

The only reason I say this is because I don't want people bringing religion into the debate, putting religion into my mouth, and then attacking what they essentially brought up in the first place. I'm not fighting for 'the God that said the Earth was flat, because obviously it is round, so He must not exist'. I'm just debating against the notion that there simply is nothing else out there.

Edit: You brought up Occam's Razor. But you see, removing God from the equation generates a whole new set of hypotheses - such as abiogenesis, the creation of RNA and DNA, the creation of the laws of Physics, etc. to the world. Essentially, adding God to the equation would lead to the removal of these hypotheses and hence, fewer assumptions in the long run. It only adds the assumption that 'God exists'.

But Occam's Razor shouldn't be taken as an absolute truth. Just because a hypothesis has many more assumptions than another, doesn't mean it is wrong.

 

WOW. I can't believe that there's more nos than yes, I believe in God, I'm a Christian Catholic. We studied the bible, and all of it's data is accurate. For example: The bible says that the world is a sphere, right before the spanyards reached back spain going from east to west.

 

Probably a poor choice of words on my part. I meant the philosophical definition of the word universe, as opposed to the scientific version (more on that soon).

The definition of the universe is: the totality of all existence.

Why is it then nonsensical to say that God created the universe, or, God created existence? The answer is somewhat axiomatic. If God created the universe, that implies that God is something. But if God is something, that implies that existence has already existed. If however God created the universe, and he is in actual fact nothing, then...

I think I've addressed this above.

Since this is corollary to the above, I'll skip it, and read on like you said!

I don't think so. The totality of all existence means EVERYTHING. Your last statement 'all that exists is limited to our capability of understanding is incorrect. Reality is not subject to our capability, reality exists independent from us. For example, if we all die, reality goes on, this was the case for the past 13.7 billion years. To claim that stuff that exists is dependent on our conscious capacity to understand it is to claim the consciousness is primary, essentially meaning reality is subjective.

This is probably my fault from the beginning. The multiverse is a scientific hypothesis based on the scientific definition of the word universe. At least, it's application in science is different from its application in philosophy, or, at the very least, different from the definition I'm using.

The former is the more scientific definition. I don't wish to concern myself with that, I'm not a physicist. The latter, I agree with up until 'known to exist'. Whether or not we know something to exist doesn't mean it doesn't exist. For example. When we discover a new planet, we are by definition discovering its existence as opposed to mentally creating it. Whether or not we have the capacity to observe certain planets doesn't mean they don't exist.

If they exist, then sure. Obviously we would require evidence of their existence first before we seriously consider them.

Well, I reject that definition for the purposes of the debate. I say this because, put it this way, God either exists, or he doesn't exist (law of the excluded middle). If he exists, then he MUST certainly exist somewhere within the totality of all existence. But, he may not necessarily exist 'understanding of the world'.

Absolutely. Unless of course, like many people profess, God violates them!

This is consistent with your definition, but not mine. With your definition, I agree.

Different definitions of the universe have lead to this analogy. Sure, I agree with what your saying (so long as the ants lack the capacity to comprehend Jamaica), but this is still not consistent with my definition of the universe. Namely, there would only be one universe.

It was hyperbolised, but you cannot deny that the relative complexity.

The most honest answer is 'I don't know'. The truth is though, the general arguments people make are 'look at the complexity of life, I cannot fathom how this came about naturally, therefore God did it'. In your case of DNA is evidence, it's essentially saying we have DNA, therefore God exists. Why can't we say o, look at the water boiling, that's proof of Gods existence.

I may have skipped over it. Run me over why you think DNA is evidence of some sort of higher intelligence.

Parts of this are covered above.

You forgot faeries!

Sure.

O, no no! You don't have to accept abiogenesis as the creation of life from non-life (and subsequent RNA, then DNA). You should however accept that the laws of the universe exist... But you could not know why, or how, you just know that they do. Now, Occams razor is essentially: fewest assumptions, equal weighting. Now, replacing everything with entity X did it could possibly reduce the number of assumptions (though you are replacing it with a huge assumption, as it is a very strong claim). But have you satisfied the equal weighting? I would simply say no.

Absolutely.

 

Allah Almighty Exists.

This post has been infracted.

 

God can have come from nothing, by your own logic. Therefore god has always existed. It's just as possible that there is something that contains our universe that has always existed that caused the big bang. I could make up about 9000 different explanations all of which could make much more sense than any of the millions of gods that have been proposed over the years.

It is a common misconception that people thought the world was flat. Every major civilization has figured out that it is a 3 dimensional roundish object. Columbus thought it was like a pear.

Also, what Bible verse says it's a sphere? I recall it saying circle.

Also, you are a Catholic? All of the data is accurate? Then why did the church refuse to accept that the earth revolves around the sun for hundreds of years? Why does the church accept evolution which clearly shows that the entire beginning of the bible is completely fictitious?

 

This is the difference. Your definition of universe is less scientific than the one I'm using. Essentially, you're speaking of properties - I'm speaking of objects. I agree that speaking of properties is completely nonsensical - hence why I'm not speaking of properties. If I'm arguing for the existence of King Arthur, I'm not arguing for the existence of human beings (a property of King Arthur), I'm just arguing for this specific instance of a human being. If I make an apple pie, I didn't make the starch molecules of the crust, I didn't make the apple, etc. - I just simply made the apple pie. So you're right, it is nonsensical, but again, this is NOT the definition of universe that I'm using.

Look at it this way. Let's say I imagine a being - a flying, pink unicorn, with a spaghetti tail and faerie wings. Now, this information would be stored in a few (probably a lot more than a few) memory cells in my brain, so philosophically, some may argue that it does exist, as its nature is in existence. But scientifically, it doesn't (to our current progress in science).

I don't like mixing up science and philosophy. I don't mean anything against you, but I find philosophy more impractical than science. This is why I have stuck with the scientific definition, and have given various hypotheses (which you have agreed upon) which fit in our current mode of science (but of course, are not necessarily true).

No, this is not what I meant by all that exists. As in, thousands of years ago, people would think that all they could see, hear, touch, etc. was all that exists. Later, science has now reached the point where we can measure things that we cannot see - such as electromagnetic waves. My point being, is that we may not be able to understand the concept of a God because such God could exist in, for example, a different dimension than ours - something science has no concrete proof of yet.

Yes, but the definition from my initial post appeared clear (at least to me) of being the scientific one, as by asking for an answer to the beginning of the universe, I was implying the Big Bang, which obviously utilizes the scientific definition of the universe. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but essentially, I'm arguing from a scientific point of view, hence why I tried ruling out metaphysics, religion, etc. from the argument.

Yes, the part of the second definition that you don't agree with actually refers to the scientific definition of universe as well (the second definition was from Wikipedia, if you're concerned). Again, I feel like we're arguing on two different things here - I really only came here to argue about the existence of God scientifically rather than philosophically, as that was the implication I was getting from the poster I initially replied to.

Of course. It's just another hypothesis.

Of course, but the totality of existence is probably even much more huge than the scientific definition of the universe, so surely finding no evidences within our universe doesn't imply that He doesn't exist. Again, multiple dimensions, multiple universes, etc. Also, don't forget, the laws of such different universes could be different than the laws governing our universe.

'Violate', as in existing within our scientific universe, then yes, I agree. But our theories of the universe only apply to the scientific definition of the universe. If we were to take in the totality of existence, we don't know what other rules could govern another universe, dimension, etc.

Okay, but this debate initially came from my claims, which were based on the scientific definition of the universe.

To be honest, science has already shown complexity through natural processes, so I won't argue that complexity is a sign of intelligence.

I said before that complexity doesn't really show a sign of intelligence, but DNA does, because it is a code - a language. And again, I said it's not proof, it's evidence, so it's not essentially saying 'Wow, look, DNA is complex, this cannot come naturally, therefore God did it'. There's no 'therefore' - this isn't a proof. DNA is like a function - it maps from point A to point B - much like binary, HTML, PHP, English, French, Latin, etc. Every DNA strand carries information that is encoded and must be decoded - much like a language. To our current knowledge, we only know that languages are designed by intelligent beings.

Above.

Plus, this is what I said before:

"And not necessarily complex/perfect. DNA, for example, is a code - a language, much like binary. Binary required a designer. To our current knowledge, we don't know of any naturally occurring codes - abiogenesis cannot explain DNA or RNA. To say that DNA is evidence of intelligence is not ignorance, as we have examples in real life of codes that were created by intelligent beings (binary). To say that DNA proves there was intelligence beforehand is ignorant. Read carefully - in my initial post, I said 'evidences of intelligence', not 'proof of intelligence'. I'm open to changing my view point, but at science's current progress, there are no naturally occurring codes. If I'm ignorant, then so is science. DNA can always be considered as evidence of intelligence, and if science shows that codes can occur through natural processes, then DNA can also be interpreted as a byproduct of natural processes. Whichever type of evidence that DNA becomes essentially corresponds to the observer's viewpoint. Till this date, however, one can only view DNA as a sign of intelligence, or reject this and 'hope' that in the future, the other option of it occurring from natural processes will become available."

Yes, faeries as well

But that's the thing - people cannot keep any holes within their understanding (such as dark matter explaining why there appears to be large gravitational forces in the universe), and must replace it with a theory rather than admitting they do not know. In that case, they are simply adding more complications to the equation. Personally, I do not know how life was created. But I don't think abiogenesis was the way.

Whether it's a huge claim or not really depends on the observer. Some people may claim that it simplifies the whole equation, some may say it makes it more difficult (based on 'weight' being included in the definition of Occam's Razor). In the end, what is it? It's subjective.

In any case, Occam's Razor, as I've said before, doesn't really get us anywhere

 

While I am a follower of Jesus and believe in a greater power, I am a bit skeptical about religion and the bible. I mean, it WAS written by man and I wouldn't be surprised if some things were wrong.



But that may be because I'm looking at things superficially. I really should start searching for answers myself >_<