The Existence of God

This once was posted on a blog a while ago. 25 reasons why he isn't no longer a Christian. Maybe 25 reasons for you?

1) The world simply does not behave the way described in the Bible
2) The words used to define Christian Doctrine are representative of things whose existence cannot be 'proved' outside of language
3) The Fall of Adam & Eve (and resulting Doctrine of Original Sin) is incoherent and contrary when compared to scientific evidence and other doctrines
4) The concepts of Heaven and Hell are equally morally and ethically reprehensible
5) Historical Evidence shows much of the Old Testament was appropriated from earlier Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Canaanite, & Persian Myths
6) The Account of the Flood and Noah's Ark bears striking similarities to the Epic of Gilgamesh and other pre-dating Creation/Flood myths
7) Persian Zoroastrianism altered Jewish Doctrine during the Babylonian Captivity
8) The influence of the pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch on the mystical Good-Evil dichotomy of Christian Doctrine
9) The influence of Philo of Alexandria on the development of Christian Doctrine
10) The ancient gods and goddesses that were assimilated by the Hebrews to become Elohim EL & Yahweh YHWH
11) Myths of Dying-Resurrecting God-Men Born of Virgins that Pre-Date the Story of the God-Man Jesus
12) The Problem of Evil (Theodicy) and the Hiddenness of God
13) Natural (Empirical/Scientific) vs. Supernatural (Faith/Language-Based) Belief Systems
14) The Gospels are not 'eyewitness' accounts but anonymous third-person narratives
15) The 'Evolution' of the Christian Canon and Jesus' Godmanship
16) Saul/Paul of Tarsus and the 'Re-Creation' of the Christian Myth
17) Archaeology and Biblical claims
18) Biblical Criticism: Findings as to Who - What - When - Where - How - Why
19) The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes
20) The Nag Hammadi Library, Ugaritic Texts, and Armana Tablets
21) Canonical and Extracanonical books, the Gnostics, and Church Councils
22) Examined objectively, the Bible is rife with errors, contradictions, misstatements, and inconsistencies
23) Belief, Doubt, Disbelief and Critical Thinking
24) Science and the Scientific Method
25) Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Evolution

 

Nothing can be literally created. Do you pay attention in Science class? Do you know of the Law of Conservation of Matter?

What currently exists has always existed, just in other forms. For example, if I burn coal for energy, the coal doesn't just disappear, it emits gasses and leaves used coal/ash. Similarly, nuclear energy doesn't just make the uranium disappear, otherwise there would be no nuclear waste.

Existence is absolute. If what exists today didn't exist previously, then there would be no such thing as existence. If there is no such thing as existence, then nothing exists - even a socalled omnipotent being which you have yet to account proof for.

 

If you believe there is an invisible giant man of a particular ethnicity in the sky who is directing everything and who is so hateful he will viciously punish us for challenging his existence either one way or another. To put it in a way its like your educated to the worlds past history and believing what others believe in.

 

Maybe you should elaborate a bit on each subject, as it looks more like you just copied a table of contents.

 

I doubt there is a God. I was raised Lutheran, however, as of now, I have high doubts. I wouldn't want to believe in a God that is so hating as he appears to be. It's ironic because people say he's all loving, etc., however he punishes you by sending yoou to "hell" for eternity if you don't believe in him. sounds like "he" needs a reality check if you ask me.

 

I for one do not believe in God. I also think that anyone that would give their time to appropriately research the topic would agree. However, i just wanted to state that the idea of a supreme being creating the universe is nothing new. For example, why should the Christian God exist while the Hindu God be classified as a complete hoax? Religion is merely a theory that people use the explain the questions that cannot be answered. The modern day Gods are no different than the Greek and Roman Gods, Zeus, Athena, Hades, Apollo etc....Furthermore unless you are free from being ruled by a fictional idea, you cannot officially be human.

 

What of other conceptions of God that do not include hell?

 

Well as with any religion that I'm aware of, there is a good and evil so to speak. So the hell I'm reffering to is in more of a general sense.

Limbo, Hell, etc, it's the same if you ask me.... Not real...

 

There are some theistic beliefs that embrace God, but do not address good or evil. What do you think of those?

 

Like which ones? I'm sure that religion will always have at least a decent moral code of ethics to govern its believers.

 

I'm not sure as to its name, but I know of some people who believe that a God (personal or impersonal, take your pick) exists, who is pure love.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is "What do you think of just the notion of a deity?".

 

I know many Christians who believe that their God is pure love.

Although the easier way of thinking how the universe was created would be to believe in a deity, I think that one should be able to have proof to back up a claim before making any assumptions. A deity may have created our whole universe, but until we discover enough evidence, then it is still uncertain.

 

There are two ways of knowing truths, though - experience and reason. What of the claim that the deity is logically provable?

 

How would you define reason?

 

no, i was brought up catholic though, and i went to a catholic highschool.
believing in something which can defy all science and create which we see is a little crazy :S

don't flame me, its my belief, i believe in facts.

 

It's essentially logical evaluation. Here's a nice little article on it: http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Epistemology_Reason.html

 

i think he means that a higher being is an irrational thing to believe in.

 

The senses have been known to trick the mind, so how can we be sure that reason is not flawed?

 

I did not write this but I thought it was interesting. xD





Look at your computer. Is there any doubt in your mind that someone designed it? Or do you think it just magically fell together over the last million years?

Now, take yourself. You may not know I exist, but you must be fairly certain you exist. Look at how complex your body is. It has five senses, can move in any number of ways, and can think and reason. Now if you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that someone designed your computer, how could you possibly not believe that someone designed you, being infinitely more complex than your computer.

If that isnt enough to convince you, take out your calculator. Press 'CLEAR'. What appears on your screen? A '0'. Now press 'clear' again. What appears on your screen? The zero never went away did it. Is zero the absence of everything, or is it something? If it's the absence of everything, than adding '0' after '1' would give you '1'. But we know adding '0' to '1' gives you '10'. So zero has substance and value. Jesus says "I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last." He says he is "eternal God". A zero has no beginning and no end.....it is a constant, neverending circle. You cannot get rid of it. If you did, the rest of the numeric sequence would fall apart, and you would have absolute chaos. Just as, if you take God out of our equation you are left with nothing but chaos. And the universe is highly ordered and structured.

If thats not enough proof, try throwing a stick of dynamite in your garage. If a palace emerges, the "Big Bang" theory is certainly plausible. If a chaotic mess emerges, which it most certainly will, we know that from chaos comes chaos. In order for a universe this complex to exist, and not a chaotic mess of ash, rock, and space, someone had to design it.

 

Agreed theres no way that this universe was made of nothing......
This universe has a meaning
Everything has a meaning....