Is the existence of God necessary?

Probably what he's referring to is, if God can hypothetically "occur" without a tangible reason to do so, then the Big Bang as it is known follows the same logic - another way of putting it is an antithesis of the statement:
"If God doesn't exist, what caused the Big Bang?"
Which is: "Then, what caused God to exist?"

I guess it can be summed up with the words "a universe from nothing." It's a bit of a paradox, because if time is a strict progression between cause and effect, that means that, yes, something had to precede the Big Bang, but that also means that something had to precede the hypothetical God.

 

Swan's got it right, and he explained it better than I did :love:

 

But time is a man-made concept. It is not a strict progression between cause and effect if there is no method of measuring any of these things. So, in essence, "time" does not exist, therefore there is no "before" or "after" the Big Bang -- there just is. The very concept of anything preceding anything is nullified at this point in the universe.

 

Incorrect. The measurement of time is relative, certainly, but time itself exists regardless.

Even if there is no-one around to experience it - even if mankind didn't exist whatsoever - a radioactive sample will still have a halflife. Stars will still be born and will die. It takes an amount of "time" for this phenomena to occur, but the only thing that is man-made about it is the relative scope we use to perceive it

因みに、なんで日本語？

 

Not true - time is relative, but it is not a man-made concept, and it most certainly exists after the Big Bang.

Here's something you might find interesting regarding the 'time' before the Big Bang that doesn't quite answer the question, but is interesting nonetheless. It's actually about how the universe might end! (and begin again, but I digress).

It's called The Big Crunch. Even then though, it doesn't explain how we started.

Food for thought: If that does happen, and the universe moves to a higher energy state - you won't be dead. You won't have died, you won't even have ever lived. Time simply starts over from 0.

Pretty nifty, eh? This sortof ties into your point about nothing existing before the Big Bang, but it doesn't discredit my argument - both points defeat each other.

Anyways, back on topic and ignoring that, I still think that morality is subjective. An objective moral reality is incongruous with popular theism, as morality *coming from God* would be subjective, and to state that morality exists outside of God is this chicken/egg again.

 

私はUnb4nn3dに日本語を話す。

Morality is subjective. As a social construct, it almost cannot exist objectively. However, morality -- subjective or otherwise -- will still exist outside of theism/God.

http://www.sythe.org/something-all/1646145-objective-morality.html

 

なるほど。少しだけ文法が間違っているけど、他人のメンバーが日本語が出来るってのは面白い。大体の欧米人がアニメや漫画しか知らないので、言語も習うのはすごく良いと思うぞ。

I'd go as far as to say morality can't exist objectively whatsoever. That's the default hypothesis. It's impossible to prove, of course, however inductive reasoning suggests that morality is constrained to one's particular race and/or social environment.

I agree with you that God is unnecessary for morality, but I'd also go one further: if there is a God, I'd hypothesise that it would not have any responsibility for morality whatsoever, as it is objectively seen that morality shifts with the eras. As an example, it wasn't all that long ago that simple profanities such as the word "damn" were not allowed on television or even in social discourse whatsoever.

I find it interesting that people are willing to accept claims that morality stems from religion, when the only evidence is a book full of outdated moral codes.

 

Isn't it more than likely that we exist in a computer simulation? Surely there will be more powerful computing beyond what quantum mechanics may offer

 

I don't know --> construct radical hypothesis --> Given the same lack of evidence as a God, this is somehow more likely?

It really isn't because there's no evidence to suggest that it is beyond your conjecture.

 

Swan while I agree with most of your comments because of your experience and your common sense I must say that I don't believe in God either but I would say that there's some kind of strength beyond all of us and beyond all of our minds. Just think about it. How did a person create a computer? Who did invent it? Just by matching some pieces somebody just tried and "WOALAH" made a computer? I don't really know if there's a God in this planet but I can't say that he did something good to the human being. I mean, as you've said in other thread and it perfectly fitted with my thinking "If you need a surgery and you visit a doctor to make an operation to you in order to survive, you will still thank god because he "rescued" you from the death? No, you will need to thank the doctor who have cured you from that shit because if you wouldn't visit a doctor and believe in "God" you would die." I liked that quote and I respect you because you state good points of view every time I see you around but agree that some people need to believe in some beliefs in order to feel themselves better. Like Muslim people believe in "Allah", Jews believe in "Torah", Christians believe in "Jesus Christ" and so fucking on. I don't really like religions but whatever, I consider myself more atheist than a "believer" but this is not the case. I believe in a weird strength which has nothing to do with God or whatever. We just need to respect each other and as long as the religions don't collide then we're all fine and I could care less if even someone believe in a cat and then call him god. As long as they don't touch me and my family they can do whatever they please.

 

Please consider the original purpose of both this post and this subforum, first of all. The point of posting here is to provide discussion for the necessity of a higher power however this tends to be abstracted in to religious beliefs in general. If these beliefs are merely posted and not actually discussed then this post should be locked or moved to the spam forum.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your comments is, but out of curiosity if you think I am being disrespectful I absolutely welcome you to point out where, and more importantly why it is disrespectful.

Now, I did not actually say that his conjecture was impossible. I did not even attempt to confirm or deny it. What I addressed was his concept of "more likely", as something cannot have a higher probability of occurring if there is no evidence to suggest that the conjecture holds true in the first place. Ergo ipso facto, if evidence is not provided then you cannot quantitatively claim much about your conjecture, and you shouldn't attempt to.

Now, back to the topic: I understand that Gods and beliefs in general are very comforting ideas to a lot of people. I would be lying if I said there weren't things I wish were true myself. However to look at reality in an objective manner you need to understand the non-evidential nature of beliefs and faiths, and admit to the possibility of being wrong. While the comforting beliefs may provide a possibly false happiness (possibly true, also, but there is nothing to suggest so), burying your head in the sand when faced with the logical dilemma of lacking evidence will never get you anywhere.

 

Your argument is a fallacy. A (and B) are only sufficient conditions for C, not necessary conditions (in their current form - perhaps they are indeed necessary and you have simply not yet shown them to be so).

 

i think yes.

 

I find it funny how most of you argue about the bing bang and probably have no clue about it.

Would be really good for you to read this (and do your own research as well):

http://www.cnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-makes-it-clear-there-is-no-god/

 

What is so credible about that? The premise of this thread is in the title. The known existence of God is not necessary, but crucially beneficial to society as time goes on. Evolution did, and does not create morals. It's an influence through human interaction that was magnified by religion.