God most likely does not exist

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God.

Who is He? Is 'He' even a 'He'?

What is He like?

Are any of the existing religions/ideologies adequate to know Him?

Does God even exist?

Does science refute His existence?

These are among the questions that as humans, we have naturally over one time or another throughout our lives.

I see God as a myth.

There is so much evidence weighing against the notion of any deity existing for that matter, that it simply is unreasonable to believe that any do exist.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

If the sort of God you're talking about should logically be preventing all tidal waves, then evidence can be used against God's existence. Any evidence for the existence of tidal waves also counts as evidence against that sort of God!

However, if you're talking about a more minimalist definition of God, like the "prime mover" or the "ground of being" or the "highest good" or something, then evidence is not at all relevant. You need to use careful philosophical arguments to decide whether or not this sort of God exists. There are many good arguments for a minimalist God's existence, but all of them require certain technical premises that not everyone is committed to.

I think that atheists should learn to not feel threatened by the idea that someone might be convinced of a minimalist God's existence on philosophical grounds. But when they start claiming that God has interfered with the physical world in a certain way and told us what to do, that's when you should be very skeptical.

I personally think that the universe has been running on systematic rules since the beginning. No walking on water, no divine dictations of books, no answered prayers. I don't think that any of the mainstream religions are true, since they all claim a special historical revelation. I do think that God exists, but I don't think that God has ever interfered with the universe after creating it. In fact, I don't even think that God "can" interfere. It's just not in God's nature to do some silly magic trick.

I believe in God I am a devout christian and a Methodist but I have no problem with those who do not believe in God.

In my Philosophy class we spoke of this. That God is simply a contradiction. They talked about how if God could make a rock that even he could not lift. Which then would not make him all powerful. They also spoke of the very fact that if God is all knowing, all powerful, and all kind [benevolent] then why do certain things exist. If God is all kind then why is there necessary evil, we spoke of the fact that people say so God can test our resolve. However, then why doesn't God make some evil exist and some don't? If God is all Kind why would he create newborn babies with diseases? Or cause children to live on the streets? Etc.

God is a contradiction. God cannot exist. God does not exist. God is simply a man made creation from years ago. Look at any tribal society still. African tribes use magic and rituals as a way to explain science. God existed and magic existed becuase back then we did not have the knowledge of science as we do now. Now that we do know how things work, now that we have evidence and are learning more and more there is no need for magic in our societies. There is no need to explain the natural world through magic or through God because that isn't how the natural world works.

@shrox

No offence, but I really don't understand your responses.

The existence of a divine being who created to universe is not something that is impossible. It is just entirely impossible to know. There is no evidence either way: the deist position is plausible, the atheist one also, but in the end, the answer is beyong our understanding, beyond the reach of human reason. God's ways are indeed mysterious.

However, awaiting from him any kind of further intervention is a completely different question, and starts being rather unlikely. And then the Bible comes into play, and then it's just strange.

The Ancient Testament is a document of prime importance in the study of semitic peoples.

Not to blaspheme or anything, but if both man and woman are created in his image, it follows that god is a tranny.

On the one hand... A lot of things exist. A lot of very intricate things. The chances of something as incredible as the human brain just coming to be on its own would seem extremely unlikely. And then there is the fact that something - *anything* - ever existed at all. Logically, it shouldn't.

On the other... A lot of things, in a lot of religions, don't make a lot of sense to me either. With many religions, if you ask enough questions, you'll inevitably get some answers that only make sense if you believe what they said in the first place. It seems to fall into a pattern of circular logic until you blindly agree to believe, or blindly refuse to consider it.

(Personally? You could say I'm an atheist. I don't "believe" in anything, per-se. However, I have yet to hear a more rational explanation for how anything exists. And until I do, I'm inclined to go with the majority opinion.)

Aristotle would say that God was the first mover who created the universe. But not necessarily the God in terms of Christianity. I tend to agree with him.

Unless, you can give me his phone number?

God may chose to answer prayers His way, so Christians say so no matter what the out come it is always in His favor. I call it Christian Speak. I see the world in black & white and Christians would say that God created me. So why is God so distant? He appeared in the Bible and after the resurrection. Why not appear now? Emanate parousia? Sorry for Bible Terms I spent three years in Seminary. The Second Coming was supposed to emminent.

God is very vague. I need concrete. Praying to God is no different to me than praying to my car. Sorry, I don't mean to offend. But I have been deep in church politics and seen the other side.

From Wiki...

"The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a First Cause (or instead, an Uncaused cause) to the universe, and by extension is often used as an argument for the existence of an "unconditioned" or "supreme" being, usually then identified as God. It is traditionally known as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the argument from existence. Whichever term is employed, there are three basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: the arguments from in causa (causality), in esse (essentiality), in fieri (becoming), and the argument from contingency.

The basic premise of all of these is that something caused the Universe to exist, and this First Cause must be God. It has been used by various theologians and philosophers over the centuries, from the ancient Greeks Plato and Aristotle to the medievals (e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas) and beyond. It is also applied by the Spiritist doctrine as the main argument for the existence of God."

It is interesting that Aquinas was the first to basically introduce the rebirth of Aristotle, all theologians prior were in line with Plato. But a further look into Aristotle God or the First Mover is not the same view as God of the Bible.

I'll end with this which sums it up pretty well. I have a Master's in Philosophy.

http://www.enotes.com/aristotle-65684-r ... /aristotle

Aristotle and the divine
Aristotle's views about religion and divinity play a role in his overall conception of the cosmos and its workings. In Book Eight of his Physics, he describes what he calls the "Unmoved Mover" or "Prime Mover," which is the ultimate source, or cause, of motion in the universe, but is itself unmoved. For Aristotle this is God, who dwells at the circumference of the universe and causes motion by being loved. The closer to the Unmoved Mover a body is, the more quickly it moves. Although the Unmoved Mover is God, it did not create the world, which Aristotle regarded as uncreated and eternal. As the prime mover, God enjoys the best kind of life, being completely unaware of anything external to itself and, being the most worthy object of thought, thinks only of itself.

Aristotle's God was clearly not a divinity to be worshipped. Apart from serving as the ultimate source of motion, God, ignorant of the world's existence, could play no meaningful role in Aristotle's natural philosophy. Nevertheless, Aristotle seems to have had a strong sense of the divine, which manifested itself in a sense of wonderment and reverence for the universe.

Aristotle's sense of God was unacceptable to Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Although Plato's concept of a God who created from pre-existent matter was also unacceptable, it was far more palatable to monotheists than was Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, who did not create the world. Indeed, it could not have created the world because, argued Aristotle, the world is eternal, without beginning or end. Aristotle insisted that the material world could not have come into being from another material entity, say B. For if it did, one would have to ask from whence did B come? Such an argument would lead to the absurdity of an infinite regression, prompting Aristotle to argue that the world has always existed, an interpretation that posed further problems for Muslims and Christians. Consistent with his assumption of an eternal world, Aristotle regarded creation from nothing as impossible.

Aristotle's concept of nature was fully compatible with those of the major religions. Indeed he provided basic interpretations that were widely adopted. Aristotle distinguished four operative causes in nature:

the material cause, or that from which something is composed;
the efficient cause, or the agent that made something come into being;
the formal cause, or the characteristics that make it what it is; and
the final cause, or the purpose for which something exists.
It is the last cause that makes Aristotle's system teleological. Although he did not believe that conscious purposes existed in nature, he was convinced that processes in nature aim toward an end or goal and that "nature does nothing in vain." It is therefore appropriate to characterize Aristotle's natural philosophy and science as teleological, a view of nature's operations that fits nicely into the Christian conception of God's creation.

The manner in which Aristotle argued and rendered judgments provoked Christian theologians in the Middle Ages. On a number of issues, Aristotle produced arguments about the physical world that led him to conclude the impossibility of certain phenomena. For example, in the fourth book of Physics, Aristotle argued that the existence of a vacuum is impossible inside or outside of our world. Space is always full of matter, which resists the motion of bodies. In the absence of matter in a vacuum, resistance to motion of any kind would be impossible. Without resistance to its motion, a body would move instantaneously, which is impossible.

In the first book of his treatise On the Heavens, Aristotle showed the impossibility of the existence of other worlds. Our world, Aristotle argued, contains all the matter there is, with no surplus left to form one or more other worlds, from which he concludes that "there is not now a plurality of worlds, nor has there been, nor could there be."

Aristotle also argued that without exception all accidental propertieshat is, properties that are not essential for the existence of a thinguch as colors, the height of an individual, the size of one's foot, and so on, had of necessity to inhere in the substances of which they were the property. It was impossible that an accidental property exist independently of its subject.

In these, and similar instances, Christians were alarmed at the implications of Aristotle's arguments, for it seemed to place limits on God's absolute power to do whatever God pleased, short of a logical contradiction. Did those who accepted Aristotle's natural philosophy and metaphysics believe that God could not supernaturally create a vacuum just because Aristotle had argued that it was naturally impossible? Did they believe that God could not create other worlds if God wished, simply because Aristotle had argued that other worlds were impossible? And did they regard Aristotle's argument as unqualifiedly true when he declared it impossible that accidents of a substance could exist independently of that substance? The latter claim violated the doctrine of the Eucharist, namely that when God transforms the bread and wine of the Mass into the body and blood of Christ, the accidents of the bread and wine continue to exist without inhering in any substances. The uneasiness with limitations on God's absolute power led theologians in the thirteenth century to place restrictions on Aristotle's natural philosophy. Despite the attempt to circumscribe Aristotle's ideas, the effort did not in any way dampen the enthusiasm with which his works were received in the Latin West, where, during the fourteenth to early seventeenth centuries, they functioned as the curriculum in the arts faculties of virtually all of the sixty to seventy universities that had come into existence by that time.