Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

Is there any proof God exists?

Page 78 of 105 [ 1680 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 ... 105  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

daniel1948
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Age: 75
Posts: 62
Location: Spokane, WA

27 Mar 2015, 12:06 pm

AngelRho wrote:
How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


We don't assume the Bible is wrong just because it's ancient. Rather, we say that because it was written and compiled by people who did not know the first thing about the laws of nature, it is not a reliable source of information. Further, we have clear evidence of numerous errors in it. Therefore it is not inerrant. And if it makes some errors, then nothing it says can be taken on faith without supporting evidence. It also contains so many contradictions, that some of its statements must be wrong.

So we have:

Authors who don't know what they're talking about;
Statements that are demonstrably wrong; and
Internal contradictions.

All of this leads to a very unreliable source. Not everything in the Bible is wrong, but a lot of it is wrong.

You, on the other hand, assume it is true just because it claims to be the word of god.



trollcatman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Dec 2012
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,919

27 Mar 2015, 12:09 pm

AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:

There are still three problems:
1- I didn't see any proof that an infinite chain of causes is impossible.
2- I didn't see any proof that uncaused causes are impossible.
3- I don't follow the "therefore --> God".

And of course, it does not mean that the "God" is YOUR God, it could just as well be someone else's God(/s) :twisted:

The question was how one can prove there is a God. A logical proof was given. This response is an example of goalpost-moving. You got your proof, so now you're going to demand proof for something tangential?

This is interesting, well…almost…because it demonstrates how quick one can be to unreasonably hand-wave something that is reasonable.


I responded to this: "An infinite chain of causes is impossible, therefore God must exist."
No evidence is given for the first half of the sentence, so I'll just dismiss it for now.
The second half does not follow from the first half, so we are left with pretty much nothing.

Hand waving+goalpost moving = rational thinking?


How is this goalpost moving? I was responding to that one sentence, which was just a statement without anything to back it up. Maybe the poster gave evidence in the other 82 pages but I can't keep up with this thread.
- "an infinite chain of causes is impossible" no explanation given as to why
- "THEREFORE God must exist" no idea how you can arrive at this conclusion based on the preceding bit

I have not even said anything about the existence of God or anything else, just that this one sentence is pretty useless. I'm personally both atheist and agnostic, I wasn't raised in a religious way so my default position is "probably no gods", but I am aware that I don't know for certain. I don't think any discussion of "first causes" or other causality things are going to give definitive proof of either the existence or non-existence of God/gods.



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:15 pm

daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


We don't assume the Bible is wrong just because it's ancient. Rather, we say that because it was written and compiled by people who did not know the first thing about the laws of nature, it is not a reliable source of information. Further, we have clear evidence of numerous errors in it. Therefore it is not inerrant. And if it makes some errors, then nothing it says can be taken on faith without supporting evidence. It also contains so many contradictions, that some of its statements must be wrong.

So we have:

Authors who don't know what they're talking about;
Statements that are demonstrably wrong; and
Internal contradictions.

All of this leads to a very unreliable source. Not everything in the Bible is wrong, but a lot of it is wrong.

You, on the other hand, assume it is true just because it claims to be the word of god.

So it's a rational position to assume that people who don't know every single law of nature must be wrong about everything?



Canadian1911
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 227
Location: Getting ready to attack Fort Niagara!

27 Mar 2015, 12:18 pm

Agnostic = Atheist

as atheism is lack of belief in god's or deities - and agnostics - claiming to not know, obviously don't believe.



daniel1948
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Age: 75
Posts: 62
Location: Spokane, WA

27 Mar 2015, 12:18 pm

DentArthurDent wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:

BTW, am I the only one who finds aghogday's posts to be utterly unreadable due to the bizarre formatting and random blocks of capitals? It's like he cut letters out of a magazine and threw them haphazardly on the page.


No you are not alone. Many of us have tried to reason with him but to no avail. Occasionally he will write in what many of us see as a legible format, but he see's this as him doing us a favour. What I don't think he gets is that many of us just scroll past his posts. Added to this if you do bother reading them you will invariably read the same BS self aggrandising nonsense regarding his near super human abilities. Other than this he does seem to be a decent person with admirable ethics.


I guess there are many reasons for posting. One is to communicate with others. He doesn't seem to be accomplishing this, but perhaps that's not his reason for posting. Perhaps he really doesn't care if he communicates anything. The act of posting may bring him some pleasure. If so, I guess there's nothing wrong with that at all. I'm glad to hear that he's a decent person. I have not been able to draw any meaning from his posts at all, other than that he considers what he does to be poetry. I've written a deal of poetry, both verse and free verse, both serious and silly. I don't see any poetry in his posts, but who am I to judge? Some people pay big bucks for paint splattered haphazardly on a canvas.



Canadian1911
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 227
Location: Getting ready to attack Fort Niagara!

27 Mar 2015, 12:19 pm

AngelRho wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Canadian1911 wrote:
I have been proven wrong, which is sad as I thought maybe us autistics could one day fix the world and eliminate irrational thinking.

Is it possible that believing in God is the rational position and the atheist position is the irrational one?


It would be if there was evidence for God. The rational position is to follow where the evidence leads. The irrational position is to assume the truth of a two- to three-thousand year-old book and then invent silly arguments to support it. In the absence of any evidence for God the rational position is to not believe there is one.

If God created the heavens and the earth, and the heavens and the earth exist, then you have evidence of God.

How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


But what proof is there that god created the "heavens" and the earth?



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:20 pm

trollcatman wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:

There are still three problems:
1- I didn't see any proof that an infinite chain of causes is impossible.
2- I didn't see any proof that uncaused causes are impossible.
3- I don't follow the "therefore --> God".

And of course, it does not mean that the "God" is YOUR God, it could just as well be someone else's God(/s) :twisted:

The question was how one can prove there is a God. A logical proof was given. This response is an example of goalpost-moving. You got your proof, so now you're going to demand proof for something tangential?

This is interesting, well…almost…because it demonstrates how quick one can be to unreasonably hand-wave something that is reasonable.


I responded to this: "An infinite chain of causes is impossible, therefore God must exist."
No evidence is given for the first half of the sentence, so I'll just dismiss it for now.
The second half does not follow from the first half, so we are left with pretty much nothing.

Hand waving+goalpost moving = rational thinking?


How is this goalpost moving?

It's goalpost moving because you rejected the proof that was offered and proceeded to demand proof for tangential points.

trollcatman wrote:
I wasn't raised in a religious way so my default position is "probably no gods", but I am aware that I don't know for certain.

Wait…so there probably IS a god? I'm confused… :?



daniel1948
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Mar 2015
Age: 75
Posts: 62
Location: Spokane, WA

27 Mar 2015, 12:22 pm

AngelRho wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


We don't assume the Bible is wrong just because it's ancient. Rather, we say that because it was written and compiled by people who did not know the first thing about the laws of nature, it is not a reliable source of information. Further, we have clear evidence of numerous errors in it. Therefore it is not inerrant. And if it makes some errors, then nothing it says can be taken on faith without supporting evidence. It also contains so many contradictions, that some of its statements must be wrong.

So we have:

Authors who don't know what they're talking about;
Statements that are demonstrably wrong; and
Internal contradictions.

All of this leads to a very unreliable source. Not everything in the Bible is wrong, but a lot of it is wrong.

You, on the other hand, assume it is true just because it claims to be the word of god.

So it's a rational position to assume that people who don't know every single law of nature must be wrong about everything?


No. But it is very irrational to assume that they know everything, which is the position of Biblical literalists. They'll get a few things right just by chance. But everything they claim must be examined in the light of evidence.



trollcatman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Dec 2012
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,919

27 Mar 2015, 12:34 pm

Canadian1911 wrote:
Agnostic = Atheist

as atheism is lack of belief in god's or deities - and agnostics - claiming to not know, obviously don't believe.


The words refer to different questions, but yeah, if you live your life as if there are no gods you are pretty much an atheist. For some reason many agnostic and non-religious people do not refer to themselves as atheists when in my opinion they definately are.



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:35 pm

Canadian1911 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Canadian1911 wrote:
I have been proven wrong, which is sad as I thought maybe us autistics could one day fix the world and eliminate irrational thinking.

Is it possible that believing in God is the rational position and the atheist position is the irrational one?


It would be if there was evidence for God. The rational position is to follow where the evidence leads. The irrational position is to assume the truth of a two- to three-thousand year-old book and then invent silly arguments to support it. In the absence of any evidence for God the rational position is to not believe there is one.

If God created the heavens and the earth, and the heavens and the earth exist, then you have evidence of God.

How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


But what proof is there that god created the "heavens" and the earth?

Pick one.

The one I like best is "Everything that begins to exist has a cause."
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe was caused.

By observing how the universe works, human behavior, etc., it can easily be inferred that the nature of the First Cause is personal and infinite. Descriptions of God as being all-powerful and all-present best fit what we can infer from physical reality as God's nature and character. God MUST exist. There are no rational alternatives.



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:38 pm

daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


We don't assume the Bible is wrong just because it's ancient. Rather, we say that because it was written and compiled by people who did not know the first thing about the laws of nature, it is not a reliable source of information. Further, we have clear evidence of numerous errors in it. Therefore it is not inerrant. And if it makes some errors, then nothing it says can be taken on faith without supporting evidence. It also contains so many contradictions, that some of its statements must be wrong.

So we have:

Authors who don't know what they're talking about;
Statements that are demonstrably wrong; and
Internal contradictions.

All of this leads to a very unreliable source. Not everything in the Bible is wrong, but a lot of it is wrong.

You, on the other hand, assume it is true just because it claims to be the word of god.

So it's a rational position to assume that people who don't know every single law of nature must be wrong about everything?


No. But it is very irrational to assume that they know everything, which is the position of Biblical literalists.

Straw man. Who said anything about knowing everything?

daniel1948 wrote:
They'll get a few things right just by chance. But everything they claim must be examined in the light of evidence.

So it's rational to assume they only get things right by chance?

What evidence proves them necessarily wrong?



trollcatman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Dec 2012
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,919

27 Mar 2015, 12:38 pm

AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:

There are still three problems:
1- I didn't see any proof that an infinite chain of causes is impossible.
2- I didn't see any proof that uncaused causes are impossible.
3- I don't follow the "therefore --> God".

And of course, it does not mean that the "God" is YOUR God, it could just as well be someone else's God(/s) :twisted:

The question was how one can prove there is a God. A logical proof was given. This response is an example of goalpost-moving. You got your proof, so now you're going to demand proof for something tangential?

This is interesting, well…almost…because it demonstrates how quick one can be to unreasonably hand-wave something that is reasonable.


I responded to this: "An infinite chain of causes is impossible, therefore God must exist."
No evidence is given for the first half of the sentence, so I'll just dismiss it for now.
The second half does not follow from the first half, so we are left with pretty much nothing.

Hand waving+goalpost moving = rational thinking?


How is this goalpost moving?

It's goalpost moving because you rejected the proof that was offered and proceeded to demand proof for tangential points.

trollcatman wrote:
I wasn't raised in a religious way so my default position is "probably no gods", but I am aware that I don't know for certain.

Wait…so there probably IS a god? I'm confused… :?


There was no proof of anything in that single sentence, it was just a statement backed up by nothing. The statement was as silly as if I were to say "there are uncaused causes, THEREFORE garden gnomes exist".
And I said "probably no gods" was my default position, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I lack belief in any gods. Lack of belief in gods would be the closest to what I believe, it is not like I have some hard evidence that gods definately do not exist. I'm simply raised in a place where most people are not religious and I have not yet seen any evidence for God/gods.



Canadian1911
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 227
Location: Getting ready to attack Fort Niagara!

27 Mar 2015, 12:41 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Canadian1911 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
daniel1948 wrote:
AngelRho wrote:
Canadian1911 wrote:
I have been proven wrong, which is sad as I thought maybe us autistics could one day fix the world and eliminate irrational thinking.

Is it possible that believing in God is the rational position and the atheist position is the irrational one?


It would be if there was evidence for God. The rational position is to follow where the evidence leads. The irrational position is to assume the truth of a two- to three-thousand year-old book and then invent silly arguments to support it. In the absence of any evidence for God the rational position is to not believe there is one.

If God created the heavens and the earth, and the heavens and the earth exist, then you have evidence of God.

How is it rational to assume a book is untrue just because it's ancient? The sun, moon, and stars are ancient and have been written about for thousands of years. Is it rational to assume they do not exist?


But what proof is there that god created the "heavens" and the earth?

Pick one.

The one I like best is "Everything that begins to exist has a cause."
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe was caused.

By observing how the universe works, human behavior, etc., it can easily be inferred that the nature of the First Cause is personal and infinite. Descriptions of God as being all-powerful and all-present best fit what we can infer from physical reality as God's nature and character. God MUST exist. There are no rational alternatives.


Stephen Hawking would disagree with you. Just because the universe exists, doesn't mean "god did it" that's the class 'god of the gaps' theory, which is nonsense and isn't factually based on anything. Just attempting to fill holes in knowledge we don't yet have.



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:45 pm

trollcatman wrote:
And I said "probably no gods" was my default position, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I lack belief in any gods. Lack of belief in gods would be the closest to what I believe, it is not like I have some hard evidence that gods definately do not exist. I'm simply raised in a place where most people are not religious and I have not yet seen any evidence for God/gods.

So you're saying God probably does exist? Or are you actually taking a position that God does NOT exist? Which is it?

I'm confused because "probably no gods" presupposes God exists. If you think there might be a God, you're not an atheist. It's illogical to claim you're an atheist if you think God probably exists.

So there's no evidence that God doesn't exist? So if there's nothing to convince me that God doesn't exist, it's probably safe if I choose to believe in God, right? That seems logical to me.



AngelRho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jan 2008
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,366
Location: The Landmass between N.O. and Mobile

27 Mar 2015, 12:49 pm

Canadian1911 wrote:
Stephen Hawking would disagree with you. Just because the universe exists, doesn't mean "god did it" that's the class 'god of the gaps' theory, which is nonsense and isn't factually based on anything. Just attempting to fill holes in knowledge we don't yet have.

What gaps? Does Stephen Hawking claim to know everything? Are you saying that you know for a fact in the areas of the physical universe and all its inner workings that there absolutely is no God?

Besides, if God is omnipresent, then "gaps" is an untenable position, anyway. I don't follow gaps thinking. I think God is in both the gaps and in the occupied spaces. God's right in front of you and has been there the whole time. You just prefer to deny the obvious.



trollcatman
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Dec 2012
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,919

27 Mar 2015, 12:52 pm

AngelRho wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
And I said "probably no gods" was my default position, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I lack belief in any gods. Lack of belief in gods would be the closest to what I believe, it is not like I have some hard evidence that gods definately do not exist. I'm simply raised in a place where most people are not religious and I have not yet seen any evidence for God/gods.

So you're saying God probably does exist? Or are you actually taking a position that God does NOT exist? Which is it?

I'm confused because "probably no gods" presupposes God exists. If you think there might be a God, you're not an atheist. It's illogical to claim you're an atheist if you think God probably exists.

So there's no evidence that God doesn't exist? So if there's nothing to convince me that God doesn't exist, it's probably safe if I choose to believe in God, right? That seems logical to me.


"Probably no gods" does not presuppose God or any other gods exist. You probably spend very little time thinking about Odin and Thor, or Zeus and Apollo. That is how I regard the God of Abraham, and all the other gods I have heard of. I know people believe in them, I just think their existence is very unlikely. And by that I mean I cannot disprove them so I leave open the tiny possibility that some of these gods may exist (= I could be wrong).
It's probably safe to believe in Odin, but that doesn't mean I have any reason to.