Does God exist?

[Sandwich]

1. Order and Design point to an intelligent mind. - Random nature can't create Order

No they don't (why would they?) and yes it can, to some extent.

2. The Universe is not eternal, so it has a beginning, so it has a cause. - Causation comes from somewhere or something, in this case God.

Things don't have to have a cause to have a beginning. Also even if the Universe did have a 'cause' (which is relatively likely), the natural answer is not some supernatural person or being that we imagined. This is one of the more unlikely causes I can imagine. There are many models of the Universe that attempt to explain this - and if none of them satisfy you, I'd argue that even the most unsatisfactory answer is more satisfactory than an imaginary man doing it.

3. Life is balanced on a "razor edge" - All the variables involved in the creation and sustainability of life point to an intelligent design. Can't be produced by chaos, or to be fair the probability is 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 you get my drift

No they don't, and when you consider that 'life' only had to happen once and the planet sat around with nothing happening for billions of years, it's actually not that crazy a probability. Regardless of the fact we don't entirely understand how life came about, any statistic is still more probable than a mysterious unseen and never heard of again external force having magicked us all up out of the ground.

4. Darwin himself said: If something is irreducibly complex, the whole idea of evolution by chance or fate is impossible. Irreducibly complexity basically means that if you don't have all the in between states you can't get the final product. You can't jump from wood to a door basically, or a living cell.

??? Meaning? This seems irrelevant, nothing in the situation is irreducibly complex. Life is not irreducibly complex.

5. The presence of moral absolutes - No moral absolutes means its all relative, so there would be no God. e.g. Killing and raping little children is always wrong. "You shouldn't have done that" - You're appealing to a higher being.

There are no moral absolutes! There are morals many of us agree on (such as the ones you mentioned) but it's because it's cruel, nasty and unusual, not because we're all born with a moral absolute. After all, some people (a very rare few) are fine with this. Morals are not 'out there'. I think it's wrong because it psychologically damages people, is cruel etc., not because I read in a book once that god said it was wrong.

6. Love (I said this already) - But Love shows that we are not just matter and energy, living out biological processes.

....how? Why is love not biological? Biological things underlie many aspects of love, so I don't understand why you've decided it's not biological.

7. Rational Minds - Points to a rational God. Rational cannot come from Irrational. Darwin said aswell: If it's true that our minds are just highly developed monkey minds, why do we trust it to tell us the truth. Would you trust a monkey? A rational mind cannot come from an irrational being.

Well our minds are not highly developed monkey minds. They are human minds. "Rational cannot come from irrational" means sod all, why is it relevant? Who says that rational is coming from irrational anyway? Monkeys are pretty logical, they can solve puzzles, it's no great wonder that we can too, and better, given that the relevant parts of our brains are bigger.

8. The search for a meaning in life. - If you conclude that life has a meaning, it must have come from somewhere - a God. If your life is meaningless then you might as well kill yourself, why would you? - A statement also made by Albert Camus. If you don't consider suicide you're not being intellectually consistent.

Major assumption attack continuation. If life has a meaning, why does it have to have come from somewhere? There's no reason to create a god-shaped hole and then cram one in here.

9. Historical Resurrection of Jesus Christ. - Lots of secular historical evidence backing this up, not just the Gospels.

He may or may not have existed, history suggests that a guy by that name did exist. Being resurrected from the dead is not to my knowledge considered historical fact. Even if he did return from the dead, it's a lot more likely to be some crazy scientific phenomenon than a mysterious divine intervention, but largely very unlikely to be either.

10. Life doesn't come from Non-Life - I've never seen it happen, noone has ever seen it happen. This is the biggest leap of faith you can ever have.

We are, of course, all evidence that it happened regardless of if you think it happened spontaneously or if god did it, it definitely happened. It's not the biggest leap of faith you can ever have - I personally think the biggest leap of faith you can ever have is to look for something we have no evidence or proof for and then say it exists and use it to explain everything...? If not the biggest, definitely pretty mammoth. At least we've seen that things are alive, and we know there was a time before things were alive, so we know we're dealing with something that definitely happened/exists.

To be honest, 'evidence' for god is however you want to see it. A lot of things seem to me to simply be unanswered questions where people decide that their presently unanswered (or even never to be answered) nature immediately points to unseen forces. It seems to me that people see something they don't know and go "god did it". That's an individual decision, in my opinion, and not an argument. If I don't know why something is, I just live with it rather than trying to stick something into that space. The truth of the matter is that there's no actual evidence - just assumptions based on what you want to believe, and a freedom of thought (if not necessarily speech and practice all around the world) to make up your own version if you so choose.

[Classof2013]

Look at Schrödinger's cat. All things require and observer. Who would you say observed the Big Band? I'd say IT WAS GOD.

[Kudzai Mukaratirwa]

Does God exist?

You cant see him, you cant hear him but can you feel him?

If there is a God is there only one? Would it be like the Greek system and have multiple gods? Is there really just one or is that just the word of one man?

Everyone has their own beliefs, their own opinions but how does or how can anyone really know whats true? There is no right. There is no wrong. There may be a god, up there watching down on us, but there might not be.

And if there is one, a God, them why is the modern world the way it is?

read the whole of Habbakuk.....he shouts at God saying why is the world the wy it is and why does he have to witness it and God answers him its only 5 pages long the entire book, its for interesting reading not bible bashing

[Kudzai Mukaratirwa]

you cant disprove Gods existence He is real and h doesnt need to be seen by everyone to know that he exists , look until the scientific world can explain what little they know about everything like they cannot even prove the existence of atoms its merely an assumption based on probability that are made to fit scientists beleifs so until u have any sigificant evidence that God does not exist and everything science has discovered is real there is no point in saying anything

HL maths chemistry biology

SL english french business studies

You know the aim of science isn't about proving the nonexistence of something, right? Science doesn't allow for proving the nonexistence of anything. "Taunting" the fact that science can't disprove God's potential existence is showing a lack of understanding for what science is. Using either the words "prove" or "disprove" in a discussion about God shows a lack of understanding for what God is.

lack of understnding for wht God is then elaborate so i may have a "greater" understanding i think you red what i said in the wrong context.......i believe in God.....science is about certainty even though we can never be certain

what reaal want is not knowledge but certainty

....i'm not "taunting" anything by the way just putting a fact out there nothing wrong with that...

[Proletariat]

...science is about certainty even though we can never be...

....i'm not "taunting" anything by the way just putting a fact out there...

I wonder if you think about what you type before hitting that "Add Reply" button.

[Proletariat]

Look at Schrödinger's cat. All things require and observer. Who would you say observed the Big Band? I'd say IT WAS GOD.

Schrodinger's thought experiment deals with quantum entanglement. Please, tell me how you propose to marry that with God; I'd like to hear your response.

[Ezeh]

I don't see why people have to argue over this. Unless it's causing conflict (i.e. extremists) then I don't see why we have to argue that our perspective is right. Different things float different peoples' boats.

[zwingli]

text

You don't seem to understand the intellectual dishonesty one must have to refute a lot of these points, and would rather lean on the slight possibility that all this may have happened.

Number 4 relates to the fact that you can't go from a methane and other gases filled planet to suddenly developing an complex organism with cells.

Also, i'm tired of this discussion and won't be able to provide as much insight as others can. So i'll just recommend you to Cliffe Knechtle [givemeananswer.com] you can youtube his stuff he has a lot on the bible and God.

[Sandwich]

text

You don't seem to understand the intellectual dishonesty one must have to refute a lot of these points, and would rather lean on the slight possibility that all this may have happened.

Number 4 relates to the fact that you can't go from a methane and other gases filled planet to suddenly developing an complex organism with cells.

Also, i'm tired of this discussion and won't be able to provide as much insight as others can. So i'll just recommend you to Cliffe Knechtle [givemeananswer.com] you can youtube his stuff he has a lot on the bible and God.

In all honesty, I can see no intellectual honesty in not refuting them. Why should we hold all human thought except for religion to a higher standard before we decide it's true? If something in any other realm of thought were based on such a mass of assumptions, it'd be considered quite lunatic to take it as truth. It would be intellectually dishonest to say that those are valid and integral arguments! Discarding reasoning for the sake of proving something true is more or less the definition of intellectual dishonesty, after all.

I'm also not hugely interested in watching videos made by evangelists who think that "the world has complexity therefore must have been designed" is any kind of sane statement. It has precisely the same crazy truthfulness content as "carrots are vegetables, therefore they are green". Some vegetables are green, carrots are not. Some complex things have indeed been designed, but just as you can't use broccoli to prove the colour of carrots, it would be intellectually dishonest to accept false logic on the count of religion. The thinking behind the arguments does not hold up to scrutiny, and I have never in all my life understood why so many people seem fine with false logic for one part of their lives but would say you're making a foolish assumption for another part. It's fine to laugh at someone for falsely inferring from one example that everything must be so, but not at all for religion. I have no intention of laughing at religious people or religion, but I do find it a case of double standards which I'm not sure I could ever reconcile myself.

[Kudzai Mukaratirwa]

...science is about certainty even though we can never be...

....i'm not "taunting" anything by the way just putting a fact out there...

I wonder if you think about what you type before hitting that "Add Reply" button.

....i won't even say anything.......not worth it.

[Procrastination]

I personally don't believe in the existance of god as I personally need to gain knowledge of the certainty of things either by experience or reason and I'll never gain it if we are talking about god. Anyways, I don't really have a problem with the poeple that believe in him, I'm completely open minded and I understand them when they say that without him there is no hope in the universe as long as they don't shove their believes to me.

Personally I consider he does not exist because of the general problem of evil. If a god that's completely good, benevoland and compassionate with others exist there will be no poverty, no wars, no natural disasters, etc... How come someone who claims this characteristics punish the creatures it created. Moreover, I think believing in god is having faith in something that you don't know what it is, and that's completely acceptable, however I consider it will be the same way and your destiny will not change because believing in something.

The perspective of god varies from religion to religion but they all agree it was the one who created the world even though they don't have the most minimum proof to say this and most of the profecies in holly books such as the Bible and the Qu'ran have been denied by science with strong evidence.

As for what created the world there is not even a possibility that the human kind will be able to gain this knowledge and it will remain till forever the greatest question without answear. Maybe it was the Bing-Bang, maybe it was not but as far as I'm concerned, we have to keep disproving wrong theories that have been denied with many evidence long time ago,

[Proletariat]

...science is about certainty even though we can never be...

....i'm not "taunting" anything by the way just putting a fact out there...

I wonder if you think about what you type before hitting that "Add Reply" button.

....i won't even say anything.......not worth it.

No, please, you have every right to justify your apparent self-contradiction in the span of two sentences (at least, I think there's two; lack of periods in your original post makes that more of a judgment call doesn't it.)

[Kudzai Mukaratirwa]

I personally don't believe in the existance of god as I personally need to gain knowledge of the certainty of things either by experience or reason and I'll never gain it if we are talking about god. Anyways, I don't really have a problem with the poeple that believe in him, I'm completely open minded and I understand them when they say that without him there is no hope in the universe as long as they don't shove their believes to me.

Personally I consider he does not exist because of the general problem of evil. If a god that's completely good, benevoland and compassionate with others exist there will be no poverty, no wars, no natural disasters, etc... How come someone who claims this characteristics punish the creatures it created. Moreover, I think believing in god is having faith in something that you don't know what it is, and that's completely acceptable, however I consider it will be the same way and your destiny will not change because believing in something.

The perspective of god varies from religion to religion but they all agree it was the one who created the world even though they don't have the most minimum proof to say this and most of the profecies in holly books such as the Bible and the Qu'ran have been denied by science with strong evidence.

As for what created the world there is not even a possibility that the human kind will be able to gain this knowledge and it will remain till forever the greatest question without answear. Maybe it was the Bing-Bang, maybe it was not but as far as I'm concerned, we have to keep disproving wrong theories that have been denied with many evidence long time ago,

they may have been denied by science but they have not been disproved have they? until then science can rule out nothing...and if you want to know why the world is such a bad place and God lets this happen despite being compassionate and merciful read Habakkuk its a short book 3 pages long just for fun reading no bible bashing and tell me what you think Habakkuk shouts at God in anger on why the world is so damn bad and in chaos and filled with evil God answers him more than once because he keeps complaining. tell me what you think if you do read it.

[Procrastination]

I personally don't believe in the existance of god as I personally need to gain knowledge of the certainty of things either by experience or reason and I'll never gain it if we are talking about god. Anyways, I don't really have a problem with the poeple that believe in him, I'm completely open minded and I understand them when they say that without him there is no hope in the universe as long as they don't shove their believes to me.

Personally I consider he does not exist because of the general problem of evil. If a god that's completely good, benevoland and compassionate with others exist there will be no poverty, no wars, no natural disasters, etc... How come someone who claims this characteristics punish the creatures it created. Moreover, I think believing in god is having faith in something that you don't know what it is, and that's completely acceptable, however I consider it will be the same way and your destiny will not change because believing in something.

The perspective of god varies from religion to religion but they all agree it was the one who created the world even though they don't have the most minimum proof to say this and most of the profecies in holly books such as the Bible and the Qu'ran have been denied by science with strong evidence.

As for what created the world there is not even a possibility that the human kind will be able to gain this knowledge and it will remain till forever the greatest question without answear. Maybe it was the Bing-Bang, maybe it was not but as far as I'm concerned, we have to keep disproving wrong theories that have been denied with many evidence long time ago,

they may have been denied by science but they have not been disproved have they? until then science can rule out nothing...and if you want to know why the world is such a bad place and God lets this happen despite being compassionate and merciful read Habakkuk its a short book 3 pages long just for fun reading no bible bashing and tell me what you think Habakkuk shouts at God in anger on why the world is so damn bad and in chaos and filled with evil God answers him more than once because he keeps complaining. tell me what you think if you do read it.

I was not even complaining with god in first instance since I accept the sufferment as an inconditional reality. Plus, Habakkuk should now that's not a good reason for creating diseases such as SIDA or Cancer o bringing natural disasters in countries which are mostly catholic or christians and have high poorness rates.

By the way, check this out: Is the problem of evil :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

[Avan:)]

gaawd. im so ashamed on behalf of all IB students. guys, according to the learner profile we should be caring, knowledgable, international tolerant thinkers... why are we arguing? there is no point. people have different views and opinions and as long as does not interfere with any system and cause problems, then who gives a damn? IT does NOT matter.

[Proletariat]

gaawd. im so ashamed on behalf of all IB students. guys, according to the learner profile we should be caring, knowledgable, international tolerant thinkers... why are we arguing? there is no point. people have different views and opinions and as long as does not interfere with any system and cause problems, then who gives a damn? IT does NOT matter.

This is a redux of the position I articulated in a previous page, and Sandwich already posted a rebuttal to the same argument. You may be interested in reading it.

Besides, there's a difference between critizing a person's position, and critizing the inability of an individual to make/clarify their position.

[Keel]

gaawd. im so ashamed on behalf of all IB students. guys, according to the learner profile we should be caring, knowledgable, international tolerant thinkers... why are we arguing? there is no point. people have different views and opinions and as long as does not interfere with any system and cause problems, then who gives a damn? IT does NOT matter.

This is a redux of the position I articulated in a previous page, and Sandwich already posted a rebuttal to the same argument. You may be interested in reading it.

Besides, there's a difference between critizing a person's position, and critizing the inability of an individual to make/clarify their position.

What if their position is not to make/clarify their position? Or rather why is there a need to have a position at all? I'm looking for those posts you mentioned.

[Proletariat]

gaawd. im so ashamed on behalf of all IB students. guys, according to the learner profile we should be caring, knowledgable, international tolerant thinkers... why are we arguing? there is no point. people have different views and opinions and as long as does not interfere with any system and cause problems, then who gives a damn? IT does NOT matter.

This is a redux of the position I articulated in a previous page, and Sandwich already posted a rebuttal to the same argument. You may be interested in reading it.

Besides, there's a difference between critizing a person's position, and critizing the inability of an individual to make/clarify their position.

What if their position is not to make/clarify their position? Or rather why is there a need to have a position at all? I'm looking for those posts you mentioned.

There's a difference between clarity of content and clarity of syntax.

There's no need to have a position either, but then there's no need to be in the thread in the first place.

[Keel]

There's a difference between clarity of content and clarity of syntax.

There's no need to have a position either, but then there's no need to be in the thread in the first place.

I'm sorry I didn't get your first point. True, there is no need to be in the thread. However, I just wanted to build on Avan's and Ezeh's points (or rather questions). Why is it that this thread is so important that it requires the attention of certain individuals to endlessly attack the position of others and defend their own on a subject in which no conclusions can ever be drawn? Obviously God's existence holds much importance to religious people; but as an athiest (I'm assuming you are one) why does the non-existence of God matter to you? If you have faith that God does not exist then why do you bother to argue with those who say that he does?

[Proletariat]

There's a difference between clarity of content and clarity of syntax.

There's no need to have a position either, but then there's no need to be in the thread in the first place.

I'm sorry I didn't get your first point. True, there is no need to be in the thread. However, I just wanted to build on Avan's point (if you even consider it one). Why is it that this thread is so important that it requires the attention of certain individuals to endlessly attack the position of others and defend their own on a subject which no conclusion can ever be drawn? Obviously God's existence holds much importance to religious people; but as an athiest (I'm assuming you are one) why does the non-existence of God matter to you? If you have faith that God does not exist then why do you bother to argue with those who say that he does?

I think anyone can tell that I've stopped putting forward arguments of substance long-ago for whatever my beliefs happen to be (and no, I'm not an antheist.)

I'm criticizing individuals who aren't able to advance the simplest of arguments without making grammatical, or logical, or argumentative, or factual fallacies. I'm amused that you and Avan would even consider it arguing tbh.

People who are religious have every right to hold their beliefs. But ridiculous is ridiculous, no matter what theological stance is being advocated. It's one thing to say "I believe in God." It's quite a bit different to say "Schrodinger's cat proves God's existence!!!!" Granted, perhaps it does on some quasi-metaphorical level, but I'll never know because whoever posted it hasn't defended nor justified their as-of-right-now ridiculous statement.

It's elementary rhetoric. I'm simply trying to raise the level of discourse, and prevent a slow descent into crude, sycophantic ramblings. Read Sandwich's reply to my post on Pg. 18; I made the point that such discussion is useless, and it was refutted (successfully, I might add) by pointing out that while a conclusive position cannot be reached, such a debate still affords the opportunity for individuals to point out the really bizarre and unjustifiable arguments that both sides can sometimes dare to make (which is more or less exactly what I wrote just now, above.)