Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? YES!

Those arguments have nothing to do with the existence of God, but with the desires of people for their to be such a God. The misconceptions of God have grown vastly as the arguments have evolved.

The point of the omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent God is that what is right and wrong in the ultimate terms are based on what is. The righteousness of God is the Will of God. The omnipresence is the fact that God, by definition, is all things. God is present everywhere because God is everywhere that 'where' can be. Existence is God. Finally, God is omniscient necessarily. By being all things, all things that happen are acts of God.

I use an analogy of the sky. Just because we know that the sky is made up of atmospheric elements does not mean the sky no longer exists and should be replaced by its elements. God is the summation of all things within existence, over all of time. Things do not happen by chance, they happen by the Will of God. That means, it is not chance that anything happens, it is the necessary reaction to the infinite amount of actions that have happened before them to culminate in the immediate circumstance we highlight as chance.

That is why God is important to understand. We must maintain an appreciation for the infinite existence that is beyond our own comprehension and more powerful than any single force in existence. You can call that something else, just as you can call the sky something else. However, it does not change the FACT that that is God as best I can conceive of God, and yes I do realize that that is only my conception of God and it is limited in the fact that I have a limited ability to conceive.

God is undoubtedly greater than the language I have to describe God. For instance, the use of the term 'greater' does not necessarily have the connotation of being a 'good' or 'bad' characteristic as many would assume. 'Greater' is not qualitative, but quantitative.

Anyway, I have taken more time than I had intended. Good day to you.

C'mon wayseeker, lighten up. It was a joke. A dark joke, but a joke.

Besides, we are constantly fighting that battle for everyone in society. Knowledge is not a static object. Ask someone educated in science and they will tell you the endeavor is to approach the most accurate approximation of the truth. There is no attainment of absolute truth when it comes to understanding the existence we perceive.

I am an example of someone that believes in God and believes in evolution. Do I live in ignorance because I believe in God? What am I being consciously ignorant of?

You do not have to prove your non-belief. You make that choice not to believe. This is a person's rationalization of their own belief. You are not negating their argument by saying you do not believe. You are simply voicing your own belief, or lack thereof. As long as this is understood, what is the big deal? Why do non-believers feel so motivated to voice their denial of other people's opinions?

You have every right to believe, or not, anything. People live in denial of many realities. It is common. I'm not saying you are living in denial of a reality because I am in no place to say. I was simply saying that they have that right. I man falling from the upper atmosphere has every right to deny gravity. He probably won't recognize the reality check anyway.

Sorry. That was terrible.

Because -really- -really- believing something is NOT the same as knowing.

Believe whatever you want, sure, but everyone cares about what's true. Even the man fervently denying gravity even as he falls to his death.

And we determine truth or falsehood in this universe by being able to prove its existence in some tangible way.

If you want go Descartes on me, that's just fine. But I can show you, again and again with experiments, what is pretty blatantly obviously true in this world. And you'd agree with it.

Even Descartes would duck if someone threw a stone at him.

And on the same basis, I don't believe in god.

It's not a choice, if god appeared in front of me I wouldn't have a choice anymore now would I?

But, on the contrary, nothing we've ever seen ANYWHERE, has any indication to suggest any supernatural uberbeing actually exists.

And until we see something, on that basis, there's no reason to think it DOES.

This is how EVERY human establishes belief in -anything at all-. Except, it seems, when it comes to gods and demons.

If I told I had a 30 foot Dragon in my garage (which is only 20 feet) and that as long as you averted your eyes from it it would grant all your wishes (otherwise it would eat you), would you believe me?

What if you asked for something (a million gold doubloons) and then I came out of the garage with it?

Well, that would be a pretty good indication, but mathematically speaking it's entirely possible that I just HAD it lying around. But you could sit all day to verify that fact for yourself.

But with god, the opposite happens. Any test ever devised is just sidestepped by deists and theists because they move the goalpost as to how they define it.

It may piss you off that I'm comparing god to a magical dragon, but it IS the same concept. You're describing a character you know NOTHING about. And on top of that, the only inclination you have to think this thing exists is an obvious cultural pressure and an emotional longing for such a creature. You see how this case is getting kind of thin?

Watch my video above.

Saladin, you don't get it. It isn't about seeing anything. Everything is God. God is defined. He is defined as all things. It is more the creation of a Satan that is a creation of Man. I believe there is a theory right now that Satan was created by Man due to his inability to rationalize how they could believe that God could be a good thing and at the same time, do the terrible things that have been experienced by people. The concepts of defining God with specific attributes is limiting the concept of God, and the creation of Satan also diminishes the definition of God.

I'm not arguing with the methods of science. Science is a beautiful thing. I'm arguing that it is being scientifically disciplined to explicitly deny the possibility of God. Beyond that, it is impossible for science to determine the existence of God.

I will give you my best conception of God, but it is simply my own attempt to translate my perception of something that is admittedly inconceivable. God is all things, which means that all of the laws of the universe do not limit God, but are a part of God.

For me, God can be perceived as the summation of all things in a way that is far beyond our own ability to govern. We can consciously act to do things in the world, but those acts are inhibited by the conscious acts of all the other people of the world combined with the natural laws that we both agree govern this world as we know them through science. All those laws have been discovered through conscious acts of others that have come before us to present us with the conditions that we now live in. These conditions were not chosen by us. We have choices in this world, but they are very limited. Free Will exists, but only to the extent that each of us has this free will in a very strictly governed world. By strict governance, I mean the actions of the universe through time before us, combined with the actions of others that are present today with us, combined with the natural laws that we have only begun to understand through science. Science is a very young invention for the human species. Forms of discovery have come before it, but science itself did not become the invention it is today until the Empiricists of the Enlightenment. The fact that I can walk outside and cross the street is my free will. It is also fact that someone else has the free will to drive a car. It would likely not be of either our free wills for them to combine in tragedy. However, it may be God's Will. God is all things. It is not for us to judge God for that, but only for us to be humbled by God. For me, there is no way to deny the existence of God, for the reasoning I have given above. However, you cannot call me an ignorant man for having this belief.

I'm not going to call you ignorant or anything else because you labeled your idea correctly, a belief.

It is perfectly fine for you to *believe* there is a god and to believe in all the traits you've ascribed to him whether I agree with it or not. As long as you don't tout this to be some sort of irrefutable conclusion of the study of the natural world or an idea that is based on fact, I have ZERO problem with your belief in god.

But it -is- a belief, a faith-based deduction.

You're proclaiming something to exist and describing its characteristics without knowing -anything about it-, including its existence or non-existence. As long as you're willing to admit that the sheer probability of you being right in this specific way is beyond the nano regions of small, it's perfectly fine with me.

The position of the modern atheist is an extended agnosticism, a philosophy that says "no one knows, but why believe in something we've never been able to demonstrate or prove?" So no modern atheist, unless they're a bit of an asshole which they frequently tend to be, can philosophically tell you that you're *wrong* about your belief in god, but you do have to call it a belief, a positive proclamation without evidence. While, on the contrary, the atheist position is simply a null one, a recognition of the absence of evidence in the positive proclamation.

I kind of wanted to critique your vision of god for a little bit, but this getting kind of long and I didn't want to piss you off so I figured I'd ask you first. You game?

Thank you for sharing that, Div. I think it makes a lot of sense. It makes me ask more questions too. Hang with me...

Science is proving the earth doesn't look like it's doing too well, so, what if we all die and all science comes to an end because no humans exist?

You mean that's it? I've put up with the crap I've put up with in life, just for that? Where's the point...the purpose...The reason to get up in the morning and not go do whatever the heck it is I want to do, regardless of the consequences? There are some people (obviously not me) who define "fun" as raping kids but they're psychologically assesed to be sane, regular people.

You make a great point. Using your analogy of the revolution of the sun - What if we learn too late, that there really is a permanent "prison" if you will, for bad souls when on earth we fulfill our sense of justice by putting murderers and child rapists in prison or sometimes, we put them to death? Who is to say human beings really aren't sinful creatures in need of salvation?

Who is to say there really isn't going to be a tribulation? Who is to say Jesus Christ won't return to earth before then? I only say that because so many of the prophecies contained in the books of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Ezekial, etc. in the Holy Bible, have come true and these particular things would have been impossible to MAKE happen or set up to MAKE happen since a lot of them happened by people who didn't believe in the Judeo-Christian God.

At the end of the day I know I'm left with death ahead of me and as I explained in my other comment, I recognize that I am in need of salvation whether we meet martians in space or not (which would rock!) but evil still exists and the concept of justice still needs to be fulfilled in that a debt for my "bad" done on earth has to be paid so that justice can be fulfilled. As an individual soul I need to think about that first - my soul - and how it's got a disease called sin and it needs to be cured. And this cure can't be found scientifically.

Eventually things are "revealed" by God, which is another concept that is important to relate to God, because he isn't a fast food restaurant. He is a gentleman and he takes his time. (Ew. That sounded odd but you know what I mean, lol.) He doesn't blurt things out or give us spazzy, stalker love. He knows the hearts that are searching for him and he reveals himself to those hearts. Abraham is a great example of this intimate existential journey based on faith.

I don't know if any of that came out clear. But I tried :). I also didn't mean to sound insulting or anything like that. I am just a passionate person. I love to ask questions too when I get on my soapbox. I really didn't intend to have you answer them, per se...my point was that we don't know everything about science or God, and to some degree, both require their own version of a "leap of faith."

Lol, the take his time bit..

I totally get where you're coming from. You might find it as a surprise (since I generally support atheism and atheists) that I am a person who believes in God. Mind you, it's not a Christian God, but a God all the same. I can see where your questions come from, and I'm glad that you have them!

It is hard to believe that "this is it." I personally believe in reincarnation, karma, and all those other happy fun things that come with my religion. Granted, are lots of not happy and not fun things too, but each has its own place.

Though I'm religious (in a sense that I have faith in God and my beliefs and my religion but NOT in my fellow practitioners who use their religion for purposes other than the intended), I am also a scientist. I believe that the two can work together. My belief makes my science more interesting and challenging and vice versa.

So to sum it up, though I may not understand your religion, I understand your faith, even if I might argue with you through many many threads about beliefs.

I'll be glad to have the opportunity to debate!

So, why did I explain all that? To make the point that without concepts that relate to our humanity in the deepest sense possible, such as, trust, we won't get anywhere with God, who is clearly both science (i.e the universe, atoms, etc). but who is clearly also things like love, (i.e. the reality of what exists between two people in a relationship and as a hopeless romantic, i can attest to the fact that something exists in the relationship that science could never explain.)

that was great, i'm going to listen to that a few more times.

i like the hindu and kabbalistic takes on this (though i am atheist i can say this feels most scientifically and spiritually correct) and that is that we all started as one multidimensional being that shattered itself (think big bang) into an uncountable number of pieces and the subsequent formation of the stars, planets, evolution of life and intelligence, etc etc... is just us trying to reconnect as one again. and the time that the universe stops expanding and starts contracting will be that time. (maybe). the reason i say this feels "right" is because (especially under influences such as lsd and psilocybin and dmt) one does get the literal view along with the literal sense of being interconnected, but to what degree. i believe we intuit on a subconscious level the natural flows of energy around us and every living and non-living thing is directly influenced by those flows.

Are you talking about the appendix? Hmmm...excellent question, especially since I had mine removed when I was 7...

I was very impressed with your style of writing and the way in which you conveyed your thoughts with clarity and respect. I can tell you are someone I could take to my favorite diner and have a grand time just over a cup of coffee. People like you are rare so when I meet them I get excited. Thanks for letting me share that excitement.

Hahaha, oh wow.

I've never seen someone openly endorsing circular logic.

Good find.

"To deny God's existence is itself an act of faith because there is no way to prove God's absence." This may be true, but what is the point of proving something DOESN'T exist? Why would people assume something did exist without proof?

You do not accept the proof. Any proof of God is a logical one because God's existence is not defined as a physical thing within the universe, but as all things. You cannot prove or disprove that. You can only choose whether or not to accept it.

If you have faith in the existence of God, things like the problem of evil don't matter because that is based on our own perception of good and evil. Faith in God is not about discovering some extraterrestrial being that dictates our actions. Many people have articulated their own conceptual manifestations of God, but they are all limited by the conscious construction of language both from the speaker and the listener.

For me, it is impossible to deny God. Then again, I do not deny evolution either.

You have every right to share your view. Everyone has their right to share their views. I cringe when I see someone cite Richard Dawkins in a philosophical debate. Richard Dawkins is a biologist, and most academics in the realm of philosophy consider him to be louder than he is logical in this category. He has done a great deal to advance evolutionary biology, but he simply lacks the ability to use that evolutionary biology to deny thing more than the physical existence of the "big guy in the sky" concept. Beyond that, he has very little to stand on.

It is all good,

I think the post is wrong, but it is interesting and worth reading and thinking about.

Thanks

Thanx Lib & Loc. That was sweet of you. I'm trying to learn how to talk about God and not be a spaz. I think a lot of Christians just don't get enough practice so then they Bible Thump out of self-defense. I'm too lazy to get my bible but I've got the concepts memorized. Besides, I figure the last thing people want are bible verses b/c that would annoy me too. I haven't always been a Chrstian and I remember when the "Jesus girl" who shared Christ with me, scared me away for an entire year until I went back to talk to her. She really didn't answer my questions but she did something because something clicked. Okay, good night. :)

Yes, quite ironic.

Einstein had previously explored this belief that man could not understand the nature of God when he gave an interview to Time Magazine explaining:

I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.

No Einstein specifically mentioned later on that quote was taken out of context.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it" - Albert Einstein

And nuh uh, we're getting to understand these laws pretty well and there's not much room for god in them.

At the very best, a modern version of god would have to be something like the void, just a churning system of the universe's natural laws. Because quantum physics essentially proves that if there is a god (as in an omnipotent sky-daddy figure), he's a fucking weird ass douche bag who's designed an insane universe in which his own power has been severely limited.

And that's ignoring the sheer size of the cosmos, in which the world irrelevant fails to even begin to describe how infinitesimally insignificant our world really is. We could be wiped out tomorrow by a asteroid as has been happened many times in our past and the universe would move on without the blink of an eye.

If there is a god, he seems pretty disinterested in us.

And I don't know about you, but I pretty much knew exactly what the purpose of a library was when I was a kid and even if I didn't, I wouldn't feel any mystery walking into one.

Even if I didn't and had never seen a book, it's not as if because I don't understand the purpose of something that makes it magical.

I was responding to specifically your statement about Einstien being atheist. From researching his statements on that matter, I conclude that he is not. He can more precisely be described as a deist or agnostic.

Are you serious? I just gave you the quote that proved it.

Saladin, you statements are soaked in subjectivity. Further, you concept of the "modern god" is unnecessarily limited. God is all things, not the void, not the "old man in the sky," but all things. Are you seriously trying to suggest that the universe is extremely limited?

The universe is extremely complex, and most of our understanding of it is completely based on hypothetical projections based upon very limited amounts of experience and observation. Who is to say that the trends we use to calculate such projections are missing some type of acceleration during the the process before we were able to be conscious of it. That being said, how do you know what kind of awareness or intent God would have for our species no matter the size of the rest of the cosmos, or what happens in it?

It's not subjective, you just don't like it.

If god is "everything," then I'm god. And so the whole belief is pointless.

Furthermore, god can't be everything AND have a separate consciousness.

And why does there have to be a god for the universe to be complex? Is it all suddenly bland and static if there isn't a supernatural being out there?

And whatever gaps (or canyons really) there may be in our scientific understanding, that's not an excuse to fill in the blanks with something you KNOW can't be proven.

God doesn't exist because we don't understand something yet or because our current understanding might be flawed. The line of reasoning is silly.

You might not believe in space zombie-unicorns, but I do. Science will never be able to explain everything nor has anyone been everywhere that it is possible to be in this universe at all times, so how do you know FOR A FACT (hurr) that space zombie-unicorns don't exist?

You don't, but you don't believe in something because it MIGHT exist, you believe in something because it's been SHOWN to exist.

You may have never been to or ever seen Australia, but you're pretty confident that it's not a conspiracy to fool us all right? And you can verify that data yourself if you want to. So you're confident in saying that you believe in Australia.

Conversely, simply the description of a space zombie-unicorn has every indication that it is, in fact, a made up character based on everything you know about life.

Watch that video I posted below.

"how do you know what kind of awareness or intent God would have for our species no matter the size of the rest of the cosmos, or what happens in it?"

How could YOU know, you don't even know if it EXISTS!

Clearly, you want it to exist, because no one would believe something without proof unless they -wanted- it to be true.

But, to answer the question, how can I make propositions about god's nature if I don't know anything about it?

It's simple, unless you think scientific experiments are completely unreliable (and since you're typing this on a computer you clearly don't) then you have to agree that something which has been empirically proven has a reasonable likelihood to be true.

No matter how many times I drop the stone, it will never fall to the ceiling, and we understand why.

So, based on science, I can infer that because of the speed of light, basically everything to do with quantum physics (entanglement, uncertainty, collapsing of the wave function, etc.), the sheer size of the universe, the very likely (and previously occurring) mass destruction events that happen in our universe all the time and ESPECIALLY relativity, clearly this god fellow doesn't exactly fit the cheery descriptions we've laid out for it.

Now, unless you're going to tell me god is magic, we know it can't break the rules of the universe no matter how powerful it is. Based on that and these rules, god's power is severely limited such that it's pointless to even call it god at all. The creature can't even travel about its universe and even if it could, the faster it went the faster time would go around it.

But, of course, this is going to become pointless isn't it?

Because you haven't DEFINED god, so you're just going to move the goalposts to defend its hypothetical existence.

Which is, of course, what you HAVE to do. Because you're defending something you can describe nothing about and don't have the slightest reason to believe even exists!

This is long as hell, so I'll stop here.

It's a funny dichotomy of religious discussion. God's existence isn't something to be proven. One could suggest that attempts to prove God's existence are simply evidence of the lack of faith. One could also argue that logical proofs are not evidence at all. If they are not evidence, would a logical proof constitute such a lack of faith, or simply a logical explanation of one's own reasoning for having faith?

To deny God's existence is itself an act of faith because there is no way to prove God's absence. Problems like the "Problem of evil" are human problems. We cannot dictate what is evil and good at the scale of existence as a whole, and therefore the "Problem of evil" is simply our own judgments on what we perceive.

In the end, to admit faith in something is a good thing. Everyone should admit the fact that they do not know anything as certain, but simply take reliable functions of reality as knowledge. That knowledge is something we accept faithfully. To admit a lack of faith in God is one's one personal decision, and it shouldn't affect anything in this realm of existence beyond how we perceive the beliefs of others. Belief or not, should be no more important than one's political beliefs. Certainly, it should not be a reason to hate or fight for.

Does christ on toast taste like chicken?

Bombastinator, what did Jesus ever do to you? In his defense, he really believed your soul would go to hell if he didn't die for you, so, maybe cut him some slack? At that point in history he gave up his life on your behalf and you don't have to believe in the ressurrection just to appreciate the sense of integrity that was Jesus Christ. I know you didn't ask him to die for you, etc. But my point is, maybe you should rethink how you talk about him. He's still pretty awesome even if you don't believe he was Messiah. See what I'm saying or no?

You feel I'm somehow attacking Jesus? How do you figure that? Did you read my post? I get the impression you don't understand your own religion very well.

Why are you reaching for silly reasoning to try to prove God exists? You think it will "get more people on your team" or something? Proving he exists isn't the point. having faith in the absence of proof is the point.