There is no evidence for God

First of all, yes, I meant determinism and not determination, sorry, my mistake. Then, I never said "it would be really bad if God did not exist". I was just saying, for me, believing in God means believing that our moral values are not exclusively created by determinism and evolution, but also, by something else, like a big man in the sky with a big white beard .
I think the truth is, nobody knows if God exists or not, this is why Agnostics are "more right" than more atheists and Religious. Both are just convinced that their arguments are enough, but I think none of theirs are.

Typical thing an atheist would say.

Some conceptions of God, perhaps.



Funnily enough, that's a very real possibility in light of digital physics.



There's a version of the ontological argument which depends on the mere logical possibility of the existence of God. This is perhaps why certain atheists, like Quentin Smith, argue for the impossibility of the existence of God.



Not so fast. The believers of those holy texts can use certain forms of arguments to counter any arguments against their religions, even if their holy books are full of apparent contradictions and errors.



Personally, I don't subscribe to classic monotheism but I can appreciate the element of subjectivism when it comes to the portrayal of the Divine.

So why do people still believe in God?


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I think too many people misinterpret God as an old funky wise guy with a long white beard and sandals. According to many religious scriptures, God is formless and is thought of as an energy, not a person, and this alone eliminates many of the misconceptions held.
In terms of physics: energy cannot be created nor destroyed. If matter was created in the Big Bang, there must have existed some form of energy prior to the conversion. An admirably religious person told me that this is God.
Based on that idea, this is what I theorise. Energy has the potential to affect and even manipulate matter through the pizoelectric effect. God is the most powerful packet energy because this is a universe worth of energy we're talking about, equating to an innumerable number of joules. Due to the butterfly effect, the overall pizoelectric effect on matter is colossal and can hence have the potential to impact situations detrimentally.

This is an extremely brief and one-sided argument and does not account for all beliefs. To me, the idea that God is portrayed as having some sort of a conscience is unfathomable; I think of God as a name given to a physical concept, rather than an agony aunt who will solve all of your problems if you just pray enough.

Not sure if I've posted in here before since all these threads start to look alike after a while

Butall I'm gonna say is, there doesn't need to be "evidence" because that's the purpose of BELIEF:

that you don't have to see, touch, hear, smell, you just BELIEVE IT????

Eugh I'm goin a bed

Not sure if I've posted in here before since all these threads start to look alike after a while

Butall I'm gonna say is, there doesn't need to be "evidence" because that's the purpose of BELIEF:

that you don't have to see, touch, hear, smell, you just BELIEVE IT????

Eugh I'm goin a bed

I am not familiar with that version.

No ****, that is why it's very hard to argue against theists. They just change the playing field every time they need to.

And well I can't. You start with "there is the possibility of something with certain characteristics existing" and you end up with "see, god is real and it's irrational to think otherwise".

And as that other dude in this thread has demonstrated, they don't understand the difference between assumption and premise. That guy is 100% convinced his assumptions are in fact, fact.

And then as I said above, somehow this entity has characteristics that well isn't that kind of what the Bible describes God as if we look here and here, and well you know we must deduce that that particular God is real.

Humans are still built around selfishness. There may be glimmers of altruism as evolution can favor certain altruistic organisms to further the entire human race as a whole. But for the most part, humans are selfish.

I doubt that the 4 year old will stop beating people up because he is beaten up himself. He will probably stop beating people up if his parents tell him off or if he is punished. The whole reason why capitalism works is that people are selfish and greedy.

I would call that weakness. The need to believe there is a point to your life.

It's the modal variant of the ontological argument. Some logicians would say the argument begs the question; nevertheless, it's still a fascinating argument that requires deep inspection to see its limitation.

It's not so much as them changing the playing field, rather it's to do with exploring every possibility to see what sticks. Both sides do it. I've seen many atheists appeal to absolute defeators to stop religious apologetics before it can even get off the ground i.e. aliens could have done some miracle X/insert other imaginative naturalistic explanation for an alleged miracle.

That's pretty much what the modal ontological argument is supposed to show, but in order to show why it's flawed you must either deny one of the premises, or question the rule of inference that's used to go from some set of premises to some conclusion(s).

Could you elaborate a bit more on this? Not sure who you're talking about. How would you define "premise" and "assumption" respectively

Having debated Christians and seen their debates with other people, Christians usually bring up additional arguments to go from generic theism to their specific brand of Christian theism. An example would be William Lane Craig's argument concerning the historical resurrection of Jesus, or the Muslims' claim that the Qur'an itself is miraculous from a linguistic perspective, or Richard Swinburne's argument from religious experiences, etc. Of course, these arguments may not be successful in "proving" a specific religion's claims. But again as people relying on reason and logic we need to show why these arguments are flawed instead of dismissing them by mockery.

Why do we say that just because we have come to understand anything that occurs in nature, lightening, earthquakes, DNA, whatever, that God can now be taken out of the equation. Every chemical, force, and process that makes anything possible was created and is sustained by God.

Because there is no evidence for God.Your just asserting that it was God who created everything.You may as well just say a giant turtle is responsible for the universe and it would have equal validity.You're postulating an even more complex solotion to something that was already very complex.Complex things like humans dont just appear they start from simple begginings.God would have to be more complex than the universe so he doesnt solve the problem of how such a complex universe could appear.

At the end of the day it's still a philosophical argument. Philosophy is not science or mathematics.

Seeing what sticks? I don't see how changing pretty much everything ex post, in accordance with the development of our understanding of the universe, can be re conciliated with them being so-called divine inspiration or even outright the word of God in case of Islam.

Is it? I thought it's supposed to show a supernatural entity exists.

A premise is something that has been observed as true. An assumption is "suppose x is true" and then you show if x then y. So even if their argument logically follows from x, it still means nothing because x is not true. It's just assumed to be true by them.

Yes but I don't even see how it is generic theism. All they do is argue for some all powerful entity. For it to be generically "theistic" it must surely at least have some sort of evidence to a relationship with humans. But it doesn't. All they say is "well we have proven such an entity exists, and now it's much more rational to believe our God exists, than this entity exiting but it not being our God".

You know, if you were to look at my early posts on this forum you'll see me dismissing philosophy in a similar manner. No offense but people who dismiss philosophy and its aims generally do not understand it, or they've seen some obnoxious philosophical hand-waving in one area (i.e. theology) and extrapolate that to the entire field. This is ignorance a best, anti-intellectualism at worst. Any realm or system of thinking is concerned with philosophy. Formal logic (including mathematical logic) is a branch of philosophy. Science and its methodologies ultimately depend on the groundwork that was laid by philosophical thinkers. As someone who's studying physics at a degree level but has an interest in the history of science, I can see the intimate relationship between the aforementioned fields. Sean Carroll, a well known cosmologist and proponent of naturalism, puts it better than I can: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/23/physicists-should-stop-saying-silly-things-about-philosophy/

There are valid objections against the ontological argument; "it's just a philosophical argument" is not one of them.

Sure it can be reconciliated. Your personal dislike of this approach has no bearing on the validity thereof.

The term "supernatural" doesn't factor in the argument itself. It's concerned with a maximally great being, which may or may not be supernatural (depending on the coherence of supernaturalism itself).

All facts that have been "observed to be true" may be used as premises, but not all premises can be empirically justified. The "if p then q; p, therefore q" form of argument is known as modus ponens. It's used in syllogisms, and when used as a deductive argument, in the hierarchy of reliable knowledge it ranks higher than scientific information, which is derived via inductive reasoning.

You make a good point here. Having argued for a general, deistic God, the burden of proof lies on them to show that this God is concerned with human affairs. But that's precisely what the additional arguments I mentioned purport to do. Their success or failure is of course subject to debate, but the arguments are still there; the religious theists have made somewhat of an effort in this area.

I do not think it is self-contradictory, what he has said. Otherwise you would be discounting nearly every inductive argument ever formulated.

Inductive argument are, by definition, not conclusive but they are not self-contradictory on the basis that their premises may be false. Just because something is not conclusive, it does not make it baseless. I suppose his scientific evidence has some base, even if it is not conclusive.

I think it is unfair to say that "beliefs" in science are similar to theistic beliefs. It is about a degree of certainty. Yes, I cannot be sure that the keyboard that I am typing on right now exists but there are at least reasons to believe that it does exist, even if those are not conclusive. I will not place my hand on my heart and profess that I have faith that the keyboard exists, only that I have empirical evidence and other compatible experiences that point to the idea that the keyboard exists.

You cannot say that it is reasonable to believe in God just because an atheistic view is just as arbitrary. In any case, the difference that I see between religion and science is that science is willing to admit that it is wrong. It actively attempts to question itself and disprove its own theories. Religion, however, is purely built on dogma that is refuses to change.

In your last point, how can a Christian live consistently with their beliefs when so many of them are contradictory. The fact that God is omnipotent, the existence of evil or that humans have free wills are all contradictory with another belief in the bible.

I am an atheist (or at least a strong agnostic) but I do not believe that my view is that of an obvious contradiction. I do not believe in an objective morality etc.

I am a fellow atheist but I do not understand what you are talking about. If everything that he/she said was true then how can the assumption be wrong?

Why do I need to read your argument when the assumption you make, upon which the argument is based on, is wrong? Everything you said may be true - but that doesn't matter since the assumption is wrong. So if I read it and say wow yes I agree or lulz no that's rubbish, makes no difference.

You talk about respect? How can I respect someone so arrogant as to claim a monopoly on those things? Another reason why people like you trying to justify theism are infuriating. In fact, that is one of the most arrogant things about theists ever.

Well, what I said is the conclusion of all those arguments

No, it cannot.

Forget supernatural then, just call it "this entity". Whatever you call it, doesn't matter.

You don't say.

And that effort is hugely based on them changing the story every time we learn something new.