Does God Exist?

[Immortalist]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
I have a question to everyone who claims that religion is stupid/tool of control/outdated/wrong/unfounded/contradictory/unscientific/whatever, how much serious research backs your claims? I have yet to hear a significant argument that works against Christianity.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

"There can not be a magic bullet to explain the existence and common features of religion, as the phenomenon is the result of aggregate relevance - that is, of successful activation of a whole variety of mental systems. This is also the case for belief, as we will see presently.

Indeed, the activation of a panoply of systems in the mind explains the very existence of religious concepts and their cultural success and the fact that people find them plausible and the fact that not everyone finds them so and the way religion appeared in human history and its persistence in the context of modern science....

...but philosophers only had the tools of introspection and reasoning to figure out how minds worked. When psychologists replace all of these with experimental studies, they found a whole menagerie of mental processes that apparently conspire to lead us away from clear and supported beliefs. Consider for instance the following:

Consensus effect: People tend to adjust their impression of a scene to how others describe it; for instance, they may perceieve a facial expression as one of anger, but if various people around them see it as one of disgust, they too say they perceive it as expressing that emotion.

False consensus effect: This is the converse effect, whereby people tend wrongly to judge that their own impressions are shared by others- for instance, that other people's emotional reaction to a scene is substantially similar to theirs.

Generation Effect: Memory for self generated information is often superior to memory for perceived items. In a particular scene you imagined, the details you volunteered will be recalled better than the ones suggested by others.

Memory Illusions: It is easy for experimental psychologists to create false memories, whereby people are intuitively certain they did hear or see some item that was in fact imagined. Also, imagining that you perform a particular action, if that is repeated often enough, may create the illusion that you actually performed it.

Source monitoring defects: People in some circumstances seem to get confused about the source of particular information. (Was it their own inference or someone else's judgement? Did they hear it or see it or read about it?) This makes it difficult to assess the reliability of that information.

Confirmation bias: Once people entertain a particular hypothesis, they tend to deflect and recall positive instances that seem to confirm it, but they are often less good at detecting possible refutation. Positive instances remind one of the hypothesis and are counted as evidence; negative instances do not remind one of the hypothesis and therefore do not count at all.

Cognative dissonance reduction: People tend to readjust memories of previous beliefs and impressions in light of new experience. If some information leads them to form a particular impression of some people, they will tend to think that they had the impression all along, even if their previous judgement were in fact the opposite."

Pascal Boyer
Religion Explained

[Immortalist]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Third, i think that god is necessary to explain the origin of matter. the big bang seems like a valid theory, but what is the nothingness from which matter came? if its another universe, how did that originate?<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

And if matter was created by god, then who created god? I, like Nietzsche, choose to believe that God is dead. Can I prove this? No, but I find it a great deal of fun to entertain the notion. You see, even atheists prefer to entertain topics which touch upon certain inference systems within the mind, instead of religion we call it philosophy.

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
To describe religion as mind viruses is sometimes interpreted as contempuous or even hostile. It is both. I am often asked why I am so hostile to "organized religion". My first response it that I am not exactly friendly towards disorganized religion either. As a lover of truth, I am suspicious of strongly held beliefs that are unsupported by evidence: fairies, unicorns, werewolves, any of the inifinite set of conceivable and unfalsifiable beliefs epitomized by Bertrand Russell's hypothetical china tea pot orbiting the Sun. The reason religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's tea pot, religion is powerful, influencial, tax exempt and systematically passed down to children too young to defend themselves.

Richard Dawkins
A Devil's Chaplain<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed o appeal to the imagination. But it is not science fiction: it is science. Cliche or not, 'stranger than fiction' expresses exactly how I feel about the truth. We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment. Though I have known it for years, I never seem to get fully use to it. One of my hopes is that I may have some success in astonishing others.

Preface to The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

[Immortalist]

One more for good measure.

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Among these systems are a set of intuitive ontological expectations, a propensity to direct attention to what is counter intuitive, a tendency to recall it if it is inferentially rich, a system for detecting and over detecting agency, a set of social mind systems that make the notion of well informed agents particularly relevant, a set of social categories that pose the same problem. We are no longer surprised that religious concepts and behaviors have persisted for millenia, probably much longer, and display similar themes the world over. These concepts just happen to be optimal in the sense that they activate a variety of systems in a way that makes their transmission possible.

Pascal Boyer
Religion Explained<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

[Suburbanite]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Immortalist,)

And if matter was created by god, then who created god?  I, like Nietzsche, choose to believe that God is dead.  Can I prove this?  No, but I find it a great deal of fun to entertain the notion.  You see, even atheists prefer to entertain topics which touch upon certain inference systems within the mind, instead of religion we call it philosophy.
<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

I hate the misuse of Nietzsche. He was saying that God was killed because man have replaced him with notions of science and rationalism but God’s message still rings on in man’s heart. Christianity takes his spirit onwards by promoting his morality. Nietzsche did not believe so much that God was dead than he believed people should come to realize this and renounce his morality. It has nothing to do with God no longer living.
And the notion of who created God is ridiculous. The omnipotent is not created it exists out of itself. If God is everything he is his own creator. And while that might seem irrational, if God is truly omnipotent he exists outside of the realm of rationality. The popular “can God create a stone even he can not push?” question is a perfect example. Not only could God create that stone, but then he could push it. Why? Because that is what omnipotence is. That is who God is.

[chicagoastronomer]

Freethinkers believe in facts and logic.

The God of the Bible-Koran-Cabala-Torah...etc... does not exist. It is a creation of the closed mind of simple man in an attempt to explain his world, calm his fears and control the masses.

Some force out there?....perhaps, but certainly not what man has conjured up so far.

[Contrarian]

If god could have created himself, why couldn't the universe have "created itself" along the lines of Alan Guth's "inflation" modification of the Big Bang theory?

[bluenadas]

I was sitting out side one night with the pops, looking at the stars when he said "What if one day you're sitting here just like this and all of a sudden the stars start spinning in some crazy fashion. And out of nowhere you hear a beaming voice say 'Son, I told you to leave them until after dinner'. What would that mean to the world and religion?"

Point being that no one can say with absolute honesty that the universe was created by god, some explosive action of the cosmos, or anything else. There are many theories and many ideals. Christains will tell you that the lack of evidence is the proof that god exisits. The mere fact that we can prove him is the basic for religion...the fact that you must unconditionally believe, regaurdless of proof.

Scientist say that the continual expansion shows that there was one moment in time that the universe 'began'. Science is the art of speculation. Religion, the speculation of art.

[evillally]

God is control of the masses; created by king and queens to maintain power over dopey peasants who had not one independent thought in their heads...

It amazes me that religion has lasted as long as it has and how hostile people get when someone challenges their "god" with a logical opinion...

[joshinvade]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (chicagoastronomer,)
Freethinkers believe in facts and logic.

The God of the Bible-Koran-Cabala-Torah...etc... does not exist. It is a creation of the closed mind of simple man in an attempt to explain his world, calm his fears and control the masses.

Some force out there?....perhaps, but certainly not what man has conjured up so far.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Prove it. Your statement that god and religion was created by man is based on false logic. The idea that Since god does not exist in your mind that he does not exist at all. Your making a extremely broad statement.

Why is it that man will claim the crazist theroys but deny a logical theroy of god? Is is because you can't see him? The air is there but we can't see it. You can't see atoms but many still believe of there existance.

[NittLion78]

The thought of infinite unconsciousness (death) is impossible for most human beings to wrap their head around. Just stop and think right now what it would be like for all of your memories, accomplishments, sorrows, and loved ones disappearing. Imagine not being able to replay in your mind those things that flit past your eyes thousands of times a day without you even realizing it. And now you can NEVER do it again.

Death for us will be like the year 500 AD was for us. Oh, you don't remember it? Well, you won't remember 2004, either.

In my opinion, religion is used exclusively to fill in gaps in human knowledge until logic and/or science do the same. That's why it is both a boon and a danger: it gives people hope of an afterlife, but it gives people hope of an afterlife.

Repeating myself? An old woman dying peacefully in her home thinking she'll be seeing God, Jahweh, Allah, her next reincarnation...that's okay. A suicide bomber thinking fifty virgins await him at Allah's right hand or a Christian fundamentalist assured there's a spot for him in Heaven because he is God's terrible swift sword are the plague on human progress.

So does God exist? Maybe he/she created the universe, but he/she has certainly doesn't pay any attention to our insignifcant blue marble floating in space, or the problems that exist upon it.

[Sasha]

This doesnt realy begin to answer the question but I belive it was Newton who said "God is a good bet".

If he exists and you believe, your saved
If he exists and you dont believe, your screwed
If he dosent exist it doesnt matter if you believe or not

Thats a little cynical I guess but it does make some sense.

When you ask if GOD exists.. what do you think GOD is? a person? A spirit, A thought? what..

[Nooki]

Sure Sasha it does make sense... just dont worship the wrong god :) Beliving in the idee that God created the univers, or started Big Bang is just as likly as it blew out from nothing. Black holes are belived to explode when they reach a certin mass, mayby thats what created or world today.
Anyway, I just read something that anyojd me, "Can God creat a rock so large that he cant lift it?". This is a "proof" that God cannot be all that migthy, and if his not migthy maybe he/she doesnt have any powers what so ever? And if God has no powers is it relly a god?
God is, as someone before me said, just a thought. A way of explaining the Univers with the tools you have. Many people belive that a God started Big Bang, thats because we cant possible se beyond that point. So how do we explain it? a god must have started everything.

Has anyone ever imagined that maybe to a higher being we are a microscopic figure, as germs are to us. Are we a germ to anothers eye? We are obviously much smaller than we think compared to the universe.

[Pooeypants]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (CitizenCOP,)
Has anyone ever imagined that maybe to a higher being we are a microscopic figure, as germs are to us. Are we a germ to anothers eye? We are obviously much smaller than we think compared to the universe.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
Indeed, when you look at the grand scheme of things, from the point of view as a cosmologist, you'd realise how insignificant we really relative to the how universe.

[Bryan]

Some ways to explian the origin of the universe without god:
Gravitional Time Dialation
At the big bang and for a good time after the universe could have been operating in imaginary time(as in the root of a negative number) as all mass would have been within an event horizon, under these circumstances causes can happen after what they cause. The big bang could have caused itself.

Quantum Flux
To move all the mass in the universe back to the center of the universe would take energy, the amount of engery it would take has been calculated to be the same engery of all other engery in the universe, thus the net energy of the universe is 0. By the Uncertainty Principle a quantum fluculation of 0 engery can last for an infinite amount of time.

[DayBaye]

If one asks if God exists, one must first ask 'what is God?' If one cannot agree on what God is, how can one say whether it exists?

I believe in the God as I do in magic, and before you say I've been duped by Harry Potter, that's not what I mean. Magic is the unexplained. Atlas holding the world up was an explanation for the laws of gravity. Now we know that no strong-shouldered giant lifts the world, but is gravity not magic? Is gravity not a god? Every time I look through the microscope and see teensy beings propelling themselves along, I see God. God is mystery and life and the answer to our questions, because there will always be more quuestions than there are answers. I said I believd in God.

What is God to you? What does it mean?

[libertyminded]

Many previous posters have the right idea. God is something different to many people. Even saying "God" as if there were a singular such thing is ethnocentric. The idea of a singular God arose from the Jews that had been captured, enslaved and scattered all over the middle east in ancient times. In those days everyone acknowledged the existance of everyone elses Gods and accepted the fact that your Gods held sway in you land and their Gods held sway in their lands. The Jews developed the idea that theirs was the only true God and that he was omnipresent because they needed something to unify and comfort them in the face of constant enslavement and relocation.

There are to many logical contradictions inherent in a claim of an all powerful God many of which have been touched on by previous posters.

1. If God is omnipotent, does he also have the ability to strip himself of his omnipotence? (Can God create an object that he cannot destroy?)

2. God cannot both be the creator of all things and yet be omnibenevolent. For if God is the creator of all things that would mean that he was also the creator of all evil, ergo he cannot be omnibenevolent.

3. If nothing comes from nothing, and all things in existance require a creator, then God too must have required a creator of some sort, meaning that God's existance would be reliant upon an even more powerful creator, which is impossible because you don't get anymore powerful then all "all-powerful" (omnipotent) correct?

4. If God is completely just, and he requires us to fulfill some sort of criterea to achieve eternal bliss, and he also loves all of his children equally, then it would follow reasonably that each person would be given an equal oppotunity to fulfill these predetermined criterea aspecially considering that the consequence for failing to fulfill such criterea is eternal torture. Since the majority of people ever to exist on Earth only ever hear (and develop a profound understanding) of their culture's form of religion. Thus, by the cirterea established by most monotheistic religions, pretty much everyone else will suffer in hell for their happenstance.

All in all it seems to me that faith is just a fancy word for gullibility. You believe in that which comforts you most regardless of whatever logical fallicies lie within.

[Sasha]

The notion of faith is such that not everything can be explained or is nessecarily logical, it is in fact outside of our rational capacity, God may be entirly irrational.
God however provides an answer to questions that cannot be answered in a rational fashion. He provides a meaning and an explination to life in a way that no amount of logic or rationality has been able to. Hence the search for God, and the belief in him is a means to find an answer. One could then conclude "God" may not be a being, or even an it, but rather a concept that answers the questions man has posed for eons.

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (nature of reality,)
I don't believe in god. Athiest.

If grant intellectual ambilivalence to every notion, you negate the power of the mind. Plus the whole "can you prove he DOESN"T exist" arguement is crap--it shifts the burden of proof. Things dont' exist until proven otherwise.


Im not terribly militant about it though. I would convert to just about any goofy ass religion for pussy. /em starts praying to Mecca.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Maybe your goofy ass should start by getting the facts accurate - or learning to communicate properly in english. Muslims pray TOWARDS Mecca, not TO the city.

Arrogance like yours almost ensures that you'll be athiest. You refuse to believe in something greater than yourself, because then you'd have to humble yourself before that entity. Hell, you can't even give appropriate respect to the belief of millions of people.

Moving along... most of the beginning of this is, essentially, the three-part "contingency" philosophical proof of a Creator's existence. We are contingent. All that we know of is contingent, therefore there must be something which is NOT contingent who created it all; there is a GOD.