Does God Exist?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

In my years as a scholar

Yo, CyberScholar, listen to what you're saying.  The first sign of psychosis is a scholar complex.  You're simply having another psychotic break.

[anvi]

The burden of proof would seem to lie on the party that postulates the existence of a specific kind of cause.  

It's certainly not unreasonable to believe that the existence of the universe in its current configuration had a cause or set of causes.  But the series of causes could indeed be just an infinite series of causes, or we may just not know, and may never know, the nature of the preceding causes.  On the contrary, there is no good argument, and no evidence whatsoever, that the commonly accepted notion of "God" was that cause.  That's why people who believe in God do so because of faith, and not because of reason.  I happen not to have any such faith.  

In the final analysis, I don't want to be a mortal being, I don't want to die and be gone forever, any more than anyone else does.  I hate that fact not just for myself, but for all the people I love as well.  But my abhorrence at the fact that I, and all my loved ones, will soon be dead doesn't justify the belief in some divine being--it just doesn't.  Unchangeable facts need to be acknowledged and faced, even when it's hardest to face them.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

In my years as a scholar, I've heard alot of plausable and poor theories. I've never heard anything as stupid as matter just appeared from nowhere and things began to exist for no reason.

Therefore, unerring belief in an entity that appeared from nowhere and began to exist for 'no reason'?

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

In my years as a scholar

Lying is a sin.

[© Tweed the Younger]

In my years as a scholar

Lying is a sin.

lmao.  even his profile says he is 27, which would mean that he would be a remarkable case even to have a PhD, let alone "many years"

[Gustaf]

In my years as a scholar

Lying is a sin.

lmao.  even his profile says he is 27, which would mean that he would be a remarkable case even to have a PhD, let alone "many years"

Wasn't that an old Derek line as well, being a scholar?

[Gustaf]

You think we get eaten by worms? Well our bodies do.

What does that have to do with the question?

Isn't that your first post on here about the topic?

What on earth?  Are you a goldfish?  You asked me if I think being "right" is important and in my very first post that's exactly what I said.

So you think it does or doesn't matter if we're right? I can't seem to find it.

I quite obviously don't, but that has nothing to do with the issue.  The issue is that you do while also claiming your God is infinite and can't be understood (like I said from the very beginning).  How can you be right about something you yourself can't understand?

I like this evolution in you, acting like we're the ones shying away or not answering questions.  It's funny.

It wouldn't be my God, it would be God. I'm a scholar not a scientist. My goal is to research and argue ideas based on what is written with the foreknowledge that the events may have happened in some way or another. I demythologize and then re-mythologize. As for God my belief resides in the fact that something cannot just come out of nothing. In order to argue that there is no God you must be able to prove that something can come from nothing. How can I be right about something that I don't FULLY understand? That doesn't matter according to you. Now does it matter to me? Somewhat, but since I have yet to see that there is concrete evidence supporting that something can come from nothing, I am still in the belief that there is a God and that God must be infinite as a first cause.

[Old Europe]

Well, since God is omnipotent it is also capable of time travel. Therefore it could have travelled all the way back to time before the Big Bang and created itself.

God wouldn't have come into existence "just like that", although you would still be confronted with a paradox.

[True Federalist]

The "it makes no sense for something to come out of nothing" argument for God's existence makes no logical sense itself.

If God sprang out of the void, then it does not follow that nothing else could not have also sprung out.

If God is eternal, then it does not follow that there could not be other eternal things.

And last but not not least, if one takes the theological position the God is the universe and the universe is God, then they are one and the same.

In short, while cosmology can help determine the logical validity of particular theologies, it is of no use in determining the logical validity of theism itself.

[Tidewater_Wave]

The "it makes no sense for something to come out of nothing" argument for God's existence makes no logical sense itself.

If God sprang out of the void, then it does not follow that nothing else could not have also sprung out.

If God is eternal, then it does not follow that there could not be other eternal things.

And last but not not least, if one takes the theological position the God is the universe and the universe is God, then they are one and the same.

In short, while cosmology can help determine the logical validity of particular theologies, it is of no use in determining the logical validity of theism itself.

God by definition exists outside of time and therefore outside of our understanding. To say "God would've sprang from nowhere" is an oxymoron because God cannot have a beginning or an end as that which is all being. I don't really get into theology when debating the existence of a creator or God. Theology is more for what God is rather than if God exists. That's a good question about eternity but as finite creatures I don't think we're capable of fully grasping the eternal or infinite.

Someone else mentioned a Ph.D. I have no Ph.D and never claimed to.

[© Tweed the Younger]

Someone else mentioned a Ph.D. I have no Ph.D and never claimed to.

I did.  since you are a scholar, what degrees do you have, and in what?

[Tidewater_Wave]

Someone else mentioned a Ph.D. I have no Ph.D and never claimed to.

I did.  since you are a scholar, what degrees do you have, and in what?

I'm sending you a private message rather than stating where I've attended and the degrees I've earned and I hope that you honor the privacy.

[Tidewater_Wave]

and for the record I do have a B.A. as well as have attended graduate school

[Grad Students are the Worst]

God by definition exists outside of time and therefore outside of our understanding. To say "God would've sprang from nowhere" is an oxymoron because God cannot have a beginning or an end as that which is all being. I don't really get into theology when debating the existence of a creator or God. Theology is more for what God is rather than if God exists. That's a good question about eternity but as finite creatures I don't think we're capable of fully grasping the eternal or infinite.

...Your response wasn't really on-point to his post, and you also ignored my post for no apparent reason.

[Tidewater_Wave]

God by definition exists outside of time and therefore outside of our understanding. To say "God would've sprang from nowhere" is an oxymoron because God cannot have a beginning or an end as that which is all being. I don't really get into theology when debating the existence of a creator or God. Theology is more for what God is rather than if God exists. That's a good question about eternity but as finite creatures I don't think we're capable of fully grasping the eternal or infinite.

...Your response wasn't really on-point to his post, and you also ignored my post for no apparent reason.

I'm sorry which post?

[Tidewater_Wave]

Yes by definition. What we know to be a first mover or first cause, first essence is what is God. Now the presence of God is highly flawed by religion, especially in ancient times but the idea of God throughout history does show the evolution of what we know is not God; humanity and every other part of matter. I must ask; are you referring to the God of Christianity or monotheism or a creator?

If you define God as an entity that can just come into existence, why can't the universe just come into existence, or whatever?  Is anything capable of just coming into existence definitionally "God"?

God never began to exist nor will God ever cease to exist.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

and for the record I do have a B.A. as well as have attended graduate school

Why have the gods left you alive?

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Yes by definition. What we know to be a first mover or first cause, first essence is what is God. Now the presence of God is highly flawed by religion, especially in ancient times but the idea of God throughout history does show the evolution of what we know is not God; humanity and every other part of matter. I must ask; are you referring to the God of Christianity or monotheism or a creator?

If you define God as an entity that can just come into existence, why can't the universe just come into existence, or whatever?  Is anything capable of just coming into existence definitionally "God"?

God never began to exist nor will God ever cease to exist.

If God can be a causeless agent, why can't the universe or the universe's cause?  Why does a causeless agent have to be a deity?

[Tidewater_Wave]

Yes by definition. What we know to be a first mover or first cause, first essence is what is God. Now the presence of God is highly flawed by religion, especially in ancient times but the idea of God throughout history does show the evolution of what we know is not God; humanity and every other part of matter. I must ask; are you referring to the God of Christianity or monotheism or a creator?

If you define God as an entity that can just come into existence, why can't the universe just come into existence, or whatever?  Is anything capable of just coming into existence definitionally "God"?

God never began to exist nor will God ever cease to exist.

If God can be a causeless agent, why can't the universe or the universe's cause?  Why does a causeless agent have to be a deity?

Then in that case the universe would be a God. It doesn't necessarily have to be a deity. By universe do you mean all that is?

[Tidewater_Wave]

Yes by definition. What we know to be a first mover or first cause, first essence is what is God. Now the presence of God is highly flawed by religion, especially in ancient times but the idea of God throughout history does show the evolution of what we know is not God; humanity and every other part of matter. I must ask; are you referring to the God of Christianity or monotheism or a creator?

If you define God as an entity that can just come into existence, why can't the universe just come into existence, or whatever?  Is anything capable of just coming into existence definitionally "God"?

God never began to exist nor will God ever cease to exist.

If God can be a causeless agent, why can't the universe or the universe's cause?  Why does a causeless agent have to be a deity?

Actually yes the universe's cause can be a causeless agent. I misread your first question due to the hour. That universe's cause is what we know to be God.

[The Mikado]

Can you really extrapolate something like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover into something you can call "God," given all the Abrahamic trappings that word (especially capitalized like that) has received?  The Unmoved Mover redefines "god" to its minimum possible definition: a force that set the universe in motion.  The Unmoved Mover is not necessarily eternal, is not necessarily omnipotent, is not necessarily omniscient...f**k, is not necessarily conscious or sentient and may be acting out of dumb instinct.

[Governor Scott]

Yes.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

Can you really extrapolate something like Aristotle's Unmoved Mover into something you can call "God," given all the Abrahamic trappings that word (especially capitalized like that) has received?  The Unmoved Mover redefines "god" to its minimum possible definition: a force that set the universe in motion.  The Unmoved Mover is not necessarily eternal, is not necessarily omnipotent, is not necessarily omniscient...f**k, is not necessarily conscious or sentient and may be acting out of dumb instinct.

     That was my thought, really. From the atheist scientistic viewpoint, the universe began with the Big Bang. The issue is, the proponents of that viewpoint cannot to their satisfaction account for how matter came to exist, much less in the configuration that allowed the Big Bang to occur.

     Let's say then that it happened because a single proton decayed, just to throw something totally random out there. To identify that proton as God, which seems to me to be a natural application of the "unmoved mover as God" idea, strikes me as degrading to any notion of God or gods.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Then in that case the universe would be a God. It doesn't necessarily have to be a deity. By universe do you mean all that is?

err...so, if my very not-sentient coffee mug was a causeless entity, it would definitionally be God?  This is just not what I think people mean when they say "God"

[Is Totally Not Feeblepizza.]

Maybe. To give a flat out yes or no would be rather arrogant, considering the absolute lack of tangible proof on either side of the argument.