Does a God Exist?

[NazzerDawk]

This is my favorite discussion topic in the world. I have done a lot of it and covered just about every facet of it at some time or another.

Let me start with making the statement that I am an atheist. Now lots of people have differing ideas about what the word "atheist" means, so I will state that it is simply the position of not being a theist. This includes anyone who does not accept the claim that a god exists (which is subtly different from the acceptance of the claim that no god or gods exist) Simply put, anything that is not "theism" is "not theism", ie "Atheism".

And lets also clarify which gods I am talking about. You can probably find a pacific islander that will point to a totem pole and say "This is my god". Well I can certainly accept that the totem pole exists, it's just his claims of it's weather-controlling powers that I don't buy into. The Roman Senate once declared that Julius Caesar was a god: I think he existed, so I believe in his existence.

I'm specifically talking about any intelligent entity that is declared a supreme being and that is given credit for either the creation or continued governance of natural processes.

It is not acceptable to argue that "God is love" and point out that if I believe love exists (I do) then I believe god exists. The same goes for claims that "god is just the universe", because we already have a word for the universe: it's "universe". We also have a word for love already: Love.

So, here's the topic starter: Present your arguments about why a god must exist. I will engage with you on your arguments, and either present a counter argument, present ways to improve your arguments, or both.

NOTE: This is not a thread about disproving gods. Gods by definition are often unfalsifieable by definition, so a disproof may be improper or impracticable, and likely impossible. It is not the duty of a person to defend non-belief of a positive claim.

[Roadhawg]

It sounds more like you want to argue if there is a God or not but I may be wrong. I don't know if there is a supreme being up in the sky and I'm not sure there isn't either. Faith is belief that there is a higher being without having proof. I believe there is air but I can't see it. Personally I think that if humans are the best the universe can do we're all in a lot of trouble.

[MDot]

This is gonna get ugly.

[CuatrodeMayo]

[NazzerDawk]

Belief is faith that there is a higher being without having proof. I believe there is air but I can't see it.

This is not a valid comparison. We became aware of the existence of air because we feel it, and we can use it. We KNOW it exists because it can be confirmed.

The important thing is that if we were to go out to test the claim that "air exists", we could conceivably find out upon investigation that this is not the case. This principle, the quality of being potentially disprovable, is called "falsifiability". Without this quality, without being able to tell the difference between whether a claim is true or untrue, we are unjustified in accepting.


And this doesn't have to get ugly. I don't claim that atheists are smarter than theists, or that theism equates to brain damage or something. It's simply a matter of adjusting standards for accepting a given claim.

[Dustin]

I'd like to believe in a god but there is simply no proof of one.

[RadicalModerate]

There is no doubt in my mind that ["a" "G-d"] exists.
I believe in the existence of [G-d].
I also have faith in [G-d] which is what gives "life" to that belief.

(Unfortunately, I also believe that MDot's prognostication, above, is probably correct.)

[MDot]

It's a very debatable subject that we will never come to a conclusion on or ever agree on. I personally believe in God but I've also never questioned it. But I don't look down on people who don't believe in God cause we all have our own beliefs and everyone is equal IMO even if we don't see eye to eye. I can't explain to you why I believe in God or why you don't, I just go about my day regularly and live it, I don't really sit back and wonder is there a God or if he's been proven or not cause as Roadhawg mentioned it's a matter of faith cause I've never seen God but I still believe in him and I guess it's just easy for me to accept.

[RadicalModerate]

Probably the least ugly comment on the topic that will be made on this thread.
I salute you, Sir. (Or Madame.)

(What is that old saying about why some people spend so much time battling against something that they don't believe exists? . . .)

[HewenttoJared]

I believe a creator of some kind is likely to exist for a couple of reasons.

The first is the nature of reality. There are a fairly large and growing number of fundamental principles that govern the behavior of energy/matter. Take gravity, for example. If we start at the moment of the big bang and tweak it just 1 or 2% you get either a re-crushing of all that exists or a spread so wide that nothing beyond a hydrogen atom is able to form. We know how uniform the explosion of time and space was, so we know that the tiniest of forces slowing down or speeding up the expansion would be disastrous for us(or any other level of organization beyond 1 proton being orbited by one electron). Obviously you can get as complicated as you want with it but it remains true. If I tweak any one of the fundamental forces operating inside the atom I get a reality which no longer hosts atoms that prefer 4 bonds. And then I get....no life. Realistically you probably wouldn't get planets either but no life is a more powerful example to me.

The universe could be constructed in an infinite number of other ways which all lead to no levels of organization beyond hydrogen. We inhabit one that contains hydrogen that was spread widely enough that it didn't re-collapse and nonuniform enough to begin collapsing into a pattern of density. Those congregations of matter were made of hydrogen atoms governed by laws in precisely the right way that they could collapse into stars that churned out light and heat and all other kinds of radiation. These stars built the hydrogen into hundreds of other types of molecules that are eventually blown all across existence by supernovae and eventually form nebulae. These nebulas form stars with rocky planets and atmospheres that can support liquid water and allow the formation and buildup of organic molecules that interact with each other in incredible ways. Some of them even make copies of themselves. The ones that do begin changing over time into ever-increasingly complex forms. And now the descendants of one of those molecules, being inhabited by billions of other descendants of the same molecules, is typing this post. Every step along that path could be stopped dead by tweaking any of the fundamental forces to even the tiniest degree.

So it seems to me that the odds of anything existing(at least in this reality) are incredibly tiny if the moment of physical law creation was a truly random event. And the odds of something like me existing are orders of magnitude smaller than the odds of anything at all existing.

[venture]

MDot made the best comment possible. Can we lock the thread and get away from this one now? It is quiet now, but its bound to get ugly. Not to mention, why is someone who is brand new to the site starting these random threads that are overly/obviously controversial? Also notice that someone else who did something similar has faded away. Something doesn't smell right...and the troll-dar is beeping louder and louder.

On the topic though for me. My beliefs are my personal beliefs. I'm not going to push them on anyone on this forum or in real life. They are my own and don't need to be shared. I could easily dance out and say Yes or No to the question, but what would it accomplish? Nothing. I'm not here to sway people to change their beliefs on my account. Nor am I here to contribute to the development of a public debate on such things.

IOW, mind your own business. :-P

[MikeOKC]

What Venture said ^^^^^^^^^^

[RadicalModerate]

Amen.

(Except to recommend a book titled, "The Fingerprint of God" by Hugh Ross to Bro. H.t.Jared. For the semi-scientific spin regarding "reasons to believe".... Lot's of cosmology instead of chemistry and fossil stuff in there. =)

[NazzerDawk]

MDot made the best comment possible. Can we lock the thread and get away from this one now? It is quiet now, but its bound to get ugly. Not to mention, why is someone who is brand new to the site starting these random threads that are overly/obviously controversial? Also notice that someone else who did something similar has faded away. Something doesn't smell right...and the troll-dar is beeping louder and louder.

I want to address this one first: I am not trolling. I do not want anyone to get upset and if any comments get ugly I will deal with them with civility (On either side of the debate).

I joined here because I like to discuss religion and I have never gotten the chance to discuss the subject with a larger cross-section of Oklahomans. That was why I created my previous thread asking what everyone's religion is so that I could know if this debate could genuinely gain traction: too often these threads end up with just one side ganging up on the other. I don't want that, I want an even exchange of ideas. Please do not lock the thread unless it does get ugly: if it does, or if it becomes too big, I will likely hold an open "opponent selection" to possibly have a one-on-one discussion with another willing participant.

On the topic though for me. My beliefs are my personal beliefs. I'm not going to push them on anyone on this forum or in real life. They are my own and don't need to be shared. I could easily dance out and say Yes or No to the question, but what would it accomplish? Nothing. I'm not here to sway people to change their beliefs on my account. Nor am I here to contribute to the development of a public debate on such things.

IOW, mind your own business. :-P

I am making this thread for people who want to engage in the discussion. I am glad you aren't going to push them, but I don't see anything bad in pushing what you think is right. I wouldn't complain if you were pushing what you believe :P. I don't complain when someone tries to convince me of what they believe.

If you don't want to be in the discussion, just don't join.

I am being as kind and careful as possible, please don't push this thread down just because you think it will inevitably turn ugly, I find that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy more often than not.
I will be addressing other posts shortly.

[RadicalModerate]

Why do I feel the sudden urge to connect NazzerDawk with that BibleNameDudestartingwithJ who was all into what some might view as long-winded arguments about Creationism vs. Evolution?

And when I say "connect" I mean it in the Kind sense of the word involving pen pals and tea and crumpets and monk's robes and candles that lead naturally to "just how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?"

A mystery that still remains to this day.

(Count this as a vote for The Venture79 Suggestion.
Without in any way declaring a "war on free speech etc." =)

[dmoor82]

I believe there is a higher power that is responsible for everything we see,touch,smell, etc......This is a touchy subject because everyone thinks their right and the other person to be wrong,but in all honesty do Humans really know WTH is going on?I think not!

[MikeOKC]

Why do I feel the sudden urge to connect NazzerDawk with that BibleNameDudestartingwithJ who was all into what some might view as long-winded arguments about Creationism vs. Evolution?

And when I say "connect" I mean it in the Kind sense of the word involving pen pals and tea and crumpets and monk's robes and candles that lead naturally to "just how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?"

A mystery that still remains to this day.

(Count this as a vote for The Venture79 Suggestion.
Without in any way declaring a "war on free speech etc." =)

I don't know, but I feel that same "connection" between many of those posting in that music thread with YouTube videos.

[dankrutka]

One of the by products of the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and Descartes is that people feel the need to "prove" God's existence. There was a time when faith and logical forms of knowledge co-existed without people questioning whether there was contradiction. Now people try to logically "prove" issues of faith. That's where things like evolution arguments emanate. Anyway, my point is, it's great to share and learn about each others beliefs, but, in the end, no one will logically prove anything about God's existence because it's a matter of faith, not logic.

[NazzerDawk]

I believe a creator of some kind is likely to exist for a couple of reasons.

The first is the nature of reality. There are a fairly large and growing number of fundamental principles that govern the behavior of energy/matter. Take gravity, for example. If we start at the moment of the big bang and tweak it just 1 or 2% you get either a re-crushing of all that exists or a spread so wide that nothing beyond a hydrogen atom is able to form. We know how uniform the explosion of time and space was, so we know that the tiniest of forces slowing down or speeding up the expansion would be disastrous for us(or any other level of organization beyond 1 proton being orbited by one electron). Obviously you can get as complicated as you want with it but it remains true. If I tweak any one of the fundamental forces operating inside the atom I get a reality which no longer hosts atoms that prefer 4 bonds. And then I get....no life. Realistically you probably wouldn't get planets either but no life is a more powerful example to me.

The universe could be constructed in an infinite number of other ways which all lead to no levels of organization beyond hydrogen. We inhabit one that contains hydrogen that was spread widely enough that it didn't re-collapse and nonuniform enough to begin collapsing into a pattern of density. Those congregations of matter were made of hydrogen atoms governed by laws in precisely the right way that they could collapse into stars that churned out light and heat and all other kinds of radiation. These stars built the hydrogen into hundreds of other types of molecules that are eventually blown all across existence by supernovae and eventually form nebulae. These nebulas form stars with rocky planets and atmospheres that can support liquid water and allow the formation and buildup of organic molecules that interact with each other in incredible ways. Some of them even make copies of themselves. The ones that do begin changing over time into ever-increasingly complex forms. And now the descendants of one of those molecules, being inhabited by billions of other descendants of the same molecules, is typing this post. Every step along that path could be stopped dead by tweaking any of the fundamental forces to even the tiniest degree.

So it seems to me that the odds of anything existing(at least in this reality) are incredibly tiny if the moment of physical law creation was a truly random event. And the odds of something like me existing are orders of magnitude smaller than the odds of anything at all existing.

This statement brings to mind a little thought experiment: imagine a person who has never played poker in their life. They are given the rules, and dealt their first hand... and they get a royal flush on their very first hand. The probability of this occurring is 1/2,598,960. Pretty awesome. Incredibly lucky. Well, there is NO WAY this can happen, right? No one would ever bet on this.

Now lets rerun this situation. Instead of getting a royal flush, of which there are 4 combinations, lets say that the person instead got 5 other lower cards that aren't in a contiguous order. The odds of getting this specific hand are EXACTLY THE SAME as the odds of the Royal Flush. But no one cheers. Maybe he is even a bit down. Why? Because the rules of Poker place artificial significance on that particular set of cards. We can reconstruct the rules of poker to value low hands and suddenly a royal flush becomes less valuable.

Looking at the current configuration of the laws of the universe and concluding that it is significant is awfully anthropocentric. Obviously if the universe was configured in a way that did not support life, then we wouldn't be there to cheer.



This argument ignores two things: first, it ignores the nature of probability. You know how we say "the chances of x occurring are one in x"? That only actually applies to repetition or prediction. The fact is that every configuration of anything carries with it a certain level of probability, and identifying that an improbable configuration exists currently says nothing about how it got there: it's if an improbable event, then that level of probability describes whether you are gonna get it looking forward. Conveniently, we only know of one universe. And it's unlikelihood may be extreme, but this could very well be the only one that has life. We could be one of a great many universes, and if so, we could be that one in 2 quadrillion.

Second, it assumes something it can't know: that this is the only configuration of the 4 "forces" that can spawn life. Of course making gravity stronger can probably still allow for life: Gravity isn't even a factor on the quantum level because it's so dang weak. In fact the very fact that it is unbelievably weak makes us cautious about declaring anything about it with confidence. Why is this one so disproportionately weak? Maybe there are universes that have other kinds of forces, like maybe one that repulses stronger than gravity pulls?


This argument relies on an appeal to probability that really isn't there. After that, it relies on the general ignorance of humanity: we don't know the answer to question X, but that doesn't mean we can accept just anything. When we don't know, the answer is not "lets speculate and conclude on what sounds best", the answer is "we don't know and need to continue investigating until we do".

Why do I feel the sudden urge to connect NazzerDawk with that BibleNameDudestartingwithJ who was all into what some might view as long-winded arguments about Creationism vs. Evolution?

And when I say "connect" I mean it in the Kind sense of the word involving pen pals and tea and crumpets and monk's robes and candles that lead naturally to "just how many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin?"

A mystery that still remains to this day.

(Count this as a vote for The Venture79 Suggestion.
Without in any way declaring a "war on free speech etc." =)

This thread's existence may hang on your believing me when I say that I am not a "socket" account of this other guy, so please tell me any way that I can avoid this conclusion. I can give links to other message boards that I have an account on, as well as my blog and YouTube account.

(This is like the Salem Witch Trials: if you are accused of being a sock, there's nothing you can do to avoid the conclusion being positive XD
Not whining or claiming persecution, just noting the similarity and humor there. This is the case any time someone is accused of being a sock.)

[RadicalModerate]

As all previous--and apparently kinda rational--appeals to bringing this particular thread to a close have gone unheeded (ref. posts, from regulars, above) . . .

All I can contribute, in closing, is something along these lines:

i think, therefore i am
(no old "Moody Blues" Youtube clip/riffs on that particular cultural cliché permitted =). . .
[G-d] Thought so two.
and then . . .

Probably i am just a "Roamin' Catholic" . . .

[HewenttoJared]

Gravity not a factor on the quantum level? Ehh, methinks you should rethink that statement.

My coursework was all in evolutionary bio, so I understand perfectly well the difference between one outcome being basically statistically impossible yet still happening and one income just being incredibly unlikely. If you tweak gravity you do get some very predictable results. Reality is like a deck of cards with an infinite number of wrong answers and only one correct one for gravity, which must be drawn together with the correct one from the strong and weak force decks(again, with an infinite number of wrong cards. And all the other decks must also be chosen correctly from an infinite number of wrong answers. And with dark matter as we currently understand it, we only had one shot.

Too high? No expansion, no nothing. Just nothing, forever.
Too low? Energy/matter is distributed too far apart to coalesce into anything bigger than an atom.



Is there a scenario where other forces might adjust and make a new gravity constant still result in complexity? Possibly, but again the match between them has to be absolutely perfect. For that one new gravity constant there is only one weak nuclear force constant that will result in anything other than nothing.


And another quick note on your comment about higher gravity still allowing life: The effects of slightly higher or slightly lower gravity on the big bang are pretty easy to see. It's not an appeal to ignorance, at all.

[Caboose]

I don't know and neither does anyone else.

/Thread

[dankrutka]

Not sure why everyone is freaking out to close this thread. On the whole it's simply consisted of respectful dialogue.

[HewenttoJared]

i don't know and neither does anyone else.

/thread

true

[NazzerDawk]

Gravity not a factor on the quantum level? Ehh, methinks you should rethink that statement.

My coursework was all in evolutionary bio, so I understand perfectly well the difference between one outcome being basically statistically impossible yet still happening and one income just being incredibly unlikely.

Sorry, statistical impossibilities don't exist when referring to a single roll of the die. If you understand this, then why is this the basis of your argument? This is why I used the poker analogy.

I think you might have missed what I meant with the poker analogy, so here it is: The universe started in a finite state and continues to expand FINITELY. It might expand INTO an infinite void, but spacetime itself is finite. And this universe must exist in some given configuration: every atom, every bit of energy, must exist at one place or another. If we reroll the dice and get a universe with the same amount of "everything", then whatever configuration that universe exists in is EQUALLY AS IMPROBABLE as our current one.

If you tweak gravity you do get some very predictable results. Reality is like a deck of cards with an infinite number of wrong answers and only one correct one for gravity, which must be drawn together with the correct one from the strong and weak force decks(again, with an infinite number of wrong cards. And all the other decks must also be chosen correctly from an infinite number of wrong answers. And with dark matter as we currently understand it, we only had one shot.

Too high? No expansion, no nothing. Just nothing, forever.
Too low? Energy/matter is distributed too far apart to coalesce into anything bigger than an atom.

You are really exaggerating how drastically changing gravity would effect these systems. You try to sell this as if we are talking about an absolute perfect balance, but in reality our configuration would allow for an actual window of gravitational adjustments. Gravity is an ABSURDLY weak force, so some fairly minor changes would still result in the contraction or expansion we see at the point of the big bang. We would just see the various effects to lesser degrees, they wouldn't go away altogether. It's like the rubber sheet analogy: if we get a perfect and frictionless sheet of thick but springy rubber, put a round weight in the center, and then toss a bunch of ball bearings around it at various angles and speeds, one might stay in a perfect orbit, rolling around the center of the weight. Well, weaken gravity (make the rubber a bit less easy to compress) and we would simply see a different ball bearing stay in orbit. You wouldn't get OUR universe, but you'd still get A universe. The same thing goes if you were to have a bigger sheet and were to get a whole dang lot of ball bearings and "explode" them outwards from the center: you have a window of "springyness" (or gravity strength) that would result in the grouping of ball bearings. They would be different, but no less existent.

This is like when people appeal to Earth's location in the "Goldilocks zone" around the sun (Not too hot, not too cold), stating that if we were just a few inches/meters/miles away/closer, we would be too cold/hot to sustain life, when in fact the Goldilocks zone is a pretty wide band. In fact, Mars is IN the Goldilocks zone for a particular atmosphere type, it just didn't have Earth's protective magnetic fields so it's atmosphere was basically blasted away. Our Goldilocks zone is between 0.725 and 3.0 astronomical units. Seems small when you put it that way, but a single AU is 149,597,870 Kilometers. That's pretty big. Even if we narrow it down to a mere 100,000 miles, that's hardly a "perfect place".

Is there a scenario where other forces might adjust and make a new gravity constant still result in complexity? Possibly, but again the match between them has to be absolutely perfect. For that one new gravity constant there is only one weak nuclear force constant that will result in anything other than nothing.


And another quick note on your comment about higher gravity still allowing life: The effects of slightly higher or slightly lower gravity on the big bang are pretty easy to see. It's not an appeal to ignorance, at all.

No, the appeal to ignorance is "I don't know why we have an improbable universe instead of a boring hydrogen-filled one, therefore God." There was a reason I used the poker analogy: The unlikelihood of something NEVER EVER EVER equals "impossible", no matter how high I grant you the improbability. ESPECIALLY not when talking about universes, because universes aren't governed by probability, they are governed by physics and, by extension, chemistry.


If that isn't your syllogism, please correct me. It's just the only argument you presented and so it's all I had to go on.

I don't know and neither does anyone else.

/Thread

Leave the thread then. We want to discuss, there's no reason you have to tell us that we can't discuss.