Does God exist?

[Tenacity]

You sound like you came from a Christian background. What's your story?

Let's talk about daily operations. Jesus calmed a storm in the sea of Galilee. Matt 8:27.
Jesus said greater works we can do because He goes to the father: John 14:12.
Therefore, the Christian believer can also control the weather since Jesus did.

The Jimmy Swaggart church was untouched by Hurricane Katrina as his church was able to control the hurricane to an extent that it did not affect it. I've heard testimonies of Christians praying for sunshine or snow and the weather ending up the way they had prayed.

Okay so what about the other churches that were destroyed? Lol, this is what trips me out with Christians. When something "good" happens to you, you say praise the Lord, the Lord kept me! All while ignoring that somebody else more than likely had to lose or sacrifice something in order for something "good" to happen to you.

I don't know how you could even be arguing my point that the Creator has no direct involvement in daily operations. Everything around you operates based upon some function of science......whether it's Natural, Social, Political, or some other science, it's all science. The Creator implemented intelligent design, from which science studies, at that point it's man that manipulates, influences, controls, and reshapes science to fit whatever agenda that he has....most of which is profit, happiness, comfort, or peace driven.

And God gives the "wisdom" to invent a patented product that can produce allot of money. Heard some Christian testimonies of some millionaires to that effect.

Sir what in the world are you talking about lol? Who creates and manages the patent laws, God or Man? Who creates and manages the monetary system, God or Man? Who creates/manages the free market system that allows for free market trade, God or Man?

Sounds more like a devil-run world system.

Call it whatever you want, but I don't believe the Creator nor "the Devil" manages nor controls our day-to-day operations. If you look at the situations, evidence, and facts on the ground......my theory that everything is man/mammal/animal/natural resource driven is supported.

- When a hurricane destroys a town, Christians call that the devil. If a man nearly died in the hurricane but somehow lived, Christians call that "situation" the act of God.

- In actuality, neither God nor the Devil were involved in that situation. You have a natural disaster (hurricane) occurring based on natural processes that were put in place during Intelligent Design. A hurricane is neither good nor bad, holy nor unholy, it's based on natural processes/natural disasters.

So people don't sometimes get complications in surgery, or contract anti-bacteria resistant infections resulting in death at hospitals?

Yes, it happens and guess what? People were dying much earlier in life from basic illnesses before the advancement of more medicine, research, drugs, devices, etc., all driven by MAN's individual efforts, whose purpose was some sort of profit, happiness, comfort, or peace.

 

[corrector]

You don't litigate much, do you? It is your claim that evidence of God exists. Your claim is "a cause of action," and thus you are the Plaintiff. I am not a witness, as I don't have the claim, you do. I am a Defendant. The burden of proof rests upon the Plaintiff. My defense to your cause of action is that no such evidence of God exists. You claim there are 544 witnesses. In pre-trial conferences, I ask you for the names of the 544 witnesses, so that I can prepare for trial. You cannot provide the names. The judge asks you to submit a motion for summary judgment and include 544 affidavits constituting the facts of your claim from individuals with personal knowledge.

You submit this motion for summary judgment, but devoid of the 544 affidavits. I file a cross-motion to dismiss the Complaint as you have unlawfully failed to submit for your specific relief with affidavits from persons with personal knowledge of the facts. Your motion is denied. My cross-motion is granted.

In the event, the judge permitted this to move to trial, and we avoided motion practice, you have no witnesses!

Your argument is entirely conclusory. We now know you don't understand the legal system, but at least educate yourself in rudimentary logic.

There are 44 witnesses in the basis of the books that they wrote. One of those witnesses referred to 500 other witnesses within his book. That would still be hearsay on the other 500 since they didn't write a chapter in the Bible themselves.

 

[corrector]

Lol. No... I am not struggling with sexual sin at all. If I were a christian I would struggle because I would have to ask myself some tricky questions like
-if GOD made me why did he choose to make me with lustful thoughts for women and a penis and then choose to punish me for them.
-why did I have erections against my will and nocturnal emmissions.
-if GOD made woman for man why is it wrong for me to be attracted to women. He even designed her that we can only reproduce by fornication.
-in very early societies there was sex but no marriage. Surely if that hadn't happened we wouldn't be here today to worship GOD. Doesn't that mean that our society and faith could only exist because of SIN.
-If GOD is a compassionate god why does he care why would he punish someone for masturbating, thinking about women that HE made for men to find attractive.
-why did GOD encourage Lot's daughters to get him drunk and have sex with him.
-why is polygamy promoted in the bible (handmaid's tale).

Going over the second question, I can say the nocturnal emissions stuff or night stuff is involuntary and can't be a sin.

I don't think God had anything to do with Lot's daughters getting him drunk and encouraging incest. That is a historical account based on very desperate circumstances. They did that so they could propagate seed and he did this unwittingly.

Polygamy was allowed in the OT (Old Testament), but no so in the NT (New Testament). Allot of issues that were in the OT (i.e. divorce for any reason, polygamy, people such as Sampson or Judah paying for sex) simply become sins in the NT (i.e. divorce and remarriage is adultery, lusting after a woman in your mind is now a sin unto itself where you could go to hell on it, etc...) so I can't really understand why it may seem the NT is more suffocating when it comes to issues like that while the OT sounds more permissive, but yet the OT is much more restrictive in other areas (i.e. ceremonial laws, dietary laws, the Sabbath, feast days, etc....). Most of your questions are based on the NT not the OT.

The issue with the NT is two schools of thought. The first idea is that Jesus expounded on the existing OT law and tried to point out people's self-righteousness is far below the righteousness required by the law. Moses gave an incomplete revelation of the holiness of God as he "watered down" the law to permit divorces, polygamy, etc.... because He lowered his standard to accommodate people's hearts at this time. Jesus explained the original intention of the law since He created humanity, the world, and the laws that is holding everything together.

In this sense, Jesus explained that marriage was intended to be for life until death of one of the partners and it is not God's original intent that divorces would be allowed. If someone divorced and remarried, for any reason then that would be adultery. Jesus explained that the fulfillment of the ten commandments is not simply by external actions, but by thoughts of your heart, In a sense everyone would have fault in them in one way or another and would be guilty before a holy God. This lays the groundwork as to why a Savior would be needed, someone to substitute for sinful man who has no sin Himself so that sins can be borne on Him while the sinful person is justified before God and born-again inside.

While all of this may make sense from here, where it tapers off into two directions is this. Some teachers will say that if you are "saved" or changed in the inside, that even if you sin, God is no longer imputing sin on you and you are still righteous before God. This means even if you lust after a woman or masturbate, God will still see you as righteous as Jesus is because all He sees is your changed born-again spirit, which is distinct from your body and soul. You can not see your spirit. The body is your physical body, the soul is your mind, emotions and willpower. Therefore you could theoretically sin in your soul and body by lusting after a woman and masturbating, and yet remain 100% holy inside your spirit which is distinct from these two (other components being the body and soul). Only the spirit is born-again when someone comes to faith in Jesus. If the body was also saved then there would be a group of people who would be immortal and never die. The body is not saved in this experience. Since you are saved you may not have the desire to sin, at least as much, or a diminishing desire over time as you are purified over time rather than having the same desire to sin, with the same extent and intensity prior to salvation. Other teachers will say that God's high standards still apply and anything you did prior to getting saved which would be a sin, would also be a sin after you are saved and you would be liable to losing your salvation and going to hell. This second school of thought is where you'll see a bunch of youtube videos warning about Christians who believed they were saved, end up in hell because of various issues anyway, despite their former profession of faith or conversion experience, for things that, yes, include lusting after a woman or masturbating.

This may not answer the question you are seeking because it's hard to understand how God sees things. What may be perfectly normal and natural to us is what the Bible calls "the flesh", or "the carnal mind". Almost everything we filter in, and say this sounds reasonable, this feels good, I'm not hurting anyone else, what's wrong with a bit of fun, is a flesh/carnal rationalization. If you are looking at things through the flesh, then it is quite obvious that allot of things will not make sense since God is a totally different being to us and how He sees things is different than how we see things. When you are born-again then there is the "Spirit" which is a different nature inside you which is at odds with the flesh. So now with God dwelling inside your body-temple, looking at a woman with lust could make your temple "filthy" and God doesn't want "filthy vessels" in heaven. The fact that I would see things in terms that, God made women, therefore there is nothing wrong with lusting after them, would be "filth" to God. Again, that ties into the second school of thought about salvation.

The Bible talks about Christians carrying their cross and those who are Christ's have also crucified the flesh along with its desires and lusts. This would point some doubt on feeling too comfortable sinning after you are saved if you are really saved.

And for those christians going on about the "evidence" of the bible, the khoran has witnesses, examples of miracles performed by Moses and others yet contradicts the bible in many ways, as do the texts of buddhism, shintoism, confucianism, the book of mormon, voodoo (less texts but lots of witnesses including photographic evidence of supernatural events), and even Roman and Greek mythology.
Why (using your criteria) is your text true and these other texts untrue.
Why do you still believe the old testament is true but not as true as the new tesyament, seems like cherry picking to me or do you plan to start following the book of leviticus and stoning adulterers and burning furniture that a menstruating woman has sat on? If you aren't then that seems hypocritical.

That is a very involving discussion. The khoran has contradictions inside it and "allah" is really a moon god devised by a pedophilic prophet. Again, I don't have the time to go into that right now. The book of Mormon is not really a holy text like the Bible, any more then me writing a book and calling it "the book of Corrector" and adding it to the Bible cannon and saying its above that. Anybody can do that.

This is where guru1000 makes sense. The khoran is written by one person and may reference some OT books in the Bible under their own lens. The Bible has 44 authors over a span of time. As far as the other texts, these are philosophies or other religions. I don't see the relevance of the discussion here with these books if the discussion is on proving God's existence rather than going over details over other religious texts which would prove that other people have versions of god or a higher power and doesn't really prove or disprove if God exists.

If anything we can say because of these other religious texts, that many people around the world believe some higher power than themselves exist, whom we would refer to as God. Atheism or Agnosticism is relative small in comparison to the other religions that are out there that assume a God of some form exists and are responding to that or trying to reach that God in some way. Unfortunately, I see no testimonies on youtube about God being real or personal in these other religion, yet you'll see a tonne of testimonies about the Christian God and Jesus being real and personal to people on youtube.

The Old Testament is over when Jesus shed His blood, and presented Himself before God the Father as the High Priest. Testaments start with a blood sacrifice and death of the testate. The OT was confirmed the sprinkling of blood on the Jews on Exodus 24:8 who were delivered from Egypt. Animal blood can only cover sins temporarily and pointed to Jesus being the ultimate Lamb of God sacrifice, whose blood would permanently and effectively REMOVE sin rather than just cover them. Old Testament saints never made it to heaven without Jesus' sacrifice and were held at a place in hell called "Abraham's Bosom", which was a protected place inside of hell where the OT saints waited until Jesus freed them to go to heaven.

I've taken the time to explain some of these concepts to you since I can tell you are sincere and have a heart of a seeker and have raised some valid questions and hope these answers are helpful in your journey to truth.

 

[daddymonsterpoodle]

I think that I will politely disagree with your comments about other texts being less believable because there are less authors. Wikipedia has a shipload of authors, doesn't make everythung I read there believable or factual.

As for the khoran, what it does bring into question is legitimacy of belief based on a text. I absolutely acknowledge that people predominantly believe in a higher power. That just indicates majority rule.
Once upon a time all people believed the world was flat. That did not make it so. They also believed horse hair turned into worms in the rain and that draining blood was good for the health.

I respect religions for the hope they bring to people's life. Religion does not equal GOD. That is like saying the Disney Channel proves talking mice are real.

The closest feeling to god that some people get is the physical, emotional and spiritual union they have while having sex with a person they love. I don't want to believe in a god that punishes people for feeling that, just because it didn't happen in marriage, or because they were the same gender.

I respect the strength of your faith and hope it brings you joy and certainty, rather than the guilt and shame it has brought to so many.

The bible is not proof of god only proof of belief in god.

 

[Tenacity]

Religion does not equal GOD.......The bible is not proof of god only proof of belief in god.

I 100% agree. Here's 79 different religions right here: http://www.humanreligions.info/religions.html

If you took the time to research every single religion, I think you would get to at least 700 - 1,000 different religions. Now WHICH one of the religions is correct? Because every single religion will say that its belief system is the "right one" and the others are the "wrong ones".

What is religion? Religion is just like everything you see around you that controls your day-to-day operations, religion is MAN-MADE. It's a man-made belief system. Some DUDE one day got together with a bunch of other dudes and said THIS is how we see the world....THIS is what I believe God to be saying to ME....let's make a book out of this, let's teach it to other people, let's make other people followers of this belief system.

I'm not telling anybody here not to have a religion, a belief system, or to believe in whatever version of God that you have.......all I'm saying is that you should understand that RELIGION ISN'T GOD. RELIGION is a man made belief system based on the interpretation of God by a couple of dudes.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Say you could prove God's existence. That would abolish faith. Yet the whole point of belief is faith not proof.

Does that make faith irrational?

I don't think so. Someone from a faith perspective would simply question the desire for proof, or Rationalism. And by doing so, state we can not prove the most basic of our beliefs such as that of our own internal self, or that of the external world. We slide into solipsism. Rationalism sets the bar too high.... or too low, depending on how you are looking at it.

Reality is not hermetically sealed. Other instincts break in on our cognitive models that we represent to ourselves. The task is to pursue some kind of coherency out of all the various aspects of reality we find ourselves facing. Many do so by allowing for faith in a Supreme Being which grounds not only our moral life [choice], but our rational life -- the way in which we find ourselves constituted. It seems to take more faith to believe Reason is a secretion of the brain than to suppose it to be directed to some intelligible reality.

 

[Tenacity]

Say you could prove God's existence. That would abolish faith. Yet the whole point of belief is faith not proof.

Does that make faith irrational?

But what is faith? Is not faith just a very strongly held conviction? And isn't a conviction just a strong belief in something? And don't most people strongly believe in something based on either having felt something, having seen some sort of vision, having been in some situation and miraculously got out of it?

Nobody believes JUST to believe....their belief system is tied to some feeling, event, testimony, or both. It's why you have so many religions, I believe there IS A GOD, but people have encounters with God in different ways. Some feel something.....some see something.....some get saved out of a strange situation....or something else happens where the person has this deep gut comprehension that it was God/The Creator/The Higher Power that did it. It's that "experience" that leads to their deep conviction or "faith".

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

But what is faith? Is not faith just a very strongly held conviction? And isn't a conviction just a strong belief in something? And don't most people strongly believe in something based on either having felt something, having seen some sort of vision, having been in some situation and miraculously got out of it?

Nobody believes JUST to believe....their belief system is tied to some feeling, event, testimony, or both. It's why you have so many religions, I believe there IS A GOD, but people have encounters with God in different ways. Some feel something.....some see something.....some get saved out of a strange situation....or something else happens where the person has this deep gut comprehension that it was God/The Creator/The Higher Power that did it. It's that "experience" that leads to their deep conviction or "faith".

Sure, a lot have a personal or existential experience. But I think it helps to keep it here on the rational objective plane.

So the way I'd phrase it is that we have rational notions that touch on the existence of God [and ourselves, and an underlying reality to perceived experience], yet we can not fully grasp these things AKA Rationalism/ Ideology. Immanuel Kant is the best Western thinker to frame this understanding [the understanding always stands under something]. There is no 'God's eye point of view'.

Faith is a matter of practical reason not pure reason.

 

[Vantagepoint34]

Yes, he is everywhere

or

No, he is no where
so yes, God does exist!

God according to the bible is a Man where. You see this in Old Germany 1630's Haha.

 

[wifehunter]

Christianity is the only religion based on supernatural events that actually occurred.

Yes!!! Thank you. It needed to be said.

 

[daddymonsterpoodle]

Yes!!! Thank you. It needed to be said.

Bollocks. Every religion has events that actually occurred, or at least has witnesses. A few of them even have more veracity than a 2000 year old testimony.
There are numerous accounts of curses coming true, zombies, prophesying, and miracles and other supernatural events. This is not an argument for God. It is an argument for your God.

Religious debate is people arguing over who has the best imaginary friend.

If Christianity is your fleshlight, enjoy, but don't be offended if some people don't use the same model you do or choose not to use one at all.

The question is not whether your God exists but whether God exists. Everybody knows Christianity and belief in a Christian God exists.

 

[speed dawg]

There are numerous accounts of curses coming true, zombies, prophesying, and miracles and other supernatural events.

Yeah, there really isn't. There aren't any miracles that have the sheer historical documentation that Jesus Christ had.

If Christianity is your fleshlight, enjoy, but don't be offended if some people don't use the same model you do or choose not to use one at all.

Haha, this is a straight made-up shaming technique. I have NEVER in my life been offended if someone didn't accept my beliefs. This is self-preservation on your end.

 

[Rainman4707]

In my experience, religion is nothing but trouble. Imagine the peace we would have if nobody cared about religion.

I'm here to live. I have been granted that experience, so I aim to try & live life to the full. My biggest fear is finding out I have cancer & regretting not enjoying life.
I understand that religion is very important to some people. Great. I'm happy for them. My mother believes in god, just don't start killing people because they don't believe in the same thing you do. It's embarrassing.

 

[zekko]

In my experience, religion is nothing but trouble. Imagine the peace we would have if nobody cared about religion.

It's a bit of a mystery, but people love war and to kill each other. They don't need the excuse of religion to do it. Getting rid of all religions would not bring world peace. People will just fight over something else - land, philosophy, nationalism, ethnicity, anything.

 

[narcissist]

As the late and great philosopher Bertrand Russell puts it: I am publicly atheist, but philosophically agnostic.

This sums up my position on God.

However, it would not be logically possible for God to have the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence all at once, with the presence of non-free-willed evil that exists (such as genetic deficiencies.

Although, to be more specific we would have to define God.

Are we talking about a Spinozian god? Or the biblical God? The biblical God is obviously retarded. And even if I found out he did exist I would refuse to praise him.

Anyhow, one should not have a belief (positive or negative) about something that is not metaphysically and epistemologically possible to grasp within the human stand point. One must logically remain agnostic.

All these rationalist arguments, like the ontological argument, or the argument from causation etc, go beyond what can be known within the human stand point. So, really it is a frivolous and meaningless question.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Which is to say faith is irrational.

Yes, the disconnect between faith and reason that began with the rationalists. And sadly, that rationalism was first taught to us by started the theologians. The new found faith in reason.

Personally, I am a skeptic in order to believe.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

As the late and great philosopher Bertrand Russell puts it: I am publicly atheist, but philosophically agnostic.

This sums up my position on God.

However, it would not be logically possible for God to have the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence all at once, with the presence of non-free-willed evil that exists (such as genetic deficiencies.

Although, to be more specific we would have to define God.

Are we talking about a Spinozian god? Or the biblical God? The biblical God is obviously retarded. And even if I found out he did exist I would refuse to praise him.

Anyhow, one should not have a belief (positive or negative) about something that is not metaphysically and epistemologically possible to grasp within the human stand point. One must logically remain agnostic.

All these rationalist arguments, like the ontological argument, or the argument from causation etc, go beyond what can be known within the human stand point. So, really it is a frivolous and meaningless question.

I remember writing a paper on this in my student days - 'an inconsistent triad for the god of the philosophers', or something like that.

The 'argument of evil' is supposed to show the inconsistency, or incoherency, of theistic belief.

The crux of my response was that this inconsistent triad is itself inconsistent in not restraining itself to philosophy; where in philosophy is God considered omni-benevolent? That proposition comes from revealed theology. And then if we allow part of theology into the equation why not other parts... such as the fall... redemption etc... and then we are full blown into the field of theology.

My point is we should keep a solid distinction between philosophy and theology. Then it is really only in terms of inner coherency, as in the stories told, by which we can ascertain the plausibility of either faith or doubt.

Seems to me the theological/ faith position has actually been strengthened by the materialism of today; for it seems to be unable to make a coherency out the facts of free will, our moral instincts, our desire to improve ourselves, the appreciation of beauty, our sociability and our propensity to communicate with one another.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Anyhow, one should not have a belief (positive or negative) about something that is not metaphysically and epistemologically possible to grasp within the human stand point. One must logically remain agnostic.

.

This desire for certainty leads to solipsism. It is not by analytic reason that you establish the existence of your self and an external world, but by a natural act of faith. It is then but a further and most natural step to enquire why things be the way you actually find them in both their internals and externals.

 

[narcissist]

This desire for certainty leads to solipsism. It is not by analytic reason that you establish the existence of your self and an external world, but by a natural act of faith. It is then but a further and most natural step to enquire why things be the way you actually find them in both their internals and externals.

No it's doesn't lead to solipsism. The critique of pure reason expounds this point with clarity.

The synthetic unity of self consciousness is a necessary condition of any possible experience. the manifold of sensorial experience is also a necessary condition. This idea of the external world as a possible object for us in some "objective sense" is not possible unless you take the copernican shift into account and look at how the subject conditions the manifold.

Your "faith" in things-in-themselves is dogmatism. You lack justification and entitlement to such beliefs. This is what all pre kantian metaphysicians and epistomologists also erroneously committed.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

No it's doesn't lead to solipsism. The critique of pure reason expounds this point with clarity.

The synthetic unity of self consciousness is a necessary condition of any possible experience. the manifold of sensorial experience is also a necessary condition. This idea of the external world as a possible object for us in some "objective sense" is not possible unless you take the copernican shift into account and look at how the subject conditions the manifold.

Your "faith" in things-in-themselves is dogmatism. You lack justification and entitlement to such beliefs. This is what all pre kantian metaphysicians and epistomologists also erroneously committed.

Well, Kant himself exercised faith/ belief in a 'nomenal' world beyond the 'phenomenal' world he perceived. Though 'pure' reason [theory] could be argued both for and against the self, the world, and God, these were still notions/ normative ideas which he felt himself constrained to believe [practical reason]... as in an intelligible ground of being from which appearances rose. And that was his point, these could not be dogmatically proven. There is no possibility for rational dogma in Kant for all 'knowledge' is only of appearances and not of reality. This doesn't mean he didn't believe in reality.