Existence of God(s)

Evolution is a science, it's an observable fact and a theory, it describes how we got from single celled organisms to humans I don't know what you're going on about it being not that.
It says nothing about morality, that's just this discussion.

I think a good amount of our morals are due to society, and interpretation of feelings.

But let's get back to the topic: Does god exist?

This argument is so deeply related to the opinions of the individual (or the mob) and therefore more often then not individuals will close their eyes to a particular opinion and use whatever argument they can find which supports their pre established opinions.

Atheists may close their eyes to all that is spiritual and refuse to even acknowledge the spiritual ideal as a force existing beyond the physical; they treat the spiritual as one would treat anything physical and assume that since there is no physical evidence it does not exist. The reason for this is because many religions claim to also command the physical and as a result all spiritual belief suffers the same treatment and the hands of some atheists.

Religious/spiritualists may hold their own convictions so tightly that they refuse to accept anything that negates them even if there is overwhelming evidence to support it. When religion involves itself with the physical it can be accepted or denied by the same process in which scientific principals are accepted or rejected; by the presentation of evidence or the lack of it. Deeply religious people reject this notion because their own religion may be based upon that physical notion.

I personally get critisized by both and both even unite against me since i do not belong to ether of them so i see little diffrence in athisem or religiousness. I see them as means by which others seek to rule over me and thus both are my natural enemies as they both wish to impose their own agenda upon me; Both have preachers, both have texts, both are blind to the other and both accept nothing but their own convictions and both have their gods: god for religous and all mighty S for athiests..
The world is ruled by the mob and whomever has a larger mob can afford to beat into submition the other mobs and people such as myself while they are at it.

My own belief is that there is a spiritual power at work and that it is indirectly connected with our physical existence however it is not the god billions worship for he was In my opinion created by man. I can't be blind to the obvious control of man over religions such as Christianity and how the all too common corruption of man is evident in the cult. There may be a god however he is certainly not the one who sits idly by while his so called representatives among mortal kind rape little children in his self proclaimed houses of worship and dedication and other even more hideous crimes are practiced in the name of this god.


When I sit under a tree I feel more then just a living organism that supplies oxygen, shade and may produce fruit and can be cut up for resources. I sense more from such a tree and what I sense is difficult to put into words in this late hour and possibly in any hour. I see the universe as something more then just a bundle of physical objects as I see life itself as more then my heart pumping and my brain functioning. What I feel is not something that can be shared and I see no reason why I should share my experiences with others. I give thanks to gods/spirits of wine, art, history, novels, comedies, moments, jokes etc and as I would give thanks to any helping friend; they are magnifications of life and creation to which I give name and meaning so that I may find harmony and peace with my own gift of life. I give homage and respect to the sun, the moon and the earth as they deserve for they are my creators, my life givers, my ancestors and my comrades in the gift of life.

My problem with may religons such as the desert dogma's is that they are not about the spiritual but about the physical and that they represent nothing but the will of people who desire power. My problem with athisem is its denial of everything; yes its it is much more complicated then that but i am tired and lazy at the moment.

I feel the warmth of the sun as I feel the touch of my mother, both in love and in anger. I see the light of the lady in white as she graces our night's sky; her pull makes me weep as I cannot to her starey kingdom leap apart from when dreaming in my best hours of sleep. To the earth I feel all for the earth includes me after all.

sorry for the mess this post is.... i am tired.

I would just like to clear up a small point. Scientism -- the scientistic attitude that uses science for everything -- is like using your chemistry knowledge to write an English paper. Disproving god is not scientific: it is this form of misapplication of method.

Solo Wing Pixy wrote:It would be possible, however there are multiple occurrences of god(in the Judeo-Christian texts) commanding and encouraging actions that we define as immoral. Killing all of the Midianites while saving the virgins for private use, human slavery, genocide, etc are all examples. Even working on the Sabbath was supposed to be punished by death in the old testament. Those, of course, are not the only commandments of god, but they were among them, so morality could not have originated from him(at least not entirely). Similarly, morality contradicts with preservation of self on many accounts, so it could not have entirely originated there either.

This is a valid argument and one requiring careful consideration. If God exists, and he did act in accordance with Biblical record, is He still able to be the source of the moral law?

Let us consider how law works in human society; if someone breaks a law they are held accountable to the law through punishment. A murderer, for example, may be sentenced to death for his crimes. Is the judge who passes this sentence on him breaking the law by committing murder? Certainly not! for it is the law that gives him the power to pass that sentence. In a similar way, all of the examples you have mentioned have been punishments for breaking the moral law or (in the case of the Jews) the covenant law established between God and the Israelites. Because God is the source and enforcer of the law he is able to pass judgment on those who break it. Do not forget, justice is also part of the moral law.

Solo Wing Pixy wrote:... If it exists, it is within the domain of science. So, if god exists, the application of science to prove he does is justified, if he doesn't, the application of science to prove he doesn't is justified. As it stands, he is neither provable or disprovable, which is why people believe in his existence, they do not "know"...

Science can only study what it can measure. Measurements can only be conducted within the boundaries of nature (space and time). If God exists, He is beyond these boundaries and so is outside of the domains of science.

Furthermore, God is able to (and does) alter time, space, and the laws of nature. Therefore, any measurements conducted are able to be manipulated by Him. God is not bound by the laws of nature and so cannot be studied by a mechanism designed to study the natural. This is why God is called “supernatural.”

Solo Wing Pixy wrote:

Jookia wrote:Then the only other option is that morality is created by society.

That would explain why it is so ingrained in our society. It also explains why people have different morals. It makes sense as a human invention because the presence of morals helps the survival of society, not necessarily an individual. Perhaps an individual has no problem breaking a law, but he follows it because he perceives it as moral, not because it's the law.

I do not disagree that we are taught the moral law. People (and cultures) may be taught differently, and this explains why it differs from person to person and from society to society. This is different from saying that the moral law has its origin in society. If this were true, there would be no basis for comparing one moral system to another. Is the Nazi morality just as good as the morality of the Netherlands? You might argue that we will automatically value moral systems that most closely mirror that of our own, but is this true? As an American, I find the moral system of my national society to be quite repulsive in many areas. As a member of my family, I sometimes see other families who I feel have a better morality than ours; that is, I feel that some other families more closely follow and more accurately portray the Moral Law. In this light, the Moral Law appears to be distinct from the moral law taught to us by society. Some societies teach the moral law better than others, just as a teacher may more accurately teach the rules of mathematics to her students.

I should be less impressed with Alambil's thought-constructs. I might gawk.

Alambil wrote:If God exists, and he did act in accordance with Biblical record, is He still able to be the source of the moral law?

Square logic, but only in the last part of the sentence. It is a very good question.

Presuming the existence of a super-natural, omniscient, and omnipotent deity automatically presumes that this deity is the definition of morality. By extension, this same hypothetical deity would be the source of all things moral. Presuming again that this deity is omnipotent invites the automatic extension that this super-natural personality would continue to be the source of morality.

Eternally.

Tea wrote:I should be less impressed with Alambil's thought-constructs. I might gawk.

Alambil wrote:If God exists, and he did act in accordance with Biblical record, is He still able to be the source of the moral law?

Square logic, but only in the last part of the sentence. It is a very good question.

Presuming the existence of a super-natural, omniscient, and omnipotent deity automatically presumes that this deity is the definition of morality. By extension, this same hypothetical deity would be the source of all things moral. Presuming again that this deity is omnipotent invites the automatic extension that this super-natural personality would continue to be the source of morality.

Eternally.

Again, thank you for your kind words, Tea. After contemplating your argument, I find that I agree with it, though it does raise questions outside the scope of this debate (in my mind at least). For example, if God were "evil" would we see evil as good? But perhaps the question has no meaning. Ultimately, your argument suggests a way of disproving God (in the Judeo-Christian tradition, at least): If the sacred texts describe an immoral God, such a God must be false. But this is dangerous territory. We hardly have the ability to accurately judge the actions of other people, much less an omniscient deity. On the other hand, I do not see any way to use this sort of argument to prove the existence of God; I agree that the God's existence would prove the validity of the moral law, but does the existence of the moral law prove the existence of God?

Looks like you are just discussing the existence of the Judeo-Christian god. But what about Hinduism, where there are more and less rational gods and goddesses as well as those who are good and those who are evil and are still worshipped. A good example is Maa Kali:

She is both good and evil but ultimately she is good but has less rational actions than gods like Vishnu or Ganesh. Even though a violent goddess, I believe she is still good because she had used violence in the sense of justice. I believe she exists, even if it is only to an extent. The existence of gods would be needed to be answered as: "Where do gods exist?" They could exist on another world (answer of extra-terrestrials), on another plain of existence (spiritual answer) or in a parallel universe (abstract thought, scientific insight on a possibility of deities, just not in this universe) or in our mind (what antitheists call delusion). It could be that the Judeo-Christian god may have less of a possibility of existing due to moral contradiction as well as the bible being contradictory to a perfect god.

After belief, I see gods as not perfect because everyone and everything has flaws, even if some are more obvious than others. Gods are like people, they have the ability to do something morally questionable too. If you look in a dictionary, it will describe a god as a perfect, omnipotent being but that is after the Christian perspective. Other religions have other definitions of gods. In general, they are beings higher than humans often resting on another plain of existence or being in a spirit form. But in many belief systems, they are not perfect like humans, thats partially the reason why most of India is still Hinduist, because people would rather worship something they could relate to than something that wants to be feared.

Aniihya, thank you for your unique perspective! I am curious, where do you believe the moral law comes from?

I believe moral laws come from the experience of people. Rationalism came from where many wars had only brought suffering and bad results. Then someone came up with rationalism as the opposite to aggression, barbarianism and fights over stupid positions of perspective. Just like communism was to be the ideal to fight the greed and the abuse of the wealthy. It all comes from hundreds or thousands of years of experience. Muslims do not drink alcohol because back then alcohol made people do stupid things and Mohammed didnt like it or pork is forbidden due to the bad ways it was bred with resulted in sickness due to worms and infections. Today alcohol is a thing of freedom and we have the police to take care of cons by alcohol and hygiene is high enough so that in the rarest cases pork has some kind of sickness in it. Morality neither comes from deities nor from nature (in the case of the human being), well partially due to the intelligence and ability to learn as the natural capabilities of mankind.

dealing with it wrote:I would just like to clear up a small point. Scientism -- the scientistic attitude that uses science for everything -- is like using your chemistry knowledge to write an English paper. Disproving god is not scientific: it is this form of misapplication of method.

Disproving, or rather, proving a negative is a logically fallacy. Inability to disprove is not proof that a deity exists.

That said, I've yet to hear a reason why a deity can't be proved with the scientific method. If a deity is interacting with our universe, the effects of it should be visible, and we can test the effects and attribute them properly.

One could argue that a deity doesn't want to be scientifically tested, and that you need faith. Which is perfectly reasonable, just don't try and assert your deity exists if there's no proof that they exist.

Jookia:

Scientism is one danger; pseudoscience is another. I don't see why it's so hard to admit that the existence of God/gods is outside the boundaries of science. I'm an atheist and I understand this.

And my point was you cannot prove the existence or non-existence of a deity. It is either a middle thing or something unknowable. It is like saying the big bang is the very beginning of the universe: It is a theory but not a fact as you cannot test it or go back in time and see for yourself (there are many beginning theories/similar theories such as the continuous universe theory or the very beginning was just a space full of electrons that interacted with each other). Just the deity question is rather harder than that as we at least have some clues from the universe.

Jookia wrote:That said, I've yet to hear a reason why a deity can't be proved with the scientific method. If a deity is interacting with our universe, the effects of it should be visible, and we can test the effects and attribute them properly.

One could argue that a deity doesn't want to be scientifically tested, and that you need faith. Which is perfectly reasonable, just don't try and assert your deity exists if there's no proof that they exist.

If you come up with an experiment to test for the existence of God please let me know.

And why shouldn't I assert things that have not been proven scientifically? Don't you know that there are more ways to understand the world than through science? I can assert that God exists just as I can assert that it is wrong to cheat on my math test, or steal money from my boss. The moral law has not been proven scientifically, but I can assert that it exists because I find it inside of myself. Don't you?

dealing with it wrote:Jookia:

Scientism is one danger; pseudoscience is another. I don't see why it's so hard to admit that the existence of God/gods is outside the boundaries of science. I'm an atheist and I understand this.

I agree that it's a danger, but that's not what I take issue with. What makes you think it's outside the boundaries of science?

Aniihya wrote:And my point was you cannot prove the existence or non-existence of a deity. It is either a middle thing or something unknowable. It is like saying the big bang is the very beginning of the universe: It is a theory but not a fact as you cannot test it or go back in time and see for yourself (there are many beginning theories/similar theories such as the continuous universe theory or the very beginning was just a space full of electrons that interacted with each other). Just the deity question is rather harder than that as we at least have some clues from the universe.

There's tons of evidence for the big bang. The universe expanding, cosmic background radiation, red shifting, etc.

Alambil wrote:

Jookia wrote:That said, I've yet to hear a reason why a deity can't be proved with the scientific method. If a deity is interacting with our universe, the effects of it should be visible, and we can test the effects and attribute them properly.

One could argue that a deity doesn't want to be scientifically tested, and that you need faith. Which is perfectly reasonable, just don't try and assert your deity exists if there's no proof that they exist.

If you come up with an experiment to test for the existence of God please let me know.

Having somebody with cancer be healed

Alambil wrote:And why shouldn't I assert things that have not been proven scientifically?

I didn't say scientifically.

Alambil wrote:Don't you know that there are more ways to understand the world than through science?

Yes. But I've yet to find one that's as reliable as science.

Alambil wrote:I can assert that God exists just as I can assert that it is wrong to cheat on my math test, or steal money from my boss.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but when it comes down to needing evidence, I don't like it.

Alambil wrote:IThe moral law has not been proven scientifically, but I can assert that it exists because I find it inside of myself. Don't you?

Actually no, my morals differ based on my opinions. I find no universal law, just a group of people's ideas influencing each other. A few years ago I was very anti-abortion but today I'm not. How could this change if there was some kind of moral law? What about the islamic people in the middle east? They don't think they're doing anything wrong, simply what their society dictates. Which is way different than ours.

Jookia wrote:

Aniihya wrote:And my point was you cannot prove the existence or non-existence of a deity. It is either a middle thing or something unknowable. It is like saying the big bang is the very beginning of the universe: It is a theory but not a fact as you cannot test it or go back in time and see for yourself (there are many beginning theories/similar theories such as the continuous universe theory or the very beginning was just a space full of electrons that interacted with each other). Just the deity question is rather harder than that as we at least have some clues from the universe.

There's tons of evidence for the big bang. The universe expanding, cosmic background radiation, red shifting, etc.

I believe what Aniihya meant was that, while there is evidence of the big bang occurring, there is no evidence of whether it was truly the beginning. We have no way of knowing what was before, if anything. In a cyclical universe theory, a universe exists for so long and then collapses when all energy has been spread immeasurably thin, and then explodes outward. We can't know if this is true or if the big bang was the literal beginning because we don't have mastery over time travel yet.

Solo Wing Pixy wrote:I believe what Aniihya meant was that, while there is evidence of the big bang occurring, there is no evidence of whether it was truly the beginning. We have no way of knowing what was before, if anything. In a cyclical universe theory, a universe exists for so long and then collapses when all energy has been spread immeasurably thin, and then explodes outward. We can't know if this is true or if the big bang was the literal beginning because we don't have mastery over time travel yet.

Nobody says the big bang is the beginning. It only describes the change from being golf ball sized to how it is now.

Alambil wrote:Again, thank you for your kind words, Tea. After contemplating your argument, I find that I agree with it, though it does raise questions outside the scope of this debate (in my mind at least).

...remind me to tread carefully for flames might lick the feet...


There is a difference between assuming the existence of a hypothetical deity and a specific...personality from a particular religion. The religion which Alambil named does not provide for an entity which is evil. In this religion, or at least in its...education, the implication is that the deity is only good and only capable of good.


A hypothetical deity which is not specifically tied to a particular religion can, in theory, operate outside the bounds of the implied education of any religion, but...the issue is more complex.


What color is a rose? Pick any word and the rose would still be its own color. Use any word, from any language, with any spelling and the rose would still be its color. With the word evil...there is a similar function here. While I admit that I am extremely hesitant to admit the possibility that a super-natural entity could be evil...I can not grudge myself against it because even if a deity is not it is possible that other entities might be.

But...just for the sake of a momentarily cerebral discussion: If a super-natural deity caused a universe to exist and that same hypothetical deity caused sapient creatures to exist in it then any moral law that might exist would be defined by that diety. It would not matter what word was used to describe this law because the law would have been instituted by an entirely omnipotent entity. I think that few truly realize the implications of this.

If the deity decided that pie was silly...then it would always be silly and no human agency would be able to change that decision.


At the moment, I think that I will avoid veering back into more religious areas of discussion.

Solo Wing Pixy wrote:I believe what Aniihya meant was that, while there is evidence of the big bang occurring, there is no evidence of whether it was truly the beginning. We have no way of knowing what was before, if anything. In a cyclical universe theory, a universe exists for so long and then collapses when all energy has been spread immeasurably thin, and then explodes outward. We can't know if this is true or if the big bang was the literal beginning because we don't have mastery over time travel yet.

Nobody says the big bang is the beginning. It only describes the change from being golf ball sized to how it is now.

Solo Wing Pixy understood what I was getting at.

The theory of an expanding universe hinges entirely on an unrecorded and unproven interpretation of what is commonly called: Red Shift. No person has yet observed the Red Shift from the source points of those stars. For that matter, no astronomer has observed a star become a nova, either. It is pure speculation that stars become novas, nebulae, or black holes. Until some individual witnesses one of these things and records them they are all entirely theory.

For all that humanity truly understands, stars could be fueled by cake. Or strawberries.

But, to put things in the perspective of the philosophical, those stars would be very difficult to stabilize if they came to exist by some type of explosion. Explosions do not create order. The solar system which we live in operates with the precision of a mechanism. This single evidence is enough to cast doubt that there was ever an explosion at all.

---

...on a more personal note, I was once an evolutionist. I was a scientism-ist as Dwit has explained. I both believed and taught the theory of evolution as if it were dogma. ...and then one day I began to really examine what I was saying and the implications of what I was saying. And the more that I analyzed the theory the less sequitur it became.

And to be completely frank for just a moment, I have appreciated Dwit's reminders of what scientism is.

Tea: Though evolutionists are not the same as Darwinists. I think dealingwithit could explain it better than I ever could. You could believe evolution, you can believe it and be skeptical about a couple elements, you could be apathetic about it or you could be a creationist or some hybrid of a creationist and an evolutionist. It is unsure if everything came through divine intervention or not, but we know that the earth isnt 6000 years old like the bible says. Though there are some people who really believe that the earth is that young. XD