Proving God exists...:hmm:

If there is no God who created all...Then that leaves the theories of the "Big Bang" and "Evolution"

I ask questions on one of these.

First if we evolved then how did the eyes through which we see this world happen? Did a cell one day happen to decide that it wanted to see? How did it come realize there was anything at all to see? How long did this one cell decide to keep trying different combinations of stuff to get some light on the situation? If this cell did not make the necessary adjustments to see before it was eaten by a stronger cell or die of old age, did it pass on the knowledge gained by its experiences to other cells interested in seeing also? If so how did it pass on the knowledge it had learned by mouth or telepathic link or writing it down? How did it learn to do those things to pass on the knowledge?

Now if you believe we are just a DNA strand left here on this planet by Alien beings and we evolved from that to fit our environment... How did the alien eyes evolve?:hmm:

Answer these questions without having to have more Faith than believeing in one God who created all then I will understand where you are comming from.




As far as the "Big Bang Theroy" I think that could have happened... God said let it be and BANG!there it is.:sunny:

The quote you ask for is that short excerpt from the Kalams sutra, you can read it in the second posting in this thread. It was inclouded in the first posting, authored by me, but Gizzmoe ripped it all out of context and I deleted it in protest, expecting this thread to die. Within the original thread, where the religious theme appeared, I just answered to others starting the religious argument - I did not start it myself.

I am short in time, so I cut it short. I see Siddharta ("Buddha") and Jesus ("Christ") close to each other when I try to free the content of their teaching from the culture-dependant verbal symbolism both are using. On this level, they appear to be miles apart, yes, and it even seems that on the surface Jesus is using the same terms like "Father" and "heaven" like these words were used in the Bible before him. But he puts them into completely different contexts, saying that with him some old conception of Father and Heaven and the like (the old Vulcan God demanding sacrifices and obedience) have come to an end and thus something new is beginning. That's why it is called the Glad Tidings, becasue before was the rule of a selfish heavenly tyrant under whose ruling you had little reason to be glad. If one is looking behind the surface of language (a language that is needed to transport these contents and talk about them) I feel indeed little to no differences between Buddha's and Jesus concepts. There are even some scholars and scientist referring to those first thirty years of Jesus about the bible has close to n othing to say. There are indications and hints that he may very well have done travels as far as into India, and possibly came into contact with Buddhist teachings there. It is no safe information, yes, only a theory bolstered by hints, but it makes sense, and does not leave "random chance" to be the only answer for the striking parrallels between both men. For me, the parallels between both are striking indeed, but I admit that I was unable to see that until I discovered the tradition and the writings of the Christian mystics and especially Thomas a Kempis and Meister Eckehart. since then I knew that all my previous drawing of lines between this and that, Jesus and Buddha, was stupid and simply illustrated that I believed to know a lot, but knew nothing at all. I separated and polarized, and it did me no good service. Or in short: I fell for my ego.

That I like nietzsche is no secret, but I am aware of his limits, too. These must be seen before the background of his childhood, being the only boy/male in a household full of super-feministic women who even dressed him into women's clothings (that's why he has not much positive to say about females, it is his trauma), and the bitter hostility he experienced from his contemporary fellow citizens. He became increasingly isolated, and by that became more and more bitter, illustrated by his growing aggression and sarcasm, like especially in "The Anti-Christ", which says many things that are true, but is so polemic (see the two quotes above) that many people think of it in terms of "verbal poison". He answered his growing isolation with growing stubborness, and finally, even some megalomania. Try to substract this from what he has to say - and you have the work of one of the greatest and most visionary philosphers of mankind, imo. The first two books of the four books the Zarathustra is made of are a very good beginning, I think, there is polenty of wisdom in that, and clearness (and unforgiveness) of thought. And for those who have little time only and want some spotlights and some funny quotes, "The Dawning of Idols" is another good one. It is also brief and short, and shows the many different writing styles Nietzsche was using.

Nietzsche was ahead of his time - that's what he was suffering of. Tragic.

The burden of proof lies on those saying that something exists that is unperceivable.

Please prove that you are correct and that God does exist. It is you adding something new and make a change - not me.

In other words, referring to my Monopolay-analogy earlier, if you make a fortune in real life, prove that Monpopoly had something to do with it, and that you wouldn't be rich without playing it.

There is a better way to spend our lives with. Instead of making wild assumptions about what we do not know, we could focus on things that we DO know - and build on them as a fundament. We know that people want to acchieve happiness and freedom, and that they want to avoid fear and suffering. We know that things we perceive are transitory only, that everything passes and constantly changes, and that taking this as a basis is like raising a house on quicksand. "Living is suffering." By this we can learn what is not worthy to stick to, and excluding this - we already have limited the number of possible reasonable options to choose from. We then can pick up the remaining ones, and see where they lead if logically thought and tested to the end. Once we found one that leads to an end that is good for us and good for all others, that causes no harm and does not lead into illusion that transitory things could be eternal, we have found a way worth to follow, and worth to live by. That simple is the original Buddhist method - pure empiry, testing and examination. Originally, in Chan buddhism they even did not held a written tradition! Buddha founded no hierarchy of priests, and no libraries, and Jesus did not found a church or any comparable institution - all this is man'S work that came later, often motivated by selfish intentions by power-hungry figures (like Paul, since we talked about him) Abstract conceptions like "God", "scripture" and "tradition" are not needed to succeed on this way. They are only obstacles that destract the traveller from more solid paths through the swamp. Let go such false beliefs. give up such false idols. Develope a mind that does not depend on anything. Interact with the things of the world you perceive - but do not cling to them - they are not more like pictures you see when looking out of the window when riding in a train. Such freedom is the prerequisite for true love that does not demand anything in return. It's also a love that cannot be caged, supressed, blackmailed, instrumentalised. It simply is, and it has no obligation whatever to be anything else. It's tough, and it sees clear. Of that nature was the love Jesus was talking of. The heavenly deals the churches are preaching, "do good deeds and you will be rewarded and God will,love you", the "Verniedlichung" (minimization) of love as to be seen in so many religious groups with sugar-sweet wallowing feelings is something that has no place in it.

One way or another we exist (am I correct in assuming we are real... If not then dont bother reading the rest of this)

We exist due to some form of creation correct? ie: Evolution, or God

Is thier any other way we exist?

This is one big "Truman Show", I'll tell you! :doh:

Attempt to prove that god doesn't exist

If we want to prove the existence or non-existence of god, We must first define what god is, and the most common definition would certainly be:

"God is the one who created everything."

That means that god created itself, too, because something that isn't part of everything doesn't exist. But god cannot have created itself because god was already there, and you can only create something that doesn't exist yet.

If god created everything, then it created itself and it didn't create itself. That's of course a contradiction and proves the statement is false. [Remark 1]

Ok, so we know we must use an improved statement about the existence of god:

"God is the one who created everything that is not god"

We can directly conclude from his statement that god cannot have been created by something else. This is because if there was something else that created god, let's call it God², then God² would be just another name for God: God² (directly) created God, plus (indirectly through God) everything except God and God². So God² is the one who created everthing but God². And so on in the case that God² was created by God³ and so on. That means:

"God is that, which was never created."

Now a clever person might say: if god was never created, the it doesn't exist! But careful, this is only the case if the following statement is true:

"There can only exist something if it was created." (III)

If the above statement is true, and if something exists (no matter what it is), that something must have been created in order to exist. But whatever it was that created it, it must have been created by something else, and so on until infinity.

Imagine everything that exists is a game of dominos. You know with certainty that at least one domino fell, and you know that every domino can only fall if there is another domino that fell before it. [Remark 2]

Such game does not exist, because if every domino needs another domino before it can fall, you can infinitely go backwards in time, but still you never reach a point where the first domino actually falls. That means:

"If there can only exist something if it was created, then nothing can exist."

But we all know that at least something exists, so statement (III) is wrong. Instead we have found that the following statement is true:

"There must exist something that was not created, otherwise nothing could exist."

Before we have already concluded that, if god created everything that is not god, then follows:

"God is that, which was never created."

Ok, trying to prove that god doesn't exist, I have actually proved the opposite. But if god exists, and it wasn't created, what is it? It certainly isn't the monotheistic god of any religion, has no will, and time, space, matter don't exist for it. In fact, god is just another name for existence itself:

"God is the fact that something exists."

or

"God is everything that exists."

Well, if that's the case, I don't see anthing special about god anymore. Because God is you, god is me, god is my cat, a tree, god is something I have already accepted, and which I would not necessarily want to call god.

There is but one conclusion:

"You don't need god to understand the world."




[Remark 1] The Barber of Seville problem. "The Barber of seville is the man who is shaving every man who doesn't shave himself". This is a ridiculous statement, because it cannot be proved whether the Barber shaves himself or not. Remember I made the following conclusion: If god created everything, then it created itself, and it can't have create itself, because it was already there. Could it be that this is another Barber of Seville problem, and cannot be proved to be true or false either?

[Remark 2] Leave the Hen and Egg problem out of this. The Hen and Egg problem is an example of over-abstraction, because in reality Hens and their eggs changed through evolution, so you would arrive at a point in the past where Hens didn't lay eggs, so Hens and Eggs where the same thing. So it has nothing to do with the domino analogy.

I am atheist, for example because of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...ot+of+all+Evil

A: I see God! :smug:
B: I don't? :cry:
A: Prove me you don't see God.:know:

Yeah, but in the end, everybody does believe in what they want. No one can make them believe otherwise, eh?

Yeah, I have to say that is pretty sound thinking, IMO. Well said.

No, I don't think it has anything to do with this board. My experience in 12 years on the web leads me to say there's a sort of rebellious "I'm an atheist, aren't you shocked?" attitude among many forum dwellers on the web in general.

One last comment by me on this topic. As you know, religon is very personal to some people, so I urge everyone, religous or not, to keep a little respect in your comments. I see from reading the thread that you have done this pretty well. Thanks. We do not all believe or disbelieve the same things, and since no one can prove God exists, belief depends on faith. Consequently, no one can prove he does not exist, either, right? So not believing in God or a supreme being requires faith as well, faith that your senses, logic, and threories are correct. It makes sense to you so you believe it. But, you don't know it is true, you don't know there is no God, you just believe it. ;)

What I do know is that we are here to talk with each other and discuss things, so let's continue to keep it friendly.

May it never be denied that I wasn't a friendly person ...


Faith itself is a gift from God … You can not even believe in God unless He
wants you to …The calling of God is simply this … many are called, but few
are chosen.



Quoted: Saint Paul KJV

Quote:

1 Corinthians 2:5-12 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God

http://www.amazingbible.org/

This may be interesting for you:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part8.html