Does God Exist?

[spike]

Did God create religion?

So why did he invent it? To add polemics to the proceedings. It is for the same reason He added the Snake to the Garden Of Eden, to activate things because things had become lethargic and boring. Some 'creative tension' was needed. When the polemics of the snake were introduced people started arguing and thinking. Religion has acted as a similar tool, forcing people to engage each other in or to define themselves and create Civilization.

Religion used to be fought with swords. No longer, in truly civilized countries. But some parts of the world are still fighting religion with swords. Those parts of the world are still trying to establish their civility.

Prior to religion God found the world's inhabitants zombie like, wondering around aimlessly. Religion added purpose, even though it led to some very devastating conflicts. But, alas, Civilization has been created by conflict.

[MMasz]

Did God create religion?

So why did he invent it? To add polemics to the proceedings. It is for the same reason He added the Snake to the Garden Of Eden, to activate things because things had become lethargic and boring. Some 'creative tension' was needed. When the polemics of the snake were introduced people started arguing and thinking. Religion has acted as a similar tool, forcing people to engage each other in or to define themselves and create Civilization.

Religion used to be fought with swords. No longer, in truly civilized countries. But some parts of the world are still fighting religion with swords. Those parts of the world are still trying to establish their civility.

Prior to religion God found the world's inhabitants zombie like, wondering around aimlessly. Religion added purpose, even though it led to some very devastating conflicts. But, alas, Civilization has been created by conflict.

The short answer to your question is “no”. I think one needs to define “religion" a bit more precisely before commenting on this thread.

I choose to define religion as man’s attempt to relate to God. As such, religion is an invention of man and therefore subject to the errors man makes whether it be in his construct or practice. To impugn the concept of God based on man’s poor attempts at developing “religion” is a non-sequitur.

Further, I am continually amused at the atheists’ anthropocentric view of the God they don’t believe in.

[Ansiktsburk]

Just skimmed through the article, and halfway through the second, more careful reading I find myself being irritated for exactly the same reason as when I read The Republic.

It's a lot of "it must be one of 1.Bla bla 2.Bla bla 3.Bla bla" with no explanation about the "must".
I took algebra in the university a thousand years ago. And since it is a thousand years ago, and english isn't my first language I cannot give the nomenclature perfectly, but in algebra there was an idea of axises that spanned a room(like x,y,z for the 3D room) and the thing here was to make sure that those axis actually descibed all possible points in the room you wanted to describe.

And it's the same thing here. How shall I know there aren't any other possibilities for the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life than necessity, chance or design? Don' go "hey, can you come up with another one?". You have to prove that they "Span the room".

(You do remember The Republic? Socrates going on about "to explain this or that there must be these three or four alternatives", and the stupid ass dialogue partner never questioning the validity about that? The Republic was the first original philosophical work I read 4-5 years ago, and I almost quit reading being irritated by those semi-stupid dialogue partners.)

I may later have something to say about the 8 different points later, but I wanted to take this first

[Bernard]

Having received the paper version of philosophy now I am gingerly leafing through each article with reluctance, as I find the question "Does God Exist" troublesome - not for lack of being able to answer the question one way or another, but because of the bias inherent in the question, ie; existence is inherently prior to God in the way the question is asked. It is assumed existence is objectively real and God needs or doesn't need to somehow fit within its objective reality. It is essentially therefore an atheists question with only an atheistic outcome possible. But then looking at the wonderful cover pic of Blake's creator, an opposite possibility stands out: existence comes to be via God. Blake was a sophisticated thinker and one can assume his inner vision of God is abstract; an apprehension of sublime force rather than an anthropomorphic entity.Yet Blake commonly addresses strong imbalances in his work through strong representations and we can be mislead as to what his stances and intentions really represent. He was t, for instance, quite the naturalist, and quite atheist-like in many of his ponderings and musings. His love and respect for science and philosophical eclecticism gives him this characteristic.

So with the help of Blake we are able to ask with more hope of an accurate view: what are we witnessing when Englishmen, or Westerners in general, engage in theology?

The cover image is most appropriate. God sends out two rays, each ray going its own separate way, yet each essential to the creation act. What are these rays? In my reading they are a wonderful comment on the indistinguishableness between God and existence. We could just as easily regard this as an image of existence creating God, rather than vice-versa, and I have the feeling that Blake would ride comfortably with that idea.

Modern Western philosophy has spent copious hours asking about the nature of existence, and indeed seems to be quagmired in the inevitable eddies that that sort of questioning produces. So should we be taking a different tack? A tack that Blake seems to goad us toward? Should we, for arguments sake, be regarding God as a given and existence as a ?...?

[thedoc]

Having received the paper version of philosophy now I am gingerly leafing through each article with reluctance, as I find the question "Does God Exist" troublesome - not for lack of being able to answer the question one way or another, but because of the bias inherent in the question, ie; existence is inherently prior to God in the way the question is asked. It is assumed existence is objectively real and God needs or doesn't need to somehow fit within its objective reality. It is essentially therefore an atheists question with only an atheistic outcome possible. But then looking at the wonderful cover pic of Blake's creator, an opposite possibility stands out: existence comes to be via God. Blake was a sophisticated thinker and one can assume his inner vision of God is abstract; an apprehension of sublime force rather than an anthropomorphic entity.Yet Blake commonly addresses strong imbalances in his work through strong representations and we can be mislead as to what his stances and intentions really represent. He was t, for instance, quite the naturalist, and quite atheist-like in many of his ponderings and musings. His love and respect for science and philosophical eclecticism gives him this characteristic.

So with the help of Blake we are able to ask with more hope of an accurate view: what are we witnessing when Englishmen, or Westerners in general, engage in theology?

The cover image is most appropriate. God sends out two rays, each ray going its own separate way, yet each essential to the creation act. What are these rays? In my reading they are a wonderful comment on the indistinguishableness between God and existence. We could just as easily regard this as an image of existence creating God, rather than vice-versa, and I have the feeling that Blake would ride comfortably with that idea.

Modern Western philosophy has spent copious hours asking about the nature of existence, and indeed seems to be quagmired in the inevitable eddies that that sort of questioning produces. So should we be taking a different tack? A tack that Blake seems to goad us toward? Should we, for arguments sake, be regarding God as a given and existence as a ?...?

Could God and the Universe have been co-created, co-existent?
Christianity and others claim that God existed before the Universe, so I won't say this out loud.

[Bernard]

Co-existing, co-Godding: Co-created, Co-Godded? Gadzooks! Being inextricable, God has to evolve every bit as much as existence - not the evolution of the idea of God so much as the evolution of the source of the inspiration behind that idea, an ultimately subjective phonomenon.

[spike]

This is the stupidest of stupidest of debates!

[Bernard]

How so?

[Conde Lucanor]

I have heard before this name William Lane Craig (WLC) and was told he was the epitome of rational theism (itself a contradiction in terms, but anyway...). If this article is his best, clearly a disappointment. A collection of the most stupid claims theology has come up with.

For example, when he starts stating that:

"(I) God is the best explanation why anything at all exists..."

Let's not lose sight of WLC's intentions when asking "why" something exists, instead of "how" it comes to exist. "Why" may imply purpose, and purpose implies a goal-oriented being. Although that alone may not be enough reason to claim that his argument is circular, when one looks at how it unfolds in the next sentences, it becomes perfectly clear that it's just a bunch of clumsy tautologies and playing with words.

First, he wants to play a trick on us by arbitarily eliminating his god from anything that exists. God is not part of "everything" (which actually would prove it's non existent, because it's outside of existence), in order to make it appear, by the wave of a magic wand, at the other side of an effect (the universe coming into existence) as its cause. He then just needs to declare, in the same arbitrary manner, that the effect is "contingent" and the cause is a "metaphisically necessary existing cause". No argument is given of how he reaches this conclusion, actually we never know if this is an initial premise of his silogism or its conclusion, because it's all circular reasoning:

X is contingent, therefore needs an external cause Y.
An external cause of X (that we call Y) is necessary, therefore Y exists.

One has to wonder why WLC's god is not contingent. The only explanation is that it needs to be non-contingent to be god. A typical "begging the question" fallacy.

And so, everything has a cause, except WLC's god, of course, because it's not part of "everything". But if we make use of the good old Occam's razor, we see that in the realm of existence one extra being becomes unnecessary: the universe itself could be without a cause, it could have always existed. That's why Spinoza's pantheism is a more reasonable way of theism, since it merges the idea of god with the universe as one thing. God is everything and everything is god, but of course, this god is not a person, nor it has any influence whatsoever in mankind's history. For practical purposes, you can just easily ignore it.

The next argument...

"(II) God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe"

...is just a repetition of the first one, only adding some speculations about cosmological models. Then he goes again with his typical arbitrary unsupported claims:

By the very nature of the case, that cause of the physical universe must be an immaterial (i.e., non-physical) being... the cause of the universe is an unembodied mind "

Where do we get the idea of immaterial, non-physical beings? Do we know of a mind without a body? If such a thing existed, how could it interact with the physical universe and be cognisable? How can it have the cause of materiality in its immaterial nature? And why isn't that immateriality part of the whole universe itself?

More of the same mumbo jumbo goes into the rest of the arguments. Nothing really new there, just a recap of old theological arguments from medieval times, which end in biblical passages, giving more ground to the impression that this is poor philosophical work, a bunch of faith-based beliefs disguised as rational argumentation.

[Florin]

Hi all,

This is the first issue of PN and the first article I've read. The very first argument seemed to me fallacious (a type of circular reasoning), but how can this be? Professor Craig is an expert, so it's more likely that I'm getting it wrong.

Here is the first argument, and how I formalized it:

1. Every contingent thing (c) has an explanation of its existence (X).
2. If the universe (u) has an explanation of its existence (X), that explanation (X) is a transcendent, personal being (G).
3. The universe (u) is a contingent thing (c).
4. Therefore, the universe (u) has an explanation of its existence (X).
5. Therefore, the explanation (X) of the universe (u) is a transcendent, personal being (G).

These become:

1. Every c has an X.
2. If u has an X, that X is G.
3. u is a c.
4. Therefore, u has an X.
5. Therefore, the X of u is G.

Or, since 4. follows from 1. and 3.:

2. If u has an X, the X of u is G.
4. u has an X.
5. Therefore, the X of u is G.

To me it seems that the argument fails to prove the conclusion is true, because it states it in one of its premises (2.). Most people would reject this if it was about other things, say numbers:

2. If 5 is a prime number, its only divisor (other than 1) is itself.
4. 5 is a prime number.
5. Therefore, the only divisor of 5 (other than 1) is 5.

So why would we accept it when it's about such an important thing as God? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks a lot,

Florin

[Felasco]

Using only reason, we can quickly see that articles and threads like this are pointless.

If we use the common definition of God as being some kind of all powerful creator of everything, then....

It immediately follows that logic is useless in analyzing such an entity, because if an "all powerful creator" should exist, it would not be bound by logic or any natural law.

Such an entity unbound by the logic it itself created, could both exist and not exist at the same time, rendering endless centuries of discussion about whether a God exists or not as excellent evidence of humanity's inability to use reason, even if reason were relevant and useful to this particular question.

Observe how simple this is, and yet the professional philosophers keep right on analyzing and debating the God question, century after century. They confuse elaborate rhetorical fancy talk with reason. This is evidence is that the failure to reason problem is a human problem, not the problem of particular humans with limited ability or education etc.

An all powerful creator would not be bound by the rules of logic it created, thus making all discussions such as this fundamentally illogical, whether the viewpoint is theist, atheist, or other.

[Florin]

I'm not sure why you think such a superior being, no matter how powerful and wise it would be, can be unbound by its own laws and even the laws of logic.

I think that people who create laws (i.e. you shall not kill) should obey them too (i.e. not go on murdering people). Otherwise they wouldn't act morally. Can God be a moral being asking us not to kill but being able to kill one of us for no reason? Has he this kind of total freedom?

He should also obey the rules of logic. How can he be and not be at the same time? Can he have any meaning with such properties?

If he created us in his image, he is bound to intervene here on Earth, not on other planets. He doesn't have the liberty to send his son to preach on Mars for example. He is bound to send it on Earth, among humans. You see, even God is not free to do illogical things, or anything he likes. He must accept the consequences of his previous actions, just like any of us. I have created a path in my garden, so now I am bound to walk on those stepping stones if I am to use a path. I can walk on grass, of course, but that's walking beside the path I have created. Once I have set it in place, I can walk on it only if I walk on that place where I have built it.

But if God has those extraordinary powers you attribute to him, that allow him to defy the laws of nature created by himself, and even the laws of logic, this makes him hopelessly impossible to know. We could in principle see evidence of his existence, such as a miracle, but we never see this. So isn't is easier to accept that there may not be such a being? Don't you attribute these superpowers to God only to make him impervious to all arguments against his existence? I mean real existance, for I agree that God has at least an imaginary existence, just like Santa Claus.

Thanks,

Florin

[uwot]

1. Every contingent thing (c) has an explanation of its existence (X).

In a nutshell the difference between religion, science and philosophy can be characterised (grossly simplified, if I'm honest) by the response to that premise.
Religion says: That's right. It's god.
Science says: Really? Let's find out.
Philosophy says: Oh yeah? Prove it.

[Felasco]

I'm not sure why you think such a superior being, no matter how powerful and wise it would be, can be unbound by its own laws and even the laws of logic.

What do the words "all powerful creator" mean to you?

I think that people who create laws (i.e. you shall not kill) should obey them too (i.e. not go on murdering people). Otherwise they wouldn't act morally. Can God be a moral being asking us not to kill but being able to kill one of us for no reason? Has he this kind of total freedom?

You're continuing your analysis on the assumption that a God as usually defined would be bound by the rules of human logic. In your defense, this is a very common assumption. As the PhilosophyNow article series illustrates, it's an assumption shared by many very educated philosophers. My point is that such an assumption seems in rather blatant conflict with the usual definition of God.

He should also obey the rules of logic. How can he be and not be at the same time? Can he have any meaning with such properties?

Meaning to who? To humans, right? What are humans? A single species on a single planet in one of billions of galaxies. A species only recently living in caves, a species with thousands of nuclear missiles aimed down it's own throat. Where is the logic in an assumption that such an species could understand an entity like a God?

If he created us in his image, he is bound to intervene here on Earth, not on other planets. He doesn't have the liberty to send his son to preach on Mars for example. He is bound to send it on Earth, among humans. You see, even God is not free to do illogical things, or anything he likes. He must accept the consequences of his previous actions, just like any of us.

How in the world could you possibly know such things? What you're doing is 1) assuming God is bound by logic as a matter of faith, and then 2) building everything else on that foundation. The whole thing comes tumbling down unless you can prove that an all powerful entity would be bound by anything.

But if God has those extraordinary powers you attribute to him, that allow him to defy the laws of nature created by himself, and even the laws of logic, this makes him hopelessly impossible to know.

If he is unbound by logic, he could be hopelessly impossible to know, and easy to know, both, at the same time.

What do we mean by "know"? Usually that word means something like "create a symbol in our minds that accurately represents the real thing it points to". We've argued for centuries over what that symbol should be, and the evidence indicates that we are about where we started on that project. The process underway in the PN articles and this thread has been going on for centuries, and nothing has been settled. Where is the logic in continuing this process hoping for different results?

We could in principle see evidence of his existence, such as a miracle, but we never see this.

Science says all of reality as we know it came from nothing, or from something incredibly small and dense. Not enough of a miracle for you?

So isn't is easier to accept that there may not be such a being?

Everyone is free to believe whatever they wish. My argument is that all such beliefs, whatever their perspective, are built on a foundation of faith. Before any poster argues against faith, they should probably know what their own perspective is built upon.

Don't you attribute these superpowers to God only to make him impervious to all arguments against his existence?

I'm not arguing for or against the existence of God.

I'm arguing that the process of trying to analyze any entity fitting the description "all powerful creator" is illogical, as that process would seem to be in direct conflict with the definition of the thing being analyzed.

I mean real existance, for I agree that God has at least an imaginary existence, just like Santa Claus.

Yes, that is the real question, does God exist in the real world.

I think it's helpful to ask whether we are actually looking in the real world. Could it be that we aren't really looking in the real world, but in the symbolic world? Isn't that what philosophy is, an exploration of our ideas and theories? We already all agree God exists in the symbolic world, so why look there?

[Arising_uk]

...
Such an entity unbound by the logic it itself created, could both exist and not exist at the same time, rendering endless centuries of discussion about whether a God exists or not as excellent evidence of humanity's inability to use reason, even if reason were relevant and useful to this particular question ...

And this is a perfect example of a human's inability to understand Logic and Reason.