Hello theists. Let's talk. What is your best argument that god or gods exist?
Please describe whatever gods or god you believe ,and then tell us why you believe those gods exist.
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I don't know what the best argument would be, but in my opinion the most foundational argument is simply that we are here. This observation is the pivotal point from which you either turn to theism or atheism.
Christian.
And I believe in it for the same reason anyone believes anything, because he's found it to be true, or at the very least more reasonable than the alternatives.
John 6IX Breezy, what exactly do you find thats true about Christianity?
So your best logical argument for the existence of whatever gods or god you believe in is that you exist. Wow. What a spectacularly unconvincing argument. Is that honestly the best you can do??
My best logical argument lol? My post wasn't even that long, how did you fail to read it?
I asked for your best argument. IF you didn't give it that cannot possibly be my problem. Your response was that you believe that the proof that your god exists is that you exist. If that is not your best argument, what is? Because that argument is pathetic
Answering your question differently doesn't excuse your lack of reading comprehension. That's like me asking you how long you've had aphasia, you responding that you don't have aphasia, and me saying you didn't answer my question lol.
If you don't want to present a better argument, I will assume this pathetic answer is your best answer...which is about all I would expect from a theist. Nice try at deflecting the discussion... but no.
@john 61x breezy
Your logic is illogical.
Donald Trump is here too. So much for an intelligent designer.
Seems you said that your foundational reason for believing is that we are here. Well yes we are, but i don't we how "we are here" gets you to the supernatural, let alone a divine supernatural agent?
Clearly I'm missing something. So maybe you shoud expand on "we are here"?
Yes, certainly. Again, its foundational because the answer to that question takes us to theism or atheism.
One thing I want to clear up is that I don't believe in the Supernatural the way you perhaps are implying. If Nature encapsulates all that exists, and God is real, then by definition God is a part of Nature, a part of this Universe. This might sound like semantics, but the clarification is important.
The second thing is that I don't know if this question can be explained from a bottom-up approach, because we don't live in a bottom-up world when it comes to religion. The Christian narrative is top-down, its God revealing himself to man, and man concluding that it makes sense.
For example, in evolutionary psychology you can't begin with premises a, b, and c and conclude behaviors d, e, and f. You have to observe the behavior and work backwards to arrive at possible evolutionary reasons, but you can't begin those evolutionary reasons and predict emergence of that behavior. I can't look at paw prints and conclude a bear walked by, maybe I'm at a movie set and those prints were made by people. Likewise I can't take the world as we are able to observe it, and conclude definitively that God exists. But I can look at the claims of God, and see that they match the footprints that we see.
If only a god would actually reveal himself.
Why does this supposed god make it impossible to prove his existence? Go out of his way to create compelling evidence that counters its existence? To protect free will? If a god revealed itself, I would still have the free will to not worship the god, to not accept the god etc. That the insane "test" to get into an unproven heaven would be to easy if a "god" revealed itself?
Its not that God doesn't reveal himself, its that all accounts of God revealing himself are labeled false by you. Like I said, religion and in particularly Christianity, are top-down. Meaning, God revealed himself, via some prophet or some physical form. Religions are not bottom-up, where somebody sat and pondered and deduced Christianity. They almost all claim God made contact with humanity.
This makes a lot of sense. Foot prints, finger prints, when you are looking for who made them, there is only, there can only be one person, that leaves them.
@john 61x breezy
No, it's not semantics - it's an argument from equivocation.
My best argument for gods existence would have to be the design argument, That if you look at how everything is there for something else, like the constanants these are mathematical formulas for the balances of life, They are just so that if they are off by a little bit then this universe wouldn`t be able to sustain itself.And my second would be Christianity itself, Why would the jewish people stop after thousands of years practicing Judaism to follow jesus and Christianity, something dramatic must have taken place here.
L Ron Hubbard wrote a cheesy sci-fi book and people stopped practicing Christianity.
Science Follower. The design argument? Are you asserting that the universe is designed by gods or a god? If so, please provide proof or at least good evidence this is true. In addition and assuming my assumption about your position is true, please provide proof that whatever god you believe in exists and is the designer.
I'm afraid that the ball is actually in your corner. The majority of the world has always believed in God or gods. God's are in the cultures around the world. Why would the "primitive" mind conceive god? What we usually invent are things that we observe or witness. Myths and legends are many times based upon some form of truth. I recently did a study upon myths and legends and I found that quite a few of them have some truth to them. Like the city of Atlantis. Or dragons. But when you consider that It took only one God to create, then it is more likely that God did the creating. And when you toss out the supposed evidence that the Atheists claims supports evolution finding that the theory of Evolution doesn't have any factual evidence to support it. Plus all the theories that the Atheists have thought up have not been demonstrated to have any validity. And man has never ever seen life come from anything other than life. We have observed this for over 7000 years. Never once have we seen that something came to life by itself. And that is one reason why the early scientists said that Spontaneous Generation was not true. Also the claim of the evolutionists that one organism or almost organism was how all other organisms developed, has not been observed. We have only seen each species or kind or organism produce itself. We don't see any organisms just popping out of no where. In fact, when you look at each organism, they when they show up, began doing what the previous of them always did. They don't stop for a break. They don't suddenly change what they were doing and do something else. So if there was an organism that started producing all those other species, then why aren't they still producing new species. I don't see that it would cease production just because it produced all it could. It would simple start all over again. So it doesn't make sense that it would stop, if it really did start it. Not only does it not make sense, it is not logical to believe that one organism produced all the rest.
For the same reason they invented all those other religions that you presumably think are false. And what exactly is a primitive mind?
@Gerald: "Myths and legends are many times based upon some form of truth."
Some myths and legends are exaggerated and embroidered accounts of the doings of ancestors. Others are attempts to explain mysterious and disturbing phenemona, such as lightning, earthquakes, epidemics, and floods. The vast majority of these mysteries have been explained by science. Which ones do you reserve as evidence of your god? Think carefully before you choose, because science is continually finding answers that may undermine your evidence.
"why aren't they still producing new species?"
Who says they aren't? Species are continually changing and diverging in response to environmental changes. Google "insular dwarfism." Ever heard of Darwin's moth?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/5577724/Moth-turns-from-b...
@gerald
Read some current books on abiogenesis & evolution. Do your homework!
@devout xtian
On the contrary - the cosmos is exactly how one would expect it to be with an absent god.
“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'
This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
Not sure how the best argument for god is the design argument. The vast majority of this cosmos will kill you instantly. While life is only sustainable in this university for a vanishingly small part of its existence. Even if you focus on this pale blue dot, well most of it is uninhabitable by humans for any length of time. And the the less friendly areas are only habitable because of morden technology & logistics. So don't see the design argument, especially when you consider the blind watchmaker.
It's funny how you can twist evidence for God to claim it supports what accidental design. Where is your evidence that shows that anything ever was designed by accident or by accidental chance, without an intelligence behind it. We observe that only an intelligence designs. And for us that usually means years of trial and error. Over and over again going back to the drawing board before the finished product rolls off of the assembly line. So it is irrational to assume that life especially just happened. There is too much design to be seen in it. And you can hoop and holler about how it doesn't, but it won't do any good. There have been too many other evolutionists who have testified that they did see design. Even Richard Dawkins. So that has already been settled.
Seem to me a requirement of nature is the ability to subject it to scientific investigation & testing. If god is part of nature please state how we can subject him/her to scientific testing / investigation. Because unless you can do that god, it would seem, has the same atrobutes as the non-existent.
Well not necessarily. From my understanding we can't subject black holes to scientific investigation, or even observe them directly. They need to be inferred, or predicted mathematically. By your criteria you ought to be the first to conclude atoms, or our very minds don't exist.
The curious thing about the Christian narrative is that it claims God did walk among men, that He was observed, touched, and conversed with. Scripture is an account of men who claim to have seen and investigated him.
We can investigate black holes. For example we know gravity bends light. Thus we we know because of Einsitene how a black hole should affect light. The fact we observe this is validates what we know. But we don't have any similar example with god, nothing whatsoever.
As for the claim that a human existed, yess humans exist. But we have no way to validate claims beyond that. Unlike the claim that the gravity from black holes affect & bend light. Further more we know Mohammed existed, does that prove the Islamic god & Islam. No clearly not!
You're inferring the foot from the footprint. Which I have no problem with, but you seemed to imply that if we don't observe the foot directly then its non-existent. From my perspective the universe and existence itself is one giant footprint, which seems to fit what I know about God. So no, I disagree with you that we don't have anything similar for God.
Switching the tone a bit, I do think Christianity provides a simple pragmatic foundation for empiricism. We can trust our senses because they were designed to perceive, and therefore making scientific observations isn't a shout into the void. Presumably you've also adopted an empiricist philosophy, but my question is how did you arrive at it?
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