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Does God exist?Completely random coincidence . . .
Here are six straight-forward reasons to believe that God is really there.
Kids with Cancer as a Prop and Talking Point (And a Christmas Miracle)!
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One of the arguments I’ve been making over the past few years is that
nobody should be surprised at the level of deceit, double dealing and
corruption in t...
2 hours ago
Good link.
ReplyDeleteI always scoff when skeptics claim there is no evidence for God's existence, or when they throw out the "pink unicorn" or "flying spaghetti monster" nonsense. I view those as concession speeches.
After all, if they think the evidence for those stacks up against the teleological, cosmological, logical, moral, historical, etc. evidence for God's existence and the resurrection of Jesus then they are either (1) wildly ignorant and/or (2) stuck in rebellion.
Great link Smitty! God does exist, but I am not so sure about liberals. I'm hoping they are just a figment of our imaginations.
ReplyDeleteOn a slightly related subject, I find it interesting that modern society demands knowledge of, and loyalty to, a single branch of science: gradualism, also known as evolution, particularly that brand of evolution that is completely random and non-theistic. And yet, there is no practical application of evolution.
ReplyDeleteMedicine does not use it. There is no thought that perhaps T Rex had an appendix, or tonsils or any other organ, and therefore, since we know about T Rex, the organ in question must be treated in such and such a way. Or even that apes and monkeys can give us medical clues. Instead, medical knowledge depends on cause and effect, what is poison to disease, and how can it be applied to humans. No thought is given to any extinct creatures. Monkeys and apes only matter because if the treatment harms them, it will likely harm humans. The same is true of rats, which are infinitely cheaper than monkeys, so we test on them first to save reseach money. No one thinks that rats have a similar evolutionary path as humans. The little buggers are simply cheap and easy to get. It's mostly a practical matter.
Energy exploration, such as oil or coal, is not based on whether T Rex lived in such and such a forest, which therefore turned into coal or oil. I'm not sure what process they use for coal exploration, but oil uses seismographic readings using explosives, and no one cares about T Rex, fern forests, or anything else. Getting the readings and running them through a computer is what matters.
Real applicable science is useless to the moderns who want to control education, and therefore, philosophy and morals. They do not care if a student gets out of high school or college without the slightest understanding of electricity, yet we can't live modern lives without electricity. Chemistry gets the slightest passing nod, but who really cares? In fact, pick any science including the biochemistry that produces medicine or the chemistry that produces energy, and not one modern gives a damn whether a student understands it or not. These sciences are philosphically neutral, and have nothing to do with morality or belief in God. They are only practical, not philosphical.
Only evolution can be used to attack, ridicule and destroy faith in God. So it rises to the top of science heap, the confession of faith that proves that a person is a modern. The funny, or perhaps sad, thing is that almost none of those who demand such confessions, or those who give such confessions, could explain anything other than it took a long time and happened by chance. The important thing is confession, not knowledge. A bad Catholic can give a better explanation of consubtantion. A stupid Baptist can give a better explanation of substitutionary atonement. No explanation of evolution is needed, only the confession that it did not happen because of God.
Scott
@Stogie,
ReplyDeleteThat was Stacy, not me.
I read the article, and I agree. She only forgot to add the part about how the great majority of believers follow the religion of their older family members, whether Jew, Moslem or Xtian. Or Sunni, Shi'a, RC, Baptist, PCUSA, Orthodox or Reformed. God is great to prevent those tiresome denominational arguments from causing familial strife. Another amazing coincidence that certainly helps her proof.
ReplyDeleteAlways glad to help.
There may be good arguments for the existence of God out there, but this certainly isn't one of them... or it is, if only by proving that evolution apparently has yet to hit some parts of the human race.
ReplyDeleteThe "evidence" for God's existence includes such scientific fallacies as "Water is a universal solvent." No, it isn't, and, if it were, the human body would operate very differently. Water is a polar molecule and is a solvent for polar or ionised molecules, but is not a solvent for non-polar molecules (like many fats).
Anyone who has ever used soap in the shower should be aware of the fact that water is not a universal solvent.
"Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees."
When I took my graduate-level surface chemistry class, I learned something different, namely, that it is the contact angle (not necessarily the surface tension) that allows for capillary action. Capillary action, incidentally, is but one way that water moves up a tree trunk. (My biology is not as good as my chem, so I'll leave it for others to take up here.)
Much of the rest of the "evidence" is rather circular: one could just as easily (or more easily) posit that life would have evolved differently if the chemical properties of water were different or if earth's atmosphere were different. In fact, unless you are a young-earth creationist, the latter point should be a readily accepted one: the microbes that have inhabited the earth have changed in population and type as the atmosphere and temperature have changed.
More logical fallacies: "How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?"
Head-on-desk wrong, on both a scientific and a philosophical level. First of all, depending on what scale you are considering, the world is either fantastically predictable (i.e. classical physics, chemistry) or fundamentally random (e.g. biology, quantum mechanics). Aside from the fact that the characterisation of the laws of nature is inaccurate if one is to focus exclusively on either predictable/non-predictable, this debate was settled over a half-century ago. Einstein, upon hearing of Schrodinger's then-unaccepted theory of quantum mechanics, declared that "God does not play dice with the universe." Later, Einstein admitted that he was wrong and that Schrodinger's theory - the one that would result in God playing dice with the universe - was the correct one.
I also can't help but think that a very irregular universe would be cited as proof of routine divine intervention. This sort of "evidence" reminds me a lot of that other religion - Man-Made Global Warming - which cites both extremely warm and extremely cold temperatures as evidence for its existence.
Well, a professional in this field has to concur with Roxeanne's observations regarding the "arguments" offered or adduced for "the existence of God." And it goes much farther than she takes it.
ReplyDeleteBLUF 1: God does not exist and no theologian has said that He does. The assertion is absurd on its face. The God who "exists," as Nietzsche rightly said, "is dead." He never lived except as a figment of a whole lot of peoples' imaginations and Nietzsche despised figments. "God exists" is fantasy. "There is proof that God exists" is mendacity, intentional or not, mendacity.
BLUF 2: All "arguments,"demonstrations," etc. for "the existence of God" rely on assuming that He does. They are tautological and so prove nothing, one way or another.
BLUF: 3: A long and distinguished history attends the effort to "prove" that "God exists" and, whereas several brilliant efforts have been made to that effect, each in turn failed for relying on a hidden tautology, namely, assuming its result at the start of its "proof" process.
BLUF 4: The final nail in the coffin of "proof" for "the existence of God" was driven by Immanuel Kant, who, notwithstanding, rounded immediately and offered as "proof" for a "moral imperative" (i.e., for an Unconditioned, which would be God) a sophisticated version of one of the "proofs" (the so-called "ontological argument") he had just evacuated as tautological.
BLUF 5: Notwithstanding, lay and professional (to include Kant himself!) susceptibility to the seductive charm of using conditioned intelligence to "prove" the existence of anything unconditional (to include "Global Warming," "Evolution," "Over Population," "Peak Oil," "Social Engineering," "Morality," "Relativism," "Absolutism," "Science," "Public Relations," "God," "Government," whatever) continues unabated and will so long as someone rises from their bunk.
The most sublime sage can be upended by delusion in the flicker of an eye without knowing it. Caveat Emptor applies foremost to the leaping gyrations of one's own monkey mind.
A "proof for the existence of God" is the mother of all forlorn hopes.
The demonstration of THAT fact is tedious even for those with a technical background capable of grasping it. And it does require a technical background and I am not going to run it here. I will say only that this matter is thoroughly and brilliantly (and accessibly) digested during the preceding three millennia and its outcome is certain: there is no proof for the existence of God. God does not exist.
One can take that to the bank .... TBC
Epilogue: Godel demonstrated that there is no proof for anything whatsoever, not even proof itself. And unlike Kant, he did not round on his work and try to overcome its outcome.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is in the language. If God exists, He is a being among beings, which means He is conditioned and not God. He is an object.
(Or, he is one of two gods, both objects, each conditioned by the other, usually one "good" and one "evil," a favorite modern assumption informing the work of the Weather/Alinsky/Brooks/Sullivan/Matthews/Angela Davis set and promoted by them.)
I will not detail the reasons the problem is in the language. They are tedious and technical. They can be found in the literature, well laid out. The gist of it is, if God is an object, as of a "proof," He is conditioned and a god not God.
BLUF Outcome: Never say what God is or Who God is. Never try to talk *about* God. God is not an object. What do you know!? Remember Job. If one must talk *of* God, first say one does not know God (does an ant know the ocean?) and then say what He is not or say that He is "not only [whatever] but also ...." and leave it open-ended.
Any language regarding God that is less than caveat-strewn and open-ended omni-directionally makes God an object, a god, a being among beings; it throws conditions on the Unconditioned Unconditional. A conditioned Unconditional does not exist.
The intrinsic intent of the "proof" is not too prove anything but simply to express joy and faith in the direct experience of Himself God has granted one. That is a good and worthy thing to do, but it is an expression of experience, not a "proof" of its source. God is Unconditioned and Unconditional or He is not God.
It is unseemly to overstep the reality of one's experience and claim for it something it is not. Doing that falsifies the experience.
If one must use the words "God" and "existence" or "God" and "being" in proximity, one says that God is the root, abyss or source of existence, that God is the Ground of Being (Tillich) or that God is Being Itself (esse ipsum, Augustine but going back to Parmenides).
God does not "exist." God is existence (Phenomenological Ontology). It is not true, however, to say that existence is God (pantheism).
Only God is convincing regarding God. Man has no power of self-salvation, no ability to grasp much less "prove" God. He depends absolutely for his being, existence and nature -- and the better part of his destiny -- on the self-revelation of God, Who, like wind (Spiritus, Geist), "bloweth where He listeth."
Genug!
Allah would hate it even more if he thought he was saved, but had bought into that "sinner's prayer" bull and never obeyed the gospel. If you're gonna do this stuff, do it right.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Roxie's WAY out of her depth. She can e-mail me if she wants.
Two words: anthropic principle.
ReplyDeleteReformed: um... how so? Granted, I haven't taken graduate-level quantum mechanics in the better part of a decade, and I got an A-, not a straight A, and certainly wasn't wildly in love with the subject enough to make a career out of it, but I would think that "way out of [my] depth" is more along the lines of a concession speech than an actual, scientific argument.
ReplyDeleteIn short: if I'm way out of my depth, then make an actual argument and refute what I've said, rather than just condescending to me. The mockery isn't very Christian of you, now is it? I mean, you're sounding more like a pro-abortion progressive than a conservative with all that science-hating and ad hominem attacks you've got going on there.