cecil [Existence of God]

Great Debates
1

i would have to say that i am very impressed with the objectiveness that you use in your answers on the site. I was hoping that i could give something for you to ponder. you said in conclusion in the “does God exist follow up”, that a traditionally perceived God probably does not exist.

I am Mormon, or “LDS”. I’m sure you know what that is. This is not to say that i can perfectly represent our beliefs, or the beliefs of every member as a whole.

This may so far seem like unrelated points, but bear with me. I love science; I always have. I’ve loved dinosaurs as a child, and i still do. I started reading about space in junior high and high school. In grade 10 i started reading about Albert Einsteins theories and was fascinated by the amazing world of the speed of light, and in relations to relativity and hypothetical observers.

Most of our church leaders in the quorum of the 12 apostles are fairly well off financially. Some hold multiple degrees including MBA’s, and masters. This is a quote from a wikipedia search of one of the current 12 apostles, Elder Richard G. Scott “He was then offered the job in the immediate staff of Captain Rickover working on the design of the nuclear reactor for the Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine of the U.S. Navy. He later completed what was an equivalent to a doctorate in nuclear engineering at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, but due to the classified nature of the work, a formal university degree could not be awarded.”

Now im not sure whether you have a basic argument or idea about the psychology of people that are religious in general, or of specific faiths. Im sorry i have not taken more time to search more of the site to see if there is anything regarding this that has been asked.
According to probably most modern scientists of conventional reasoning say that God does not exist, or that it is impossible to prove. What is logic? What is science? I looked up “what percentage of the world believes in God?”, and got results that are kind of inconsistent. but in general it seems that most of the statistics claim that most of the population either believe in God, follow some religion, or believe in some higher power.

Would logic say that therefore God exists, because the greater percentage of the world does not believe in an actual God that is person-like? Does logic say that just because everyone in the entire world has not seen God, and has not seen God work miracles and show his power, that therefore God probably does not exist?

For the sake of this site and those that would disagree with me, I will say that God probably DOES exist. I in fact know that He does however. I myself have seen enough miracles and answers to prayers in my life that I know that God exists. It isnt supposed to be easy for every person to believe this, which is part of the purpose of life.

Some scientists and a theists could say that there is no could, you cannot scientifically prove there is, and some would say even it is easily scientifically proven that He does not. is this something that they know? Is this a higher level of knowledge than the people who know more by feeling that God IS real? What is worth more? Does God probably not exist? Have you also ever wondered that the modern knowledge of mankind and science is incomplete? That we will not be able to solve every problem and riddle in this life?

As mentioned in your answer you talked about a “beginning of things”, and talked about matter not being able to be created or destroyed. If you reason that God probably does not exist, do you also think that humans probably evolved in some way from bacteria, of which also evolved from some basic gasses? Do you believe we probably evolved from apes?

If we as humans are the most evolved species on the planet, then how do other organisms still exist? Based on the principle of survival of the fittest, if we evolved from apes, then why do apes still exist? Would they not be the organisms that died off, as more advanced stages of organisms more like humans survived?

Also…why do organisms have a will to survive? i have never heard anyone answer that in my entire life. They need to pass on their genetics and give birth for the survival of the species. That is as far as I’ve ever seen this part of the theory go. Also if the answer is for the survival of the species and give birth, then that is know different than the question itself. It would look like this - why do organisms have a will to survive? So that they will survive. it seems like some very basic things are unanswered.

I believe that it is because life has meaning and purpose. Humans that are on earth are part of the 2/3’s of heaven that decided to come to earth to receive a body, be tested, so that we could one day become more like God in the end and live with Him. If we had no physiological will to survive, we would die very easily by carelessness, and kill ourselves in many cases when life was hard. The will to survive gives a chance for a longer time on earth, and by having children allows everyone to come here in a body. Or is the will to survive rooted more in our spirit? I dont know. Just some things i thought would be interesting to post and for you to think about.

Spencer Smith

2

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, sjs8710, we’re glad you found us. Your post is a response to Cecil’s column on the existence of God: Is there a God (revisited)? - The Straight Dope … and it’s helpful to other readers to provide such a link when starting a thread.

However, the question of the existence of God has been discussed here many times, and belongs in the forum called “Great Debates,” since it’s discussion without any provable answers. I am therefore moving your post to where it will get more attention.

I’ve also edited the thread title to give people a hint as to what the topic is.

3

Hi, SJ! There’s a lot going on in your post, so I’ll focus in on just two points, one major and one minor.

That’s not what “survival of the fittest” means at all. What it means is that an organism that has characteristics likelier to lead to survival in a particular ecological niche is likelier to survive than an organism lacking such characteristics. If it sounds like a tautology, it is. But then you take it to the next stage–the stage of recognizing that such traits can be passed along to the organism’s offspring–and you get something pretty remarkable, i.e., evolution through natural selection.

That said, you’ve got a lot of other misunderstandings of evolution in that little bit quoted above. Nothing evolved from gases, since evolution is a process that occurs only in living organisms–you’re talking about abiogenesis, an entirely different topic. Nobody thinks we evolved from modern apes; metaphorically, they’re not our grandmas, they’re our cousins. Even if we evolved from them, there’s no reason why they couldn’t exist simultaneously; evolution is a process by which species diverge, among other things, and you can have two species with a common ancestor, or one species that’s the ancestor of another species.

Also, humans aren’t the “most evolved” species; that phrase doesn’t mean anything to a scientist.

If you’re interested in learning more about evolution, let us know, and I’m sure folks can point you to some starter sources. But right now, your posts are akin to my saying something like, “If Romney is a Mormon, where are his other wives?” If I posted that, I’d just be displaying my ignorance of LDS. Your posts are showing that, and I mean no offense, your understanding of the theory of natural selection is flawed.

This is really simple, actually. Many traits are heritable, i.e., they can be passed along to offspring. Traits that result in an organism having more offspring get passed to more offspring. Again, that’s pretty tautological. Having a will to survive? Boy howdy, talk about a trait that’s gonna result in having more offspring! If two organisms are identical in every way, but one has a will to survive (and, of course, the means to act on that will) and the other doesn’t, which one do you think will be likelier to survive long enough to reproduce?

4

Why polytheism is true and proved: De natura deorum; Academica; with an English translation by H. Rackham : Cicero, Marcus Tullius : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The power of personal beliefs versus objective reality: Page not found | Harper's Magazine

The history of monotheism: Kuntillet Ajrud - Wikipedia

Continued: Deuteronomist - Wikipedia

LDS History: Setting the Record Straight: Are Native Americans A Lost Tribe Of Israel?

5

The ones that don’t, didn’t.
You’re asking us to explain calculus, in a manner suggesting a misunderstanding of arithmetic.

6

Just so you know, sjs8710, it’s unlikely Cecil will respond to your direct questions to him. Hopefully you’ll get what you’re looking for from others here.

It’s more science that would say something along those lines, not logic alone.

I’d say there’s no proof for the non-existence of God, scientific or otherwise. Just a big lack of supporting objective evidence, but that is something rather crucial to any proper scientific theory.

Personal feelings can be powerful stuff, but the big problem with them is that they’re personal and subjective. You feel God exists. Others do too. But then again I don’t. And others don’t as well. So now where are we?

Yes, it is certainly incomplete, and will probably always be that way. But from the fact that humans are ignorant about many things, you can’t conclude much of anything. Gaps in our knowledge are merely that: gaps.

We’re not. We’re the brainiest, maybe, for the moment at least, but that doesn’t make us more evolved.

Species don’t die off just because some other species is “better”, even assuming that’s something you could measure. The reason all those other organisms still exist, including the apes, is because they do a good job of surviving and reproducing in their particular environments. That’s generally all that’s needed for a species to persist for generation after generation.

No species is striving to become us. They’re doing fine as they are, most of them.

Genes that fail to give their organisms the wherewithal to survive and reproduce (physically, and for some species mentally too) will be quickly lost in the mists of time. They will only last for the lifespans of a few individual organisms, and that’s pretty much zilch, in the history of Earth.

Survival of a species is a result of causes, not a cause by itself. Species that do a good job of surviving and reproducing will have descendants in the future. Those that don’t, won’t. Therefore the world tends to be populated with organisms that are good at surviving and reproducing.

7

I see it like this, we can look through our most pwerful microscope and see only so small, we can look though our most powerful telescope and see only so far. We only have earth and maybe a sampling of other planets to examine the potentials for life to exist. Who is to say if we could step back far enough and look at the universe we wouldn’t see some form take shape. Or look small enough we might discover things independent of what we call physics. I believe we have knowledge amounting to such a small fraction of the universe we couldn’t even express it numericaly. How can we say their is absolutely no higher being when the odds that one exists are probably millions of times greater than the odds one does not exist.

8

That is what the ancients did, and subsequently, the gods lived on top of the clouds and their moods affected the weather. Taking everything that we don’t know or understand yet and ascribing it to the gods hasn’t yet worked once in our history.

Think of it like this, if a big black pillar that spoke to us and gave us orders, made out of a material that we can’t destroy or sample, and everytime we disobey the pillar, big beams of light shoot down from the sky and destroy us, is it more likely that an ineffable, all-knowing, all-powerful, creator of everything is the one doing it, or that a group of aliens with advanced technology are?

Is it more likely that the universe was created as a place for a deity to raise us like beloved goldfish, whom he wants to guide and tend for, or as a computer simulation that is using random buildup of simulated physical objects to model a universe so that they can test various physics problems that will be useful to themselves? In 50 years time, it’s relatively likely that our own species will be doing the latter.

9

We can say that there is zero evidence one exists, and we can say we shouldn’t base public policy on faith, only on observed fact or the best objective information available.

FYI, almost no atheists say flat out, “there is absolutely no God”. They say things like, “I don’t believe in God because there is no credible (i.e., repeatable) evidence a God exists.”

10

We are not the “most evolved” species on the planet. And that’s not what “survival of the fittest” predicts.

Are Mormons generally Creationists?

11

sjs8710 writes:

> . . . you said in conclusion in the “does God exist follow up”, that a traditionally
> perceived God probably does not exist. . .

I’m going to discuss just this sentence in the OP. I don’t think that’s what Cecil said in the first column on this subject:

or in the second column on this subject:

What he said in the first column was that if you take one of the most common arguments for the existence of God, the one given by Aquinas about the First Cause, the absolute most that it could show is that something may exist, but it’s not clearly more than an impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic entity. He did not say that the only God that could exist was impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic. He said that this particular proof couldn’t be used to show that there was a God who was more than impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic. Do you understand this distinction? This particular proof, even if valid, may show nothing except that there is at least an impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic God. That doesn’t mean that some other proof may show that God is something more than that. It also doesn’t mean that it may really be true that God is something more than impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic, but proving it is beyond our powers.

I think that what he says in the second column is that he knows of no proof that God is anything other than an impersonal, abstract, and mechanistic entity. That’s as far as our proofs can get us. Cecil knows of no way for humans strictly by logical arguments to get to a belief in God in the traditional sense.

12

They don’t and I am surprised that several posters also treat as true this “will to survive.” Will requires the knowledge that a particular action will cause a particular event. Animals do appear* to know instinctively** that eating can stop hunger pangs and quickly learn that getting bit by another animal hurts and should be avoided. This is about as far as this “will to survive” goes, probably, in all non-humans. They are just not smart enough to think beyond simple discomfort avoidance. Some even sock away nuts, but that is not conscious planning for winter but an unconscious behavior that served an ancestor well. A true “will to survive” requires the creature to have a concept of both survival and non-survival and an understanding of how either can be accomplished. To the best of my knowledge* researchers have not found this trait in non-humans, including other apes.

They may need both but they don’t have any idea that sex is how they do it. It’s unconscious and has nothing to do with a “will to survive.” It just feels good, and it even took a while for humans to figure out the connection.

    • Scientists avoid absolute statements and prefer what you might call “weasel words” so they don’t have to use “so far the evidence suggests” in every last sentence. :wink:

** - Until a mechanism is found for what appears to be instinctual behavior it will continue to be viewed with suspicion. :dubious:

13

If you argue that God exists, you carry the burden of proof. If you argue that no God exists, you also carry the burden of proof.

From a scientific point of view, I think that the atheists go farther along to meet their burden. But the thing is, I don’t actually find myself satisfied with that point of view on this question. As much as I value science and logic as the best analytical tools ever developed, it isn’t a question of science, logic or analysis for me. It is a question of how to treat others and myself and why. 1 John 4:7-8 is what I keep coming back to as the meaning of life.

14

This may be one of the easy problems of consciousness, but it’s not a resolved problem. We can’t conclusively say that a non-human animal’s behaviour is the result of unconscious reactions any more than we could say the same about a human animal. In fact, it’d be more difficult to explain the more or less (relatively) developed brains of animals if they were not used for conscious action, since reflexive actions can be accomplished purely by spinal cords. See also the contrast between Skinner’s experiments involving what I’d call false beliefs on part of the participants and Descarte’s involving false beliefs on the part of the researcher.

15

In what sense does that link deal with “the history of monotheism”?

16

I fail to grasp how a god would be necessary to love your fellow man, or why.

17

I think it’s safe to say that there is no dating for the 10 Commandments that puts this event later than 1200 BC (personally, I would vote that 1600 BC is the better dating). Both the Bible description and archaeological finds, of which the Kuntillet Ajrut is just one example, show that the Israelites were unabashed polytheists right up until the 7th and 6th centuries. In the book, this is sort of easy to not notice. “The people worship a gold calf and God smites them. Then they start to behave.” And so on. It’s easy to miss that 600 to 1000 years of regular smitings by God had occured and they still didn’t get the message. When you look at actual dates, listed on archaeological finds, that fact becomes a bit more noticeable.

According to the Bible, God delivers them out of Egypt in a spectacular fashion - parting the waters, bringing locusts, etc. - performs some other massive miracles, gives a bunch of starving people who just wandered through a desert the power to overtake a country, delivers his law:

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Then he smites a bunch of them who doubt his claim.

If you were an Israelite and you’d been taken out of Egypt, seen massive, underwear pooping miracles performed, been told to become a monotheist, had a bunch of your kin smited, and given a free country to rule, don’t you think that you’d get the idea that maybe there was some validity to this whole monotheism deal? I don’t think it would take 600 to 1000 years worth of effort to get the message, personally.

When you consider that there’s only any physical evidence for a push to become monotheist at the same time as a bunch of people moved South out of a Zoroastrian empire up North (known as the Deuteronomists), then things look pretty suspicious.

How can you say, “I know this is the truth. I feel this to be the truth.” When, if you look back at the history of the thing, the truth was completely different from what you see today, entirely contradicts what you see today, and what we have today is based on what was effectively an ancient fad? It would be like going into the Bible, erasing out the bit which says that you should be stoned to death for rebelling against your parents, and then rewriting it with modern American morals and telling everyone that that’s the way it always was. If this is divine truth, how can you do that?

Everything that we know about Yahweh, before the Deuteronomists showed up, indicates that he was probably the son of El and part of a greater pantheon. The pre-retcon version of Judaism, and thus Christianity and Mormonism, would be that. We don’t know how the Canaanites had their faith revealed to them, but like the ancient Greek writing that I linked to, I have no doubt that if you asked the ancient Israelites what felt true and provable to them when it came to religion, they’d endorse their polytheistic view - with Yahweh as their personal overseer, but El as the universal lord - and be every bit as certain in that as a modern day Christian or Mormon. And since we don’t know how this faith was revealed to the people of Earth, while as we do know that Judaism was a political and faddish rewrite to incorporate Zoroastrianism, that Christianity was a faddish rewrite of Judaism to incorporate Platonism, and that LDS’s revelations on history are just wrong, really only ancient Canaanite Mythology has much of a leg to stand on so far as the potential for divine revelation goes.

18

According to the psalmist quote Psalm 82 in KJV, "I said you are gods, and son’s of the most high"Jesus backs this up in John 10. It would seem every one was god and son of god by his retort. The word God it self has had different meanings over the centuries. There is nothing that was ever written, taught, read or thought that wasn’t of humans. Belief is just belief, not fact. For some belief is a help in their life, for some it is a way to lord it over others.Just like a medicine, what would help someone can be harmful to another!

19

You mean the way they in fact knew that Leo Frank was guilty when they lynched him? Never be too sure…

The scientists have just theories, it’s the other people that claim to have the knowledge.
My sister is Jehovah’s Witness and to balance things I have taken a role of an evolutionist in conversations. It’s interesting how they ( and no doubt other religious people too ) treat scientists: when scientists disagree with JW’s, they are ‘fools that adapt their findings to fit into their theories and are ready to say anything to be rich and famous’ ( still she can’t name even a one rich or famous scientist ). If the scientists agree on some point, My sister says that now I have to believe, 'cause the scientists say so and they should know, being scientist and all. She means those incompetent liars, fools and thieves?

Simplified example: a species ‘A’ lives in a valley that has jungle on the other side and savanna on the other side. It splits into two herds, ‘B’ lives in the wetter area and ‘C’ in the drier area. Members of ‘B’ who has qualities that are useful in jungle have offspring, others die off. Members of ‘C’ who can handle circumstances in savanna prosper, others die off. Soon herd ‘B’ has only members that can live in jungle but not in savanna, ‘C’ will have members that can live only in savanna. After that they won’t compete with each other and they can both go on like apes and humans do.

Also like others said, people are not the most evolved species. The first living cells didn’t target to be humans* and they didn’t adapt themselves into anything. They just more or less drifted along from place to place and ( like in that example ) unfit individuals died off. Individuals with more suitable qualities to a recent environment passed on their different genes and that quality got stronger by every generation. Nothing is planned in advance, evolution just drags behind environmental changes.

  • this also means that ‘…but that chance was only one in a gazillion…’ is meaningless.
    ( A blind man steps into a driver’s seat of a car in Seattle. Later he steps out in N.Y. What are the chances he made the trip to N.Y.? One in a million? More? Less?
    Well, no-one said he was aiming to N.Y., no-one said he had to keep on the road, no-one said he had to take the shortest route, no-one said how much time he can take, no-one even said he have to drive there ( maybe he changed to a bus ) and so on…
    The fact is that he is in N.Y., so the chance is 100%, whatever happened in between is meaningless in hindsight, the circumstances, whatever they were, ended him up to N.Y. with 100% accuracy. And with 99.999999999% he wouldn’t be in N.Y. )

( Personally I don’t know which side is right and I really don’t care that much - at the moment neither can prove it rock solid )

20

I’m interpreting it pretty broadly, and pointing out that it’s just one possible adaptive trait that’d increase survival. It seems vanishingly unlikely, for example, that carrots have a will to survive; they have other traits that guarantee their continued reproduction.