Be that as it may, it still shows that religion and science are not necessarily incompatible. In fact, I know many theists whose faith in God is strengthened the more they study science.
Well, this is basically how it happened to me. Why? Because I considered my parents to be a credible source of information. Why? Because they never let me down. I know this isn’t the kind of evidence you’re looking for, but sometimes God reveals Himself to us through the lives of people who love Him.
But, this thread is pretty much a religion vs. science debate, so…
I believe there is evidence of God’s existence.
Consider the following:
- Extraordinary design found throughout nature.
- Magnificent visual beauty, even hidden and unnecessary, abounding in nature.
Real scientific evidence:
- The law of biogenesis–life only comes from pre-existing life–requires a necessary being (the uncaused cause; the chain has to start somewhere).
- The law of energy decay–second law of thermodynamics–shows that the universe is aging, and has a very specific beginning.
- The law of energy conservation–first law of thermodynamics–teaches conclusively that the universe did not create itself.
- The law of inertia–Newton’s first law of motion–indicates that the universe could not have been created without the influence of an outside force.
How many laws of science require the non-existence of God? Please let me know what they are.
Philosophical, non-scientific arguments, based on reason, for the existence of God:
- The view that the universe created itself violates the law of non-contradiction.
- Based upon the principle of contingency (cause-and-effect), for the universe itself to exist, there must be a cause for its existence.
- Our moral indignation over evil and suffering presupposes an objective moral standard of right and wrong–a standard that does not exist without God.
Here’s what atheism can provide:
- no evidence of God’s non-existence.
- a position contrary to a human’s basic need for something transcendent.
- arbitrary values.
Evidence and reason can even give us some insight to the nature of God:
- God is infinite. Ever hear the question ‘Who made God?’ Atheist apologists do a fine job disproving the finite God, but the law of biogenesis requires uncaused life. Once we deny that God is infinite, then he lacks the rationale for attributes based on infinity. A finite god is no longer God in any recognizable sense.
- God is unique. How can there be more than one infinite being? If two things are supposed to be different from each other, they must differ in some respect. If they are not different, they are the same.
- God is separate from His creation. An infinite, eternal being cannot also be a finite universe. This would violate the law of non-contradiction.
But, I still need faith to believe, after all, I’ve never physically seen God. But, faith does not have to be blind. Look at the evidence, then weigh it. You’ll see where the evidence points. Then your faith will be grounded in evidence.
I also believe there is evidence supporting the truth of the Bible, as well as for the truth-claims, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The topic of another discussion, the existence of the Bible and the life of Jesus give us another important insight to the nature of God:
- God is personal. The creator of the universe wants a personal relationship with each of us.
There are many religions with their many different gods: accept or reject them based on the evidence.
Of course you weren’t trying to preach. And I hope I was clear that I was just giving MY view and hoping not to insult yours. Everyone has their own view, and that’s what’s great about the world.
Yes, that’s a great point. I was actually going to mention that, but I didn’t want to be too long-winded. Time differs from the other dimensions in that we only experience it one-way, and nobody really knows why. There are some theories, but unless I’m mistaken, I believe they’re pretty much just guesses at this point.
This may sound odd, but I think it actually takes more imagination to picture a universe without God than with God. We experience time as infinite and immutable, and we experience our lives as having come from a mother and father, and I think there is a great temptation to view the universe in the same manner. But I don’t see any logic in such a view; it’s just not supported by the evidence. O.K., sorry for the highjack. We will now return to your regular thread…
Wisest Novel, I did see your question, and apologize for not getting around to answering it until now.
Quite simply, I was raised in the Methodist Church, my aunt being a pillar of same and my parents generally not churchgoers but believers, more or less – Dad had some problems with Methodist doctrine and was something of a freethinker.
After high school, I became something of an apatheticist – never gave a whole lot of thought to God, and figured if He’d do me the favor of ignoring me, I’d return the favor.
After I married, my wife and I found some social acceptance and a sense of connecting through ritual in the Episcopal Church, which we (both raised Methodist) began attending. An extension course in theology as an outreach from the University of the South was offered through our church, and we attended it.
In the course of attending this, I had an experience in which I felt a very strong sense of God’s presence and His call to me to actively follow Him. This was far from being anything sought – it was effectively contrary to the “socially proper churchianity” piety that was par for the course at that church.
I became very active. I can enumerate a whole series of highly improbable events that I fell comfortable attributing to God intervening in my life (through natural means, not “miraculously” in the sense of contrary-to-physical-law miracle but miraculously in the sense of signage from God to me). I have no problem going into detail on these but would create an enormously long post-sequence to explain their significance in my psyche.
Because I feel that intellectual honesty is important, I have examined in some detail the possible alternative explanations for that conversion experience, and would happily deal with others’ questions regarding it.
Suffice it to say that having experienced it made the whole idea of Christian thought and ethics come alive for me, and I’ve been trying to live out the consequences of that ever since.
Consider the following: randomness + energy can result in spontaneous organization. Witness the regular shapes of waves and sand from simply wind and water. IsGod placing each grain of sand, or can the action of the water and wind create regularities? As for the magificient visual beauty in nature, take a look at the hidden and unnecessary horrific ugliness prevalent in nature sometime. The “hidden” beauty was once considered and argument against God, since he was creating beauty that only a few people could ever see.
Um, are you aware that if you consider these laws as inflexible in order to prove God, you end up disproving him too? You claim all things have a cause, so God must be the cause, but then claim God didn’t have a cause.
Explain, please.
Again, you use an argument to prove God that at the same time disproves him. If nothing exists without a cause, God coudl nto exist without a cause. And that cause must have had a cause, and that cause, and that cause…
Not true.
There is evidence of God’s non-existence, just as there is evidence of His existence. There is just no irrefutable proof either way.
Well, all of us atheists don’t seem to feel we need God, and seem to do none the worse for it.
No more arbitrary than your choice of deity.
Please explain.
I think many theists think God is within them. Are they mistaken?
I was just trying to demonstrate that science and religion are not necessarily incompatible. To the best of my knowledge, science is generally concerned with the question of how , and religion with why . Also, are you claiming that Newton and Pascal weren’t religious? (Confused look) Or that either of them thought that their science was incompatible with their faith? Science presupposes the intelligibility and rationality of the universe. For Newton, at least, Christianity provided a reason for that presupposition- a loving God created a universe with fixed laws that we are capable of understanding.
This seems in danger of spinning off into “Why Newton believes” or worse, “What Newton believes”. But I’ve been asked some direct questions, so I’ll do my best.
I think they were somewhere around “no time for religion”, “no use for religion”, and “religion is ridiculous”. But we didn’t watch the Challenger explosion and say “See, son, there’s no God”.
There was no single big epiphany. I was pretty stubborn about a lot of things I believed, so maybe I could only be convinced by the combined weight of lots of little epiphanies.
It’s probably closer than you think to the way Boyle noticed something that he interpreted as pressure varying with the inverse of volume. Feeling the greater power is what made me believe God existed. Learning about the greater power and classifying it as the Christian God came later. Quite important was discovering that my own experiences were consistent with those of the mystical Carmelites St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.
I’m pretty sure that I chose Catholicism myself.
I suspect that we agree more than we don’t, but I still don’t like this. Start with 1). It seems like the OP is all about what constitutes “proof”. You don’t get to walk in here and just say that I’ve got no “proof”, by the definition of proof. If we changed “proof” to “a reason to believe”, then I don’t think I would dispute:
- Belief in anything without a reason to believe is irrational.
But then you’re left with:
- Religion requires belief without a reason to believe.
Which is false. We’ve got to either establish the validity of (the new) number 2, or go back to 1 and talk about what we mean by proof.
I smell some kind of paradox in here. Let’s go back to the art gallery, but let’s make it a Mondrian exhibit instead of Mapplethorpe to avoid any possible controversy. Can you provide “proof” that Mondrian is a good or bad painter (read: God exists or does not exist)? Can you even “prove” to me that you like Mondrian or you don’t like him (read: you believe in God or do not believe in God)? I don’t think you can, by your standard of proof. So the only rational thing is to not decide whether Mondrian is a good painter or not.
Fair enough, but I maintain that you would live your life differently based on a decision. Hey, do you want to take a day to go see the Mondrians down at the Tate when we visit London? If you haven’t decided that Mondrian is good or not (or even if you like him) how will you decide? If you decide not to go because he doesn’t matter to you, then you have not decided about Mondrian but are living your life as if you didn’t like him. If you decide to go, then you haven’t decided but are living as if you liked him. You could tie every decision to a coin flip, but I think we’d both agree that that is a very irrational way to make decisions.
I think belief in God or an opinion of the existence of God is very similar. You can refuse to decide, but by doing so you’ve either 1) severely constrained the type of God there could be (he’s only the kind that cannot make a difference to your life) and thus have decided, or else 2) you live your life in a manner that is indistinguishable from a religious ethic.
Maybe you would agree with this: the decision whether God exists or not is not one that you would consider rational, but it is possible to make rational decisions assuming his existence (or non-existence).
In fact, not deciding seems to force you into irrationality, too.
It would not be irrational to conclude that something had happened after you had talked to several of the other eyewitnesses and discovered that they had all seen very similar things. Let’s go back to the hypothetical where I’m the only witness. I may be quite justified in doubting what I saw. But, I either saw a murder or I did not see a murder. Even if I conclude that I don’t have enough evidence to positively conclude which it was, I will either call the police or I will not.
Is not calling the police because I can’t positively determine what I saw any different than not calling the police because I’ve decided I didn’t see a murder?
I have a friend who studied art history, and she’s always asking me why I like certain art and artists. I can talk about things like color and texture. We can deconstruct that and talk about emotions and emotional responses. Under that is “I just do”. I’m sure she gets frustrated with that answer, but that’s the way it works. Really.
Joule sometimes asks me why I love her. I can mention things like she’s a good cook and I find her attractive. We can dig deeper and talk about how I enjoy her intelligence and find her a beautiful person. Under that is “I just do”.
So I skipped some steps and went right to the “I just do” part of my belief in God. I think it’s something that you recognize when you see it. Two Mondrian lovers can probably get together and talk about all kinds of things that a non-Mondrian lover wouldn’t understand.
I suspect that it is not possible for me to be more clear and precise. You will always be able to dig deeper and find a level that offends you. A believer will only have to dig so deep as to get to a level where they say “aaah, me too”. You will have to accept that I believe in God because he is present in my life, and I believe that things that are present in my life in the way that God is are real.
The point is, I do think about my spiritual beliefs. I examine them constantly. They have evolved, and I believe that I would even reject them if they were no longer effective in my life or consistent with my view of the universe. I honestly would not characterize my beliefs as not being a response of my reason.
And there are repeatable experiments that I perform, weekly, that convince me that God exists. I just don’t know if you can repeat them.
kg m²/s²
Apologies for the length of this post, especially if it leaves much unanswered. Upon reading it, perhaps I am not the best spokesman for the rationality of religious beliefs. That is, there is a flaw in my exposition, not my rationality.
First, a quick response to robinc308:
This is a non-standard definition of ‘faith’. (I hate to sound too pedantic, but none of the dictionaries I checked defined faith this way.) Personally, I think calling this ‘faith’ waters down the meaning of the word. Other than that though, we seem to be pretty much in agreement.
Now to the fun stuff. 
ImNotMad said:
“design” or “result of natural process”? There appears to be design in a rainbow, but it’s just the laws of nature that cause the spectrum of colors to show up. Things appear designed to live as they do precisely because those things which weren’t suited have died off. The evolutionary algorithm is remarkably simple, yet remarkably powerful. It can produce results which appear to have been designed but which were not.
Given the choice of, (a) believing that a supernatural being created this design for unknown purposes in an unknown way, or (b) believing that this apparant design is the result of a simple but powerful natural process that is known to produce such results, which hypothesis do you think has the most explanatory power?
- Not everyone agrees on what is beautiful.
- Ugliness is just as rampant in nature as beauty
- Even if 1 and 2 were ignored, the existence of beauty does not seem to support the existence of God. In what way would the existence of great beauty imply the existence of God? I understand that if you could rule out a natural explanation that God may well be the best remaining hypothesis. But that hasn’t been done. The lack of a known natural explanation for something does not equal a lack of a natural explanation. Unless a positive argument is made that no possible natural explanation could account for widespread beauty, then there is no justification for assuming a supernatural explanation.
Not only that, there is a natural theory to account for beauty. Many of the beautiful things that many people agree on, such as the attractiveness of a certain person, are grounded in our evolutionary past. Creatures that found certain things beautiful or attractive were more likely to pass on their genes. Creatures that found certain things ugly and distasteful were more likely to pass on their genes. Eventually, we find ourselves here saying, “That’s pretty” or “That’s disgusting” because in the past our anscestors’ reproductive success may have depended on it.
It really comes down to your first point, I think. Humans find certain things beautiful. Is this because they were created to find these things beautiful? Possibly. Is it because holding certain aesthetic attitudes would affect the reproductive success of our anscestors? Possibly. Why assume a supernatural entity unless it is necessary? A natural explanation always trumps a supernatural one, since it doesn’t just replace one thing in need of an explanation with another. A supernatural explanation just replaces it with a bigger mystery.
Poppycock. (I’ve always wanted to say that.)
First off, this isn’t a law at all. IANABiologist, but I’m pretty sure the “law” of biogenesis hasn’t been considered a law for a long time. Second, it’s completely self-defeating. If each being must come from another being, then God must have come from another being. A possible objection you might make is that a being must come from some being, but not necessarily another being. In that case, even granting this “law”, there is no more reason to believe that God was the being-from-himself than was, say, a single-celled organism.
You also bring up the “uncaused cause”. Well, if everything needs a cause, then God requires a cause. What is it? If not everything requires a cause, why do you believe life, the universe, and everything requires one? Why couldn’t the big bang (for example) be the uncaused cause?
I agree that the universe is aging. Whether or not it had a definite starting point is beyond my knowledge, but from my admittedly limited understanding of the subject, the Big Bang theory seems to hold water. But even if we assume that there was a definite beginning to the universe, so what? Why does a beginning point of the universe imply the existence of God? We’re back to what I said earlier - either there was an uncaused cause or there was not. If there was not, then God does not exist (or if he does then something created him). If there was, we still have no way of knowing that it was God and not a completely natural uncaused cause. There is no need whatsoever in such a case to postulate a God. The allowance of uncaused causes makes the idea of God irrelevant without some other strong evidence in support.
It teaches no such thing. All it says is that, in the universe we have now, matter/energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The law applies within the universe we now have. Where that universe came from in the first place is a very interesting question, one that perhaps will never be answered.
Also, IANAPhysicist, but it appears to me that matter/energy can be created so long as the sum total is “nothing”. That is, I’ve heard that virtual particles can pop into existence randomly, and in fact do so all the time. Most of the time they meet again in the briefest of moments and vanish back to nothing. I hesitated to mention this, because I honestly don’t understand it completely (or perhaps at all; any physicists reading this?).
Still, it all comes back to what’s already been discussed, the old First Cause argument. Either everything has a cause, or not everything has a cause. If everything has a cause, then even if God exists something must have caused him, and something caused that, and so on. If not everything has a cause, then why can it not be the case that the universe is an uncaused cause? This would make God unnecessary for that purpose.
First off, Newton’s law doesn’t imply that. Secondly, Newton’s law is known not to be accurate in some areas.
There are no scientific laws that require the non-existence anything supernatural. There are also no scientific laws that require the supernatural. Unless a natural explanation for a phenomenon is impossible, there is no reason to assume a supernatural explanation.
This is absolutely not true. (Or maybe it’s true and not true … nevermind. 
) Maybe you’re talking about something entirely different, but the only “law of non-contradiction” I know of states that a proposition can’t be both true and false at the same time. It says nothing about universes or anything else coming into being, and to my knowledge says nothing at all about causation of any sort.
Feel free to correct me though. If you can show how the universe creating itself violates the law of contradiction, I’d be fascinated to hear that. Keep in mind that if you could show that, it would be easy to use the same argument against God. (That is, if the concept of a self-created thing contains a contradiction, then God either was caused by something other than himself or the concept of God contains a contradiction.)
“contingent” in philosophy simply means “not necessarily true and not necessarily false”. That is, it refers to a proposition which may be true, depending on something.
An example of a necessary truth is “A = A”. It cannot be the case that A is not what A is.
An example of a necessary falsehood is “A and Not A”. It cannot be the case that both A is true and Not A it true.
An example of a contingent proposition is “My name is Bryan”. It may be true (in fact, it is), but it is not necessarily true. My name could be anything. It is true that my name is Bryan but it is not necessarily true, since if my mother and father had decided differently I could have been named just about anything.
I’m not sure what relationship you claim between contingency and cause-and-effect, but it’s very clear that this is yet again the First Cause argument that has already been dealt with a couple times before.
(An interesting question is, Even if you could prove that the universe had a cause, why believe that cause was God? It could have been a natural cause. It could have been a completely different supernatural cause, such as Odin or Zeus or the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Thus, even if you know that the universe had a cause, you wouldn’t know anything at all about that cause.)
There are many problems with this.
- Moral indignation of any sort does not presuppose an objective moral standard. It just presupposes some moral standard, which could be non-objective.
Moral indignation is often at odds with itself. Imagine morally indignant folks protesting something while other morally indignant folks protest that protest. It happens all the time. Thus, moral indignation is no sign that there is an objective moral standard.
Now, assuming there is an objective moral standard …
2) Your assertion that an objective moral standard could not exist without God is simply false. If you believe otherwise, defend your claim.
There could very well be an objective moral standard that does not rely on God. Many philosophers search for such a thing. There is simply no logical connection between God’s existence and an objective moral standard. (If he existed he might very well be the base for such a standart, but that’s a different point altogether. It’s not the same as saying that he is the only possible base for such a thing.)
This seems like a good place to bring up an old problem.
Something that is good is either good because God says it is or because of some other reason. (That exhausts the possibilities.) If it is good because God says so, then if God said that killing your friends and hurting your neighbors is ok, then it would be ok. After all, God said so. But if something is good for another reason, then God is not the basis for morality.
Are you willing to accept that if God said killing your friends is good that killing your friends would actually be good? What if then God said that killing your friends was wrong. Would it then be wrong again? Is right and wrong really so arbitrary?
Depending on how you define God, there may be evidence in spades. There are countless arguments that find contradictions in properties that God is sometimes stated to have. There are arguments that find contradictions between the state of the world and properties God is sometimes stated to have. Give me a good complete and clear definition of God and I’ll see what I can do.
Keep in mind that atheism doesn’t need evidence against God’s existence. I think there is some, but it’s just gravy. Atheism is justified by the lack of evidence for God’s existence. It’s the default position. Until someone has evidence for God’s existence, they are an atheist (or should be).
First, you assume there is a basic human need for something transcendent. That’s hardly obvious. In other words, you should support this with some kind of evidence. (Depending on what you mean, I may be doing quite well without any transcendence. But first I’d like to know - what do you mean by “transcendent”? Transcending what?)
Secondly, it is hardly the case that atheism is the denial of all transcendence. Unless you think God is the only possible transcendent thing (whatever that means), then atheism is perfectly compatible with transcendence.
???
Arbitrary values for what? How are these “values” (whatever they are) arbitrary? How are they not arbitrary for theists?
If you mean values of fundamental rules of nature, then the theist position is no less arbitrary. How is it not arbitrary for God to say, “Let there be X”?
Infinite in what way?
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the First Cause argument, part 35 (OK, so I exaggerate.)
The law of biogenesis, even making the large assumption that it is true, would require no such thing. It would only require all life come from other life. This is a very different concept.
In what way is God “infinite”? In what way does such a concept even make sense? How can attributes be based on infinity?
How can there be more than one infinite set in mathematics? More than one infinity can exist.
If he’s so infinite (as you seem to be using the term), he would have to be the universe as well. It does not violate the law of non contradiction. In fact, it seems compelled to be true by that law.
Any definition of faith I’ve heard (before reading this thread, anyway ) required that for something to be faith it must not be based on evidence. Therefore, faith is inherently blind. If you wish to use the word faith differently, that’s fine. However, if you still need something to believe even after you have evidence, then that evidence is by definition not sufficient for that belief.
And yet he created such an impersonal universe to contain us? He wants a personal relationship with everyone, yet not everyone believes in him. If he wanted a personal relationship with everyone, then everyone would have a personal relationship with him. He’s God after all. If what you say is true, then the existence of non-belief is evidence against the existence of God.
Seems to me that you’re quite the atheist as well then! You don’t believe in Zeus, or Odin, or Ra, or Baal, or the Great Spirit, etc. In fact, you’re atheistic towards everything single god ever concieved to exist - except one. I just believe in one less god than you do. 
Why does the following passage from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy spring to mind while reading through this thread?:
The following was competing with Mr. Adams when I started reading the whole “beauty of nature” argument:
“All Things Dull and Ugly”
Music to the tune of “All Things Bright and Beautiful”
Lyrics by Eric Idle
All things dull and ug-ly,
All creatures, short and squat,
All things rude and na-sty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their prudish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid,
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scant and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.
I actually was going to follow this up with some background on my belief in God, but I don’t really have the time right now. Maybe I’ll get to it later.
Wonders how many copyright lawyers will come after him now.
Just for future reference, Frood, enough people here know the Babelfish story that it’s usually only necessary to mention it or quote the “puff of logic line.”
Gaudere:
randomness + energy = random energy.
Every Mechanical Engineer knows you can’t get work out of energy without a heat engine.
There’s no reason to believe that God would be limited by natural laws–He is not part of them; He created them!
They are not mistaken. God is within them, not one with them. You can live in a house made of wood; That doesn’t mean you’re made of wood too.
BlackKnight:
Perhaps a bit too powerful, eh?
Ah, the randomness that chance would produce!
Why do you think the laws of nature should not apply to nature? Why do you think the laws of nature should apply to God? God is not the universe; God created the universe. As the creator of the universe, He is also the creator of nature; as the creator of nature, He is also the creator of natural law.
And what have these philosophers found? Anything?
I’ll answer A. Because God says it is. God says it is good to love your neighbors and to love your enemies; therefore, anyone who says killing your friends is good, is not of God.
Excellent! Let’s look at the God I believe must exist based on the evidence and reasoning of my posts. Of course I can only know as much about God as He has chosen to reveal to us, so you could rightly question the completeness of what I know about Him.
So, here’s God:
- He’s infinite, and therefore has the attributes of an infinite being: omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (is everywhere at once), omniscient (all knowing), always was and always will be (I’m not sure if there’s an omni- word for this).
- He’s unique: there is only one God (a triune God, but that too is the topic for another discussion).
- He’s personal.
- He is a God of love, and therefore has the attributes of a loving being: patient, kind, truthful.
- He is a God of justice.
The love and justice attributes (#4 and #5) I pulled from the Bible, which we haven’t really discussed yet, but this is the God I worship, so I included them.
I know you don’t think atheism is the world’s most popular worldview. Do you? What other evidence would you need?
Let’s just call it something that gives people meaning and hope. Belief that once we die we’re dead can lead many to hopelessness and despair.
I couldn’t have said that better myself.
You cannot be both infinite and non-infinite.
Semantics. Convenient, huh?
God want us to love Him. Forced love is not love at all. God showed His love for us when He came to earth in the flesh, to pay the penalty for our sins. We only need to love Him in return to be forgiven of our sins. Only then can we find true peace with God, and have a personal relationship with Him.
So coercion is not force?
Wow there’s a lot of religious weight being used in this thread. Not that the OP does call for it, but man the blood in the water must have been thick.
Anyway
As for logical proof of God?
The uncaused first cause.
Simple and effective. Logically you cannot have an uncaused first cause, so whatever IS the uncaused first cause is divine (God). I’m not going to argue whether or not God is the religious version or not, but certainly you can see that logically God exists.
Something had to start the big bang right? Whatever that is/was is God/creator. Not necessarily a thinking being, but divine nontheless.
If someone believes in ghosts, do you ask them to justifly their belief?
If someone belives in aliens, do you ask them to justify their belief?
If someone believes in ESP, do you ask them to justify their belief?
If someone believes in Life after Death, do you ask them to justify their belief?
If someone believes in the Universe, do you ask them to justify their belief?
If someone believes in air, do you ask them to justify their belief?
Anything can be debated as to whether it exists or not, why single out whether there is/are god(s)?
I don’t believe in god, and I just hate it when people ask me why not. The first day of school this year, my teacher asked us if anybody considered themselves to be athiests. No one said anything, then he said that he was glad that no one would admit it if they were.
Do you really believe that to be true? Can you prove it to be true?
EVERYBODY believes in things which are unproven. Heck, science itself is founded on a set of unproven yet commonly accepted assertions (e.g. the nature of causality, the fundamental laws of logic, various mathematical axioms and the validity of the scientific method). If anyone claims that they only believe what is proven, then I daresay they are being inaccurate and irrational.
Nicely done
Name one thing I believe in that is unproven.
DaLovin’ Dj
That you’re hip?
::d&r::
It appears that you believe “I don’t believe anything that is unproven”. Or, positively, “everything I believe is proven”. So prove “everything I believe is proven”. Or, just prove that you believe that “everything I believe is proven” (unless you don’t believe that).
Ahhh… I love self-referential or recursive sentences (“Belief in anything without proof is irrational.” seems to be a close cousin to “This sentence is false.”)… not that there is anything wrong with that! ~grin~
While I do not have anything valuable to add to this thread, I’d like to express my appreciation for the efforts of all the posters here (and in numerous other threads) for their efforts in attempting to articulate how and why they believe what they believe.
For me? Well, the following two axioms pretty much define my outlook…
There are no Truths.
There are only Beliefs.
And that’s the Truth.
and…
Things have to be believed to be seen (or felt).
PS - Jubilation… I haven’t seen your name in years… nay, decades… FWIW, I played Senator Jack S. Fogbound in Lil Abner in my high school play… nice to see you again.)