# Of course God exists--And I can prove it. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762 "2012-09-05T17:26:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/81 "2012-09-06T03:36:01Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, there is the interpretation of symbolic logic that a contradiction can lead to any statement. So, if A and not-A, therefore Abraham Lincoln was a unicorn. I do not believe it is necessary to be a professional logician to observe that such an intepretation should not be taken seriously. Contradictory premises, rather, can lead to no conclusion. > [@Trinopus](#): > > (It’s also fun to note that any property may be attributed to members of the empty set. Since there are no unicorns…all unicorns are lesbians.) What’s so fun about it? > [@Trinopus](#): > > Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad… Oh. Thanks. That explains everything. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/82 "2012-09-06T03:41:49Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > Consider the follow-ups to be the Congo. Wait for Bolivia. > > But seriously, I have proven God exists and provided a valid argument to worship and follow him. How very counter-revolutionary of you. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/83 "2012-09-06T04:25:18Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I thought I was wrong once, but I was wrong. Well, at least by knowing you were wrong you were right at least once. Not sure the same can be said for the OP. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/84 "2012-09-06T04:32:49Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > If we had some ham we could make ham & cheese sandwiches. If we had some cheese. And while you are at the store, can you pick up some bread? And some mayo. I think I may have a knife. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/85 "2012-09-06T04:34:36Z")
There isn’t a knife in your house. Well, there wasn’t until a moment ago. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/86 "2012-09-06T04:45:02Z")
I’m thinking this same logic proves the existence of trolls… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/87 "2012-09-06T04:52:12Z")
> [@simster](#): > > I’m thinking this same logic proves the existence of trolls… Don’t accuse other posters of trolling in Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/88 "2012-09-06T04:59:20Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Don’t accuse other posters of trolling in Great Debates. Not to attempt to substitute my judgement for yours, but I didn’t read that as an accusation of anyone in particular – to me it read as a logical consequence of the logic displayed in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/89 "2012-09-06T05:53:56Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > . . . What’s so fun about it? . . . Logic is lots of fun. It can be made into a game (“Wff ‘n’ Proof”) or a puzzle. It can solve problems. It can cause problems! And, as Lewis Carroll delighted in, it can be the basis for wonderful and witty forms of “nonsense.” You might as well ask what’s so fun about learning? ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/90 "2012-09-06T06:02:25Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/91 "2012-09-06T06:04:03Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > Consider the follow-ups to be the Congo. Wait for Bolivia. > > But seriously, I have proven God exists and provided a valid argument to worship and follow him. But seriously, you haven’t - not any more than your imagining of a chair would provide me a place to sit. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/92 "2012-09-06T06:51:25Z")
I remember when I was quite young – eight or nine, perhaps – and it occurred to me that whatever I imagined had to be “real” in some abstract sense. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine it, right? So, for one wonderful, weird, scary, almost hallucinatory afternoon, I was strictly guarding my thoughts, because if I thought about, say, Frankenstein’s Monster, it would be real. (And might come and get me!) Then I figured it out. It just plain doesn’t work that way. (Such a pessimist; I should have thought about a pot of gold, or a magic lamp!) Seriously, if “ideas” had concrete reality in this kind of way, there wouldn’t be a soul left alive on earth! The “idea” of nuclear war is too widespread…but, more to the point, think of all the ill-wishes people have had against one another over the millennia! If every death-curse actually carried death… Bye-bye! ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/93 "2012-09-06T07:36:57Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, there is the interpretation of symbolic logic that a contradiction can lead to any statement. So, if A and not-A, therefore Abraham Lincoln was a unicorn. Thank you. I followed the OP, but not his 2nd argument. Er… how does that interpretation follow? > [@](#): > > (It’s also fun to note that any property may be attributed to members of the empty set. Since there are no unicorns…all unicorns are lesbians.) Understood. The 2nd sentence is true, strictly speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/94 "2012-09-06T07:48:46Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (It’s also fun to note that any property may be attributed to members of the empty set. Since there are no unicorns…all unicorns are lesbians.) The interesting thing about this is that it appears that you can create any arbitrary set membership related contradiction you want. If the set of Unicorns is the empty set, unicorns is a subset of lesbians. It is also, incidentally, a member of the set U-lesbians (aka “not lesbians”) where U is the universal set. So all unicorns both are and are not lesbians. However, it should be noted that the contradiction only seems like such. It’s simply in two sets that are normally mutually exclusive, to be a contradiction it would have to both be in the set and not be in the set. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/95 "2012-09-06T09:18:47Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Er… how does that interpretation follow? It’s called the principle of explosion, or ex falso quodlibet, if you’re into fancy Latin. It’s quite simple: 1. P & ~P (read: P and not-P) 2. P (since, if both P and not-P are true, it follows that P is true) 3. P v Q (read: P or Q; from the truth of P it follows that either P or Q (or both) are true) 4. ~P (again, if both P and not-P are true, then not-P is true) 5. Q (because, if P or Q is true, and not-P is true – i.e. P is false – it follows that Q must be true) But since we have made no assumption on what Q is, it may be anything; thus, from a contradiction, anything follows. More explicitly, say that P is ‘I am a handsome devil’. So P & ~P asserts that ‘I am a handsome devil, and I am not a handsome devil’. Thus, I am a handsome devil. But then, it follows that ‘I am a handsome devil or God exists’ – this is true, because it is true that I am a handsome devil. But from the truth of ‘I am a handsome devil and I am not a handsome devil’, it also follows that I am not a handsome devil. But if I am not a handsome devil, then from the truth of ‘I am a handsome devil or God exists’, it follows that God exists. ---
**Author:** ![Hogfather65](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7bcc69/32.png) [@Hogfather65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hogfather65)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/96 "2012-09-06T09:44:35Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Can you say the same thing about the Chupacabra? The Loch Ness monster? We talk about them so they exist? Hey - Nessie exists. So there… ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/97 "2012-09-06T10:10:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > [@Che G.](#): > > > > Thanks Parmenides. > > Who, ironically, does _not_ exist. Even if he did, he would never do anything worthy of note. By definition. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/98 "2012-09-06T10:38:27Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Damn you! Now when God and anti-God make contact, they’re going to blow up the universe and mess things up for all of us. No, what really happens is: > [@Higgs boson discovery confirmation](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/higgs-boson-discovery-confirmation/627239/32): > > You can get a Christ and an Antichrist, but only if the total energy of the colliding Gods is equal to at least twice the Christmass. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/99 "2012-09-06T10:42:27Z")
> [@Che\_G.Anonymous\_Capitalist](#): > > Consider the follow-ups to be the Congo. Wait for Bolivia. > > But seriously, I have proven God exists and provided a valid argument to worship and follow him. According to the Psalmist all are gods,or maybe just the Israelites, He is quoted in Psalm 81 of the RC version and the 82d Psalm of the KJV, “I said you are gods and sons of the most high”, It all depends on what the word God means to someone. If God is a separate being, then he would first have to have a place in which to exist, so Place would have had to be self created.Jesus sort of backs this idea up when he was accused of blasphemy.What isn’t in existence doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762/100 "2012-09-06T12:05:47Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > It all depends on what the word God means to someone. Shucks, pantheists who define _“God”_ as _“the universe”_ have long since proven the existence of the former by noting the existence of the latter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/of-course-god-exists-and-i-can-prove-it/633762.md?page=6)