# Proof That God Exists: An Open Debate For The Existence of God **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578 "2016-08-31T16:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/101 "2016-09-01T02:25:19Z")
A cat with a cesium atom … this is bad … it won’t matter how many wave functions you use … it’ll be cheaper with Newton’s Laws … damn … who the hell gives a cat a cesium atom … you should be ashamed of yourself. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/102 "2016-09-01T02:26:34Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Oh, this is going to cost you … what I can do around here is one thing … but _shipping_ a wave function … to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean … tariffs and excise taxes alone will cost another $1,000 … dealer prep, options, licensing … did I mention we have terrific financing … > > Say … there wouldn’t happen to be a cat involved, is there? No dry ice fees? That’s considered hazardous. I guess I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it is to ship these algorithms to users. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/103 "2016-09-01T02:29:44Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > Maybe you could use paragraphs to get your point across…just sayin’. > > Although this isn’t the worst example of wall-o-text I’ve seen here. 220 words in a series of thematically-related sentences is a wall of text now? Also, complaining about other posters’ writing might work out better for you if you avoid sentence fragments and use punctuation correctly. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/104 "2016-09-01T02:31:39Z")
> [@Itself](#): > > 220 words in a series of thematically-related sentences is a wall of text now? Is that proof for or against God? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/105 "2016-09-01T02:37:40Z")
I don’t think the OP will bless us with his second coming … tsk tsk … ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/106 "2016-09-01T02:50:38Z")
> [@Itself](#): > > 220 words in a series of thematically-related sentences is a wall of text now? > > Also, complaining about other posters’ writing might work out better for you if you avoid sentence fragments and use punctuation correctly. Yes, I prefer paragraphs when explaining a concept. Easier to follow than a wall-o-text. And feel free to point out my grammar mistakes. How would you have corrected my response? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/107 "2016-09-01T03:12:43Z")
> [@Itself](#): > > Whenever I see posts like this one here or on other message boards, I have to wonder what’s motivating the posters. Literally no one responds with, “Wow! Your post was so insightful, and now I’m convinced of whatever ill-informed armchair philosophical argument you’re talking about. I base all of my major decisions in life on drive-by message postings, and now I’ve seen the light!”. The religious people I know live in very sheltered circles. The people they hang with are from their church group. The people they marry are from their church group. The children they know are from the same one their children go to in the church group. They have brainstorming sessions in Bible Clubs where they are ‘challenged’ with outside views, but they are handled in safely couched terms surrounded by people with similar views. The people who come here who ask honestly to have their view challenged are either beginning the road to Atheism, witnessing for the sake of it or won’t show up again. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/108 "2016-09-01T03:16:21Z")
It’s a paragraph. Maybe it’s a long paragraph, but calling it a wall of text is needlessly hyperbolic. > [@dasmoocher](#): > > And feel free to point out my grammar mistakes. How would you have corrected my response? For the first bit, replace the ellipsis with a period, em-dash, or something similar; for the second, drop ‘although’ and reword the rest accordingly. Beyond that, meh, I’ve lost interest in this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/109 "2016-09-01T03:26:00Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I see the Egyptian members are chiming in. Oh, goodness no, those would be the descendants of Frankenstein, who were trapped for three million years in the cargo hold of an unfortunate derelict of the Jupiter Mining Corporation. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/110 "2016-09-01T03:31:51Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > The religious people I know live in very sheltered circles. The people they hang with are from their church group. The people they marry are from their church group. The children they know are from the same one their children go to in the church group. > > They have brainstorming sessions in Bible Clubs where they are ‘challenged’ with outside views, but they are handled in safely couched terms surrounded by people with similar views. > > The people who come here who ask honestly to have their view challenged are either beginning the road to Atheism, witnessing for the sake of it or won’t show up again. I’ve run into people like that too. It’s a good hypothesis of why archconservative Bible colleges exist: They’re for students who want to learn something, but whose parents won’t let them escape from the church bubble they’re in. For a lot of the witnessers I’ve seen on the various Interwebs, I could easily imagine that they’re in the situation you describe. They’ve been in an environment where quite odd and unsupported beliefs are treated as perfectly reasonable. They look at the world and notice that most people don’t believe in the same way, and the conclusion that they draw is that the outer world simply has never heard of Jesus, or that 0.999… = 1, or that rotating mirrors disprove relativity, etc. It’s like the bizarrely easy strain of evangelism that characters in Chick tracks exercise. Still, I don’t think that’s exactly the situation here. The OP triggers too many crackpot flags: grandiose claims; a giant, rambling wall of text; claiming that leaps of logic are in fact patently obvious logical exercises; trying to set up an almost Socratic series of statements and demanding that readers agree to them; and so on. It’s nowhere near the level of 0.999… != 1 or disproving relativity or something about PHI, but I don’t see anything redeeming in the post. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/111 "2016-09-01T03:37:21Z")
> [@Itself](#): > > 220 words in a series of thematically-related sentences is a wall of text now? > [@Itself](#): > > It’s a paragraph. Maybe it’s a long paragraph, but calling it a wall of text is needlessly hyperbolic. > [@Itself](#): > > Still, I don’t think that’s exactly the situation here. The OP triggers too many crackpot flags: grandiose claims; **a giant, rambling wall of text** … Huh. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/112 "2016-09-01T03:51:31Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Huh. The OP is 2639 words long; I wrote a paragraph less than a tenth of that size. But thanks for your contribution to this thread! You tried, and that’s the important thing. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/113 "2016-09-01T04:02:51Z")
Suppose we stipulate that there is a “Something” which “created” the laws of mathematics, physics, our universe, etc. What conclusions can we draw from that? Very few, I’m afraid — certainly it doesn’t lead to an argument for any specific God. (2+2=4 hardly convinces us that Moses saw a burning bush!) So, while I’m willing to accept the sentence “God created the Universe,” I argue that “God” here is nothing but a meaningless placeholder to complete the syntactic formula “\_\_ created the Universe.” This use of “God” is similar to that of “It” in “It is raining.” ---
**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 1, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/114 "2016-09-01T04:36:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, kudos to the OP for actually writing something coherent, and I hope he/she sticks around to discuss it. This. The OP’s effort is much better than previous manifestos we’ve seen here. Then again… yikes! Hello **Jeduraiya** and welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board! You are in a tricky situation. If you try to respond to every post, your replies will seem superficial. And your replies will just engender more replies - you may find yourself swamped. Let me make a few observations. 1a)My take: A proof of the existence of an expansive God does not exist. Because if it did, we would have discovered it already. Either that or it’s really subtle and likely to be located by a professional philosopher. IMHO. 1b) Proofs of a less expansive and not uniquely Christian God might exist. Cecil proposed one such proof in [two](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3021/is-there-a-god) [columns](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3025/is-there-a-god-revisited). 1. That’s ok though! As you noted, whether God exists is independent of whether we can prove His existence. 2. And even if your argument doesn’t provide an airtight proof, so far at least it is somewhat interesting. Which when you think about it, is no mean feat. 3. I understand that philosophers have shifted away from proofs of God and towards the weaker (easier to demonstrate) contention of whether it is _reasonable_ to believe in God. 5a) The question of whether morality can exist absent _some_ sort of universal moral foundation is an interesting one. Your critics here have denied absolute morality, but haven’t provided a foundation for situational morality. 5b) Mumble mumble something something neo-Platonic theory. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/115 "2016-09-01T04:36:34Z")
**Itself** quoted a line from the OP that I had not noticed before: I would like to offer what I feel to be absolute proof that there is a divine creator and that this universe was created by forces beyond our comprehension. That has to be one of the most extreme juxtapositions of the ridiculous with the profound. Why don’t we ever have a drive-by that says something like, “I would like to discuss the limits of scientific understanding about the origin of the universe”? I guess it’s kind of like mail: the unsolicited free junk mail is always trying to sell you something. ---
**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 1, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/116 "2016-09-01T04:52:09Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > STEP SIX: THE NATURE OF LAWS (B) > Although your chain breaks on Step 4 unless you can demonstrate there is a Absolute Moral Code independent of people’s sense of right and wrong, here it completely disintegrates. There are some really good arguments out there that Logic, Mathematics\*, Science and Morality are all social constructs and that there is nothing absolute about them. > > \*As crazy as the idea of maths as a social construct it, I studied that philosophy at the University of Exeter in their doctoral programme. The OP works his way towards the Transcendental Proof of God and helpfully links to the [relevant wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_argument_for_the_existence_of_God). I think the OP’s argument can be recast by stripping away the science and morality stuff and illustrating the argument with logic and its offshoot mathematics. There are those who believe that math is invented as opposed to discovered. But while we can imagine Hamlet written in a number of different hypothetical ways, discussion of the Pythagorean theorem, the constants pi or e, or heck counting itself is more circumscribed. I can imagine it being shown that these sorts of concepts (pi, e, counting) exist within the mind of humanity, but also outside of it. Using clever definitional tricks, there might be some sort of God there, though it wouldn’t necessarily be a wholly Biblical one. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/117 "2016-09-01T05:14:38Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > . . . So, while I’m willing to accept the sentence “God created the Universe,” I argue that “God” here is nothing but a meaningless placeholder to complete the syntactic formula “\_\_ created the Universe.” This use of “God” is similar to that of “It” in “It is raining.” Very nicely phrased! > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > . . . The question of whether morality can exist absent _some_ sort of universal moral foundation is an interesting one. Your critics here have denied absolute morality, but haven’t provided a foundation for situational morality. . . . The two best bases I know of for situation morality are evolutionary in nature. First, we have evolved to hold certain behaviors to be instinctively admirable, such as sharing, loving, working together, playing with children, etc. And second, we have evolved certain rules of behavior to be advantageous in survival. Tribes that practice these laws survive better than tribes that don’t. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/118 "2016-09-01T05:34:18Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > The OP works his way towards the Transcendental Proof of God and helpfully links to the [relevant wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_argument_for_the_existence_of_God). I think the OP’s argument can be recast by stripping away the science and morality stuff and illustrating the argument with logic and its offshoot mathematics. There are those who believe that math is invented as opposed to discovered. But while we can imagine Hamlet written in a number of different hypothetical ways, discussion of the Pythagorean theorem, the constants pi or e, or heck counting itself is more circumscribed. I can imagine it being shown that these sorts of concepts (pi, e, counting) exist within the mind of humanity, but also outside of it. > > Using clever definitional tricks, there might be some sort of God there, though it wouldn’t necessarily be a wholly Biblical one. Whichever way you look at it, the abstract concepts of logic, math, morality and the scientific method effectively always existed, we just invented/discovered/established them. Just like the transistor: it always existed as an abstract concept, we just never invented it until we had a reason to. Nearly everything we invent/create/discover we do so for a reason: it is useful – and if it is not useful, it withers on the vine and fades away (phlogiston). It appears that some form of a god or gods are one of the earliest things we invented, possibly predating logic, math and those other things. It became established and maintained because it was useful, for reasons and applications that may or may not exceed the bounds of this thread. Amongst other features, the omnimax deity provides a convenient endpoint to our understanding of everything. This has been quite useful in the past, when attempting answer difficult questions was especially burdensome for the wise dudes. But, today, scientific discovery has pushed our collective knowledge beyond the perimeter of where a deity is useful. We know very well how much we have yet to learn, which seems to increase the more we learn, but the divine endpoint of knowledge is no longer useful on our journey of discovery and really just gets in the way. The important question is “just how useless is the god thing?” Is it like the tonsils that we ought to cut out because we keep getting sore throats? Is it merely a bit of an impediment to things getting better, or is it a genuine societal-health problem? ---
**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 1, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/119 "2016-09-01T05:35:49Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Your critics here have denied absolute morality, but haven’t provided a foundation for situational morality. As far as I can tell, various posters have – without denying absolute morality – noted that _if_ absolute morality exists, _then_ it’d apparently just be a standard by which a deity’s conduct could be judged and found wanting; it doesn’t tell us whether any deities exist. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578/120 "2016-09-01T05:35:52Z")
What logic could you possibly use to show god is the foundation/creator of logic? ISTM whether or not one believes in the existence of a deity, they have to first start with just assuming (or accepting) the validity of deductive and inductive logic. There is no start point otherwise. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I believe in moral laws, but I believe they are entirely creations of people. Without people (or some other thinking creature or being), there is no morality. I believe that society functions best when people behave morally, but this is a human creation and not an absolute law, in my view. Only thinking beings can behave morally or immorally. I agree but I think it’s also important to say that that doesn’t mean morals are arbitrary. Though there are no good or evil “forces” in reality, the moral dilemmas humans experience mostly make sense in terms of a tribal species deciding between group and self-serving behaviours. And whether something is group or self, constructive or destructive, are largely objective. That’s morals, ethics of course gets to be more subjective. But the arbitrary stuff largely comes from religion, and that’s no coincidence. As I’ve argued here before, successful religions throw in some arbitrary rules: don’t eat this, don’t work on this day etc, because people actually enjoy some sacrifices for a higher purpose. The golden rule alone doesn’t give people that warm feeling of serving, nor the feeling of belonging to a particular tribe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-that-god-exists-an-open-debate-for-the-existence-of-god/764578.md?page=7)