May we assume that, by your referencing the Bible, you are only interested in showing the existence of a Jewish and/or Christian god?
Back up a step: would I try to convince someone that God exists?
No, I would not even try. The way to salvation is explicit in Matthew 25:31-46
31 “When[a] the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All[b] the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He[c] will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him,[d] ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When[e] did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? 39 When[f] did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the king will answer them,[g] ‘I tell you the truth,[h] just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters[i] of mine, you did it for me.’
41 “Then he will say[j] to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 43 I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they too will answer,[k] ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ 45 Then he will answer them,[l] ‘I tell you the truth,[m] just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ 46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”[n]
Nevermind about questions of the existence of God, it’s better to focus on the why of our existence. The answer: we exist to serve each other with love. And our acts of love exist whether or not God exists.
Love is Love.
I don’t know if that is the answer, but I appreciate the fact that it is inclusive to atheists.
He also said Pluto is not a planet and he’s totally wrong about that. You should find more credible sources to quote.
“Pluto was long considered our ninth planet, but the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006.”
Take it up with them if you don’t like their reclassification. Neil deGrasse Tyson had nothing to do with it, and I still trust him as a credible source of information.
The International Astronomical Union didn’t think planets existed at all until they engaged in an unexplained effort to start believing such a thing as planets did exist simply for the purpose of saying that Pluto was not one. Tyson has supported this concept 100% and once took personal responsibility for it. He’s an anti-Plutite and can’t be trusted.
More precisely, we exist to grow old enough to pass on our DNA. That is our sole purpose. Once we have successfully accomplished that, there is really no other reason for us to exist, other than to nurture our offspring long enough for them to pass on their genetic code.
…pretty danged impressive?
To steal a phrase, a human without religion is like a fish without an invisible bicycle.
I don’t know if it is possible for an event to have no explanation at all. At most, I would say " We don’t know…yet."
“Unknown” and “Unknowable” are not synonyms.
I thought it was a fish without an Invisible Pink Unicorn.
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I wouldn’t. I do believe in God, but I don’t think that it’s important that others believe. I do think that it’s important how people behave, and so what I would try to persuade someone of is to behave in the manner that I consider right.
But to try to engage with the question, why do I believe? I can’t reduce it to either of your options, but it’s closer to the first: It’s not things in nature appearing to have been designed; it’s Nature, as a whole. Why should anything exist? Sure, you can say that our Universe came into existence as a result of quantum fluctuations, but why, even, should quantum mechanics exist? The answer to that, I think, requires the existence of an eternal entity, existing beyond time.
Certainly, I don’t think that the fulfillment of prophecies is decisive. Sure, there are plenty of Biblical prophesies that can be interpreted as being about, say, Trump. But I consider that as evidence that the prophets were astute students of human nature, and knew of people in their own time who were similar, in various ways, to Trump, and they knew that such people had a distressing tendency to accumulate power.
This is a very silly hijack. Drop it immediately.
Moderating
It’s evident the OP believes in that nonsense and wants us to support him. Both the title text and the OP body essentially poison the debate by assuming one conclusion.
So if as Velocity proposed, the whole book of Revelation laid itself exactly out as described, you wouldn’t entertain the notion that the Christians got it right? I’m about as atheistic as they come, but even I’m agnostic enough to alter my univeral theory in light of overwhelming new data, and the exact repetition of events is strong enough in my opinion to reach the point where the extistance of god becomes a testable prediction, (ok all the oceans turned to blood, so any day now we should have a meteor that poisons all the rivers, oh and there it is right on schedule!). I mean I suppose it could be some other extremely powerful entity messing with us to make us think god exists, but that is just replacing one unknown nigh-omnipotent being for another, so taking Occam’s razor, I’m sticking with the traditional one. Its not so much god in the gaps if the gap is precisely god shaped.
If what Velocity proposed (revelation and the so called rapture and the like) happened I would think Godott might be real, but suggesting it might happen is not an argument. The OP asked for arguments. Saying that something outrageous could happen is not a convincing argument. In fact, it has never happened, has it? When it happens, I will take it into account. But I will cross that river when we reach it. As far as I know that river does not even exist.
Right. What I’m saying is that, until or unless something drastic and unmistakably miraculous happens, I don’t think there will ever be a truly convincing argument for the existence of God.
Sure, some people have been persuaded by various subtle messages, evangelism, etc. to convert to this religion or that. But to have a truly bulletproof argument for God, it would take something spectacularly and provably in-the-face-of-science-and-everything-we-know. Otherwise, almost everything will be chalked up as randomness, natural cause and effect, or coincidence.
For instance, many Christians will claim something is a miracle when it’s mundane/natural - “I had a migraine headache this morning, I prayed, and it was gone by afternoon!” That’s not a provable miracle at all. But if some faith healer went to hospitals and was able to consistently, repeatedly, make tumors disappear, amputated limbs reappear, and dead people resurrect with the snap of his fingers, that would be undeniably miraculous.
Not “undeniably miraculous”, until we rule out all of the possible ways it could be faked, like with accomplices feigning an illness or death and then “miraculously” being cured or resurrected by the healer.
Stage magicians perform seeming miracles all the time, but it’s not real, it’s trickery. If you choose to believe magic is real, that’s fine, but I know it’s fake no matter how convincing it might seem to somebody else.
The best argument I could make is the argument from historical exceptionalism, with a side of argument from prophecy. But I certainly concede that neither of these arguments are strong enough to convince a determined skeptic.
The history of the Jewish people is dramatically different from the history of any other people. As a general rule, nations which are conquered and lose their territory cease to exist as distinct cultural and ethnic entities, especially if their people are actually driven from their homeland and dispersed into exile. But the Jews survived as a people without the benefit of territory or government for many generations, and eventually returned to their historic homeland to re-establish their nation-state.
And they did it TWICE, with almost 1900 years between the exile and the return the second time. Obviously, this doesn’t violate any physical laws, but it certainly seems to qualify as a major exception to the ordinary “laws” of history. Moreover, their history has not just been extremely unusual, but unusual in precisely the way that their religious prophets predicted.
Considering all these facts, I think it is reasonable to say that it is at least plausible to believe that there may be some truth to the Jewish belief that we have a unique relationship with God, Who therefore must exist. I don’t think a comparably strong argument can be made for any other major religion.
Of course, even if you accept that argument, it doesn’t follow that any particular version of Judaism is true; the Orthodox position that the entire Torah and Talmud are true clearly can’t be logically defended. At best we have a tradition partially rooted in Divine revelation, but also to some extent a human invention, and no reliable way to figure out which parts are which. So the argument isn’t really “useful” in the sense of providing practical advice as to what to believe or how to behave, but it’s the best I can do.
Of course the much simpler and more likely argument is just that these folks are real good at being socially insular (had a LOT of practice, and most of it forced upon them) and they consider taking concrete action on earth to fulfill their book’s prophesy to be important enough that they just kept trying and would not quit until they succeeded, no matter how many centuries it takes.
It happens that we are living in the era of one of those successes. So it seems foreordained. Had the outcome of WW-II not been the creation of Israel, the Jewish people would still be trying to make their homeland today. And the rest of us would observe no evidence of some special relationship with the non-existent god(s).
Hard to reconcile the Holocaust and so many pogroms with being a people chosen by God. If that was accurate, than they are chosen by a horrific asshole.
The logic doesn’t work and in general for most religions logic doesn’t work. Faith is suppose to work.