Proof of the existence of God

Hmm.....

It was the christians that destroyed the library of Alexandria in Egypt

Which is a crime against Humanity

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yazata,

I don't know where the definitions/attributes come from. But I know that all of the main world religions, and scriptures acknowledge those attributes. Those attributes are exactly what makes God, God. All concepts of God are based on those attributes, and all belief and non belief in God is based also on those attributes.

I am asserting as much as I comprehend about the subject matter of God. At it's core, it is not an assumption of God's existence, only a description of the character, God.
For the purpose of this discussion I am acting as an agent of the information that is known about God. The importance of this is paramount if we are to establish whether God exists or not.

This is a definition of the concept of God according to theologians...

This is conception of God from the Ibo people (an ancient African tribe)...

1. [4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukwu


Here is a quote from Buddha...

''Primal essence'' refers to a first cause manifesting the universe. He goes on to say that it is the source of of all conceptions.
That IS an attribute of God.

All the world religions worship (or claim) God, and that God has all the attributes. So these attributes aren't my idea, or consideration, and don't consider myself holy, or part of a holy set.

]

I hope you are capable of seeing that in order establish proof of God, we have to define God, and mutually accept it.
If you keep denying these attributes, you won't have a definition to work with, and the discussion is doomed before it begins.

It's not my personal theology. I hope this response goes some way to showing that.

jan.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And before you butted in we had Pachomius providing his concept, repeatedly, that we had agreed upon for purposes of this discussion, and for which we were waiting for him to provide the proof he claimed he had.

So after all your pointless argument we are back to where we started.
Gee, thanks, Jan, for really making this thread move forward.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

If they exist in the mind, then they exist. Just not in the outside world.

Maybe, maybe not.

A thing cannot be non existent. Such a thing is not known, or understood. A planet made of Swiss Cheese simply does not exist, because it is not known to, and more importantly, unlikely to be, based on what we know and understand. We can imagine such a thing, but it's simply an amalgamation of of what we know and understand. The imagination exists, but is unable to manifested.

How would someone like yourself go about finding that out?

So you agree that it is possible. Good.

You don't have to idly speculate, as for most people it stands to reason. And for some it stands to reason that God does not exist. It's about accepting (not believing) the possibility, either way. That's why it's important if you have a concept of God.

The information as we know it today, has obviously been written, but we don't know where the information contained within, came from. It was around before the printing press.

jan.

 

Please clarify: if God exists in the mind / as a concept (however you want to describe the mental picturing) then, irrespective of whether or not God exists outside of the mind, is this sufficient for you to claim that God exists? if so, are you not equating the mental picture to the thing itself?

Do you think that everything we think of exists outside of the mind? Things like unicorns, leprechauns, celestial teapots etc?
If these things don't exist outside of the mind after being thought of, did they exist outside of the mind before they were thought of?
Therefore it should be quite clear that there are countless things that neither exist nor have been thought of, and it should not be a case of "maybe, maybe not".

One needs to separate the thing from the mental conceptualisation of the thing; separate the existence of the mental construct from the existence or not of that which it is a mental construct of.

You can not prove that a planet made of Swiss Cheese does not exist. It may be a rational position to hold, but all it takes is someone to take a significant lump of the stuff and put it into orbit around a sun. A naturally occurring planet of the stuff would be less likely than that, admittedly.

One examines what is claimed about God and whether those claims are able to be proven, and if they are, have they been. And in the absence of such proof one tries to remain as rational as possible, if it that position is "I don't know".

Few deny that God, or any deity, is possible. The questions are whether that possibility is meaningful, and which of the many possibilities are held to be rational.

There are some concepts of God that are possible, and some are not. (Although you would undoubtedly claim that any concept that is not possible is not a concept of God.) Once the theist has defined the concept they are working to, then others can decide whether they think that concept possible or not.
But without being testable, by being unfalsifiable, even with just those held to be possible you are left with mere idle speculation as to anything beyond that mere possibility of existence.

Ah, the old "we don't know, therefore God did it. And you can't prove me wrong!"

 

True, but the overall attributes that make God, God, always remain the same.
It strikes me that humans whose concepts change drastically overtime, even their concepts of God, would not keep these attributes, but would change them over time.

jan.

 

All you need is an unfalsifiable claim and popularity. Neither speak to the veracity of the claim.

 

They do change over time and between every culture. Not every culture is monotheistic, and some are strikingly different than you conceive. But I suppose ignorance is bliss.

 

God is an existing concept of the mind. The mind doesn't conjour God up, it merely interprets what is there by seemingly default. But if I lived in a land where nobody had ever heard of God, and His attributes, and I made this up. Then no, it's not sufficient to claim that as a real fact.

I don't know if celestial teapots exist outside of the mind, and I don't know if I'm capable of thinking up something that has never been thought of before. I guess that's where interest comes in, as in ones interest and reasons for it.
I can't say whether countless things don't exist as yet. If by existence you something that the mind unfolds for the first time, then maybe you have a point.

For it to truly not exist you'd need to not know anything about it. Erraced from memory. Talking and discussing the non existence is not something humans do funnily enough.

I'd have to say you're barking up the wrong tree with that approach.
God isn't about that.

Show me these different concepts of God, and let's see if they contain any of the attributes from scriptures or world religions. That way you'll see that there really is one definition of God, which all concepts stem from.

That suggests God is separate from His effect, and therefore evidence would or should be made available. It's not taking into account who and what God is. It is therefore always going to be speculative and incomplete (at best).

Once you accept, not deny, the commonly known attributes of God, then you can set about moving to the next stage. If you cannot bring yourself to accepting the attributes of this character, the conversation will only go round in circles. By knowingly denying God's attributes, your premise is God does not exist, therefore everything has to be denied.

I said neither of those things. Just deal with what I actually wrote, which was correct.

jan.

 

"seemingly by default"... rather shows your bias, does it not? I'd have thought the vast majority of people establish a concept from what their parents and/or teachers tell them. It is certainly not, in most cases, "by default".

Why does interest come in?

You can think of many things that don't exist, and you can think of them for the first time... just pick a random number between 10 and 20 and imagine a person existing with that many eyes, ears, arms, legs etc, that lives under your stairs. I'm fairly sure you are capable of imagining something as novel living in a place such that you can prove it doesn't exist. Voila.

Erraced?
People talk about the non existence all the time - especially when, for example, discussing what comes after one dies. And philosophy is full of discussions of the nature of non-existence. So I struggle to see how you arrive at your conclusion that we do not discuss the non-existence.

So one keeps their concept of God outside the falsifiable, outside interrogation, outside critical thought. Why give it any thought at all in that case?

Deism: God exists but does not interact further with its creation, such that there are no scriptures (which require interaction) that can be an authority.
Pantheism: God is no more and no less than the entirety of the universe itself.
Dystheism: God is either not wholly benevolent or is actually wholly malevolent.
Of course they contain some similar attributes to the God of scriptures, the primary one being that they are unfalsifiable. But that proves nothing, means nothing.

No, it shows that God is indiscernible from nature itself, which is described by universal laws. There is no interaction, no miracles, no answering of prayer, nothing that can be attributed to God that is not merely an obeyance of those laws. God is effectively redundant by being such, and relegated to mere comfort blanket to explain that which is unanswerable.

I am happy to accept them for purposes of discussion, but I do not take them as true without reason. I see no reason to appeal to authority. I also do not accept the attribute of "existing" when that is the very matter in question. A priori assumptions are not my forte.

What I wrote was a summary of your position, following from your previous posts. You claim you "don't know" where the information came from, yet you believe the notion of God as provided in scripture to be divinely provided. And you will continue to believe that until proven otherwise, knowing that such is not possible to do.
Hence my statement. So deal with your own position if you don't like it so succinctly summarised.

 

Sarkus,

I meant the concept of God is seemingly by default. It seems that every person has some knowledge, notion, idea, concept, thought, about God.

Celestial teapots are not of interest, so it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

I can do that. But that's not new, it's simply mixing and matching data that I have knowledge about. There's absolutely nothing new about it.
Person's exist, eyes exist, ears exist, arms and legs exist. I understand what ''under'' means, and stairs exist, and the notion of living under the stairs is nothing new. Not only me, but countless people know this, and countless people knew it also. What are the chances of me coming up with an entirely new concept?

I know.
I knew it didn't look right when I wrote it, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember how to spell it.

Are they really talking about the ''non existent''?

[quoteAnd philosophy is full of discussions of the nature of non-existence.[/quote]

I've looked but can't find any. Can you provide a link?

I've clearly explained how.

One doesn't have to keep their concept outside of those things, but one must at least comprehend the nature of God, and see it from the pov. If one can't accept that, then it is most likely that one believes that such a nature doesn't exist.
A psychopath has no concept of love, so he/she has to try and understand it from an empirical standpoint. He/she could easily conclude that love doesn't exist, or it is only a concept in the mind. But those who love, and are loved, have a different understanding, and for them love does exist, but they cannot show what love is.

It means that all concepts of God are drawn from one understanding which has not changed, period. It shows that while concepts change, The universal understanding, comprehension, and notion, doesn't. All these are in relation to that one God.
If you were to be honest, that should change your current perception.

You say there is no interaction, miracles, or answering of prayer. I say that other people beg to differ.

Why would you take them as true, if you didn't know that they are true? Where do you ever just accept something as true?

You've accepted authority all your life. It is how you have understood the world around you. Why all of sudden do you not want to acknowledge authority?

So what's the alternative? Non-Existent? What's the difference in terms of what either of those position actually mean? You don't know if God exists or not. But you've conveniently positioned yourself in a way that convinces you that God does not exist.

Then you shouldn't have, because that is not what I have said. You have misrepresented what I said. And you keep moving the conversation to theism and atheism.

If we are to conclude whether or not God exists, then we have to have a mutual definition for us to work with. I am saying that there is a definition we can work with which sums up reasons for belief and non-belief in God, in general.

I wish you would summarize my position, at least it would show that have some comprehension of what I'm saying. But if you do comprehend what I'm saying, but choose to act like you don't quite comprehend enough to try to confuse what I'm saying. Then stop it.

jan.

 

Sure, after we have read about or heard about it. There is nothing default about our concept: everyone starts with hearing/reading a claim of what God is, with the exception of those who quite genuinely arrived at the notion on their own.

And does that level of interest determine whether or not the object actually exists as anything other than a concept?
Dismissing a notion due to apathy about it says nothing about its existence or otherwise.

Yes there is. If it has never been put in that arrangement before then, while the components may be borrowed, the arrangement is novel.

You are arguing about an entirely novel concept when that is not even applicable to God. God as "first cause" is merely an extrapolation of the understanding one might have that all events have causes. God being "uncaused" is just something to avoid a paradox, and is merely the mirror of the requirement of all other things to be caused. Nothing novel about that.
Being "all powerful", if one's concept includes that, is merely an extrapolation of the natural dominance of certain members of society. Again, nothing new.
So you are committing a fallacy by requiring examples of concepts to be wholly unique when the concept of God is similarly not wholly unique.

Yes.

philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/665/is-it-possible-to-determine-an-objects-nonexistence
plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent-objects/
forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/paradox-of-nonexistence-52295.html
philosophybites.com/2012/09/tim-crane-on-non-existence.html
In fact, any discussion that is on the subject of non-existence must, by its very nature, be also about non-existence, since to exist is to not non-exist.
But if you seriously can't find any links yourself then I suggest you use a better browser, or learn how to use one.

I've read your claim, but no explanation.

If one does not keep it outside of such things then it is, by definition, falsifiable. Please name an attribute of God that is falsifiable?

Please provide a link that supports the notion that a psychopath has no concept of love. It may be a different concept than you have, but are you again saying that only your concept is valid?
But please, provide a link, as I disagree with you on this.

As said, once you have found a robust unfalsifiable position, why would it need to change?
All the notions of gods that have been falsifiable have been brushed aside. All that remain are the unfalsifiable notions. And it is rational (to me) to assume those notions would have gone through generations of evolution long before the written medium, such that it was reasonably developed, at least at the core unfalsifiable claims, by the time writing was developed.

Yet all meta-testing of such things have shown nothing that suggests they do. Other people might beg to differ and many would do so through an ignorance of statistics, of the way the universe works, or simply through a poor subjective interpretation of events.

For purposes of discussion, quite often in fact. Outside of that, I don't.

It is not "all of a sudden". As I learnt to think more critically, I learnt not to accept things on the basis of authority, but to label what they say as their claim, the veracity of which is to be tested/challenged later. It is the difference between a practical acceptance in the absence of contradictory evidence, and believing as true on the basis of no evidence.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

If one wishes to find out whether the concept exists in reality, one takes the concept without the a priori assumption / attribute of existence, and one tries to establish whether that concept exists in reality.
If you start with the assumption of existence, one may as well stop there and just claim "it exists!".
It is also not a "convenient" position and I have not convinced myself that God does not exist. I am an agnostic atheist.

It is not what you said, but forgive me for joining the dots. If you don't want that to happen then don't mark the paper with dots.
As for moving the conversation to theism and atheism, given that this is a discussion regarding belief - and subsequent proof - of the existence of God, I'd have thought the labels for those that have belief, and those that have no such belief, is apt.

We were working with Pachomius' definition before you interrupted.
If you want to posit your own then, as previously stated and as challenged by you, state your concept and we can move forward.

For Pete's sake! If you think someone has misunderstood you then ffs correct them, tell them what you did mean! Don't just say "that's not what I said!" and expect discussion to move forward. You complain and write far more about someone misunderstanding you than you do actually trying to correct that misunderstanding.
But quite often I feel as though you either have forgotten what you previously wrote, or are just unable to see the logical implications of what you have written, especially when linked with previous statements.

 

What about wild children (children growing up without supervision in the wilderness)? They have no innate knowledge of it. What about remote tribes with no contact with missionaries? They have no innate knowledge of it. The only thing similar between cultures is superstition, a form of ignorance.

 

Right, yet again some links:

Who Wrote the Bible
Bible 1
Bible 2
Bible 3

 

God is the default.
Which is why no matter how anyone conceptualizes God, they have to have known attributes of God.
That is how we know they are referring to God. When a modern atheist talks about not believing in God, they cite as their reasons, these attributes.
God is foundational.

I don't care enough to give it any thought

I don't care if it exists or not. You may be right or wrong. I don't care.
You seem to not be aware of the hunan, to whom knowledge is available. That's the essential part of the relationship between each individual, and their own quest for self realisation.

How do know the arrangement is novel?
If all the components are borrowed, how do you know the concept isn't also borrowed?

God isn't new, and all concepts are based on some or all of God's attribute. This means God is not a concept, but the source, and subject of concepts.

How do you know?
If you don't know, which I think it obvious that you don't, why positively default to God being a made up concept?

I would have thought that after not being able to perceive anything as evidence for God, you would simply default to "I don't know".

What is it about the notion, the information/knowledge about God, that makes you firmly believe that it was made up by a human being?

Why, or even how, would someone extrapolate a non existent thing, from a perfectly normal situation? It is more likely that the knowledge of God existed prior, and as such, a comparison can be made.

The nature of God, is completely opposite to anything we can perceive with our senses, also, concepts of God aren't necessarily associated with Him being a person, which corresponds to His foundational attributes. So why do you you are correct?

I'm not committing any fallacy, I simply want to know the basis your claims, so stop stalling.
The concept of God is totally unique, and what's even more remarkable is that it hasn't changed, despite what the modern atheist will stubbornly try to argue. I doubt there is anything in nature that would lead a person to compile the Bhagavad Gita, or Upanishads, let alone because he saw an influential, or even powerful person. It's just plain silly.

Any discussion that's on the subject of not food must, by it's very nature, be also about not food,
since to have food is to not have food.

Then read it and get back to me.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Is love falsifiable?

That's alright. Maybe no concept, wasn't a pfitting phrase. But they don't seem to possess attributes like empathy, or compassion, and are basically selfish individuals.
They are therefore incapable of loving another human being in a way that compassionate, empathetic, caring, humans are.
It wouldn't surprise if there are new definitions of love, defined by for psychopaths. And it wouldn't surprise me if the reasons given are "its outdated", or "it something made by primitives for evolutionary purposes." Things of that nature.
But like God, love is understood through experience. Either you experience, or you don't. But one thing is for sure, you're not going to access it through evidence.

Ah yes, you don't have a concept of God, so you claim. Therefore for you, God can be anything you like. Kettles orbiting Jupiter, and the like.
Go get a concept of God, then come and we'll talk about falsification.
Until then explain how it's possible to falsify love.

I'm not discussing"gods"".

When they can come with results of what is love, and whether or not such phenomena exists as a tangible, material component of this world, then we'll talk about their efforts regarding God.
Until then it's just a bunch of atheists wanting to drive God out of the minds of folk. It's so transparent it's not even funny.

You accuse folk of being ignorant because they don't give a shite about statistics, or they don't know how the universe works. How arrogant. Their natural human experiences, are not correct, despite them being natural. I suppose such ignoramus's only think they love, or are loved, but have no real idea of what love is because they're not up on the current tsunami of statistics, or because they're ignorant of how the world works.

You're not thinking critically in this discussion.
You are irrational, though you try to hide it.
Why don't you stop with these silly rebuttal attempts, and just a discuss.
You never know you might learn something, and I say that in all seriousness.

Accepting something doesn't mean you accept it as being the truth.
Are you afraid that if you accept God without all that modern atheist boomph, to keep your conditioned state, you will have to accept it as truth?
Is that what you think theists do?

How would one go about finding out if love actually exists in reality, in your opinion?
At what point do you think, is it correct to boldly claim that love exists. If indeed it does.

And there lies a problem.
You don't have any idea of how something like God could exist, and people relate to it.
Yet you try and destroy every attempt to explain it because it doesn't fit your world view.

But you're not giving yourself a chance. It's as if you're afraid to.
There is a lot of stuff in your posts that is irrelevant with regard to God, as is checking the heart rates of couples to determine whether or not they love each other. I think you need to just relax, and chill.
The understanding comes from within. Not without.
Try not to dismiss what some people say regarding God, and look for the positive. You will no sooner find God using science, than will find a person to love through science.

I think you're just stalling.
This way you don't have to seriously address questions where you have to admit something that shows your points to be mistaken.
It's an obvious trait. You cannot debunk God, but you think that in time something will materialise, so until then you just going round in circles, with some logic, but mainly irrelevant stuff.

What good is that?
He wanted YOUR concept of God. You failed to provide, opting instead to knock his concept.

Jan.

 

I'll cut your response to what is actually relevant to this thread (saves having to deal with the rest of your drivel):

I am not trying to debunk God. I do not have the belief that God exists and I am agnostic in that I don't think God, even if it exists, is knowable. How can I possibly debunk something like that?
I can try to debunk people's claims to be able to prove the existence of God. Hence my involvement in this thread.
Yours seems to be just to interrupt with irrelevancies.
Nothing you have said thus far has progressed the discussion on Pachomius' claimed proof of the existence of God - except where you seem to agree that God is not provable.

Because I am not claiming in this thread to have proof of the existence (or non-existence) of any concept of God. Pachomius is. It is HIS concept that is being discussed. Any concept I have (not that I have one) is thus an irrelevancy to that discussion. I do not need to provide a concept in order for him to continue with HIS proof of HIS concept.
Why do you struggle with that notion? Why do you continue with the same irrelevancy in this regard as Pachomius?
How many more times must it be explained before you grasp it?

 

Sarkus,

Yeah right!

I didn't say you were. I said you cannot debunk God, but you can convince yourself there is no evidence for God.

You don't believe God exist, you don't think God can be knowable, despite NOT having a concept of God. You claim that concepts are formed through thoughts entering your mind, but as you don't think about God outside of other peoples concepts, you are devoid of forming them yourself.

So to sum up. You have no idea of God, yet you claim to "not to have a belief'' in His/It's existence.
What is it, that is, not knowable? Someone else's concept?

Why would you want to do that?
Or what can you possibly gain from that?
Remember, you have no idea of what they're talking about. Wouldn't you be better off learning about God, then enter the
the discussion with something under your belt. This is probably why Pachomius asked for atheist's concepts of God. Trying to explain something to people with no idea of the thing you are attempting to explain is one thing. But trying to explain it when people are trying to debunk your points, with irrelevancies (for the most part), eventually becomes a tiresome task.

All my points are relevant.
If an attempt is going to be made to prove the existence of God, then we have to know what we're talking about with regard to what is God.
Your guys tactic, is to not get to that stage by any means necessary, and to keep the notion of God to anything anyone wants it to be (indicating that it is made up like an imaginary friend), thereby never having to get to the point where belief in God makes any sense.
Like I said, it's so transparent it's not even funny anymore.

Are you kidding?
I have reasoned (successfully imo) that knowledge/information of God is natural to developed consciousness (e.g human being).

I have shown where it is very unlikely that a person formed the concept of God, as we (those of us who aren't afraid) know God to be.

That can be falsified by showing an instant of a man made concept that does change at it's core essential base over time and circumstance.
Or show a concept made by man that permeates, and affects every society, in one or other.

You're right, I do believe God cannot be proven to exist so that everyone has to accept it. But it's makes for great fun to try. You'll be surprised what we can all learn from that. So please let's have fun with this. There's no need to get all serious.

It doesn't matter. Maybe he can progress the demonstration from the position of knowing what atheist concepts of God are.
His concept of God, falls into the attributes of God (creator, original cause, etc...). None of you seem to accept that. Instead you try and show that God needn't be the first cause. That said, you have derailed his presentation, with irrelevancies (as you have no knowledge or information outside of educated guesses). So he asks what is your concept of God because he's not sure whether or not you're on the same page (this is just my take on Pachomius). If you don't comprehend what God is, or you choose not to comprehend, then he cannot progress.

That's like replying, upon being asked to remove your shoes to enter someone's home, I don't have to, my shoes are clean.

Your explanation is irrelevant because you're not looking at the big picture.
See above.

jan.