Proof of the existence of God

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Jason.Marshall, Jan 16, 2015.

  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Although mathematics, at least parts of it can be applied, to physical things and empty space, It does not NEED any thing but the axioms it accepts* and some definitions for objects, like point, line, distance, triangle, etc. None of which even exist in the physical world as they have zero volume. It then discovers what logically follows / can be derived / from them. Math is a tautology. A closed set of relationships, perhaps including some that are not yet known to follow from the axioms.

    Your post mainly exposes the fact you don't even know what mathematics is.

    There is an unlimited number of axiom sets possible (and thus a unlimited set of different mathematics) but only (I think) at most three are active fields of study. They are usually called "geometries." The most common one people assume is the most useful is:
    Euclidean Geometry, which does find many applications if applied to a flat, 2D space.

    Riemannian Geometry, finds most of its application when applied to curved space, especially simple when the curvature is constant, like an idealized spherical Earth (Latitude, Longitude, & Radius being the common coordinate system used.)
    Here the sum of the interior angles of a tringle is greater than 360 degrees and the shortest distance (in the curved space) in NOT a straight line.

    Hyperbolic Geometry is applied to spaces that have points with multiple curvature - at least two with the local centers of curvature on opposite side of the surface of the geometry, such as a saddle. Practical applications to real problems are relatively limited, but Einstein's general theory of relativity uses hyperbolic geometry, I have read.

    Each of these has a "natural" coordinate system, in which problems are most easily solved, but there are more than a dozen different coordinate systems - All (I think) compatible with these three math systems - IE do not violate the three different sets of axioms. General relativity usually uses a 4 dimensional tensor coordinate system, I think.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2015
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks Tim, for putting the above in more formal terms. That is the "mathematics" I refer to in my posts.

    Question: Can CDT be considered a another spacetime Geometry?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_dynamical_triangulation

    As I understand it, this is a fractal function (based on dodecahedrons) and resolves a lot of apparent theoretical problems.

    This approach sounds so wonderfully simple and elegant that IMO, this gets close to truth of the nature of spacetime and how it evolves within the permittive nothingness.

    p.s. @ Brian,
    This also answers the your proposition of "God the Artist".
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
    as it relates to:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_geometry
    Already used by Kepler

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    and here is the artistry of fractals,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal#In_creative_works

    and, can you imagine anything more beautiful and artistic than this:

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    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=fractals in nature&FORM=HDRSC2

    To me this rings like a "universal common denominator of all things". God is a fractal function.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2015
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  5. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    So... God is mathematics?
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It may not be the exact way you put it, but why not?

    If a Mathematical function is sufficient for the hierarchical unfolding of reality, in Essence that would be God the Creator, no?

    As to a motivated sentience, we can only describe ourselves and everything we observe and experience in nature. But decision making of humans is always "in the direction of greater satisfaction"

    Can that principle be applied in an abstract Mathematical Being? (Geometrics)? Is it necessary?

    Or is it necessary for humans to think in terms of "greater satisfaction" as a survival mechanism?

    Intention is a peculiar human moral question, IMO. Determinism doesn't care.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2015
  8. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    If I had to say, then I'd say that mathematics was God, not the other way around.

    But that would be using a very loose definition of the word "God".

    I consider mathematics to be the software that runs the Universe. Regardless of the specifics of our own reality - if we could imagine a Universe with different physical laws to our own - the laws of mathematics would still be the same. They're trans-Universal, or Omniversal, or whatever happy-sounding descriptor you would like to use.
     
  9. BrianHarwarespecialist We shall Ionize!i Registered Senior Member

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    More like His signature of the artist God, your DNA should also be branded as well He signs His creations.
     
  10. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Why do you think God is a "He"?
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I understand what you are saying, but if mathematics are fundamental and do apparently work without sentient motivation, what greater definition do you want? Devine motive, or just Deterministic chronology?

    If you cannot define it, or even imagine it, what is the use of insisting that God is fact. Why not accept that the concept of God is man made and that only our subjective perceived human connection to reality is the source of a man made God.

    God is a Tulpa.
    and
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa[/quote]
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2015
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  12. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Write4U,

    I don't know.

    What do you mean by mysterious ways?

    What do you mean?

    jan.
     
  13. Oystein Registered Senior Member

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    If Tulpa translates to A-hole then yes, God is a Tulpa.

    One proof that God doesn't exist is birth defects, and not just human birth defects. Or if he does exist then he is a Tulpa.
     
  14. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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  15. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Why are you asking me?

    No I'm not. I'm saying the definition implies necessity. IOW if the definition is true, then it is obviously necessary.

    Irrelevant as neither your nor I are capable of imagining eternality.
    IOW as far as you and I are concerned there is nothing eternal that exists within our experience.

    The Kalam Cosmological Argument makes it easy to imagine God to be a fact.

    BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!...

    Already explained.

    If we use the KCA we can infer that the original cause/creator may well have chosen to bring the universe into being, as opposed to it being due to time. As we can choose to do things, it can easily be imagined that the original cause/creator is connected to us (if we choose).

    You've explained nothing, and it does imply necessity.

    Anyone can cry eternal! eteranal!.
    But it is nothing but a word. There is nothing that we can use as a measurement to have any idea of what it is to be eternal. Therefore it cannot be imagined. Period.

    As far as you and I know, the universe came into being, and as we have an idea of something coming into being, we can imagine that.

    Nothing is being made up here. You cannot imagine eternity, yet you are claiming it.
    It smacks of a desperate bid to deny the existence of God (even in your imagination).
    Very amusing!

    This is what it said. DEAL WITH IT!

    It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

    jan.

     
  16. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Okay.

    I don't know that it is a sensation.

    How could it?
    It's not the business of science to determine what is God.

    Do you have something against it being a being?

    You mean math cannot express desire?

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    Not that I fully comprehend your worldview, but I get the feeling it would all fall into to place once you allow for God.

    jan.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    And by the way, the First Cause argument has nothing to do with theism.
     
  18. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Because in answering it you should also learn the answer to the question you posed.
    Are you suggesting the definition of God is not true???
    But as explained previously, the definition does NOT imply necessity. You claim it does, but you have not addressed the option of eternal existence other than to hand-wave it away without explanation.
    Speak for yourself. I can, and do, imagine it. Just imagine two mirrors facing each other and peering into the unending reflection.
    And as previously explained (again, merely hand-waved away by you this time with nothing but the equivalent of "no you can't") one merely needs to understand the implications of the thing to be able to imagine it... i.e. as a black box.
    You have also failed to answer any question levied at you as to how you imagine God, given your dismissal of anything you can't imagine as being irrelevant.
    Speak for yourself. You have even admitted here in this thread that you accept that energy and matter are eternal. And now you are saying that "as far as you and I are concerned there is nothing eternal that exists within our experience".
    Oops. There you go being inconsistent again.
    But you're not actually imagining God when you do that, you are imagining the outputs of the black box. And that is something you don't seem to want to allow with the notion of eternal.
    Oops. There you go being hypocritical again.
    So, what do you imagine as God when you do imagine God?
    I'm sorry if my response to your question upsets you, Jan. Do you want me to lie? Would that make it easier for you? If I made up some stuff that you wanted to hear, would that be easier for you to deal with?
    Where? All I have seen is a claim but with no explanation. If you have posted something, please link to it, as I must have missed it, and I can not find anything that might be classed as an actual explanation.
    We can infer only if we make the unwarranted assumption of choice being available. Hence it is simply begging the question.
    Do you have any explanation that does not rely on such a tactic?
    It also raises the notion of what "choice" actually is and whether such freewill as encapsulated within the term actually exists. But that is for another thread.
    Here, though, if you could simply provide an explanation that does not beg the question, that would be great.
    The explanation is simply in the nature of the truly eternal: without beginning, therefore without need for "original cause".
    Ah, but the notion of the eternal rather befuddles you, does it not, hence the need to hand-wave it away... let's see if that continues...
    And Bingo! More hand-waving.
    To mock:
    "Anyone can cry God! God!
    But it is nothing but a word. There is nothing that we can use as a measurement to have any idea of what it is to be God. Therefore it cannot be imagined. Period".

    See, Jan, it works both ways. You want to allow God as a notion, even though you are incapable of imagining what it is to be God. Yet you disallow the notion of the eternal because you think it cannot be imagined.
    That is nothing but hypocrisy, Jan.
    The black box approach, yes. The same approach you disallow for the notion of the eternal.
    Yet here again there is hypocrisy, because (and correct me if I am wrong, Jan) you imagine God as being eternal, correct?
    And, to remind, you have accepted that matter and energy are eternal.
    Further, that the universe came into being or not is irrelevant, but it is not anything that can actually be known: yes we are reasonably sure that there was a Big Bang, but that is merely as far back in time as we can go - to our T=0. It speaks nothing of whether there was anything before hand, i.e. a cycle of Bang/Crunch etc.
    What is more, the reality of whether our universe came into being or not is ultimately irrelevant, as we are discussing whether God is necessary or not - as it is only when necessary that God can be proven to exist (necessary things must exist for the result to happen that they are deemed necessary for). If you can not prove necessity, you can not prove God based on our existence.
    I can imagine eternity in the same manner as you imagine God.
    There is no desperation to deny that which is not proven to exist. Just as there is no desperation to deny the existence of anything else for which there is no proof of existence.
    But that you see it as such speaks more to your desperation to have it affirmed, and your blinkered view.
    When you actually bother to read and understand the paper you will realise that that is simply not what it states.
    And again you merely provide a single quote from Vilenkin (who as Baldeee pointed out is allowed some hubris in his important work) without quoting the rest of what he says just a couple of paragraphs later:
    "Theologians have often welcomed any evidence for the beginning of the universe, regarding it as evidence for the existence of God… So what do we make of a proof that the beginning is unavoidable? Is it a proof of the existence of God? This view would be far too simplistic. Anyone who attempts to understand the origin of the universe should be prepared to address its logical paradoxes. In this regard, the theorem that I proved with my colleagues does not give much of an advantage to the theologian over the scientist. As evidenced by Jinasena’s remarks earlier in this chapter, religion is not immune to the paradoxes of Creation."
    What is more, he suggests that the cosmic origins could be explained "in purely scientific terms", which he attempts in the very next chapter in that book.

    And none of this even starts on the notion of what actually was the cause of the universe, and whether or not this would constitute an "original cause".
     
  19. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I'm asking you.

    Are you going outside of imagination?

    You don't get to comprehend the unendingness of it.
    You have no idea what unending looks like.

    KCA. I've already told that to you.

    I speak for you also, as you cannot imagine eternal, or to put it another way infinity.

    We don't experience within our waking consciousness, the sum total of all energy and matter, only that which we can perceive. IOW seeing one car does not mean you've seen every car that has ever been, yet to have been, or the stuff that makes the ideas for cars, in the first place. I've already explained this anyways.

    Nope. I imagine God. Anything that causes the universe to come into existence can reasonably be called God.

    Upset me?
    Is that what you'd like?

    I don't have to have an explanation. It is entirely my prerogative, how I deal with logical information.
    You don't have a prerogative, as you cannot imagine infinity, neither can you imagine a world where it is a fact that God does not exist.
    If you can, then explain it so that we can understand how it is that God could not exist as a fact. That does not mean simply saying "God does not exist".
    Can you do it?

    What IS the nature of the true eternal?

    I just want to know how you can imagine it, to the point of it being a fact that God does not exist.
    You have to imagine that the universe is eternal. Do you not?
    If it is a fact that God does not exist, then this should be dealt with. Otherwise you're just saying it, NOT imagining it.

    It's not the same. We can imagine a world where it is a fact that God exists, based simply on the KCA.
    You cannot imagine a world where it is a fact that God does not exist, other than wishfully thinking it, and having faith that someone can come up with (yet) another attempt at an explanation

    where God is not necessary. That is the reality of what's going on.

    All part of the KCA.

    1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause;
    2. The universe began to exist;
      Therefore:
    3. The universe has a cause.

    I'm okay with that. And if you're honest, you are too.
    Why fight it man?

    Stop lying.
    I hope you don't lie to yourself like this.

    That's what it say's.
    Read it again.

    He sounds hopeful. I wish him all the best, but as far as we know, the universe had a beginning/cause.
    The KCA stands.

    jan.
     
  20. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly!

    jan.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    a) I did not say "sensation" If you are going to quote me, don't change MY "words".
    b) If you don't know what 'desire" is, how can you attribute it to God?
    c) If you don't know what "sensation" is, how can you attribute it to God?
    d) If you do know either, how can you attribute it to God? From what authority do you speak? Your "desires and feelings"
    It is not the business of religion to determine what is Science.
    I already stated that any condition is a being.
    Unless it is a Tulpa. Then it is a "conjured" being, which takes on a life of it's own, but only to the conjurer.
    That is a good question, which I raised earlier. Determinism rests on the concept of "movement in the direction of greater satisfaction". If this is a potential of the Mathematical Function, I don't know, but I can imagine that it is, in metaphysical terms. The use of the word "satisfaction" here has nothing to do with the human experience of intentional human feelings of sensation, such as "desire" and "satisfaction"
    To the contrary, once God is allowed for, all bets are off. It is your worldview that has created a sentient being from thin air. And apparently it needs not obey the Laws of Mathematics, which IMO, renders the entire concept of God as a construct of human imaginings. Oh, and there are many imiaginings of God. Which one is yours? Take your pick.

    My worldview is simple and functional. I am able to stand in awe of the majesty and splendor without falling to my knees thanking God for his "Love" and "Desires" and throwing in a couple of wishes for myself, just in case He is "listening". Those are human "emotions" and yes, as a human being I have them. It is the universe that doesn't, IMHO.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2015
  22. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    And in response I asked you.
    No. Are you saying that the definition of God is not true??
    I know enough to put it in a black box and treat it accordingly. The same way you do when you imagine God. You have no idea what an "original cause" looks like, but you know the implications thereof. So no more hand-waving the issue away, Jan.
    No, the KCA might enable you to imagine God as fact, but it is not in and of itself an imagining of God.
    So, please, answer the question: what do you imagine when you (claim to) imagine God?
    You do not speak for me.
    If you want to insist that I can not imagine eternal or infinity then you can not imagine God. Period. And if you wish to use what you perceive as a lack of imaginative ability to claim that the eternal / infinity does not exist, then the same must be applied to God.
    At the moment, though, you are not only being utterly disrespectful and obnoxious, you are also continuing with your hypocrisy.
    So please desist.
    What does this have to do with anything??? Just because we don't experience the eternal does not mean we can not understand it to some degree, that we can not treat it as a black box.
    So care to try an explanation that actually explains what it intends to?
    To use your tactic: no, you can't.
    So you're treating God as a black box. Fair enough. But similarly anything that lasts forever can reasonably be called eternal. Anything that has always existed can be reasonably called eternal.
    See how easy it works.
    No. You just seemed upset.
    Fallaciously, it seems.
    If you want to have a discussion but never actually explain your claims, all you're doing is preaching.
    Again, telling me what I can and can not imagine is not helping your cause, Jan. You're just making yourself look pathetic, not to mention obnoxious.
    As explained by many others, including myself, one merely has to imagine something that has always existed. Anything that has always existed needs no "original cause". If energy/matter is one such thing that has always existed then we are just a temporal manifestation of the forever-changing energy. Thus no God required.
    I use "true eternal" to suggest that which is eternal in both past and future, rather than just something that is created and eternal from then on.
    So the true nature is not having a beginning nor an end.
    You really do need to garner a better understanding of what it means to imagine. Your constant hypocritical requirement to treat that which is imagined as more than a black box is as tiresome as it is a fallacious requirement (false precision).
    To answer your question, though: an eternal universe (e.g. one that goes through a bang/crunch cycle) is one such way to imagine it.
    If you want to treat the KCA as logically sound, sure. But it isn't. It relies on assumptions / premises that aren't provable. To imagine that they are proven true requires just as much "wishful thinking" as you claim the alternative to require.
    Your inability to see this is due unequivocally to your bias, and is simply not founded in logic.
    No it's not the reality at all. The reality is simply starting with what is known, and imagining the rest. Simples. I can't be held accountable for your inability to imagine.
    It may well be, but do you not see the special pleading that you're performing: allowing eternality in your notion of God but nowhere else??
    No, I have no doubt you don't see it.
    2 is unprovable: we can at best show that it is likely that it experienced an event that gave rise to our notion of t=0, (commonly referred to as the Big Bang) but nothing else. No, the BGV theorem is not proof, as already discussed.
    Of course you're okay with it: it's flawed. The conclusion may be valid but it is unsound.
    Then tell me how you imagine God, please, other than as a black box to which you assign attributes such as "original cause"?
    Should be simple for you.
    Please provide the reference to where it says it, or at least provide the logic of why you think it does, with reference to the passages of the paper which support your claim, please?
    Otherwise this is just more hand-waving from you, reliant on a quote taken out of context, about a theorem you have next to no idea about other than what some headline-grabbing theists have fallaciously tried to use it for.
    So your belief has it.
    To those who understand logic it remains only as sound as the truth of its premises. And the premises have not been proven.

    You'll undoubtedly continue to hand-wave all criticisms away, Jan. It's just part of your MO. Your obnoxiousness is new, though. I hope you grow out of it soon.
     
  23. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    I'll take it you're not going to respond straight-forwardly.

    True to whom?

    Black box?
    Do you have any experience of something that is has no beginning or end? No?
    Then you can't imagine it. All you can do is say ''infinity'', but as you have no experience of it, you cannot summon up a picture of it within your mind. Hence, no imagination.

    All you can understand of the eternal is something that is eternal has no beginning or end. Mere words. You cannot imagine it.

    Like what?

    ''Original Cause'' doesn't necessarily mean bringing things (ex-nihilo) into being, it means it is the cause of all causes. That being said, it causes matter/energy to act according to it's laws.
    God = Original cause/creator. God is necessary (using your own certainty)

    As far as we know, the universe came into being. All notions of an eternal universe are dead in the water. What we have are people desperately trying to create a successful model of an eternal universe, so that they can validate their atheism.

    We may as well end this discussion, because we both know you cannot produce an explanation of a world where it is a fact that God does not exist. And I'm getting bored now.

    So you're saying there is evidence that the universe didn't have a beginning?
    Please disclose.

    IOW you just tell yourself that it happens, and voila, it happens. Hardly imagination.

    http://winteryknight.com/2014/12/27...ave-says-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning-3/

    At a meeting of scientists – titled “State of the Universe” – convened last week at Cambridge University to honor Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston presented evidence that the universe is not eternal after all, leaving scientists at a loss to explain how the cosmos got started without a supernatural creator...

    ...But in 2003, a team including Vilenkin and Guth considered what eternal inflation would mean for the Hubble constant, which describes mathematically the expansion of the universe. They found that the equations didn’t work (Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.90.151301). “You can’t construct a space-time with this property,” says Vilenkin. It turns out that the constant has a lower limit that prevents inflation in both time directions. “It can’t possibly be eternal in the past,” says Vilenkin. “There must be some kind of boundary.”...

    ...
    A second option explored by Vilenkin was that of a cyclic universe, where the universe goes through an infinite series of big bangs and crunches, with no specific beginning. It was even claimed that a cyclic universe could explain the low observed value of the cosmological constant. But as Vilenkin found, there’s a problem if you look at the disorder in the universe:
    Disorder increases with time. So following each cycle, the universe must get more and more disordered. But if there has already been an infinite number of cycles, the universe we inhabit now should be in a state of maximum disorder. Such a universe would be uniformly lukewarm and featureless, and definitely lacking such complicated beings as stars, planets and physicists – nothing like the one we see around us...

    ...One way around that is to propose that the universe just gets bigger with every cycle. Then the amount of disorder per volume doesn’t increase, so needn’t reach the maximum. But Vilenkin found that this scenario falls prey to the same mathematical argument as eternal inflation: if your universe keeps getting bigger, it must have started somewhere...

    ...
    Vilenkin’s final strike is an attack on a third, lesser-known proposal that the cosmos existed eternally in a static state called the cosmic egg. This finally “cracked” to create the big bang, leading to the expanding universe we see today. Late last year Vilenkin and graduate student Audrey Mithani showed that the egg could not have existed forever after all, as quantum instabilities would force it to collapse after a finite amount of time (arxiv.org/abs/1110.4096). If it cracked instead, leading to the big bang, then this must have happened before it collapsed – and therefore also after a finite amount of time.

    “This is also not a good candidate for a beginningless universe,” Vilenkin concludes.

    So at the end of the day, what is Vilenkin’s verdict?

    “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”



    jan.
     

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