Why Does God Exist?

being is the key word. being is another word for existence. being, to be. "i am". jehova.

because "i am", i am god. i am, when "i am what i am" (when i have found my true self)

it's the easiest thing to understand. the infinite and eternal existence is this. me. life.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Lawdog,

Why? If the universe is infinite, which seems likely, then a god appears entirely redundant. The only support for necessity would be that there could be no alternate explanation for what we observe. Clearly it is not difficult to explain everything we see without a god.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

c7,

You are almost there. But it must have form, and it could have an end.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The E,

No it isn’t. An ant has no cognitive abilities but we do. We are certainly capable of imagining concepts far more complex than ourselves.

That simply makes you an agnostic then. But you selectively and apparently arbitrarily choose properties of your alleged god that you claim to understand in order to impose an outdated moral code and rules that somehow an incomprehensible god has imposed on us.

 

Satyr,

No not really. Love exists because we evolved that way and it has proved a useful property for survival.

Don't see any need to to inject gods into the mix.

 

God is often used to denote the same concept and add to it the element of consciousness and intelligence.
A love that is not blind but seeing and judging.

Love is truly a tool of survival and the concept of God makes this tool Holy and just and ideal and reasoned and promising eternity.

 

*khm khm*


To argue about what exists or what doesn't exist, is to argue based on the notion that phenomena have an absolute, finite, context-independent self.

 

Exactly.
God is a process and we are its modes.

God is becoming through us.
We are Him and He is us.
His struggle is our own. His imperfections are our own. His battle for fulfillment is our own.

God, not as dominator and authoritarian but as a symbol of our own becoming, our ideal end.

 

Satyr,

Why? It is only an emotion, it is not a necessity.

 

It is necessary when one considers that we are imperfect trying to attain perfection.

God then represents the ideal form this perfection will take; an imagining of the end result.

This is why God, as an idea, is malleable and forever changing. Interpreted differently by different cultures, aspiring towards different goals.

Love binds us out of a need to survive. God then takes this need and directs it towards a finality.
God is love given direction; God the emotion turned into reason.

 

isn't there a tacit presumption being made here?

 

Satyr,

Then you would need to define “perfection”. Everything appears to be relative so perfection will be infinitely elusive, an ideal that can be never achieved because it is indefinable.

It would be wise to strive for improvement on what one has rather than an impossible goal.

Depends on the answer to “what is perfection”.

That tends to imply that perfection is entirely subjective.

It is certainly an emotion that has helped us to propagate as a race. From an individual perspective it provides occasional pleasure. But beyond that it seems awfully overrated.

Which is what? And why the emotion of love rather than, say the intellectual property of reason, for example?

That is still very vague, ambiguous and obscure.

 

The real question is: If God exists, then who or what created God? And so, and so on, and so on.

 

The concept of perfection can be defined using many different words all denoting a finality. They are general terms referring to an ambiguous unity.

Freedom, Power, Beauty, God, Stable, One, Being, Singularity, Ideal, You, Allah, Nirvana, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Eternal, Here, Now, Self, I, Absolute, Truth, Real, Point, Independent etc.

These words all hint at a cessation of existence by reaching a finality. They hint at it because they can never conceptualize and describe it accurately.
Language is the tool of an imprecise mind using imprecise means.
Like Plato’s shadows on a cave wall we witness reality and we describe it using symbols.

In most cases we simply use these words as non-absolute references to an imagined absolute or as comparison and value judgments against a perceived average or a comparison against a perceived other.

It is imprecise because it is non-existent.
One is characterized by what he/she aspires to be, by the ideal towards which one struggles.
I am free because I struggle to be free without ever attaining my goal completely.

The universe is in flux, it changes, it is unstable and ambiguous. We are no different, as parts and participants of it.

For something to exist it has to move, become, be temporal and spatial, have potential and possibility – it has to lack.
It has to mirror the universe and flow.

Consciousness is a stream of imprecise thoughts, generalizing reality from a few sensual stimulations which are interpreted and abstracted in approximation.
I hypothesize reality and how close I get to it determines how successful my strategies will be and how efficiently I will project my energies towards my goals.

I exist because I am nothing substantial and complete.
I am Nothing wanting to Be and wearing garments acquired from the environment or mirrored in the other to dress up my emptiness.
The other becomes the source of my identity because I am nothing in and of myself.
This frightens me. I deny it.


So, in essence, I determine what I am by what I am not – which is imprecise.
‘I am me because I am not him or it or that.’
Identity is consciousness discriminating.
This is why the concept of equality leads to the eradication of identity.
If we are the same and all equal and nothing differentiates you from me then what am I?
What are you?


I don’t really know what I am. I only know what I am not.
Then I choose what to identify with. The Will chooses and this choice determines the characteristics it strives to perfect and attain – its ideal.
My existence is characterized by imprecision and emptiness trying to be something precise and full.
I want to be the perfect embodiment of my ideal state. In essence I want to cease becoming and suffering against the resistance the universe offers and to simply be – inert (stable), unchanging (eternal), free (power).

To imagine perfection is to imagine something inert and stable.
So God, if he existed would be inert and unthinking.
Why would a God think? What would He think?
God knows and there’s nothing to think further. God is and there is nothing to do further.
Thinking is a tool for survival and for the efficient expenditure of energy.

It (God, Perfection) is unchanging because it has nothing to change into and no need to do so.
It has dropped out of what we call dimensional reality. It has ceased.

Action is produced by a lack.
Man’s activity exposes his contentment.
By definition the most active are the most discontented – they have the most to compensate for and to strive towards.
What is not lacking has no need to act.
Boredom?
Isn’t this also a lack?

 

The point I was trying to make is an ant is no more capable of fully understanding us than we are of fully understanding God.

No, an agnostic doesn't know if God exists or not and in some cases doesn't care. I'm not an agnostic, I'm believe in the existence of God.
I have no interest in imposing a moral code on anyone nor would I ever try. How you choose to live your life is your business, or to put it another way, that's between you and God.

 

Watch this enlightened soul, above, do what he does best…ignore the competition.

He focuses where we senses weakness and potential for conversion.
The pothers conversion becomes a justification for his own continued loyalty in the face of contradiction and simple arguments.

A meme has an element of self-propagation in that it contains elements which force the infected mind to spread its belief.

He will, therefore, turn his gaze upon the shaky one, trying to tumble him over.

He/She says:

But then he would have us believe that he knows the mind of God and his rules and his nature and the correct manner in which to worship him.

Watch me prove Leprechauns.

I could offer arguments for the existence of Leprechauns but these creatures are so different than us, so bizarre and alien that they become incomprehensible to man.

Most you can say about them is that they exist and they are tricksters.

And I believe Leprechauns exist.

Now we can are sure that we can both live as if what we believed were true – that is a correct description of reality – and we are both destined to die assured that our beliefs were justified and we are both liable to live as if these entities do exist, making their existence or not a moot point, but one of us is willing to entertain the possibility that his presumption is wrong and is willing to take empirical evidence (experiential knowledge possessing a predictable consistency) as the decisive factor in determining the probability or improbability of things.

One more difference between us is that one of us has much more to gain from his belief which should make him more sceptical about his motives and reasoning.

Translation:

It is you who will pay the price for your insolence and it is you who will face the consequences as will I receive the rewards for my loyalty and sacrifice.

As we can see the Christian has a convenient way of ignoring the dogma he aspires to live up to when it suits him.
His “salvation” is ensured - he’s reserved a place in paradise.
What does he care about the sinners who shall burn in hell under the merciful gaze of his Loving God?

The true-Christian makes sure he’s satisfied his vanity and has taken all the precautions to exit from suffering, under the guise of compassion and ‘love thy neighbor’ and then he makes half-hearted attempts to reinforce his promised entrance by ‘saving’ others … bit it isn’t necessary.

Also witness how this ‘open-mind’ pretends he’s come to his belief using reasoned analysis and skeptical inquiry.

He labels himself “The seeker of Truth”.

Here the truth has already been established as a given and all that needs to be sought is justification for it.

He does not seek A truth but The truth.

Games people play.

This buffoon promises to offer entertainment.

I would say that anyone who claims to be a thinker and to have thought his way to his convictions should have a grasp of his topic.

He could perhaps begin by offering us a definition of:

God
Evil
Good

Then we can precede to the more difficult tasks later.

 

Now watch me prove trolls exist. Look at Satyr

 

That’s an evasive maneuver.

Not gonna work my little absolutist imbecile.

If you just wanted to go on believing with no headaches and challenges then you should not have come to a philosophical forum – or are you pretentious enough to consider your manner of thinking an honest pursuit of wisdom?

 

Nope, sorry, I don't know the mind of God. The Bible says to worship God "in spirit and in truth" intrepret that in your own way.

Correction: Both of us are willing to entertain the possibility that our presumptions are wrong.

And when did I do that?

Actually that name was given to me by someone else. HINT: It wasn't God or anyone else from the Bible or any other holy book.

No truth is established as a given.

For once you're right.

 

The imbecile makes his first appearance on this thread saying this:

Yet this mind, simpler than most, claims that this hypothetical being is both “eternal” and “infinite” which is a characterization of what he claims is incomprehensible to his mind.

So the question is:
What is “eternal” and what “infinite”?

Then he proceeds with his faulty reasoning by first pretending to know an ants mind as being, comparatively, like ours.

But the ant cannot be said to believe in our existence or that it considers us omnipotent and eternal and infinite.
All we can say about the ant is that it perceives a presence and flees.

Does it pray to us for salvation?
Does it think we are ‘good’ and ‘just’ or that we can offer it paradise?
Does it slaughter its fellow ants when they refuse to believe in our benevolent nature?
Does it believe in our retribution based on their moral conduct?


But the metaphor is apropos, even if unintentionally so.

Do we give a shit about ants except as a passing curiosity and except as to how they relate to us and participate in our reality?
Do we pay attention to them, except for a few scientists?
Do we judge their morality and impose a behaviour upon them?

If your God is so higher than man, as we are from the ant (even if both ant and man share genes), if not higher, then why oh why would he care about your life?