List of reasons to believe God exists?

[Jehanne]

Someone like WLC would say that objective moral values exist even if we do not know what they are (moral ontology versus moral epistemology), but, maybe god exists but is a perfectly evil Being:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_Challenge

Can you disprove the existence of such a Being?

[henryp]

@Wallym

I would say I appreciate your honest stance, but my honest view is, I don't believe you are honest about it. I believe honesty to oneself leads to God and sees his light evidently manifest and connected.

What the light and mystic link is ofcourse is a real living being, a human, and precisely the leader of time, and this age, who is the 12th Successor of Mohammad.

He is with you calling you to God no matter how much you put him on ignore.

I can't force you to believe in morality or sacred language of love, but, it won't make God's proof go away neither the mystic link, all I can do is remind you and tell you not to lie to yourself about this issue which is by definition the most essential issue a human can face.

To deny who you are just to deny God, that is one next level of dishonesty.

I think you believe there is a universal experience.  That we're all feeling the same thing, and ultimately looking at the world through generally the same lens.  And I think you're a bit behind the times on that front.  Who a person is is not some abstract spiritual idea.  It is their physical makeup in each moment and permanently subject to change.  The brain in particular determines our actions.  And our brains can develop 'abnormally', or be affected by diet, exercise, sleep, sun, "lady times", stress, narcotics, alcohol, prescription drugs, and on and on and on and on.  
The side effects of some pills are gambling addiction.  How wild and frightening is that?  That our grasp on who we are is so tenuous?

[Amarok]

Even if we could say we all experience x . All that proves is we are all alike and think alike . Not that there is some magic values floating in an either .Or that it is apart from mere physical space. No matter how much theists insist on the matter.

[brewer]

Anybody notice that only one theist gave a list? Thanks CL.

Didn't need the "here's my philosophy" or that "there can be all kinds of reasons".

[GrandizerII]

Anybody notice that only one theist gave a list? Thanks CL.

Didn't need the "here's my philosophy" or that "there can be all kinds of reasons".

Overlooked Atlas

[henryp]

Anybody notice that only one theist gave a list? Thanks CL.

Didn't need the "here's my philosophy" or that "there can be all kinds of reasons".

I didn't need a literal list.  

I'm pretty familiar with Mystic's arguments, so he certainly didn't need to list them for me.  I'm familiar enough with them, and knew they were implied by his post.
Steve I think just replied to the title of the thread.
Atlas went with the complexity argument.
CL answered in detail.
Neo said 'you first'.  I don't know if he'll respond again, but I had no problem with going first.

But outside of Steve, I've got no complaints about the responses.  And it's not like I'm complaining about Steve.  I know he's been going back and forth for a while in a couple other threads.

[Jehanne]

We know the Big Bang caused the birth of the universe when a small singularity expanded into the cosmos as we know them today. But what was the origin of this "small singularity" to begin with? Possibly another sort of explosion... Maybe there are multiple universes out there and it came from them somehow? It is a fair possibility. But if we go back far enough the question still stands: what caused the very first physical thing to exist? It couldn't possibly have materialized itself from nothingness. We know the laws of the natural, physical world calls for physical things to have been the cause of something else... they don't make themselves. So has this physical thing simply always existed and at some point, for some reason, began to form into something else, and then something else, and eventually we have this universe we live in? Well, just as we know the laws of the natural, physical world are contrary to things materializing themselves from nothing, we also know they are contrary to physical things having always existed. Just as physical things are always the cause of something else, they also have a beginning and an end. The 2 kind of go together. 

Maybe it was a "special type" of physical thing that isn't bound by the laws of physics and could have materialized itself or always have existed? I suppose... though I find that highly unlikely because for a physical thing to be able to be like that would be contradictory to what we have actually observed about the physical world and its laws. In other words, there is proof against it lol.  Which leads us to another proposition: Maybe the very first physical thing to ever have existed was actually put in place by a different type of force altogether - one that isn't physical. One that isn't bound by the laws of this natural, physical world, but that is actually beyond it/above it. Not being bound by these laws means this force could be eternal and could always have existed, it didn't need anything else to have caused its existance, it is non physical and not of this physical world. 

When I look at everything and explore other possibilities, this^ is what makes the most logical sense to me. And I honestly don't understand why this proposition is so unlikely in some people's eyes. Or why it is seen as so much more likely that any physical thing could either be eternal, or have materialized itself. What are the other options? We don't have proof of any of these propositions, or of any other anyone else can come up with. 

Of course, the notion of a supreme force out there only says something about Deism, not the Christian God specifically. But for the reason above, I would be a deist long before I would be an atheist. 

I feel there is more evidence (evidence, NOT proof), of the existance of the Christian God more than any other. So to get back to your list:

2. The life and death of Jesus. (There is plenty of evidence that Jesus existed as a Jewish man from the Middle East when the Romans were in rule, and that He was crucified by one of the Roman leaders of the time - Punctious Pilot.)

3. The rapid fire spread of early Christianity during a time when there was no easy transportation or communication technologies. I feel some extraordinary things must have happened for so many people to be so convinced so quickly.

4. Jesus' close friends who actually lived with him were SO convinced that He was the real deal and not some fraud, that they ALL voluntarily died horrible painful deaths for Him... when they could have just denounced Him and went on with their lives.  

5. Morality. With that, I will quote points 1-4 from KingPin back when he was still active here: 

1. Nearly universally across human cultures, arguably, there exists the same basic standards of morality. In addition, there exists in all cultures truly altruistic acts which lead to no genetic benefit.
   
2. The majority of people who explicitly deny the existence of objective morality still act as if objective morality exists.
   
3. There exists a nearly universal human intuition that certain things are objectively right or wrong.
   
4. The majority of philosophers recognize the existence of objective moral facts.
   

...To me, the notion of objective moral laws means there has to be a law giver. I know this doesn't particularly point to the Christian God, but at least it points to one who cares/is involved, which helps support why I believe in more than just Deism.    

6. There have been multiple things that have happened which I think cannot be explained by science. To me, the most convincing is the miracle of the sun in Fatima. 

7. Finally, and most convincing for me personally is that I myself was witness to one of these inexplicable things. I've made it clear before that I don't want to tell the story here because it is sacred to me and I don't want to open it up to ridicule. But something happened in my childhood house in 2006 (I was 20) that both myself and my mother were present for. And because of what it was and what was involved, I can tell you that it was directly related to Christianity.

...And that concludes my "list". The important thing to remember is that it wasn't any one of these things that convinces me. It's all of them together. When I put these all together, it makes logical sense to me that the Christian God is real. And while I know that none of this is "proof", all of these things compiled together serves as sufficient evidence for me to believe that it is more likely that He exists than to believe that He doesn't.

#1.  The Big Bang did not "cause" anything.  I'll let Professor Sean Carroll address this one with WLC:






This theorem from David Griffiths certainly suggests such:




As you can see, the Schrodinger equation clearly implies that the Universe is eternal, both beginningless and endless.

#2.  Yes, Jesus existed, but then again, so did lots of other people.  As everyone knows, miracle workers were a dime-a-dozen in 1st century Palestine.  Jesus was not alone on that count.

#3.  Your statement is just false.  Early Christianities (note the plural) did not spread rapidly, and there was constant infighting over who Jesus was (e.g., "human versus divine" being), as well as wholesale apostasy and deconversion back to Judaism.  If people were so convinced of its claims, why did thousands deconvert back to Judaism???

#4.  Your statement is false; no serious scholar believes that there was widespread martyrdom of Christians within the Empire, and as for Jesus' followers, name your sources, please, as to their ultimate fate?  Again, you're overlooking the fact that thousands recanted rather than face death at the hands of the Romans.

#5.  Morality evolves.  To say that it is "universal", and hence, requires a moral lawgiver is like saying that because mathematics is universal that such requires a "math giver".  Such are meaningless notions that are impossible to falsify, and like the proverbial fairies at the bottom of wells, we can dispense with them, as they offer us no utility of any kind.  After all, humans have done just fine on our own in our increasing understanding of mathematics.  Ditto for morality.

#6.  The "miracle of the Sun" is a fraud.  We've been through this before.  It was getting late in the afternoon (1:30 PM standard time, and the "miracle" was supposed to occur at noon)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_s...by_country

....and it had been raining all that morning.  When the Sun began to break-through the clouds, Lucia started screaming, "Look at the sun, look at the sun!!!"  The crowd turning and saw what they wanted to see in a multitude of conflicting and contradictory results.  Remember, some witnesses would later testify that they saw nothing.  Explain that!

#7.  People "see" things all the time.  Travis Walton disappeared without a trace for 5 days, and claims to have been abducted by aliens, taken up into their spaceship (which his fellow loggers claim that they saw), etc.  Why should we believe you over him?

[Mystic]

Another proof I have not presented is the existence proof.

That is existence is the default state. Non-existence is impossible. 

I would take it further and say any non-existence is impossible. This proves existence is maximal existence and absolute existence.

To say why any non-existence is impossible - is the same reason why non-existence by definition is impossible.

I hope this satisfies your queries, and what is after the truth but error?

And there are many more arguments for God I have not ever presented, but I believe God is best at presenting them, so would suggest to you Wallym, to give Quran a serious read.

---

@Wallym

I would say I appreciate your honest stance, but my honest view is, I don't believe you are honest about it. I believe honesty to oneself leads to God and sees his light evidently manifest and connected.

What the light and mystic link is ofcourse is a real living being, a human, and precisely the leader of time, and this age, who is the 12th Successor of Mohammad.

He is with you calling you to God no matter how much you put him on ignore.

I can't force you to believe in morality or sacred language of love, but, it won't make God's proof go away neither the mystic link, all I can do is remind you and tell you not to lie to yourself about this issue which is by definition the most essential issue a human can face.

To deny who you are just to deny God, that is one next level of dishonesty.

I think you believe there is a universal experience.  That we're all feeling the same thing, and ultimately looking at the world through generally the same lens. 

You are mistaken,  I believe the light comes in different forms according to our relative state, but that it stills manifests an absolute light.

[The Grand Nudger]

So, relatively absolute, then?

[LastPoet]

Here I am talking about atheism as an intellectual commitment with respect to the proposition "God exists," not some trivial ignorance. I guess I would turn the question around. How in the world could anyone find atheism a coherent and satisfying intellectual stance?

You can actually use your intellect towards less fantastic endeavours.