List of reasons to believe God exists?

[henryp]

I'll have to think about existence being impossible without god post.

To the more recent post:

1) I get what you're saying about people overriding morality. But do you think that's even what was/is happening? I get the sense, for most, it was just a way of life. I vaguely remember Jesus talking about slavery and it was just like "be nice to your slaves. And hey slaves, do some good slaving for your masters!" I'm paraphrasing my misrememberings. The point being, I don't think human wiring is "We're all in this together as humans", it's "People who are different are not as good." And it's not based on maliciousness or wanting to feel superior, it's just the default. That is what humans are. And then after a while, some philosophers or thinkers start doing the math, and they're like "you know, maybe we're not so different after all!" And a few decades or centuries, or millennium, or never, later, the rest of the people maybe start to come around. But it's all swimming upstream, because people are not hardwired with some objective morality. We're wired to behave in ways that you'd consider objectively bad.

It just seems like maybe we're decent because we're like 200,000 years in, and some of us who live in nice houses and drive cars, and can order pizza to be delivered to our homes, a few of those people are like "Yeah, whatever, everybody's cool. Can I go back to eating my pizza now?" We, 21st century fairly well off 1st worlders, are not representative of humans as a whole in any way. I'm not even sure we're representative of ourselves truly. Just ourselves in a really really really cozy situation. We're the best and the brightest in the best possible situation, and we're still not that great.

2) I guess I'm not following, because subjective morality and objective morality have the same results. I started that other thread about how Atheists try to blame the behaviors of religious people on religion, even though religion is the product of a godless world, in our opinion. You're kind of doing the opposite. If people are raping like crazy throughout history, and there is objective morality, then objective morality is just as ineffectual as you point out subjective morality is.

All of this. The rape, genocide, murder, torture, slavery. It's all being done, in your opinion, while there's an objective set of moral rules. Yet it looks like how things would be operating if morality were subjective. Even if Bob says "well, I think morality's subjective, so I'm going to murder a baby", you say "That shows subjective doesn't work!" But he's still, in your opinion, operating under the umbrella of objective morality, and it doesn't have an effect on him.

To me, it seems like you want to be able to say "Well, he's not listening, but at least I'm objectively correct."? What is gained from objective morality? Judgement upon death, I suppose? But if the only difference is judgement after you die, why would you be so convinced it's real?

[The Grand Nudger]

People doing bad things doesn't establish or imply that morality is subjective -or- objective, Wallym.  People would be doing bad things™ regardless of which proposition were true, and ofc..as noted..they are, regardless of which one they believe is true.

[henryp]

And again, this is a very difficult question to answer since I don't think anything would exist in the first place without God existing.  

I know you think God has to exist because of the something had to create the first something stuff.  

Do you have anything along those lines for why evolution as we've seen it could only exist with a God as well?  Or is it just that it seems too complex intuitively.

[Catholic_Lady]

I'll have to think about existence being impossible without god post.

To the more recent post:

1) I get what you're saying about people overriding morality.  But do you think that's even what was/is happening?  I get the sense, for most, it was just a way of life.  I vaguely remember Jesus talking about slavery and it was just like "be nice to your slaves.  And hey slaves, do some good slaving for your masters!"  I'm paraphrasing my misrememberings.  The point being, I don't think human wiring is "We're all in this together as humans", it's "People who are different are not as good."  And it's not based on maliciousness or wanting to feel superior, it's just the default.  That is what humans are.  And then after a while, some philosophers or thinkers start doing the math, and they're like "you know, maybe we're not so different after all!"  And a few decades or centuries, or millennium, or never, later, the rest of the people maybe start to come around.  But it's all swimming upstream, because people are not hardwired with some objective morality.  We're wired to behave in ways that you'd consider objectively bad.  

It just seems like maybe we're decent because we're like 200,000 years in, and some of us who live in nice houses and drive  cars, and can order pizza to be delivered to our homes, a few of those people are like "Yeah, whatever, everybody's cool.  Can I go back to eating my pizza now?"  We, 21st century fairly well off 1st worlders, are not representative of humans as a whole in any way.  I'm not even sure we're representative of ourselves truly.  Just ourselves in a really really really cozy situation.  We're the best and the brightest in the best possible situation, and we're still not that great.

2) I guess I'm not following, because subjective morality and objective morality have the same results.  I started that other thread about how Atheists try to blame the behaviors of religious people on religion, even though religion is the product of a godless world, in our opinion.  You're kind of doing the opposite.  If people are raping like crazy throughout history, and there is objective morality, then objective morality is just as ineffectual as you point out subjective morality is.

All of this.  The rape, genocide, murder, torture, slavery.  It's all being done, in your opinion, while there's an objective set of moral rules.  Yet it looks like how things would be operating if morality were subjective.  Even if Bob says "well, I think morality's subjective, so I'm going to murder a baby", you say "That shows subjective doesn't work!"  But he's still, in your opinion, operating under the umbrella of objective morality, and it doesn't have an effect on him.

To me, it seems like you want to be able to say "Well, he's not listening, but at least I'm objectively correct."?  What is gained from objective morality?  Judgement upon death, I suppose?  But if the only difference is judgement after you die, why would you be so convinced it's real?

Well first of all, from my understanding, when "slaves" are being referenced in that area/time period, they were actually people who owed some kind of debt and were working voluntarily in exchange for something. Not what we are talking about with kidnapping people and forcing them to work. But I digress...

As to your questions, you misunderstood my point. I wasn't trying to say whether subjective morality works or doesn't work in the sense of getting different results or whatever. My point was to show that we all still act as though morality is objective, even those of us who claim it isn't. That's what I meant. Example: A person can say morality is subjective and there is no real right and wrong or good and evil and it's all just a matter of opinion, etc etc... Yet that same person will still be completely furious at the notion of someone raping/torturing/killing innocent people. Heck people here get pissed off at Trump for wanting to prevent Mexicans from coming here illegally. If morality is completely subjective, then why get upset at someone merely having a different "opinion?" My opinion is that the best color is pink and the best food is sushi. Do I get pissed off at someone else saying they think pink is ugly and they don't like sushi? No. It doesn't work the same way with morality, regardless of how subjective and opinion based someone says it is. That person still acts as though rapists, terrorist, and Trump are objectively wrong and bad, not that they are merely people who just happen to have a different "opinion." I was trying to show that morality is a much deeper and more real thing than a subjective personal opinion.   

      

[The Grand Nudger]

-and that's when the slavery apologism and Trump references began.

[Catholic_Lady]

And again, this is a very difficult question to answer since I don't think anything would exist in the first place without God existing.  

I know you think God has to exist because of the something had to create the first something stuff.  

Do you have anything along those lines for why evolution as we've seen it could only exist with a God as well?  Or is it just that it seems too complex intuitively.

Only to the extent that nothing would exist in the first place so there would be nothing to "evolve" anyway. Does that answer your question?

[henryp]

Well first of all, from my understanding, when "slaves" are being referenced in that area/time period, they were actually people who owed some kind of debt and were working voluntarily in exchange for something. Not what we are talking about with kidnapping people and forcing them to work. But I digress...

As to your questions, you misunderstood my point. I wasn't trying to say whether subjective morality works or doesn't work in the sense of getting different results or whatever. My point was to show that we all still act as though morality is objective, even those of us who claim it isn't. That's what I meant. Example: A person can say morality is subjective and there is no real right and wrong or good and evil and it's all just a matter of opinion, etc etc... Yet that same person will still be completely furious at the notion of someone raping/torturing/killing innocent people. Heck people here get pissed off at Trump for wanting to prevent Mexicans from coming here illegally. If morality is completely subjective, then why get upset at someone merely having a different "opinion?" My opinion is that the best color is pink and the best food is sushi. Do I get pissed off at someone else saying they think pink is ugly and they don't like sushi? No. It doesn't work the same way with morality, regardless of how subjective and opinion based someone says it is. That person still acts as though rapists, terrorist, and Trump are objectively wrong and bad, not that they are merely people who just happen to have a different "opinion." I was trying to show that morality is a much deeper and more real thing than a subjective personal opinion.   

Do you think it's the gravity of morality maybe?  Like don't kill people is more weighty of a topic than pink is the best?  Like if our lives depended on picking Pink or Blue as the best color to show to the aliens to save humanity, you'd probably go to bat for pink pretty hard.  That's a sloppy analogy, but the gist of what I'm getting at is buried in there I think.

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I know you think God has to exist because of the something had to create the first something stuff.  

Do you have anything along those lines for why evolution as we've seen it could only exist with a God as well?  Or is it just that it seems too complex intuitively.

Only to the extent that nothing would exist in the first place so there would be nothing to "evolve" anyway. Does that answer your question?

So you have a lot of eggs in the 'there has to be a deity to get the ball rolling' basket.  It seems like your take on a lot of the other stuff isn't so much evidence for God, as things that fit the narrative.  (outside of the personal experience).

Like in Mafia, when you think someone is scum, and then you look through all their posts, and you make all these connections that fit perfectly.  But then you lynch them, and they weren't scum at all.  And there are a bunch of alternative explanations for all those things that seemed to fit perfectly.  Rather than 'proof', it was just one of many possible stories.

That's sort of what apologetics look like to me.  Suspect God is real.  Here's how that could be true.  But for you, the really tangible stuff seems to be Origins of the universe, and your personal experience.  

My brain is working a little slow so apologies if this thinking is a bit muddy.  I should have been an Atheist when I was 20.  I'd have liked to see what my mind back then could have come up with.

[Catholic_Lady]

Well first of all, from my understanding, when "slaves" are being referenced in that area/time period, they were actually people who owed some kind of debt and were working voluntarily in exchange for something. Not what we are talking about with kidnapping people and forcing them to work. But I digress...

As to your questions, you misunderstood my point. I wasn't trying to say whether subjective morality works or doesn't work in the sense of getting different results or whatever. My point was to show that we all still act as though morality is objective, even those of us who claim it isn't. That's what I meant. Example: A person can say morality is subjective and there is no real right and wrong or good and evil and it's all just a matter of opinion, etc etc... Yet that same person will still be completely furious at the notion of someone raping/torturing/killing innocent people. Heck people here get pissed off at Trump for wanting to prevent Mexicans from coming here illegally. If morality is completely subjective, then why get upset at someone merely having a different "opinion?" My opinion is that the best color is pink and the best food is sushi. Do I get pissed off at someone else saying they think pink is ugly and they don't like sushi? No. It doesn't work the same way with morality, regardless of how subjective and opinion based someone says it is. That person still acts as though rapists, terrorist, and Trump are objectively wrong and bad, not that they are merely people who just happen to have a different "opinion." I was trying to show that morality is a much deeper and more real thing than a subjective personal opinion.   

Do you think it's the gravity of morality maybe?  Like don't kill people is more weighty of a topic than pink is the best?  Like if our lives depended on picking Pink or Blue as the best color to show to the aliens to save humanity, you'd probably go to bat for pink pretty hard.  That's a sloppy analogy, but the gist of what I'm getting at is buried in there I think.

I don't see why it would be more weighty if it didn't effect me and if human life didn't have intrinsic value. Otherwise, why would I care so much about a woman being raped and then murdered by her family for being raped on the other side of the globe? I mean, there's empathy so from a purely emotional stand point I would feel sorry for her. But there would be no justifiable, rational reason for me to get really angry at the people who did that to her if I didn't concede that doing so was in fact wrong. But subjective morality people do anyway. (get really angry I mean)

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Only to the extent that nothing would exist in the first place so there would be nothing to "evolve" anyway. Does that answer your question?

So you have a lot of eggs in the 'there has to be a deity to get the ball rolling' basket.  It seems like your take on a lot of the other stuff isn't so much evidence for God, as things that fit the narrative.  (outside of the personal experience).

Like in Mafia, when you think someone is scum, and then you look through all their posts, and you make all these connections that fit perfectly.  But then you lynch them, and they weren't scum at all.  And there are a bunch of alternative explanations for all those things that seemed to fit perfectly.  Rather than 'proof', it was just one of many possible stories.

That's sort of what apologetics look like to me.  Suspect God is real.  Here's how that could be true.  But for you, the really tangible stuff seems to be Origins of the universe, and your personal experience.  

My brain is working a little slow so apologies if this thinking is a bit muddy.  I should have been an Atheist when I was 20.  I'd have liked to see what my mind back then could have come up with.

You mean like there's bias on my part in coming to the conclusion that God very possibly exists?

[SteveII]

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.

Sorry. I went back an read your OP carefully. Is this what you want a list of:

a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

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Doesn't it seem flimsy?  If that domino falls, and some nerd explains the origins of the universe, would that be the end of it?  Is there anything left?

Just as a clarifying point. You seem to be giving an epistemic priority to natural theology. There is still revelation and personal experiences that give a proper warrant for belief in God.

[henryp]

Do you think it's the gravity of morality maybe?  Like don't kill people is more weighty of a topic than pink is the best?  Like if our lives depended on picking Pink or Blue as the best color to show to the aliens to save humanity, you'd probably go to bat for pink pretty hard.  That's a sloppy analogy, but the gist of what I'm getting at is buried in there I think.

I don't see why it would be more weighty if it didn't effect me and if human life didn't have intrinsic value. Otherwise, why would I care so much about a woman being raped and then murdered by her family for being raped on the other side of the globe? I mean, there's empathy so from a purely emotional stand point I would feel sorry for her. But there would be no justifiable, rational reason for me to get really angry at the people who did that to her if I didn't concede that doing so was in fact wrong. But subjective morality people do anyway. (get really angry I mean) 

You get mad because you care about something, and someone hurt the something you care about.  By hurting someone you care about, they are hurting you.  So you get angry.  That seems rational to me.  
Rationally, you may also know there's no reason for them to care about hurting you, but that doesn't mean you still shouldn't have a strong dislike for people and things that hurt you.  Where and how you direct those emotions may vary on the logical scale, but it's an emotional response, so you'd expect that?
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As for human life's intrinsic value.  What would you have a bigger emotional response to?  News someone across the world got murdered, or one of your cats dying?  If human value is intrinsic, shouldn't our reaction to human loss be constant?  If my kid died, I'd be fucked up for years.  But 1000's of other kids die every day, and I go about my business.  I'm not exactly like everyone else.  But I think that goes for most people.  We certainly aren't paralyzed by the horror of the world.  Most of us aren't giving up all our stuff and following Jesus.  We shake our fist for a couple minutes, and then get back to it.  If life has intrinsic value, it doesn't seem like it's very much.

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You mean like there's bias on my part in coming to the conclusion that God very possibly exists?

Maybe that's what I'm getting at.  I'm not sure!  It does seem like there's room for some confirmation bias.

On the big bang, I'm just not well read enough science wise.  I wonder what those people think that are.  If you are certain the big bang needs God, you'd expect them to be even more certain with their expertise?

I know Hawkins isn't but he could have some bias against a God what with the wheelchair stuff.  I know a lot of old-timey folks were.  I wonder what most modern physicists who look at the origins of the universe as their primary study say.

Would it worry you if they were predominantly skeptical on the Deity answer, when you're as convinced as you are that your knowledge of the big bang points towards a Deity?