Evidence God Exists

[AngelThMan]

Without further ado, here’s the evidence: Humans are the only species, out of millions of species, which have evolved into an intelligent life form. Other species live pretty much to eat and sleep -- survival. If our evolution were only a result of natural selection, shouldn’t other species, or even just one, have evolved into intelligent beings after millions of years? But the fact is that no other species have been able to develop science, literature, art, music and intelligent thought process as humans have. Isn’t this evidence that God exists?

Yes it is, and for several reasons. For one thing it corroborates what’s written in the bible, which is that God created man in his image, and that animals are inferior. But to truly understand why my evidence points towards a deity one needs to be able to appreciate the grandness of this gift that is human intelligence. And you have to ask yourself, why are we the only species, out of millions, that have achieved this type of intelligence? Evolution is about natural selection, but shouldn’t at least one other species, out of millions, have benefited from intelligence? I think so. And there would be a myriad of other intelligent species if there were no God. If you can appreciate the grandness and uniqueness of human intelligence, then you’ll understand why only humans were given this gift, and you'll know why what I've outlined here points to a God.

In law we would say relevant evidence is anything that makes any particular proposition or theory more likely to be true. On that basis you may say the existence of humans, considering the low statistical probability intelligent life could develop randomly in such an inhospitable universe, does lend credence to the idea of a deity...

I know you disagree with my views, and I'll respond below, but I want to thank you for at least addressing the real subject here. A lot of the kiddies on this forum have been sidetracked with pointless discussions about dolphins, lions, and cells that can take over the world.

...(and indeed absent any additional information I might agree with you). The problem of course is we do have additional information.

We don't have any evidence that disproves a God. If we do, can you explain?

I simply acknowledge religion is untrue; and god probably doesn't exist. Why - because of the evidence.

If you mean evolution, it doesn't disprove the existence of God. I support the concept of theistic evolution, in which natural selection is viewed as God's tool for creation. I can't claim to know everything, but I believe that what's written in Genesis could be symbolic. The bible itself says that there's a lot of symbolism in the scriptures. It also states that to God a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years. Perhaps this is a clue that the timeline for creation described in the bible is allegorical. Who knows? Apparently, the literal study of Genesis has only been around since the Protestant Reformation which started in the 1500s. Before that, the bible was taught and studied symbolically. I don't view science as God's enemy. After all, God gave man the intelligence to develop science. It doesn't contradict the existence of God, or vice versa.

The starting place for the analysis must be religion itself. If we start out quibbling over nonsense like the Kalam argument, or other cosmological arguments, we wind up skipping over the most important question. Where did our concept of a god come from?

This approach presupposes that there is not a God. Why would this be the starting analysis?

Cosmological arguments and other apologetic devices (e.g. intelligent design) are merely post-hoc attempts to justify a preexisting belief system (which is the exact opposite of how science actually discovers things).

When scientists explore the possibility of UFOs, they do not start out by asking why people believe in UFOs. They delve into other possibilities, not excluding witness accounts, which could be likened to the faith-based experiences of believers.

Didn't our concept of god come from the same place all the other dead religions in history came from? The more I've studied this issue the more I've discovered how conclusively theism can be debunked. A reasonable, unbiased analysis leaves no room for your god (William Lane Craig is flat out wrong - faith cannot be reasonable, unless you define "reasonable" subjectively). Indeed, according to the evidence, the first mention of monotheism in history wasn't even by the Jewish people, it was by an Egyptian pharaoh (who promoted worship of the god Aten). Archeologists have debunked the Exodus myth, evolutionary biologists and geologists have long debunked the creation account given in Genesis, indeed we've even traced some elements of the Hebrew bible to Sumerian civilization (e.g. the flood account).

Defunct religions that resemble Christianity do not debunk the existence of God. We don't know why those religions existed, or who influenced their creation, including God himself. Maybe the presence of God was felt in early humanity, and those religions were manifestations of such phenomena. I'm not sure there's a devil, but if there is, maybe he influenced the creation of those religions to cast doubt. Maybe God himself intended to cast doubt so that those who followed him did so on sheer faith. I'm not saying this is what happened. I don't know. Nobody does. The bibles states there are many mysteries that will be revealed to us later. I was just presenting some possible scenarios that don't preclude the existence of God.

There were numerous virgin birth motifs in pagan myths prior to Christianity; so why is the Jesus narrative so compelling? Simple, the Roman Empire adopted it as their official religion (and consequently it spread throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa).

Have you thought about the possibility that maybe the Roman Empire was God's vessel for spreading and upholding his word? I think what's important to note is that Christianity is the largest and most enduring religion in the world. The bible is the most popular book that was ever published. Maybe these are more clues that Christ's religion is the true one.

Another popular argument concerns the motives of the apostles. According to christian apologists the apostles had no possible motive for inventing this story; but I think that's patently false. They had every motive for inventing the story. If you were part of a small cult within a larger (but still very theocratic and superstitious) religious community, who claimed your leader was a god-man, yet that leader was executed like a common criminal, you'd probably look pretty foolish (and it's doubtful anyone would take you seriously, much less join your cult). If you wanted your cult and ideology to live on, you'd have to figure out some way to spin your leaders execution into a positive.

Though we've seen many situations in which leaders have been killed, and no new religion has been created. The point is who can say whether what you claim is true or not?

Do you know three quarters of all people during the first century, in the Roman world, were considered slaves. It's easy to see how a religion like Christianity could spread like wild fire in that sort of environment.

Again, maybe God's doing. Who knows? It doesn't prove God doesn't exist.

And all this doesn't even begin to address the particulars of the evidence concerning, for instance, natural selection (but I'll stop here in the interest of some semblance of brevity).

Too late :)