Yes God Exists

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

My apologies. I thought you wanted a serious discussion. I can be the straw man you're looking for if it helps?

Very public spirited of you.

Boru

[Belacqua]

While every religion likes to use different terms, they are all the same thing repackaged. Denial of self, destruction of ego, and extinction of soul are all the same concept. As well as nirvana, bliss, enlightenment, higher plane of existence, and heaven all possess similar language in describing these places or states of being. While conflict might be valued in some worldviews, even the violent Viking warriors looked forward to their eternal peace in Valhalla as a reward for their violence.

I guess we could say that "nirvana, bliss, enlightenment, higher plane of existence, and heaven" are all the same in that they are seen as goals by various religious people. All of them are seen as better conditions than our normal earthly suffering. 

I think we shouldn't be over-general and blend out the differences of these things, however. Even within Christianity there are very different beliefs concerning what heaven would be like. It's probably fair to sort the beliefs into two types: the more literalist, simple idea is that heaven would be much like our current world, but better. More philosophical Christians hold that it would be so different from what we know that we can't even properly conceive of it. So yes, both are goals and both involve release from earthly unpleasantness. But beyond that there is major disagreement. 

If you've read Dante, for example, you know that for him heaven is outside of space and time, so that there is neither extension nor duration. Because we are creatures who live in space and time it's very difficult for us to imagine what this would be like. Dante repeatedly uses the ineffability topos when talking about it -- saying that it's so outside of experience that he can't say what it is like. Everything he says about it is explicitly non-literal. It's clear that this is rooted in Plato, where the world of the Forms is not a world of space and time, and the highest of the Forms is the Good. It's not really possible for us to conceptualize this, since we invariably think of "good" as an adjective -- a good book or a good movie, but not the Good as an intelligible non-material thing in itself. 

Another significant difference is that some people see heaven or the extinction of the soul as a complete subsumation into God or the One, with no individual personality or separate existence remaining. In other words, you won't know you're there. I'm not sure we could call that "peace," if you're not there to experience it. Other versions see individual existence as persisting in the afterlife. 

Probably The Great Chain of Being by A.J. Lovejoy is the book to get started on all this. 

As for enlightenment, in Buddhism this is seen as a perceptual or mental change, not an ontological displacement into a separate world.

So yes, every religion appears to have a goal which involves the end of a non-peaceful state. But beyond that they are so different that I'd hate to suggest they are all the same.

[Nay_Sayer]

Careful now Bel. There was a tinge of slight dissagreement in that. Unapolegetics isn't gonna like that....

[The Grand Nudger]

Valhalla seems something other than peaceful. I think that it might be more the case that religions born of panic and disaster tend to, but do not necessarily, posit a more peaceful next life. They act like superstitions in that way, providing us a sense of control in stressful situations beyond our ability to resolve. Judaism was born of conquest and exile. Christianity the antonine plagues. Islam of byzantine and sasanian collapse.

The pedigree is strong with abrahamism.

[Angrboda]

Introduction:

I am not claiming to be an expert by any means and the following post is off the cuff and written without much effort. I just have ideas I'd like to share and have some discussion about them. Before any constructive discussion can be had about the existence of God, we must first unpack what it means for God to exist. Existence is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as: "the state or fact of having being especially independently of human consciousness". While society's use of the word "existence" is not exclusively limited to this definition, I contend that God does exist even by this standard.

Different levels of existence:

Manifestation: God is often compared to fantasy or mythical creatures. The unicorn is often said to not exist. However, the depiction and likeness of a unicorn is an easy thing to find and you would be hard pressed to find someone living in civilized society that could not give you a fairly accurate description of what a unicorn is. The fact that I can draw a picture of a unicorn or hold one in my hand suggests that a unicorn does exist.

The unicorn in a drawing or picture exists as a concept.  That is to exist in a different sense than is typically associated with claims that God exists in which He is posited as an ontic entity, not merely as a concept.  If you are only arguing that God exists as a concept then I have no issue with that.  At the same time, the ramifications and consequences for anyone's decision-making in that instance are grossly limited compared to Him existing ontologically.

The main argument against a unicorn's existence is referring to a physical reality relating solely to the biological manifestation of such a creature. Given the rising fascination with unicorns and the insistence on using them for purposes of storytelling, humanity is going to greater and greater lengths to make the idea of a unicorn come alive. It is only a matter of time before scientists use genetic manipulation to make a biological unicorn a reality if they haven't already.

Even if this is a possibility, the mere possibility of a thing, whether unicorn or god, does not argue for its actual existence.

It could also be argued that unicorns were born out of an idea conceived in the human consciousness and therefore does not exist independent of human intelligence or thought, but this same argument would invalidate the existence of every man-made object which would all arguably continue to exist even if every human being died out.

Concepts such as that of a unicorn are mind-dependent in a way that man-made objects are not.  Thus the existence of these non-mind-dependent objects is not invalidated by the absence of minds as a concept would be.

Position: Many of God's titles are positions of authority or responsibility. The creation of positions is an essential part of human society to ensure cooperation and efficiency. The existence of a position such as The President of the United States is only an idea; however, this idea has a real impact on our world. A position exists regardless of who fills it and like the position of Caesar in Ancient Rome, will continue to exist far after its usefulness has expired.

The positing of a position or a role does not entail the filling of that role.  Thus while many conceive of a role or title played by God, their doing so does not entail that the role or title is filled and therefore that God exists as an ontological entity.

As Potential: In order for us to properly navigate our reality we must be aware of potentials and how they impact the outcomes. In quantum mechanics these potentials manifest as superpositions. If you cannot conceive of a version of you that fails at something then you will arrogantly and foolishly move forward without taking the proper precautions to avoid failure. Having humility is to admit or understand that the version of you that fails actually exists and you must proceed in a manner to avoid it manifesting into our physical reality, meaning you must learn from your mistakes. Pride can fool others for a time, but eventually the price of foolish decisions comes due. In the same respect, only those that can envision a reality where they overcome impossible odds are the ones capable of such feats.

Nothing you have said here leads to the conclusion that God exists.  This is a non sequitur, specifically a red herring.

Subconscious: There are many parts of the subconscious mind that we still don't understand and much of our subconscious dictates our everyday reality. Our instincts, our primal nature, our defense mechanisms, and most or our habits and behaviors are borne out of the subconscious. These things exist on such a level that we must grapple with them and are arguably the most important challenges of our generation. Whether we describe these as mental illness, demons, malfunctions, human nature, chaos, or original sin does not negate the reality of them. 

In addition to being another red herring, this is speculation.  If your speculation here turns out to be wrong, then so are your conclusions which follow from them.

The Existence of God:

As a Manifestation: It is often stated that humanity invented God. While it may be true that God was an idea created by humans, the idea has a real impact on our world today and depictions of God in stories and movies are common-place. While Jesus has been argued to be the biological manifestation of God, I contend that a biological manifestation was never a necessary criterion for God's existence.

Biological, no.  Ontological, yes.  One of God's main attributes is that he is a necessary being, necessary in the ontological sense.  If he doesn't exist ontologically, then he is not a necessary being in that sense and the entity described is thus not God.  This is an example of the fallacy of definition wherein the relevant definition which frames the argument is overly narrow or overly broad for the relevant question.  Specifying a biological existence for God is too narrow.

The impact that faith in God has on the world can be observed and even measured. And there is no doubt that a major part of religion is to prophesy, or to call forth the things they desire to be true. The purpose of faith is not about believing the obvious but about manifesting the desired. Each religion, cult, or worldview has a version of God they are trying to manifest and many attempts have been made to make it happen, Jesus being one example of that.

It does not follow from this that God exists.  This is a non sequitur.

As a Position: Humanity has figured out through much trial and error that stable authority demands that there be one authority that is above all other authorities. Because humans are the highest level of intelligence we know of, we demand that these positions of supreme authority be filled by a human being. Every worldview, every religion, and every tradition seeks world peace. The only way we have conceived of accomplishing this is through submitting all people to one authority through conquest or cooperation. At the head of that one authority will be a position that is more powerful than all other positions. Conceivably the person that humanity would decide to put in that position is the most deserving or the best fit for the job. This future position of supreme authority over the governmental entity that controls all humans everywhere is an inevitable outcome and correlates with religious predictions. The person that fills this position can be compared to the Messiah, the Buddha, the Mahdi, the Ubermensch, the Godman, the King of Kings, etc.

Aside from my earlier remarks that a role can go unfulfilled, it is not inevitable that an ultimate ruler will one day occur; we could evolve toward some form of universal democracy, never ever positing a supreme ruler.  Thus your argument here fails because it is dependent upon a potentially false statement being necessarily true.  Thus it only posits the possibility of a god, not its actuality.  Additionally, since this has yet to come to pass, it fails in two other ways.  First, since it hasn't happened, God doesn't currently exist.  Which leads to the second failure.  Given that He doesn't currently exist, His non-existence is in conflict with His primary attribute as a necessary being and thus any such supreme ruler would not in fact be God.

As Potential: The multiverse theory suggests that alternate universes exist alongside our reality. While I agree that they exist as potentials, the difference between them and our reality is consciousness. Based on the observer effect, our consciousness is intertwined with how things manifest into our physical reality. The quantum realm existing outside of time and space correlates well to how the spiritual realm is described in ancient texts. Therefore God, and all infinite versions of God, exist in the quantum/spiritual realm as potential interacting with us attempting to manifest just one of the many possible futures that will turn God into a physical reality. Until the final details on who or what God is, God exists in superposition. As Schrodinger's cat is both dead and alive, all versions of God exist until only 1 version manifests while the other versions collapse and cease to exist.

Again, the quantum realm does not exist outside time and space; it is time and space.  Thus the alleged correlation with religious ideas of a reality outside time and space does not hold.  Additionally, you are engaged in speculation, as well as confusing an interpretation of quantum physics as entailing specific ontological properties of that quantum realm.  If your speculations or the interpretation are incorrect, so are your conclusions.  So this is another case where you have demonstrated that something is in the realm of possibility, but not the realm of actuality.  Thus this line of argument is ultimately a non sequitur with regard to the question of whether God exists.

In Our Subconscious: Academics often theorize that God is borne out of our subconscious mind and it is attached to some primal need. If this is true, then the idea of God was not conceived by humanity but rather God is something that occurs naturally.

As the Spartans replied to King Phillip II, "If...."  Again, speculation doesn't lead to a definitive conclusion.  And again, if God is contingent, then his existence as a necessary being is contradicted and he is not God.  While any such being that may resemble God but who is not God may pose some interesting questions, what we can conclude about the ontology of such a being, as well as its consequences for the decisions we make in life will be different.  Thus arguing for beings that are not strictly speaking the classical God is a form of equivocation in which you refer to God using two different senses, that of a classical God, and that of a non-classical God-like being, both within the same argument.  This renders your argument invalid.

My Personal Take:

To use Christianity as an easy example we can see a set of promises that seem on the face to be outlandish, but I will argue that it does not take faith at all to believe in them. Those promises are eternal life, God's kingdom, God on the throne, heaven,  resurrection, and perfect justice. When you look at every tradition, every empire, every religion, and every worldview they are all attempting to accomplish the same goals. To create healthcare that will keep you alive indefinitely (eternal life), create a one world authority (God's kingdom), to place a good person in the seat of power over that authority (God), to make society a utopia for all (heaven), to bring back our loved ones (resurrection), and to establish fair laws (perfect justice).

As Bel has already noted, while you can find points of similarity among the world's religions, you can also find important points of difference.  As a Hindu, I would disagree with the idea that what you have outlined is true of my beliefs.  I would say that the same holds true of the vast majority of Buddhists, as well.  The two combined comprise 20% of the world population.  In biology there is a common trope that there are those who are lumpers and those who are splitters; lumpers tend to downplay differences while splitters tend to emphasize them, arguing for splits in group taxonomies rather than combination of them.  Whether in any specific question of taxonomy one chooses the position of lumper or splitter is mostly related to facts which are subjective and cannot be objectively resolved.  In your quest to lump all religions under the banner of a universalism you have staked out a position which, while it can be argued, is not an objective fact, but rather a subjective one.  As a subjective fact, essentially opinion, it does not entail any necessary conclusions and thus leads to a situation similar to before where you have established the possibility, but not the actuality.

My Personal Take:Movies, museums, statues, and hologram concerts are all ways we are resurrecting the past. With AI we are now resurrecting historical figures by creating an AI version of them. It is only a matter of time before we are able to use quantum technology to develop an objective version of past events and resurrect with perfect accuracy. Using robots or cloning technology we will eventually bring back the dead. Some people will be brought back to praise like heroes and martyrs, while others brought back to be put on trial like dictators and assassins.

Regarding the attributes of God, that is not the point of this post. However, with technology is it becoming easier and easier to conceive of these possibilities. For example if we eventually programmed Google to know everything, our ability to ask Google questions would make us all-knowing. Simplify the transaction through neural link and it is not far fetched to imagine a future human with their mind having instant access to all the knowledge that exists. The Hebrew word for God is Elohim which is a plural. Believers often think of becoming one with God and being given some sort of authority like a throne. If you see God as a human made entity like a government or corporation rather than a person, you'll better understand how God can do the things that God can do. The Lord on the other hand is the person that has supreme authority within the entity they called God and just like Trump is often conflated with America and America is spoken about like it has human qualities, we understand that America is not a person but made of persons. Trump is the person with the highest authority and what Trump says and does is as if America says and does it.

The main point is that what Christianity and all other religions promise is what all of humanity is already working toward and are just inevitable outcomes. This may seem like an exoneration of religion, but in fact it is the opposite. Religious leaders pervert their own scriptures to keep themselves in power and serve to keep the idea of God in the realm of mystery and unknown to prevent or delay the inevitable outcome. The Church serves to put off those that would attempt to understand and to prevent humanity from realizing that these manifestations are not only ours to decide but they are also our responsibility. By negating that responsibility we delay the inevitability by another generation.

These are not inevitable outcomes.  I'll stipulate for the sake of argument that they are probable outcomes.  However, if they are only probably, they don't necessarily entail a conclusion.  Might implies might not.  And so this is another non sequitur.

My Personal Take:
Just to throw in an unrelated philosophical element to this it is often asked "What came first, the chicken or the egg?". I would contend within the egg is the potential to become a chicken and within the chicken is the potential to lay an egg. One cannot exist without the potential of the other simultaneously existing. Therefore if one exists at all, they both exist. Within humanity is the potential to hatch into God, and within God is the potential to create humanity. To ask what came first applies a chronological order to things and the obvious answer is that the egg came first, buy we all know that eggs come from chickens which creates the conundrum. I contest that the conundrum is from the inability to understand time as an experience and not a constant, which is the "outside of time and space" argument. You may say that the logical is circular, but that is the point. The end is also the beginning.

One can readily conceive of an egg and the chicken not existing simultaneously.  There will always be a point at which what once was an egg ceases to be an egg and is then clearly a chicken and vice versa.  That this boundary is fuzzy and not clearly defined does not imply it does not exist, as that would be an argument rooted in the fallacy of the beard.  Thus one can readily conceive of the egg existing without the chicken ever coming to be (and also vice versa, as a chicken may be created through other means than the natural development of eggs).  So I can conceive of humanity without necessarily concluding that a god is either inevitable, nor that it in some sense necessarily exists because humanity exists.  I think you have let sloppy thinking and lack of rigor lead you down the primrose path.

[Unapologetics]

I randomly took two words from your wall of text: Perfect justice:
Is it perfect justice to punish people for things they have not done?

If it is, should we not adapt perfect justice in our society and start punishing people for things they have not done?

Both of these questions can be answered with yes or no as a foundation for further discussion.

The way I am using perfect is the way it is intended to be used which is "adequate in every way that matters". So when I say a shirt fits perfectly, it does not mean that it is flawless or extraordinary, just adequate in the ways I need it to be a shirt. So the way the word is properly used is that its flaw do not detract from its purpose.

To answer the first question, yes it is common place in every society to punish people for things they haven't done for the reason that they have a responsibility to do them such as taking care of their children or warning someone about a danger on their property. If you meant to punish people for the act of committing a crime but they didn't actually commit that crime, then the answer would be no since that is the definition of injustice.

To answer the second question, yes we should adapt perfect justice in our society, but no we should not do it by implementing a system of injustice.

[Unapologetics]

It could also be argued that unicorns were born out of an idea conceived in the human consciousness and therefore does not exist independent of human intelligence or thought, but this same argument would invalidate the existence of every man-made object which would all arguably continue to exist even if every human being died out.

Incorrect.  If every human being died five seconds from you reading this, mountains and mountains of plastic bottles would still exist, and exist for hundreds of years, too.  It is not actually the case, therefore, that if we discard with gods because they only exist in some humans minds that would mean that we have to disregard the existence of a plastic bottle..which was certainly born of human ingenuity.... but has a demonstrated and independent existence outside of a human mind.   

While it may be true that God was an idea created by humans,

-this would be the whole ballgame.

You took from the portion that was arguing the existence of unicorns and the plastic unicorns will continue to exist if humans did not. The depictions of God, the writings about God, and therefore the idea of God will continue to exist if humans ceased to exist along with the plastic bottles. Even if the universe will eventually destroy the existence and evidence of that existence, the point was that it has the ability to outlast humanity due to the level of existence we have already managed to manifest.

This would not be the whole ballgame since you yourself admitted that plastic bottles do exist and would continue to exist without humans.

[Unapologetics]

We've got several different topics going on here, so let me focus on this one for the time being. (I spent the whole morning chopping weeds and I'm exhausted.) 
I see what you mean, that pretty much every ideology or world-view holds that peace is the goal. And of course it's true that different views will want to achieve this goal in different ways. Some people clearly think that the only way is to genocide one's enemies. Others see international economic standardization as the way -- I think this would be the Francis Fukuyama "end of history" method. 

So, yes, that is the promise. 

Where I am cynical is in how much people really want to achieve that. I think that while some people say they want peace (just as soon as they eliminate everyone unlike themselves) they actually enjoy the fight too much ever to reach an end. We can only speculate on the psychology behind this, but I suspect there is some kind of dopamine rush that people get when they feel they've crushed someone. Given the choice of walking away or picking a fight, a lot of people like the fight. 

Second, I think that while a stated ideology might aim for peace, there can be structural economic institutions that make conflict inevitable. If the Pentagon, arms manufacturers, and other killing-based economies were to be eliminated, the US economy would collapse. Recently some well-informed people are arguing that because the US can no longer compete in manufacturing or tech innovation, it has simply turned into a pirate economy, in which it maintains dominance by stealing natural resources. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nt1CgQsgpI

I suppose we might argue that the goal is peace through crime. But the structure is simply ongoing unashamed violence. 

So I'm agreeing with you that ideologies or religions promise peace in the long run. I'm just too cynical to think that enough people actually want it.

You are cynical about the obstacles, but everything we have achieved in society came from an innate desire to obtain it. There are pockets of peace, prosperity, community, and justice in the world for the simple reason that all humans demand these things. Just because a few very smart people have uncovered the mysteries of psychology or some tech firms have creating amazing technology, does not mean these breakthroughs have been fully implemented and have run their course on the changes they can make for society. Most institutions and industries are resistant to change and it takes generations for proper integration. The amount of breakthroughs that have happened over the past 100 years are only now starting to take root. The explosion of technology is allowing us to implement these changes much faster than previous generations. What is holding us back is that the power structure is actively resisting these changes because of how it is changing the power dynamic away from the few. Human trafficking, the drug problem, the wars, the immigration problem, the lack of literacy in schools, the mental health crisis, all these are manufactured by a church and state that work together to corrode the minds of individuals capable of rising up and demanding change.

Historically power structures that refuse to change must be overthrown, and every power structure that is removed does everything in their power to prevent their removal. This is why revolutions are violent, not because the revolutionaries are bloodthirsty but because the power structure is always murderous in defending itself. Any example of a so-called peaceful revolution took advantage of someone else doing violence against that power structure and striking while the power structure was weak. This is why all the prophesies that envision the rise of the final empire as one of great calamity, since that is the historical pattern of human behavior. Every hundred years or so we have a world war that sets up the next 100 years of world order. World War 1 and 2 were actually the same conflict and were not an exception like most people think. We are now well into a world war and it will continue to get worse until the current power structure collapses. When that happens this generation will have a new opportunity build a better society.

But to tie it back to what I was saying in my original post, if you look at the patterns and structures that humans continue to repeatedly build and you look at their stated goals you can predict where we are eventually headed. Learning to deal with PTSD is a minor issue on that path. The stated goals are important because this becomes the driving factor of the actual individuals implementing the change, not the purpose of the leaders leading the movement. The leaders are always manipulating the people actually doing the work toward change convincing them that the only way to have it is through violence or some such. When the stated goals are not actually achieved from the actions taken, the leaders need a scapegoat to prevent from being eaten by their own. As transparency and education reach a point that the sheep can longer have the wool pulled over their eyes this cycle will break.

[Paleophyte]

I guess I was naive to expect a modicum of sophistication on these forums rather than a bunch of fools itching to prove the stereotypes right.

In what way was crapping all over a community that you just joined likely to encourage civil discourse? But hey, thanks for helping prove those stereotypes right.
To keep matters simple, there is precisely one religion that refers to their god as "God". If you're talking about anything else, then you need to be very specific and very clear, because it looks a great deal like you're championing the existence of the Christian deity. You have been neither. We know where the Christian god comes from and it's a bad joke. If you aren't going to address the archeological evidence on that one then fine, Ugaritic tablets and syncretism aren't everybody's cup of Mocha, but you can say as much without being a festering turd. Kindly take your arrogant righteousness, self-appointed sense of superiority and higher-than-thou insults, fold them until they're all pointy corners, and pound them up your ass.

[Unapologetics]

Bold mine; This is really funny when you consider that from the jump, you have been crying about the responses you have been getting.

You have needled everyone in the initial reply because it's not fitting a narrative you want. You then find Bels, who pretty much just parrots your stuff, and you all but fall in love.

You are more transparent than cellophane, and I again implore you to try the Discord idea.

Thoughts and prayers. RAmen

(Spoiler for brevity)

I merely engaged the bots so the bots could do what bots to best, to engage the algorithms. You have been posting so much you clearly want some attention so I am throwing you a bone here. Usually people in forums like these are well aware of things like projection and confirmation bias, but it is often the case that the Dunning-Kruger effect prevents those same people from noticing their own susceptibility. So if you want to talk about transparency you just have to read everyone's post and you can learn a lot about them.