Five proofs for God
Offline (1) It is impossible for a finite being to be the net effect of an infinite regress of prior causes and effects, as that would be the equivalent of saying that I could possibly give you a dollar after I flick the light switch an infinite amount of times, where in fact you would never get to the dollar if that were the case. Therefore, it is necessary that there be one being that is infinite and uncreated. That being we call "God".
(2) Logical absolutes are concepts which require a mind to account for them. These are the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, and the law of non-contradiction. These concepts are transcendent, in that they are a priori and cannot be falsified empirically insofar that if you were to travel a million miles one way and a million miles the other way, they would still hold true. These laws are the grounds for understanding, language, and any other forms of logic in the fields of philosophy or quantum physics (including trivalent logic, which falsely proposes that the law of excluded middle is disproved). Logical absolutes cannot be dependent on human minds, because human minds are different and what one person believes is logical may not be what someone else believes is logical and it is quite clear that you could conceive of possible worlds where no human beings exist and the laws of logic would still apply. Yet you would not be able to escape the fact that the laws of logic require a mind (because truth and concepts exist in a mind) and could not avoid the presupposition that there is a mind. And if you have only two possibilities to account for something and the other is falsified, then the other is validated by default. Therefore, since logical absolutes cannot be accounted for if God does not exist, then clearly God does exist as the logical absolutes are concepts grounded on a divine intellect.
(3) Moral absolutes are also transcendent and require a mind to account for them. Natural scientists cannot look under rocks and find moral absolutes. And yet we assume that there is a framework of right and wrong in humanity. Moral absolutes cannot be dependent on human minds for the same reason that logical absolutes cannot be dependent on human minds: Human minds are different and what I think is moral may not be what you believe is moral. And you would have no basis for falsifying my morality. Morals are ends in themselves and if they are for any utilitarian reasons, then they have no moral worth and true morality does not exist. For if morality is dictated by utility, then something which is immoral at one time period could be immoral at another time period. Moreover, morality would be contingent rather than necessary and transcendent. Therefore, if God does not exist, then everything would be permitted. Yet I would grant that no sane person could possibly believe that everything is permitted. Therefore, the existence of morality proves that there must be an infinite mind through which the moral concepts are.
(4) It is well documented by historians that Jesus Christ was a real human being. His existence is confirmed in the writings of Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Julius Africanus, Talmud, Lucian of Samosota, Mera Bar-Serapion.. and most importantly, Matthew, John, and Luke. Moreover, it is well documented that there were MANY eye witnesses who claim to have seen Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and all of these people were willing to suffer prolonged torture and death for what they knew they had witnessed. People will not die for what they know is not true, but they will die for what they believe to be true. These people knew what they saw. That is enough to convince me that the resurrection really happened. The Christian martyrs either saw Christ after his death or they did not. If they did not, then why would they be willing to die for a lie? Could they all have been mentally ill? We are talking about THOUSANDS of people here. This was enough to convince PAUL, who was a violent persecutor of the Church.
(5) In "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking points out that the universe has to be EXACTLY how it is and if it is even an infinitesimal amount different, then we would have no universe. The mass of the proton, the mass of the electron, gravitation force, etc. has to maintain the EXACT values that it does in order for the universe to be what it is. The universe is clearly finely tuned. If there is no divine intellect, then the universe would be the result of natural devices which are completely void of any intent, since intent only exists in minds. To believe this is absurd. That would be like assuming that winds could write "Hello, how are you?" in the sand on the beach.
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I am not a mythicist, but there are some problems here. The Josephus account is an obvious forgery:
Josephus was not a Christian, so this account really isn't reliable. Jospehus does mention Jesus in a passage about his brother James, but really gives no information about Jesus.
The Mara Bar-Serpion doesn't explicitly reference Jesus. There were many Jews who were executed at that time during the Jewish Revolt in Judea (70-73 CE).
Julius Africanus was too late in the 2nd - 3rd Centuries to be reliable. Also, the Babylonian Talmud wasn't finished until the late 5th Century CE. Thus it is also not reliable.
Furthermore, you wrote about Mark, Matthew, Luke and John as the authors of the gospels. In fact, we don't know who wrote them. Later Christians added the titles. Additionally, Mark wasn't written until 66-70 CE. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, and thus were probably written in the 80's CE. John was written around 100 CE due to its strong emphasis on the Incarnation that is not found in Matthew, Mark or Luke. I'm not saying that the Gospels can't be used to prove that Jesus existed at the very least. However, they cannot be seen as eye-witness sources.
Finally, although martyrdom does not signify the truth of an event or a person's existence. People are killed for lots of causes. Martyrdom exists in Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic history (just to name a few).
I essentially base my arguments against mythicism on Tacitus and Paul (since Tacitus hated Christians and Paul knew personally many of the dsiciples).
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
The notion that Tacitus is a copyist assertion is complete speculation here. Tacitus hated Christians. It's clear from his writings. That's why his passage on Jesus is reliable.
And why does it matter if Eusebius, Augustine or Tertullian mentioned Tacitus? Tertullian didn't care about reading anythign other than the Bible. So we shouldn't be suprised that he doesn't use Tacitus. Augustine was concerned with disproving paganism (hey Ciarin, you shoudl read The City of God sometime!) so he used Seneca due to Seneca's harsh criticism of paganism. And Eusebius probably just never got his hands on the Tacitus passage. That shouldn't suprise, because he lived from the late 3rd - early fourth centuries.
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
So how do we leap from Tacitus talking about some guy claiming to be Christ and having followers who took his name to this guy being the Christ of the Bible?
It's not like the Christ claim was unique...
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Is the OP coming back ? Dam I hale when Christians simply walk away , that’s why I like face to face conversations with them in real life ! I can always stun them with my nick questions like “prove logically that logic is true” that’s stuns them always and they don’t know how to answer. PS: Isn’t this a copy pasta from a transcendental argument from god from some apologist wayside ? I remember hiring something like this on the atheist experience ( TV show hosted by atheists talking with theists ).Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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Probably not as this was our buddy Matt Shizzle come back to play and screw with us.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
He hates us so much he can't bear to be apart from us.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
My point was to be skeptical of such claim that Tacitus knew jack about Jesus. If Tacitus really wrote of Jesus not just Christians being blamed for the Rome fire, all of the later Christian fathers would have utilized it to show that Jesus Christ was believed to be real even by Romans. It adds skepticism to the mix which since pagan scribes weren't the ones preserving the writing one should question. It may be all is true and there was a rebel leader named Jesus that was executed for his rebellion against the Roman occupiers of Judea, but I'd like to see the execution order or something to establish this was not just another ancient legend.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
HMM I’m not a regular member however I remember that Matt got banded can someone enlighten me why he got this privilege ?Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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You need to read the Tacitus account. He also wrote that Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate in Judea. Asking for the execution order is somewhat ridiculous. The Romans crucified so many people. You can't hope to find the execution order of a random Jew in Jerusalem. However, it is possible that Tacitus was relying on some kind of source from Judea in his text about Jesus.
I'm not trying to prove that Jesus was the Son of God, Messiah, or what not. I just think that the man probably existed and was probably killed by crucifixion, and thus sparked the Christian religion.
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
http://www.rationalresponders.com/matt_shizzle
Personally, I think there were many guys named Yeshua crucified by the Romans. I also believe it possible that a good number of those guys claimed to be Messiah and built up a following. Any of them could have been a figurehead for Christianity after Paul laid the groundwork.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
So this is a personal belief? Show me some evidence to back up this random speculation.
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
Your conclusion does not necessarily follow. You might get away with saying that some (singular?) source for causal phenomena exists; however, I'm not sure if your logic neccesitates a "being". Furthermore, you assume that this source or being has to be what "we" call God. That indeed is not deductive and quite a convenient and irresponsible step in logic ( I assume you were pretending to be deductive). There is no reason to project, based on your argument, notions of "God" in the myriad ways humans conceive it onto a undeliably mysterious thing. Your argument is too hasty and offers no substantial intellectual challenge.
This is question begging. This argument slips the "proof" in while you're not looking by assuming that the terminus of the regression is an intelligent entity without providing any indication of why this is, or even should be (not that logic is overly concerned with "should" ) .
To be is to be something specific. To be something specific is to possess certain capabilities and limitations, as opposed to being something else with other capabilities and limitations. The laws of logic follow naturally from the axiom that existence is. The laws of logic don't need a mind to be true any more than existence needs a mind to be true.
This is a mess of fallacies. To start with, we return to our friend question begging, in assuming that there are moral absolutes. Second, we see the introduction of the excluded middle, in assuming that either (your brand of) God exists to justify morality or we must live in an anarchic, unruly society without regard for our fellow beings. Humans prefer being happy to being unhappy, humans tend to lash out at what makes them unhappy, and humans are made unhappy by being punched in the face by other unhappy people. Add water, simmer for 100,000 years, serves innumerable civilizations.
Argument from authority, argument from popularity. If you don't understand why "But all these GREAT AND RESPECTED PEOPLE BELIEVE IT!" makes for a lousy logical argument, you should consider more introspection as a hobby choice. Present an argument rather than a list of people.
Weak anthropic principle. We developed in a universe with certain characteristics. This is evidence only of a universe with certain characteristics and our existence in it, not that the universe is precisely planned to support our existence. Why? Because if the universe were otherwise, we wouldn't be here.
These are pretty old hat arguments. Howsabout you chew on this one:
1) The probability of the existence of any entity can be calculated.
2) The probability of any entity's existence is inversely related to its complexity.
3) God is commonly defined as an entity possessing one or more infinite attributes (ie, knowledge, power, love or goodness without limits).
4) Any infinite attribute is necessarily infinitely complex
5) Therefore, God is infinitely complex.
6) Therefore, God is infinitely improbable.
7) Therefore, God does not exist.
Religion is a virus.
Fight the infection.
And that kind of self centered thinking on humanity's part has caused in the past couple centuries, because of the industrial age and explosion of city and suburban population, has caused the extinction of countless species and endanger countless more today.
You make the mistake of assuming morality is magically handed down to you, but in reality it is just a product of evolution, otherwise that lion you speak of wouldn't care about it's pride or where it fits in in it's own social structure within that pride.
That lion kills to eat and so do humans. Animals are not robots and DO have thoughts and emotions, and every time I see my dog having a dream moving it's legs as if it is running, confirms that.
AND if my dog was not capable of belief, then why would it have feelings of abandonment if it didn't falsely believe I was never comming back when I went on vacation?
Morality is not unique to humans and is a product of biological evolution and there is no magic needed to explain that.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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As it is my conjecture, it has exactly the same evidence as your conjecture - none. The only difference between your belief and mine is I didn't have to borrow mine from people who were trying to sell a god concept or stretch another's writings to make them evidence for my pre-made conclusion.
As for evidence that Paul laid the groundwork for Christianity, the bulk of his writings predate the Gospels by at leadt a decade and a half if you go by commonly accepted scholarly dating (as yet, I see no reason not to).
I think the main difference between you and me is that you're betting everything on a hope that you're sucking up to the correct God figure and I'm not.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
I apologize that I have not read the entire thread. This is a response only to the original post.
It seems to me that you are tying yourself into knots with these proofs and trying to overwhelm us with jargon when plain speech would do just as well. If we need to take a college level course in philosophy just to understand why you think there is a God, then both God and you aren't doing a very good job of communicating.
The only other thing I would like you to consider is this...just because you can't imagine something doesn't mean that it can't happen.
What I mean by that is, just because it is unimaginable to the human brain that the universe may have sprung from nothing without a creator doesn't mean that it can't happen. It is the height of egocentricity to assume that our little blobs of gray matter can fathom the universe. What seems to us to be monumentally complex might in fact be incredibly simple. We are not as smart as we'd like to think we are.
Watch "Freedom From Religion" web documentary series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBp5N-F4mJw
You'll wish you had read the last page, at least. The thread is started by an atheist, Matt Shizzle, who has been banned from the site. He comes back so often under aliases to disrupt and annoy.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Yep, I wish I had read the last page. What? Matt got banned? Who's going to provide my daily recommended dosage of the same two cat macros over and over and over again?
Religion is a virus.
Fight the infection.
So this whole "proof" of God thing was a troll hoax?
Watch "Freedom From Religion" web documentary series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBp5N-F4mJw
Actually I have read the Tacitus account and it is 3rd or 4th or 5th or 10th hand info he wrote about. So Pilate existed and killed Jews for rebellion. Some Jews were called Jesus or Yeshua. One such Jew was Jesus son of Ananias who preached Jerusalem was soon to be destroyed. The Romans decided he was a madman so didn't execute him.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_ben_Ananias
Or for more read Josephus' account RE: destruction of Jerusalem.
I make the smart ass comment about an execution order because I'm aware of the number of executed rebellious Jews in the 1st century. I personally have no clue if Jesus of the Gospels is any more real than Robin Hood, though I give Robin a few more points towards reality than Jesus.
____________________________________________________________
"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Thank you for the response.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
Actually, the argument does nothing of the sort. If you look at it closely, nowhere does the word "intelligent" appear. One thing that you must understand is that proving that there is a God is not done in a single instance. It is based on mounting evidence which is why the OP gave five proofs. The cosmological argument by itself does not prove the validity of the theist position. But put it together with everything else, with a dose of personal experience, and you have a plethora of riches at your disposal which point to the existence of a divine intellect.
"To be is to be something specific." Yes, something is what it is and is not what it is not. That is the law of identity. Not clear why you are pointing that out. The comment about "capabilities and limitations" is ambiguous and really adds nothing to your point. "Existence is"? That is a non-sequitur. Existence is not a thing that exists. That is practically unintelligible.
Also notice that you completely misrepresent the position. The TAG argument does not propose that in order for the logical absolutes to be true, there must be a mind. A mind is not required merely to affect the truth value of logical principles. A mind is required to account for the logical principles themselves. Logical principles are concepts and concepts cannot exist without a mind.
"Complexity" is a relative term. By what stick are you measuring "complex"? Perhaps it is not so much that things are complex, but that our minds are not developed enough to comprehend them in a simple way. At what point does something transition from being simple to complex anyway? I could continue adding parts to a machine until the end of my life. At what point did the machine stop being simple and start being complex?
Skipped a few pages?
This thread was a troll attempt by an ex-member (and it was pretty effective, too) who had a ball making fun of theist arguments *and* the members of this site.
The fact that we're still discussing it means, to a degree, that the joke's on all of us.
Or we don't really give a shit and we've got nothing better to do.
ciarin.com
I just want to add that the theist position is, in fact, that God is simple. Since he is spirit, he is neither divisible nor composite. This isn't even something that Christians invented. Aristotle talked about the unmoved mover as being pure form and no matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity
Good point.
I know for a fact that the OP is not MattShizzle because I am the OP and I am not MattShizzle.
LOL
O nice let me repeat my question to this because you seam to be oblivious how logic works or is proven. Prove logically that logic is true. I’m serious try to do this without getting into a logical fallacy .Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
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