One request is that you define what exactly you mean by "God" when you make your case. 

Otherwise, welcome. 

Contrary to what some christians on here have stated  about me (and  I used to be a very devout christian). I am all for having a civil discussion and genuinely do not have a problem with anyone's beliefs. The only time that you will see hostility from me, is when someone wishes to impose their ideals upon mine.

I am pretty much a live and let live kind of guy.

Like famous Hells Angel Sonny Barger once aptly put it : Treat me good, I'll treat you better. Treat me bad and I'll treat you twice as worse.

Welcome to the forum and I look forward to having a civil conversation with you.

 I like non yelling. I also like discussing.  Welcome to the forum, I look forward to your next post.

Genuine civil discussion is good but I'm still waiting for the OP's evidence for god!

Looking forward to it.

Looks like the Defender has no interesting in defending! He has disappeared like the mythical Jesus!

He only has 1 post on this site anyway so it's not like he's a frequent poster or anything.

Yeah, I would have figured the opie had some idea of what they were going to post before coming here. Maybe just pulling our collective chain, us expecting genuine discussion. Oh well.

@Defender, if you are coming back feel free to start discussion, maybe you were just delayed for some reason?

stand by for a cosmological/anthropic/morality omelette, perhaps with a side order of empiricism's 'inability' to 'prove' itself empirically. I hear the inevitable train of motivated reasoning whistling in the distance. 

Yes and in over 2,000 years Christians have failed to deliver that evidence so I'm not holding my breath!

We would love to have more, not only Christians, but believers of all labels here. Now despite what you might think, you really do not have to even worry about us even if you do not post in this library section.

We are all the same species, all 7 billion of us. In dealing with us, even in this section, remember that there is a huge difference between a person, and what a person might claim on  any given subject. We can like a person without liking a claim they may make. All of us here have family, friends and co-workers who have a degree of some sort of belief.

You have chosen the library here to post. But if you post outside it expect it to be much rougher on your claims than here, not that this section will be a cake walk either. Treat us all as individuals, and always remember when we are responding to you, we are responding to a claim, so do not take it personally.

If you do that, you should be able to enjoy your time here. Welcome.

You'd think you'd have something partly prepared if you were to start a thread.

Maybe s/he's just ratcheting up the anticipation.

There is always the possibility that the OP found the site while intoxicated, felt the need to post, recognised he/she was in no condition to write an argument, and forgot the whole thing the next day.

Not that I'm saying that's what happened, but it is a plausible explanation.

I'll send him/her a reminder email.  

To the OP, be warned that Jean here started a thread blaming the Japanese Tsunami, not on the Japanese, but on America as a warning to find his God. Yep, on a planet of 7 billion, Jean here magically found a Bat phone to God and God told him hostage taking was good public PR to gain converts.

But I will give Jean credit, Thomas Aquinas and Craig are bad arguments. But I would add that anything that starts with a naked assertion is a bad argument, be it claims of Allah or Thor or Vishnu, despite the degrees of such claimants.

Sorry, everybody! I'm working pretty hard to make ends meet right now :s

Okay, so first let me define what this is:This post is why I believe in the existence of a god, not why I believe in the God of the Bible necessarily. That may come later. Its also a bit rushed, so sorry if something isnt clear yet.

So it all boils down into four main arguments, I'm sure most of you have heard them at some point, and would like input. If I can, I would like to post each separately, giving me time to hear feedback. So here we go, reason 1:

1) First Cause - origin of everything

So the basic idea behind this premise, is that for everything that exists in this universe (time, space, matter, force et.al.) is subject to the law of causality. That is, everything is caused by something prior in the chain of events that make up our universe. But of course that begs the question - what is the First Cause?

Some believe that the universe is eternal, and never began at all. This is called the steady state theory. But scientific evidence strongly points to a universal origin - a central point from which matter began suddenly. This is of course, the Big Bang theory. 

Proponents of the steady state theory also generally believe that hydrogen atoms are being produced from nothing. This, to me, is less logical than believing the universe was created by a god, which is at the very least something.

Science, however, can only go as far as our universe will allow. We cannot look beyond that first moment of creation, since nothing we can detect existed before the universe did. Philosophically, however, we can.

In philosophy, we find that it is impossible to move linearly through an infinite time continuum. Unlike a mathematical line, which is dimensionless and imaginary, time is 3 dimensional and very real, and it passes at a normal, quatifiable rate. Put simply, you can't finish or start an infinite serries of real things without a point of origin. Therefore, since time is a real, experiential, quatifiable thing, it must have an origin.

Put in a slightly different way: 1) Finite, changing things exist     2)Every finite, changing thing must be caused by something else (even if its randomly done)    3)There cannot be an infinite chain of regression      4)Therefore, there must be a first cause of every finite, changing thing that is itself, unchanging. 

Now the question becomes: What is the unchanging thing? It isnt a far step to label that unchanging thing as a god. And please dont say things like "well how do you know we werent sneezed into existence by the Great Green Arkelseizure" I will get to that later. I know the argument from necessity isnt proving that God exists, but it is putting into light that something other than this universe does.

I'm sorry, I will post more soon, but I have a job interview tomorrow! w00t!

Defender, COME ON dude! That is not even remotely evidence!

Just because everything has an origin has NOTHING to do with your mythical Jesus!  There are stories of thousands of different gods throught history so all those stories about their origins are true right?

The Judeo-Christian myth is just another another fable to explain the inexplicable! Simply because all things have an origin you are using it to MAKE UP a story of the god you want to believe in just like how so many cultures on earth have their own gods!

Hey Brian,

Or the naked assertion that God doesn't exist and the university assertion that there are no absolutely, all is relative.
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Some content in this post was deleted for slinging ad hominems in the kill 'em with kindness forum, where such behaviour is not tolerated.
~Vastet

Good luck with the job interview .  I hope you get it.

I'm guessing you're defining the post, not god, because you haven't told us what you believe in.

Ironic that you should use the phrase "begs the question".  I wonder if you're familiar with the logical fallacy called question begging.  

Where to begin... You're paraphrasing the (in)famous Kalam's Cosmological Argument (KCA henceforth).  It goes a little something like this:

p1. Everything that began to exist, has a cause.

p2. The universe began to exist.

c.    The universe has a cause. (the implication is that THE CAUSE is god)

This argument has been shown to be unsound and invalid.  Here, read this link to save me a whole lot of typing:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/32492

No, you are wrong.  Science can use deductive reasoning regarding a system to extrapolate prior states, even if such states are not observable.  That's how science works actually.  Philosophy and Science are not so different in the sense that they are governed by logic.  If science "breaks down" logic "breaks down" and so does philosophy.  

I'm not sure what you mean by philosophically being unable to move linearly through an infinite time continuum... You mean that we cannot philosophically discuss infinity? Represent infinity on an axis? Then what are we doing trying to philosophically prove the existence of an infinite being?

Time is not 3 dimensional... time is a dimension, the universe gets older in the forward direction of time, and younger in the reverse direction.  Just as you move up and down, left and right, or back and forth through the other three dimension.  What you said makes no sense. 

I'm not sure if you've read up on time since the 17th century, but time is relative.  It most definitely does not pass at a "normal" rate, there is no such thing.  The last portion of that is a non sequitur.  You can't finish or start an infinite series of real things WITH or WITHOUT a point of origin.  It's sort of the definition of infinite.  And the conclusion is just... I'm going to say non sequitur.

This is a fragmented collection of arguments that do not flow.  It has the smell of KCA but it's nowhere nearly as coherent.  Let's see:

1) Finite, changing things exist. - Ok, I'll give you this, so what?

2) Every finite, changing thing must be cause by something else.  - No, virtual particles appear and disappear as a property of the quantum foam.

3) There cannot be an infinite chain of regression. - hmmm, the only answer to this statement is that it is a very poorly defined concept.  

4) Therefore, there must be a first cause of every finite, changing thing that is itself unchanging.  Well, again, it is a poorly defined concept, and it is a non sequitur.  But even for the sake of the argument, Ocham's razor would lead you to hypothesise a minimal amount of assumptions.  So I say that the quantum foam is unchanging and eternal... what's your solution?

Meh, you have to first define god in order to propose it as an alternative.  If you do not define it, you may as well tell us that !@#KJLKUF#$ created the universe.  Can you be a little more specific?

Jean, there are no absolute truths. I'll bite.  If you disagree, please start a different forum topic and I will show you why the concept of absolute truth is self contradictory and therefore non existent.  As far as we know, everything is relative.  And also, as far as we know God does not exist. 

Let's concentrate on absolute truths

Well I am going to answer simply with 2 problems with the unchanging cause.....if it's a unchanging how can it do anything, it doesn't change it is static. Second, we have no evidence whatsoever that an unchanging mover has to be the first cause at all. A quantum flux, or a quantum gravity loop could be the cause, as the idea in physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just change states, very much all we need is a change of state for the big bang to occur which a quantum flux or a quantum gravity loop could cause, and we don't need to call this god.....and then worship or pray to it.

I'm afraid you're wrong - you have defined theoretical science, not concrete science. Unobservable states are untestable, and therefore cannot be proven scientifically. And as for the relationship between Science and Logic, they are not equal - Logic rules over science. Scientific ideas change, logic does not. Logic is a philosophical discipline, not a scientific one.  But the fact is, that logic precedes, and supercedes science.  Logic is not tied to a physical entity like science, and will apply even when the physical is not present.

I misspoke when I said 3 dimensional - time is obviously a 4th dimension. When I said unable to move through infinity, I meant that logically one cannot. One can represent infinity mathematically, but since time is quantifiably moving it logically cannot have an eternity past, or we could not have gotten to this point in time. This applies to whatever rate time is passing, whatever is "normal" for the observer. Just because you see me as 17th century doesnt mean you have to throw logic out. For example Pi is an infinite series, and it indeed does have a starting point, along with real, quantifiable points along the way.

I must say first, that quantum foam is just a theory, mainly because quantum gravity is still being explored. I believe what you are referring to is a "Virtual Particle." In the example of a magnetic field line, virtual particles explain force interaction between poles. And there is most definitely a cause of magnetic, and all other, virtual interactions. The why it operates as it does, however, is still unknown. But we can predictably cause and observe such interactions - meaning we can CAUSE them.

As for infinite regression, I mean an infinite regression of causes. There cannot logically exist such a causal chain.

I dont know what you mean by saying a theory like quantum foam is unchanging and eternal. Even so, as I understand it, quantum foam requires space to exist - which doesn't exist outside the universe (which i said was a collection of time, space, matter, force, etc)

And as for defining God, I havent yet. I'm just laying one brick, as it were.

Forgive me for not responding to your entire post as you were responding to someone else.  This part I have to comment on.

Logic is not unchanging.  You may verify this by viewing some of the pages at Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia - http://plato.stanford.edu/  There you will note that some philosophers of previous ages are no longer believed to have valid arguments.  I particularly refer to the section on the Ontological Argument for god.  Please note the numerous criticisms of this argument and the numerous attempts at revision of said argument.

The scientific method has not changed in over a century.  Science is a process, not a fact.  And the process is pretty stable as people have worked it out to provide the most accurate, testable, verifiable, and repeatable experimentation methods.  It is true that theories change as facts are discovered through experimentation.  That does NOT mean logic rules over science, it means that we learn and we grow in knowledge.  Logic did not give you the computer to type on or the internet to browse.  Logic did not give you potable drinking water or sewer systems.  I would rather have the technology that the scientific method has brought us rather than some musty philosophy.

I give you David Hume, on metaphysics:

Actually you wrote 

So, you are wrong, because theoretical science is still science.  If you are going to use vague definitions for your terms and move the goal posts to claim victory... it makes for cute sophistry, but don't expect anyone to sympathize.  Science and logic are not equal, they're not even in the same category.  Logic is a tool to allow for science/mathematics/philosophy/computer science/criminal science to work.  It is a tool, not a freaking god like unchanging entity.  It's a subjective set of rules that has been setup as a general consensus.  It is not an absolute, Logic did not exist prior to human kind.  Nature doesn't care about the law of identity.  Logic means shit unless you have a subjective observer to make an observation.  

I'm not sure you understand your perspective.  Time is an extremely poorly understood phenomena.  What do you mean you're unable to move through infinity logically? mathematics uses logic, and has the ability to represent infinity.  I think you are making some serious category errors here.  You're talking apples, oranges, peaches and grapes.  

I've presented quantum foam as a possible explanation, we're not at the point where my beliefs matter.  Ok, so the fabric of space-time is eternal... take your pick.  Regardless of how poor an explanation it is, it is infinitely more plausible then an undefined concept such as god.

If material doesn't work that way, then how did it come into existence at all? Logically, matter must have been created somehow - by something. Even if a god wasnt involved, then by your definition it must have been spiritually created.