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God exists

Tetsuo
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Posted 06/17/09 - 06:56 PM:	#11
Incision wrote: I haven't heard about Advocatus Diaboli this year; maybe that's why I missed it. But it's never too late to get into the holiday spirit. First I'll offer a "C-inductive" argument: this is evidence that God exists, even if it isn't conclusive. To do this I just need to show that something is more likely with God than without. It's surprising that our universe exists. That's because there are so many apparently possible universes, and so few that sustain life. If we could determine that one universe was more likely than another, this might not be a problem, but we could only do that by experiencing multiple universes. That's impossible, so we should regard all universes as equally likely. And it's more understandable that the universe exists if God does too. In fact, there isn't any reason for God to create the universe, or any for him not to. If God is that than which no greater can be conceived, then God plus the universe is no greater than God alone, so why would he have any reason to bother? But that's not a problem: an arbitrary decision from God is still more likely than the universe's existing through chance. So things look brighter: life isn't the hand we were dealt; it's the way the coin landed. Second, everything has a cause, so surely the universe does. What could cause the universe? Well, it needs to be outside the universe and intelligent, so it must be something like God. The standard response is to ask, "What caused God?" But I'll be a little bit Mormon and bite the bullet: yes, God has a cause. I'm not sure what it is, but so what? Atheism is still false. First. It doesn't seem like you are referring to the god of the bible which is a good sign. And if you are i would like to ask you this question. Please prove to me all the other religions are false and yours is true. next I would like to ask you this question. Why do you believe something no one has any evidence of?; and if you answer with "I have faith" I will give you a nice quote. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so" -- Mark Twain Unless you answer these questions or render them invalid you will have unsuccessfully persuaded me into believing in god.

Dangerous Curves
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Posted 06/17/09 - 09:46 PM:	#12
Wait, are people still trying to "prove" that God exists with human logic? I just assumed everyone realized that no proof one way or the other would really have any application to a mostly mysterious universe we will never fully understand.
"She carries me through days of apathy. She washes over me. She saved my life in a manner of speaking when she gave me back the power to believe."

Incision
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Posted 06/17/09 - 10:25 PM:	#13
coalclear wrote: Do you mean possible alternate universes? Yes. To determine the probability of our universe's being life-sustaining, I'm imagining a set of ways the universe could have been. Some of these have a probability of zero of sustaining life -- universes that have already died the heat death, say. These and other unlivable universes greatly outnumber the livable. The probability of the universe being livable is equal to the fraction of livable to total universes. TempletonEsquire wrote: If we can observe the universe could we also observe the creator? Yes again. He is larger than and to the left of gravity. Actually, I intend to take no position on God's metaphysics beyond what's stated in or entailed by the OP. However, we can observe the results of his existence, that is, us. coalclear wrote: This [. . .] is ridiculous. I'm sorry you feel that way! Crackers, I appreciate the Nietzsche quote, which seems to have improved since I last read it. I originally intended the "things look brighter" line just as a joke, but isn't it on reflection exhilarating? Don't you ever look at the sky and think, "Damn, we must have lucked out?" Everything might never have happened -- and yet!

coalclear
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Posted 06/17/09 - 10:49 PM:	#14
Incision wrote: I'm sorry you feel that way! Whoa, kinda took that way out of context?. I said "This ultimately implies that this universe is ultimately just a whim for God, which I believe is ridiculous." So you feel sorry I feel this way? You feel better believing that this universe is God's arbitrary whim (which is what you are implying, no?) Am I missing something? CANNOT...COMPUTE....?? Incision wrote: These and other unlivable universes greatly outnumber the livable. Who's to say? Do you really have the credentials to dictate universe spawning/outcome patterns? Dangerous Curves wrote: Wait, are people still trying to "prove" that God exists with human logic? I just assumed everyone realized that no proof one way or the other would really have any application to a mostly mysterious universe we will never fully understand, and even if we do it will still in no way negate the existence/belief in God. fixed
"Submerge yourself into what you love so much that it becomes you." "The universe surrenders to your thoughts of it, that, is the ultimate power."

Aetixintro
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Posted 06/19/09 - 05:16 AM:	#15
I'm with Incision on the matter that to God the creation of the universe may not be anymore a value judgment than to breathe or shake one's pants. I also think that this universe shows a necessary pattern of how every other universe has to be, that God's way of creation is uniform and that there is a 100% chance that life exists in it in some form or other. Necessarily, rules of logic exist in every possible universe and I think the physics also represent a kind of logic in this regard. I think some people are too quick to latch onto the scientific explanation of why we exist. No matter how you see it, it's nonetheless extremely fantastic and that explanations equate one another when it comes to the reason of our existence. The concept of God is therefore not anymore fantastic than anything else.
Efficacy of "for since it is at present manifest to me that even bodies are not properly known by the senses nor by the faculty of imagination, but by the understanding alone" - Descartes, Meditation II I'm always wanting more, Anything I haven't got, Everything, I want it all, I just can't stop - The Cure, Want

markchang444
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Posted 06/20/09 - 05:37 PM:	#16
Incision wrote: I haven't heard about Advocatus Diaboli this year; maybe that's why I missed it. But it's never too late to get into the holiday spirit. The standard response is to ask, "What caused God?" But I'll be a little bit Mormon and bite the bullet: yes, God has a cause. I'm not sure what it is, but so what? Atheism is still false. . This is a very interesting response. (1) everything has a cause (2) the universe has a cause (3) this cause is God If this is the argumment, then the objection that God also has a cause does not seem to challenge any premises. It's just a reminder that if you believe in an eternal God, there might be an inconsistency in your belief. But as long as (1) and (2) are sound, it does follow that Atheism is still false. It seems like you can get away with that objection, haha.

mric
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Posted 06/20/09 - 10:05 PM:	#17
markchang444 wrote: This is a very interesting response. (1) everything has a cause (2) the universe has a cause (3) this cause is God If this is the argumment, then the objection that God also has a cause does not seem to challenge any premises. It's just a reminder that if you believe in an eternal God, there might be an inconsistency in your belief. But as long as (1) and (2) are sound, it does follow that Atheism is still false. It seems like you can get away with that objection, haha. The argument doesn't help you get to (3) in any way. In order to do that, you need premise (1) to say "everything except God has a cause". That modified premise (1) could be challenged on quite a number of fronts.

treysuttle
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Posted 06/20/09 - 10:55 PM:	#18
(1) everything has a cause (2) the universe has a cause Also seems to be consistent with the flying spaghetti monster being the cause of the universe. Seems to me the very idea of a 'cause' presupposes space-time, and space-time presupposes the universe...maybe I'm weird like that..

treysuttle
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Posted 06/20/09 - 11:03 PM:	#19
(1) everything has a cause (2) the universe has a cause (3) this cause is God I think we also have a case here of the fallacy of composition, the birthday fallacy, only game in town fallacy, and reifying the universe. Left unaddressed would be unacceptable for this kind of argument. Edited by treysuttle on 06/20/09 - 11:31 PM

Angra Mainyu
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Posted 06/21/09 - 02:04 AM:	#20
Incision wrote: Yes. To determine the probability of our universe's being life-sustaining, I'm imagining a set of ways the universe could have been. Some of these have a probability of zero of sustaining life -- universes that have already died the heat death, say. These and other unlivable universes greatly outnumber the livable. The probability of the universe being livable is equal to the fraction of livable to total universes. A problem is that we could imagine an infinite set of possible universes (non-denumerable infinite, if you like). I don't mean having exactly those infinite universes in mind, of course, but we can set conditions to distinguish them. So, if you have infinite universes, they can't all have the same non-zero probability (if, say, probability is X, take N such that NX > 1, and then the union of the N universes - i.e., at least one exists - would have probability NX (since the events are disjoint), and so greater than one, which is impossible). So, you would need to pick some distribution function (to determine probabilities). But how do you pick that? Furthermore, it's not clear how you're assessing the event "a universe forms". Are you assuming that there was or is some place where universes do or did form, and then your probability function yields a low probability for our universe? If so, if you make the assumption that there was a place where the conditions for universe formation existed, then you also have to assume the set of universes where you're assigning probabilities - and how do you pick that set? Furthermore, how do you pick the distribution function in question, without any information about that "megaverse", or whatever you call the place where universes do form? And if universes form in that place, why assume that there is only one - exclusiveness does not seem to be preferable as a default position, Occam notwithstanding: for instance, if you have a process for planet formation, and you know that planets formed around the Sun, it wouldn't be a good assumption to assume that there's only one solar system, even if we hadn't detected any extrasolar planets yet (a few decades ago, they hadn't been detected yet).

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