LovePeaceHappiness and I were having a debate about the atonement and he tried to support this by using arguments that assume that God already exists. When I confronted him with this he suggested I make a new thread about this topic, so here it is. The purpose of this thread is to use logic and reason to try to determine whether God exists, or at least find out whether it is likely that God exists.
I am defining God to be the Judeo-Christian God. There is no reason to say God exists any more than there is to say that unicorns exist because there is no evidence of God. This is a very common argument and is very persuasive.
I will assume we are discussing the objective existence of a god, and refrain from strolling down subjective lane, as tht only leads to 'everyone is right, for themselves' sort of conclusions.
Right, well as i see it, 2 aspects of god need to be proven, that is the deistic and theistic aspect. The former arguing that there was some divine initial creator, and the latter regarding his active involvement in the world, interventions, miracles, prayer answering and the like.
For the first point, creation, beginning, is a difficult and thought provoking idea, but i cant help but agree with the logic that having a god as a creator is no more informative or explanatory that just saying the universe just became. It poses the question of who created god, and an infinite regression is clearly set up.
Secondly, if we do think there was an intelligent god behind creation, its some design isnt it? Vast space and nothingness, littered with dead planets, annihilating stars, with life supported on at least one planet, on some of its surface some of the time.
A universe, that from all evidence is necissarily doomed, especially for life on earth, with the death of our sun, the collision with the Andromeda galaxy, the universal heat death. What 'sane' or competent designer did this?
If you say god is behind everything, what would a universe devoid of divine creation look like? I would think exactly like ours does!
As for his involvement and care in life, well im not sure where to begin.
For at least 100 000 years humanity as a species walked this earth, in total fear and struggle. Natural disasters, disease, a life expectancy of 25, with say a 50% death at childbirth. And for 98000 years heaven stood by and watched.
2000 years ago, decids it need to intervene, how you might ask? Present to the illiterate bronze age middle east, and have a human sacrifice.
I mean there are countless examples that make the idea of a caring, watching god very unlikely, or at least erratic in his approach!