For those of you looking for absolute proof that God exists....

[sondadareas]

Hi to all!


You guys are wasting your time on peripheral issues!

Why don't you stop for a moment & ask how the following entities 'know' & 'acquire' 'facts' about the world or their environment:

1. a single-celled amoeba

2. An E.T. who's ahead of us in evolution for 5 billion years.

3. Helen Keller, who learned about the world only through her fingers, because she was blind & deaf.

4. Your pet dog & cat.

5. Your desktop PC.
I strongly recommend this one because this is the easiest! Besides, robots' 'brains' have exactly the same architecture.

Peace,
sondadareas

 

[Named]

Love has to contain 100% free will

It is because everyone has this moral law written on their heart....by God!

Hang on.. If God is going about writing laws on my heart, would this not influence my '100% free will'?
Correct me if i'm wrong, but I would say writing secret codes affecting ones conception of something as universal as 'good and bad' is somewhat a violation of PURE free will.

Yes, we have the choice to move where we'd like, but that does little to shake the restraints of our pathes in life.
Option A = win
The rest = Hell.

Cool, what to do, what to do!
"You've won a $10 000 shopping spree in Electronics Boutique!"
"Wo-"
"But you may choose only from THIS ONE GAME!"

Awesome. Awesome to the max.

A mouse in a cage controls his own movement... Is he free?

 

[rivenrock]

You appear to be all over the map in your posts. Are you saying that God exists, and the proof is the Bible? I am an Agnostic, and I have to say that your assertion that God is with us in the form of prayer and personal revelation is disquieting, at best.

This is a very old topic, but I'm just coming back to the forums after a long time away and just catching up on these answers to some posts I wrote. Some of them I really wanted to respond to, and I hope the authors are still around.

When discussing a point of religion that pertains to a particular faith, I try to answer on the premise that that faith's doctrine etc are a given. Then I can focus on the point at hand rather than constantly taking everything back to such a big picture that no point can usefully be discussed. The person I was quoting was clearly a Christian (had said they love God and Jesus Christ in their post, etc) and (as I am a Christian) I answered them from our common ground as believers.

If you are an agnostic clearly you don't think as we do, but it is useful to suspend disbelief for the sake of argument. If I choose to comment on a point in a Muslim's post, it serve nothing to respond, "well I'm a Christian, so can you please give me a sound logical argument for every basic premise of your faith before I deign to consider the point you've made." Which is basically what you have done.

I also didn't say that the Bible is evidence that God exists. I said (to a Christian) that the scriptures are one form of guidance from God.

I'll take three stabs at this one:
1) He can fix the world with a simple snap of the fingers, if He exists and so chooses.
2) We have clearly demonstrated that we are INcapable of "fixing" the world (in any interpretation that you choose to assign that statement).
3) As a clear sign to the Agnostics and Atheists that we are on the wrong path.

1. IF this life IS a test, what purpose would that serve?
2. We have not demonstrated that we are INCAPABLE of fixing the world, only that we are UNWILLING to fix it.
3. Okay I'm sure this won't sit well with the 'believe and you are saved, don't and go to hell' crowd, but I don't personally believe that what you believe is as important as how you live according to your current understanding of right and wrong. Believers can commit terrible, hypocritical acts, and non-believers can do marvellous good in the world and I don't think God ignores that. (I'm more of the 'faith without works is dead' school of thought.)

This goes right back to the Riddle of Epicurus that Deut has posted http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7655&highlight=Riddle+Epicurus. If God does not see the death, pain and suffering of innocent lives (including children) such as that caused by the Tsunami as a tragedy, why in the world would you call Him God and choose to worship Him?

Because death, pain and suffering caused by natural phenomena are a fact of a mortal life. And because God doesn't remove all pain and suffering doesn't mean he isn't compassionate. Parents go through this all the time - watching their children suffer the normal trials of life and knowing that if they jump in and "fix" everything they will not give that child the chance to learn and develop. Doesn't mean they aren't aching for that child. Just as we can look from the other side of puberty and know that a teenager is going to come through okay with time, God's perspective is wider than ours.

I believe that God sees as tragic the death, suffering and pain caused by human action - rather than the tsunami, those who, in the wake of the tsunami, could have rendered help and chose not to do so. And those who every day choose to hurt, cheat, neglect, exploit other people. If we didn't do that, if we supported each other instead of tearing each other down, if we were fair to each other and people didn't have to already deal with injustice and inhumanity from other people, then the suffering of normal life - the sickness, natural disaster, etc would be so much easier to deal with - even the hardest things in life (eg, death of a child) can be coped with, if you have support, empathy, and the help of those who've been there before you.

 

[rivenrock]

I believe that there are eternal principles of right and wrong that God chooses to adhere to. This is not about higher authority per se, but about things that simply are true. I believe that God understands those principles and abides by them.

That's nice. Do you have any reasons for such a belief?

Why yes, I do. If God is the author of 'right' or 'good' then anything God deems right IS right. It could change daily, it could jibe against our every sense of justice, it could (in other words) be completely arbitrary, and it would still be 'right'. This makes no logical sense to me. If right and wrong have no absolutes then (to me) they also have no meaning and provide no impetus to 'do right'.

This doesn't discount the notion of relative right and wrong. For example, what is wrong in one situation (stabbing someone) can be right in another (a surgeon cutting someone open to operate), but both might relate to an overarching principle, like "life is precious and should be respected"). [Please don't bother to pull that principle apart - I'm not claiming it as an eternal truth, just giving an example of how absolute truth and relative truth can co-exist.]

 

[rivenrock]

I don't want a God who is so powerful that he can do arbitrarily do evil and call it right. I don't think any God should be more powerful than truth.

I am not mocking you, rivenrock, only asking the obvious question -
Do your wants and thoughts on the attributes of God somehow change His nature or powers?

Thanks, I should have said simply that I do not believe that God is (or should be) more powerful than truth. Perhaps if I had worded it more like you did...

If I am to believe in and worship a God, he will need to be both compassionate and just.

 

[Tiberius]

You will never get that, because God is not allowed to give it.

God is love
Love has to contain 100% free will

If you had a child, you could very easily lock him in the basement for his whole life to "keep him safe". But would this be love? Of course not! God must give you just enough info that if you want to, you can find him, but not enough as to take away your free will to reject him.

Okay, first of all, how can God be not allowed to do something?

Secondly, surely God (being all powerful and able to do anything) would be able to show to us proof he exists without violating our 100% free will.

 

[Nanda]

I find it very interesting whenever the parent/child comparison is made when discussing the Christian god, especially since it is that very comparison that makes this god intolerable to some of us. As a parent, I love my child unconditionally, and there is nothing, I repeat, nothing he could ever do in this life that would change that. I've been told it's the same with God, but I find it odd then, that this all-loving god would allow his "wayward children" to be tormented in hell for all eternity, based on mistakes that they made in their relatively brief span on earth. As my young son gets older, he is going to rebel, I know this, and it may anger and hurt me, and he may need to be punished occassionally, but nothing he could ever do would make me torture my own child for all eternity (assuming I were capable of such a thing.) And my love for my child is supposed to pale in comparison for this god's love for humanity. I've been told that I can't hold God to the same standard as a human mother, but at the very least, this seems like bad parenting to me.

 

[Papersock]

I agree that we will never have proof that god exists, but not for the reason given in th OP.
I don't see how not showing itself has anything to do with free will. A parent doesn't refuse to show that it is there to love and care for the child.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

This conclusion that God has to give you free-will clashes with an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent creator.

Such a being doesn't "have" to do anything, in fact it can be a complete and utter contradiction of itself.

So Even if God was Love, the vast amount of power that God has would mean that God doesn't have to do anything.

 

[Freelance_Policeman]

Why yes, I do. If God is the author of 'right' or 'good' then anything God deems right IS right. It could change daily, it could jibe against our every sense of justice, it could (in other words) be completely arbitrary, and it would still be 'right'. This makes no logical sense to me. If right and wrong have no absolutes then (to me) they also have no meaning and provide no impetus to 'do right'.

This doesn't discount the notion of relative right and wrong. For example, what is wrong in one situation (stabbing someone) can be right in another (a surgeon cutting someone open to operate), but both might relate to an overarching principle, like "life is precious and should be respected"). [Please don't bother to pull that principle apart - I'm not claiming it as an eternal truth, just giving an example of how absolute truth and relative truth can co-exist.]

Righteousness is a standard apart from God that God holds himself to, imo. That was why Abraham expressed surprise that (in his perspective) God was about to commit an unrighteous act. God confirmed that Abraham's standard of righteousness was correct, and that he would certainly not "destroy the righteous with the wicked," and never suggested that since he was omnipotent, he could kill them, and it would still be right.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

That argument is very flawed.

For instance, what if the God of Islam is the right one? You then burn.

What if the God of Judaism is the right one? Then you burn.

What if the God of Zoroaster is the right one? Then... Well, I don't know what'll happen, but it might not be pleasant.

If my Gods are the "right" ones? Well, everyone makes mistakes. You've probably been a good person, and will be rewarded for it. If you've been bad, well, perhaps you'll move down a realm. Either way, no permanent torture.

Or what if it turns out we were wrong about God, and he wishes people to maintain intellectual integrity- maybe God maintains an especially hot corner of Hell reserved for people who believe in God just to get in to Heaven?