The Existence of God: Please participate!

[Mustaphile]

I think it would be hard for me to elaborate on all the things that led me to God. I'd been swinging from belief to non-belief for much of my life. One particular recurring theme for me in finding God was the 'truths' we believe that are actually lies. I've had a few moments in my life when I reflected on how much of my life was built on lies that I perceived to be truth. I was also surrounded by people who had the same problem. It's a terrible moment when you realise that nearly everyone is lying to you and you are lying to yourself. It's not that people are willfully lying. They believe it's the truth and I believed my own lies as truth. I started wondering to myself, "Who can I trust?".

Along with this experience came a realisation in my life of the importance of love as a life giving force in life. It dawned on my one day that I had never really understood what love was or what an important part of life love was. I had was just out of a ten year marriage and in contemplating my own role in the failure of the marriage, I came to know my ignorance of love and my role in letting the love that existed in my partner slowly wilt and die, through a lack of real love in return. The wisdom of the phrase that the most important thing is life is to love and be loved in return came to mind. So I had two basic questions at this time. Who can I trust? Who will I love and be loved in return by?

These two questions haunted me for some time as I wrestled with them and they came together eventually, in the conception of God as something outside of myself and outside of others as a source of trust. The statement I had often heard spoken, that God is love, came together with this conception of trust in God. I pondered the utility of this idea of God as a bastion of love and trust. This fusing of trust and love led to a conception of God within me, and I was awakened to the reality of God, as never before. It was an awakening to God in heart, mind and soul, so complete that it has become fundamental to my worldview. It was an inner conviction that the answers to these questions lay in trusting God and accepting God's love. Finding God in this way gave me great strength, in that there was never a complete loss of trust, nor a complete loss of love in my life anymore. Whereas beforehand the sources of trust and love in my life had been temporal, this source of God for my trust and love was eternal. From this point onwards I had an unshakeable foundation that has resisted all trials and suffering to follow. It's my continual source of strength and the wellspring from which my love flows to others. This is still only a small sample of what occured at one stage in my life. I have had numerous encounters with faith and God before I arrived at this point. It was during this period of time though, that it all solidified and became a concrete reality to me. I've often described my search for truth as grasping at something I thought was truth and watching it slip through my fingers like sand. This is my truth about God that remained in my grasp, and didn't disappear as quickly as I had wrapped my fingers about it.

How I got from there to christianity is whole different story.

 

[djFiddles]

The quickest answer for the most basic reason I believe in God is that there must be some sort of Causer for the universe. That really made me evaluate why I believe what mom and dad taught me while I was little. I checked out a few things and rested the God of the Bible. I am no longer resting as I know that God is playing a holy "hide and seek" as He gives me enough knowledge to want to keep seeking - and I seek avidly. I could write for hours about my faith, and why I believe in God. I'm sure I'll be posting more.

 

[Mercury]

i'm sorry my friend but god does not exist. why? because of a few simple questions. if god is not taught to the masses will he exist? (no) why would god need to be taught to exist? (how else would people know about him?) if he is truely a god, then why would he have to be taught to the world for him to exist? and if you did teach the masses about god, which god would you teach? muslim? christian? jewish? hindu? australian aboriginal?( because they are the oldest culture in the world.) who is the one true god? the answer is none, because the muslim will say to the jew that his god is the one true god and vice versa. if there is more than one "god" then they are not god. a god is one, not many. sorry i have no quotes from old thinkres or philosophers for you to support this. i only have this one new thought.

 

[Master Vigil]

In the same sense mercury, if people don't learn about the south pole, does it exist? If people don't learn about saturn, does it exist?

 

[michel]

In the same sense mercury, if people don't learn about the south pole, does it exist? If people don't learn about saturn, does it exist?

Exactly; but at some stage, surely the human spirit of adventure would lead him to the South pole? he might call it 'new Heaven' or whatever. The inate element of curiosity in man would surely have to face the 'What got me here?' question ? - and don't forget that we are talking 'small time' - there has been some form of life on Earth for over 4 billion years!

 

[Master Vigil]

It doesn't matter if we ever find it. It still exists even without our knowledge. We just don't know it. So even if we weren't taught about it, it would still exist. So to prove that god doesn't exist because it needs to be taught, falls short logically. It proves nothing.

 

[Pilgrim of this Reality]

I believe in the existance of God because it is the best of the alternatives. Life has a fruitless vein through it already, and the idea of this is all there is sad beyond sorrow. It provides some hope that their is something more. Something greater. Even if that something also seems small in our limited understanding. The idea of God also has a logic to it that no amount of scientific knowledge could ever hope to have. Order cannot be born out of chaos.

 

[Melody]

Hi everyone.
I am currently in year 9 and i'm involved in a project about the existence of God. The project is to ask a carefully considered theist to explain the reasons for their beliefs. It would be great if you would explain each point as well

Thanks, Thanh.

I believe in a Creator because nothing comes from a vaccuum. Take it all back to the big bang and that "gas and dust" had to originate somewhere. Our Creator had no beginning. He was, is and always will be....and that's what makes Him "God".

I believe in God because He/She is an active presence in my life. He always answers my prayers maybe not always as I like, but they are answered and in a way that I am left in no doubt that it is God's doing. Things have happened in my life way too many times to chalk them up to coincidence.

 

[michel]

It doesn't matter if we ever find it. It still exists even without our knowledge. We just don't know it. So even if we weren't taught about it, it would still exist. So to prove that god doesn't exist because it needs to be taught, falls short logically. It proves nothing.

I agrre with you 100% - the comment I made was directed towards Mercury and not you Master Vigil

Infinite regress is not possible. There has to be a beginning. We can follow science back as far as it can take us, to the first amino acid that formed somewhere in the universe, to the big bang or whatever, and to what caused the big bang, and further back to what caused that and what caused that etc... I believe there is something at the very beginning. I don't believe it is the judeo christian idea of god. But there is definitely something. And there is a connectedness throughout the universe that needs to be noticed. A oneness one might say. This I see as tao. The way of life and death.
The way of nature. That to me is Tao.
That is the exact same argument I use ; although hearing it repeated by you, with the obvious logic to it, I have never 'won' that point. Perhaps I have been dealing with tightly shut minds.

 

[Pah]

We can follow science back as far as it can take us,...

Whatever follows from this point is known as the God of the Gaps. What science can not yet explain is assigned to a diety or another religious source. The greatest difficulty is when science is working on the explaination.

It sometimes produces for the very faithful a moving of the goal posts when science closes or narrows the gap. (Or, in other words, the playing field becomes smaller).

 

[Mercury]

thankyou master vigil. If we don't learn about the south pole does it exist? . . . very well put. but which south pole? if god exists, which god? if god is almighty, why is he/she fragmented on earth? (muslim, christian, jew, hindu, greek gods( zeus, apollo, mercury . . .) - which god?)

 

[Master Vigil]

Easy mercury. As with the south pole, it does exist, yet everyon has a different perception of what it is. Each god is a different perception from different cultures and different time periods, but still same god. The earth was once seen as flat. But now it is not. We are still talking about the same earth though are we not?

 

[Mercury]

thankyou once again master vigil. " each god is a different perception ... but still same god" ? nicely said. i particularly like the words " a different perception from different cultures ..." because that is what god essentially is . . . a perception of the different cultures of the same mass hysteria.

 

[Doc]

You know I could go on forever trying to get a non believer to "see",but unless it has been granted
for them by God to see, then all I say is in vain. In truth I have to ask myself what are my real
reasons for doing this? Is it in truth and from a pure heart out of love or is it for my own glory?
If it was out of love then I wouldnt have to say a whole lot, my prayers would be sufficent.
So for the time being Im going to stick with those of the same faith in my discussions so that I
might grow more in my own faith.

Brilliant! You sound much like Thich Naht Hanh, a famous Buddhist Zen monk. One of my favorite quotes of his pertains to this. A Fish cannot truly tell a land turtle what it is like to breathe underwater just as the Land Turtle may not tell a fish what its like to breathe air.

That essentially means that people can say all that they want to someone who disbelieves in them, but that belief really has to come within or a higher power. I know first hand that in order to breathe that air, people's teachings and scare tactics were useless against me. In fact, they gave me more conviction against them. I had to come out of the water myself.

 

[andyjamal]

Abdul Baha, in his book Some Answered Questions, uses logic to prove the existence of God. I will not attempt to imitate his reasoning or eloquence, but the gist of it is something like this: the fact that creation exists proves that there must be a creator. He uses an example: the existence of a table proves that there must be a carpenter. Of course, as Kassis said (if I understand correctly), if you don't believe in God and believe that nothing you read/hear/experience/whatever will change your mind, then it won't (unless it is God's will). Personally though, I know God exists because of personal experience; Abdul Baha's writings serve as an affirmation.

 

[andyjamal]

Easy mercury. As with the south pole, it does exist, yet everyon has a different perception of what it is. Each god is a different perception from different cultures and different time periods, but still same god. The earth was once seen as flat. But now it is not. We are still talking about the same earth though are we not?

Yessss!!!

 

[Pah]

Abdul Baha, in his book Some Answered Questions, uses logic to prove the existence of God. I will not attempt to imitate his reasoning or eloquence, but the gist of it is something like this: the fact that creation exists proves that there must be a creator. He uses an example: the existence of a table proves that there must be a carpenter.
....

Source:http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/article.php?a=37 - Arguments for the existence of God

It is known as the The Etiological Argument.

The idea that the world requires a First Cause which is itself uncaused is the basis of the Etiological for God. In its simplest form, this argument states that, since nothing contingent (man or nature) can ultimately be its own cause, then some noncontingent (necessary) Being must exist for this world to have come into existence-that because it would have been impossible for the universe to get started on its own initiative, an initial cause (God) was necessary.

This argument is defeated because is it not shown that God is a first cause and may be the result of previous causes

or it could be the Argument from Design.

Paley became the most influential defender of the idea that God's existence is proved by the design to be found throughout nature. Paley's classic Watch Argument states that someone finding a watch on the ground would never conclude that the watch had been lying there forever, but rather (noting that the watch parts had been carefully designed to operate in harmonious conjunction with other parts for the purpose of telling time) would assume that an intelligent being had planned, devised, and constructed it. "There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance without a contriver; order without choice; arrangement without anything capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without ever having been contemplated or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use imply the presence of intelligence and mind

This argument was succesfully countered by Hume.

 

[andyjamal]

This argument was succesfully countered by Hume.

Elaborate, please.

 

[linwood]

Elaborate, please.

I`m not sure about Hume but here`s a counter to it.

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9915

 

[Pah]

Elaborate, please.

A simple google search on "paley hume" turned up the following

Hume's critiques of the design argument appear in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and were actually published three years after his death in 1779 (probably due to increasing hostility regarding his religious views). Ironically, the most famous presentation of the design argument was published twenty three years later in 1802 by William Paley (see Paley's Watch). However, as John Hick notes, 'It is a lamentable instance of the lack of communication between the philosophical and theological worlds that Paley was apparently unaware that his arguments had been devastatingly criticised by Hume twenty three years earlier'.

More discussion at http://www.faithnet.org.uk/AS%20Subjects/Philosophyofreligion/humedesign.htm
and http://www.faithnet.org.uk/AS Subjects/Philosophyofreligion/paleyswatch.htm