Does God exist? (3 Viewers)

[Sy123]

Can you read?

I didnt say it it doesnt, I'm saying that it doesnt mean anything

Ah but I've proven that the specified probability is different to spilling marbles on a floor, and in fact does mean a lot, showing that if we only a small finite number of universes exist, the specified probability is so vanishingly small that the conclusion must be design.

On the case of multiverse theory, whereby we consider an infinite number of universes, this can affirm chance, however there are a number of philosophical implications to multiverse theory[1], and there is also no empirical basis for believing in multiverses except for a pre-supposition of naturalism.

[1]: Such as Alvin Plantinga's Boltzmann Brains argument

Everything is improbable, you just assume that life was always going to exist


"wow if things had been slightly different we wouldn't exist" yeah, so?

This has been refuted above, you are fallaciously equating the probability being talked about in the formal Fine Tuning argument, with general probability

 

[crazy_paki123]

im not tooo religious and dont really like all this scientific mumbo jumbo. But yeah everyone has their own views on life. Imo if u think u are here by chance u are one fucked up mofo. Everything on this Earth makes sense, even the most delicate of ecosystems. And dont tell me some big bang happened out of nowhere and all this "happened by chance". load of crap. God exists. Take it or leave it (if u leave it, may God have mercy on ur soul)

 

[nerdasdasd]

im not tooo religious and dont really like all this scientific mumbo jumbo. But yeah everyone has their own views on life. Imo if u think u are here by chance u are one fucked up mofo. Everything on this Earth makes sense, even the most delicate of ecosystems. And dont tell me some big bang happened out of nowhere and all this "happened by chance". load of crap. God exists. Take it or leave it (if u leave it, may God have mercy on ur soul)

Mate ... I don't care if god has no mercy on my soul.

Everything is here due to science. Astronomers can tell you that the Big Bang did not come out of no here.

God didn't create the planets, elements on the periodic table did.

 

[Sy123]

im not tooo religious and dont really like all this scientific mumbo jumbo. But yeah everyone has their own views on life. Imo if u think u are here by chance u are one fucked up mofo. Everything on this Earth makes sense, even the most delicate of ecosystems. And dont tell me some big bang happened out of nowhere and all this "happened by chance". load of crap. God exists. Take it or leave it (if u leave it, may God have mercy on ur soul)

Well any intelligent atheist doesn't believe that "it just happened by chance", they will do anything they can do, to distance themselves from the charlatan Dawkins, they have proposed various metaphysical theories such as the level 2 Multiverse theory in order to explain the cosmological fine-tuning of our universe. i.e. there are an infinite number of alternate universes in an ensemble, each starting with different physical laws and constants, if this is true, then a universe fine tuned for life is not only probable but inevitable. (this is what the user itrungs was proposing)


However the multiverse theory itself comes with a lot of philosophical baggage that turns out to nullify the logical truth of a multiverse (such as the given Boltzmanns Brains argument by Alvin Plantinga), but hey give them credit for trying

Mate ... I don't care if god has no mercy on my soul.

Everything is here due to science. Astronomers can tell you that the Big Bang did not come out of no here.

God didn't create the planets, elements on the periodic table did.

No lmfao

God created the entire universe and whatever is unseen beyond it, God created it according to an intricate logical order for His creation to reflect and see the Creator behind the creation.

God says in the Holy Qur'an

"Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven and the earth are signs for a people who use reason." - (2:164)

The only need for a formal fine tuning or teleological argument comes when debating, but really if you just reflect on the earth around you, I think its quite clear there is a Creator.

The periodic table is simply the result of observing the creation, the periodic table has no creative ability or power, nor does gravity, or anything else Hawking decides to propose.

 

[seanieg89]

Well any intelligent atheist doesn't believe that "it just happened by chance", they will do anything they can do, to distance themselves from the charlatan Dawkins, they have proposed various metaphysical theories such as the level 2 Multiverse theory in order to explain the cosmological fine-tuning of our universe. i.e. there are an infinite number of alternate universes in an ensemble, each starting with different physical laws and constants, if this is true, then a universe fine tuned for life is not only probable but inevitable. (this is what the user itrungs was proposing)


However the multiverse theory itself comes with a lot of philosophical baggage that turns out to nullify the logical truth of a multiverse (such as the given Boltzmanns Brains argument by Alvin Plantinga), but hey give them credit for trying



No lmfao

God created the entire universe and whatever is unseen beyond it, God created it according to an intricate logical order for His creation to reflect and see the Creator behind the creation.

God says in the Holy Qur'an

"Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and the day, and the [great] ships which sail through the sea with that which benefits people, and what Allah has sent down from the heavens of rain, giving life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness and dispersing therein every [kind of] moving creature, and [His] directing of the winds and the clouds controlled between the heaven and the earth are signs for a people who use reason." - (2:164)

The only need for a formal fine tuning or teleological argument comes when debating, but really if you just reflect on the earth around you, I think its quite clear there is a Creator.

The periodic table is simply the result of observing the creation, the periodic table has no creative ability or power, nor does gravity, or anything else Hawking decides to propose.

Let me start out by saying I don't have the philosophical wherewithal to properly debate you on god's existence. (For the record, my position is agnostic atheism.)

I do notice though that your posts here claim to establish the existence of a creator. Out of interest, do these (and other) arguments also purportedly single out Allah as the only possible creator?

 

[Sy123]

Let me start out by saying I don't have the philosophical wherewithal to properly debate you on god's existence. (For the record, my position is agnostic atheism.)

I do notice though that your posts here claim to establish the existence of a creator. Out of interest, do these (and other) arguments also purportedly single out Allah as the only possible creator?

It only takes a bit of logically progressive arguments to arrive at One, All-Powerful, All-Knowledgeable Creator, using what we already know from the Fine-Tuning argument and the Cosmological Argument.

Then relying on biological teleology we may deny Deism and affirm Theism, i.e. a Creator who is active in His Creation and engages in His Creation.

So we now have a personal singular Creator God, this could be the God of Judaism, of Christianity or of Islam, any other religion falls under either pantheism (which is refuted by having the Creator God being active in creation), such as Sikhism or Buddhism

Now we must delve into religious theology, we look at the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, look at prophecy, pure theology, and so on

For one, Judaism is a religion one cannot convert to, you must be born a Jew, and for all intents and purposes Jesus Christ did fulfill the prophecies of the messiah, and so we can discount Judaism. (obviously a proper 'proof' would require a lot more arguments, and stronger arguments)

Then it comes down to affirming either Christianity or Islam, as a Muslim, I see the Trinitarian notion of God, and of God descending into the form of a man named Jesus Christ as incoherent logically and theologically. It is of ultimate blasphemy and of ultimate anthropomorphism to allow God to take the form of a man. (note: No Muslim is a Muslim unless he affirms that Jesus Christ was one of the greatest prophets of God, however he was not the son of God, and we affirm that Jesus came down with a pure monotheistic message that had been corrupted by other people)

Moreover, (and this would probably be the strongest argument for Islam being the true religion out of the Abrahamic tradition), the Prophet Muhammad was predicted in the Old and New Testament, to the extent of being mentioned by name in Songs of Solomon 5 and other areas (though the translators had mis-translated his name as 'all together lovely'). You can read more here http://callingchristians.com/2013/07/05/muhammad-peace-be-upon-him-in-the-bible/

Also, even just looking at it logically, the God of Islam, Allah The Exalted, is the one that makes most sense:

He is free from anthropomorphism: "There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing." - (42:11)

He is of Ultimate Unity: "Say, 'He is Allah, who is One'. Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born. Nor is there to Him any equivalent." - (112)

And so on


tl;dr
There is no one single argument that you can use to show that the God of Islam is the true God, rather it would be a progressive form of argumentation, using arguments both from rationale, and from religious theology.

 

[turntaker]

Mate ... I don't care if god has no mercy on my soul.

Everything is here due to science. Astronomers can tell you that the Big Bang did not come out of no here.

God didn't create the planets, elements on the periodic table did.

Nice logic but who created the elements?
Throughout history, if we couldn't find any explaination for a phenomenon then it meant it was God's work. I think it was silly that you said the universe was made out of elements. It's like saying a car is made out of parts. (obviously)

 

[turntaker]

I don't know what or who but there is a greater power controlling us and watching us. There has to be some sort of explanation. We are a part of something big.
This is why I voted .
But then.. you can't prove either answer

 

[iBibah]

Then it comes down to affirming either Christianity or Islam, as a Muslim, I see the Trinitarian notion of God, and of God descending into the form of a man named Jesus Christ as incoherent logically and theologically. It is of ultimate blasphemy and of ultimate anthropomorphism to allow God to take the form of a man. (note: No Muslim is a Muslim unless he affirms that Jesus Christ was one of the greatest prophets of God, however he was not the son of God, and we affirm that Jesus came down with a pure monotheistic message that had been corrupted by other people)

You do realise you used Muslim belief to discredit Christianity here right ? You have essentially assumed Islam is the true religion in your quest to prove it.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Nice logic but who created the elements?
Throughout history, if we couldn't find any explaination for a phenomenon then it meant it was God's work. I think it was silly that you said the universe was made out of elements. It's like saying a car is made out of parts. (obviously)

The big bang came from a singularity point, where there was lots of stored energy. The stored energy turned into the elements when it cooled down.

Everything originated from energy

E = mc ^ 2 ... Energy can be turned into mass.

 

[nerdasdasd]

To those Christians :

How did God create something from nothing?

From what did he create people and life from?

 

[turntaker]

Yeah but why/how did the big bang happen

 

[nerdasdasd]

I don't know what or who but there is a greater power controlling us and watching us. There has to be some sort of explanation. We are a part of something big.
This is why I voted .
But then.. you can't prove either answer

What controls us?

Our brain... and the chemical reactions that happen within it

 

[turntaker]

What controls us?

Our brain... and the chemical reactions that happen within it

Dude all I'm saying is that is science can't explain everything. You are just being simplistic.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Yeah but why/how did the big bang happen

Go read up some science books buddy.

It's too complicated to explain, and I CBF....

The tldr version is...
1. There was a singularity
2. Gravity couldn't hold it together and the mass was too big
3. Energy release
4. Energy cooled down
5. Energy turned into mass which tuned into planets and stars

CBF with the rest

 

[Sy123]

You do realise you used Muslim belief to discredit Christianity here right ? You have essentially assumed Islam is the true religion in your quest to prove it.

I have not used the Muslim belief as a form of proof, rather I have not even given any proof in my statement, I was simply giving a brief outline to seanieg of how I would go about showing that Islam is the most coherent religion

If I wanted to show that God cannot come down in the form of a man, I would show this through logical reasoning, and not saying 'because the Qur'an says so'.

Moreover I can show that the Prophet Jesus himself did not claim to be the son of God, and this shows proof from religious theology

On brief outline of showing that it is inconceivable for God to come down in the form of a man, is to show that for God to become fully man is to inherit an attribute that He previously did not have, and when He dies, He would discard an attribute.

This shows that this God would be deficient if He had to inherit an attribute, however God is free from all deficiencies, showing a contradiction analogous as to why God cannot create another god.

 

[Sy123]

What controls us?

Our brain... and the chemical reactions that happen within it

If you knew where that would lead you philosophically I am sure you would retract that statement pretty quickly

If everything is just chemical reactions in our brain, then there is no true libertarian free will, meaning no one is accountable for morality.

i.e. a serial killer is just acting on his chemical reactions in his brain, what is his fault?

Go read up some science books buddy.

It's too complicated to explain, and I CBF....

The tldr version is...
1. There was a singularity
2. Gravity couldn't hold it together and the mass was too big
3. Energy release
4. Energy cooled down
5. Energy turned into mass which tuned into planets and stars

CBF with the rest

He isn't talking about 'how' in relation to mechanism, but 'how' as in to who originated it.

i.e. When you start your car, and someone asks you 'how did the car start?'

Do you respond by saying:

- I turned it on

Or

- the combustion processes in the engine started going

The second option begs the question

 

[iBibah]

I have not used the Muslim belief as a form of proof, rather I have not even given any proof in my statement, I was simply giving a brief outline to seanieg of how I would go about showing that Islam is the most coherent religion

If I wanted to show that God cannot come down in the form of a man, I would show this through logical reasoning, and not saying 'because the Qur'an says so'.

Moreover I can show that the Prophet Jesus himself did not claim to be the son of God, and this shows proof from religious theology

On brief outline of showing that it is inconceivable for God to come down in the form of a man, is to show that for God to become fully man is to inherit an attribute that He previously did not have, and when He dies, He would discard an attribute.

This shows that this God would be deficient if He had to inherit an attribute, however God is free from all deficiencies, showing a contradiction analogous as to why God cannot create another god.

I never said it was used as proof, but to say "As a muslim, its incoherent" is saying that your belief in Islam inhibits your ability to accept facets of other religions.

The bold part is what you should've been said initially.

 

[FlyingKanga]

Go read up some science books buddy.

It's too complicated to explain, and I CBF....

The tldr version is...
1. There was a singularity
2. Gravity couldn't hold it together and the mass was too big
3. Energy release
4. Energy cooled down
5. Energy turned into mass which tuned into planets and stars

CBF with the rest

This is an excerpt from a pamphlet I really liked. Take the examples that you gave and make an analogy with 'mobile phone'.

Imagine you were walking in a desert (where there is lots of oil, sand and metals in the ground), and you found a mobile phone lying around. Would you believe that it came together by itself? That the Sun shone, the wind blew, lightning struck, the oil bubbled to the surface and mixed with the sand and metal, and over millions of years the mobile came together by chance?

No one would believe such an explanation. A mobile phone is clearly something that was put together in an organised way, so it would be rational to believe that it must have an organiser. In the same way, when we see the order in the universe, isn’t it rational to say that the universe has an organiser?

Proteins, the fundamental building blocks of living cells have a structure that is trillions of times more complex than a mobile phone, making it far more impossible for proteins to have been produced by random natural conditions."

 

[buriza]

Re: The Nonsense Thread

#long post

voltaire

always pick voltaire, he is actually a joy to read

if you do hume you have to do berkeley with him

spinoza and bertrand russell would also be interesting

I have a feeling I would love to learn about Hume since I am interested in all his thoughts about empiricism and what not, the belief that everything is derived from experience. idk if I quite agree but it is relevant to psych

Well keep in mind my evaluation of him is incredibly biased against him, I disagree immensely with him on quite a lot of things with his philosophy, but other than that he was a great physician, astronomer and mathematician and *insert 10 other disciplines*

Ibn Sina (latinized Avicenna) is a sort of Aristotle of the east, upon the Muslim conquests of the Byzantine empire, a lot of greek works were translated into Arabic, which is where Ibn Sina began studying Aristotle, he was by no means a complete mouthpiece of Aristotle, even criticizing him on occasion.

The reason why I say Western philosophy would love him is because he would be the closest to western philosophy, rejecting some orthodox principles in favour of his Greek inspired philosophy (such as the belief in the pre-eternity of the universe)

His philosophy gained quite a bit of popularity, until the theologian Al-Ghazali a century or so later refuted him in his famous book Incoherence of the Philosophers, where he refuted the notion of a pre-eternal universe (among 19 other beliefs), which was the inspiration for the Cosmological arguments and for the rise of Saint Thomas Aquinas

if Ibn Sina was similar to Aristotle I wonder if his philosophy experienced criticism during the anti-Aristotelian period

still even though I find Western philosophy interesting, it would be nice to be able to learn about other philosophies from different cultures, the most obvious being Confucianism

you would enjoy reading voltaire tbh

he writes his philosophy in prose form so it's pretty fun to read too

what is Voltaire about?

I disagree with Ibn Sina on everything that he disagrees with the orthodoxy haha
Such as (I'm going through my copy of Incoherence of the Philosophers, so keep in mind this is all through the lens of Ghazali, Ibn Rushd later tried to refute it in Incoherence of the Incoherence, claiming that Ghazali was throwing straw-men on Ibn Sina on some issues)

- pre-eternity of the universe
- the universe is necessarily existent with God, i.e. just as the Sun necessarily produces sun rays, God necessarily exists with and sustains the universe.
- God only knows the universals, but not particulars, i.e. God knows that I'm typing up this response about Ibn Sina, but not what words I'm using to convey it (this was quite unique to Ibn Sina)
- denial of the possibility of an actual bodily resurrection

Ghazali claimed that Ibn Sina also denied the immortality of souls, but Ibn Rushd says this is a strawman

As far as the difference between essence and existence is concerned, I am not familiar with Ibn Sina's position on it, nor do I think there is an orthodox religious position on it

dat title

and even though I'm not much of a religious person, it does seem a little strange to me to believe in the pre-eternity of the universe. I also agree that given God does exist, he does not exist with and sustains the Earth out of necessity, tbh the whole notion of necessity isn't really compatible with the notion of creationism in the first place. the thought that God knows only the universals but not the particulars is an interesting thought however and I haven't heard about such before this. as for the denial of the possibility of an actual bodily resurrection, is Ibn Sina saying this in reference to Jesus or the concept of resurrection in the general afterlife?

and actually from what I read in the wiki article (may or may not be reliable), Ibn Sina's philosophy does convey the immortality of souls. apparently Ibn Sina thought that the connection between body and soul must be strong enough to allow the soul's individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. being completely honest here but I have no idea what the hell that means however I believe it does express that soul = immortal

edit: reading over it, it does make a lot of sense now ahahahah

@sy123 @buriza

What is philosophy ?
What does it aim to achieve?

philosophy is contemplation and it aims to answer questions about humanity, for both enlightenment and improvement