Proof of God

A friends question

[Sungirl]

I'd like to ask this question to Freepers to get some answers. A friend of mine will often say she doesn't believe in God....but, I think she is fishing for a reason TO believe. Today she sent me a note from her other friend who states the theory of evolution and that people who believe God put us here are 'brainwashed'. She tells her.... 'Evolution has PROOF...where is the Proof of God?'

Personally, I think evolution has made man evolve....but I also think that the earth and all its resources are not here without a reason and a purpose. There are just too many coincidences to think that it is not planned. Just my thought.

[ppaul]

Link:

You have 10 minutes to prove the existence of God

:

[ex-Texan]

Here is St. Anselm's ontological proof:

From Princeton University

St. Anselm's proof is easier to digest and understand than Descarte's proof.

After you get through all of these meditations, you might take a peek at Kant and Heidigger. Might take a few years to get through all of that, though.

[billybudd]

I love my cat. There we go. If I define love as a certain feeling I have towards something, then it's easy to prove, because all I have to rely on as evidence is my feelings. However, God is not a feeling and therefore cannot be proven by feelings.
BTW, I was only half serious when I said science can prove everything. Science can prove the existence of physical objects or physical processes. To the extent that love is defined as a physical process, it can be proven to exist. It's a chemical reaction in your brain, etc.

[Ann Archy]

Gee....my mom died also last month and the Requiem Mass was soooo comforting and the sad occasion was also joyous, hard to explain, isn't it.

[tortoise]

The foundation of Mathematics is Logic, and logic teaches us that there is no self-consistent system that does not rely upon an arbitrary Truth beyond the system. Mathematics is consistent, however, so there is an arbitrary Truth beyond the system.

You are referring to Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem (an extremely important development in mathematics almost a century ago which has very broad implications), but you mischaracterize its meaning somewhat.

The theorem basically states that no system of axioms can be both consistent and decideable. The nature of the system of axioms is arbitrary, and God may or may not be a part of it. One problem is that any consistent set of axioms has things that are not provable within that set of axioms, and that you can infinitely expand the set of axioms to try add to the things provable within it.

If you start with consistent mathematics, you are correct that it is possible to create unprovable truths within that system. If you then add God to that set of axioms, to prove those things that were unprovable truths in the original set of purely mathematical axioms, you can trivially construct statements that are not provable in that system of axioms, even though God is one of the axioms. Therefore, if you accept God as an axiom, you necessarily are accepting a lot of other ideas that are at least as unusual and inconceivable as the God axiom. So the question becomes, do we limit our set of consistent axioms purely to mathematics, whose provability is limited by the universe we live in but which are generally well-behaved in a theoretical sense, or do we expand the set of axioms to include God, and accept the torrent of strange consequences that necessarily generates, some of which may be strange or unacceptable to religious individuals who would nominally be willing to accept the idea of a God axiom in the Theory of Everything?

[irish_lad]

I cannot state with certainty about evolution or creationism. We will never know that answer; however, I can say that without a doubt, God exists. My proof?

When we look into the night sky and see a micron of the universe, we all must ask, "how did this come to be?" How did the earth, sun, galaxy, or universe come into creation? That, for me, is proof of God's existence.

I believe we are spirtual beings having a human experience.

[Thankfulheart]

There is a story of an astronomer who had a model of the universe in his office. A athiest friend came in and asked who made such a detailed and beautiful model. The astonomer replied, "no one." The athiest said, "Don't tell me no one made this. Someone had to have made it." The astonomer took the athiest outside and replied, "You mean you believe someone had to have created the model, but you don't believe anyone created all this?"

[Thankfulheart]

There is a story of an astronomer who had a model of the universe in his office. A athiest friend came in and asked who made such a detailed and beautiful model. The astonomer replied, "no one." The athiest said, "Don't tell me no one made this. Someone had to have made it." The astonomer took the athiest outside and replied, "You mean you believe someone had to have created the model, but you don't believe anyone created all this?"

[Ann Archy]

God made wild animals, cattle and every creeping thing, all according to their varios kinds; and he saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness, to hav dominion over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, all wild animals on land, and everything that creeps on the earth.

This one paragraph shoots down evolution (and he saw that it was good)....he is speaking so therefore God IS...and it also proves the Trinity..('Let US make human beings in OUR image, after OUR likeness)....

Obviously your friend NEVER had a miracle happen to her or him......sad.

[D-fendr]

Thanks for your post. Good questions; I'll give a quick go:

1) Is this being a physical entity, or is it defined as "spirit"?

"being" is incorrect in our normal definitions of "being." A being has a simple location in space and time. "Beingness" would come closer, at least pointing in the proper direction.

"2) What are the attributes of this being? (Love, Wrath, Hate, Compassion, Omnipotence, etc.) Are these attributes consistent with all accounts of "God", as in the bible, the writings of St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, etc.

Again, not "being". We could find almost universal agreement for the attributes of God as Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

3) If there are conficting accounts of these attributes, can they be reasonably explained?"

All major religions do not agree; much of the disagreement is on historical grounds, much is due to language/cultural obstacles. We can, however, find a great deal of common ground. We could start with the Perennial Philosophy (Huxley) or the Great Chain of Being.

There is a great deal of agreement amongst the wisdom/religious traditions of humankind; much more agreement among theologians on the truth of the existence and nature of God, than, say, among scientist on the truth of the Big Bang cosmology or on the basic elements of matter and "charge".

[tim politicus]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I take traditional Christian Theology as basically stipulating that while what they call ‘the Father’ is beyond even 'being', what they call ‘Christ’ or the ‘second person of the Trinity’ is, in fact, 'being' itself.

That is to say, they [Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, et al.] hold that 'God' is, via the 'Trinitarian' perspective, at once the transcendent cause of 'being', and 'being' itself, and the **ultimate** effect of 'being'; so that they effectively say, if I'm understanding correctly, 'God causes Himself'.

I understand, and they sometimes make explicit, that they are opposed to any merely pantheistic view on the grounds that the are dealing with the unlimited and whole cause, and being, and effect, not merely finite causes, beings or effects.

This is also posted to any others who would favor me with a reply.

[rokkhound]

All of the things you say science cannot prove are stemming from HUMAN emotions. Now I ask you, do animals have emotions? No? I think they definitely have emotions (of course I can't prove this). I doubt scientific evidence would satisfy you. You say "So it's probably a bad idea to disbelieve in God just because we lack air-tight scientific proof of His existence." I don't think it's necessarily a GOOD idea to believe in something intangible, but it all goes to faith, and emotions, and how you handle your emotions.

[Gigantor]

"...no matter how smart we think that we are and no matter how much we know about the origins of life and the universe, we remain enormously ignorant."

I agree wholeheartedly. Just think, after a century of massive scientific discoveies, we've hit two walls that seem to be unsurmountable-each in the opposite direction of the other: the subatomic and deep space.

I mean, it seems to me that no matter how deep we go in finding the smallest thing there is, there's always six more things beneath it.

On the other end of the spectrum, we are limited to this planet, maybe Mars, that's about it, baby. Every time the Hubble telescope looks at deep space, into the farthest reaches of time, much too early to even form a planet, what does it find? Galaxies where galaxies should not be!

To me, at least, it means that the more we've learned-the less we really know!

Perhaps God wants it that way?

[jmswope]

Try these links!

[jmswope]

Also, this link!

[Eternal_Bear]

Maybe God and Universe are One? Some call it "The All That Is". Anyway, I am a bit very dubious that the human brain with it's limited amount of neurons can figure this all out. After all, there are more galaxies out than we have neurons. I just try to learn from and wonder at the vastness of it all. That is our lot as earthlings.

[tim politicus]

Sound thinking is wonderfully precise, and we have no desire to muddle it up with vague terms.

I think that traditional Christian theology often, as far as axiomatic statements are concerned uses in place of 'God' the term 'First Cause' or sometimes 'Being'.

Not only do there concepts seems to me to be non-disruptive to scientific or even mathmatical reasoning, but essential to them.

I mean for merely scientific or rational purposes, we can take 'first cause' as meaning simply that; and 'being' and meaning simply the field of existence per se and at once have a dialog which includes theological and non-theological views.