Does God exist?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Drogue
If there wasn't a New York, you wouldn't be able to buy a ticket there, without some *huge* scam. It isn't conceivable that it couldn't exist, given the sheer weight of evidence for it. Not only would 9/11 have been a scam, so would the Yankees, The Republican Convention, Will & Grace, etc. It's a silly argument.

No larger a scam, surely, than the one which (presumably) you are hypothesising led to the immense power of the Vatican, the oldest institution in the world; the best selling book of all time (as well as millions of others); a whole bunch of Crusades and goodness knows how many minor wars, schisms and quarrels; healings, revelations and overwhelming amount of art and artifacts over the last two thousand years.

[Kuciwalker]

I hope you'll understand if I lend more credence to the definitions given by physicists than I do to the definitions given by a high school student -- their authority trumps yours by several orders of magnitude.

Fallacy. The term "universe" did not originate with physics. The term "universe" means and has always meant the set of everything that exists.

[Giancarlo]

I'll answer the original question. No god cannot exist because it contradicts logical argumentation. The notion of god is a figment of human imagination.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
No larger a scam, surely, than the one which (presumably) you are hypothesising led to the immense power of the Vatican, the oldest institution in the world; the best selling book of all time (as well as millions of others); a whole bunch of Crusades and goodness knows how many minor wars, schisms and quarrels; healings, revelations and overwhelming amount of art and artifacts over the last two thousand years.

Except that there's equal "evidence" of that sort for directly contradictory claims. There is not for the nonexistance of New York.

[Jon Miller]

what evidence is there for directly contradictory claims?

JM

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Fallacy. The term "universe" did not originate with physics. The term "universe" means and has always meant the set of everything that exists.

I'll cite you on two counts of bull**** -- one for giving a faulty definition, and another for claiming that said definition is absolute.

First, when "universe" is used in a logical context, then entities can and do exist outside of the universe. The universe merely delimits the set of entities within the universe of discourse.

Second, the meanings of words can and do change over time. Or do you wish to argue that computer bugs are organisms? You cannot simply cry "fallacy" and dismiss the scientific definition of "universe" in favor of Kuciwalker's ad hoc definition of "universe."

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I hope you'll understand if I lend more credence to the definitions given by physicists than I do to the definitions given by a high school student -- their authority trumps yours by several orders of magnitude.

Fallacy. The term "universe" did not originate with physics. The term "universe" means and has always meant the set of everything that exists.

if you were intelligent you could recongnise that several deffinitions of universe exist

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

these discussions always come down to discussions of deffinition

Jon Miller

[LulThyme]

Originally posted by loinburger

It doesn't make sense to both have an expanding universe and a universe that has always existed.

Nevermind kuci's very weird answers to this.

I fail to see why it doesnt make sense.

Something can get smaller and smaller as we go back in time while always existing, or always having as size.
Suppose something doubles in size every year in the future and halves in size every year in the past.
It will always have a size and always grow.
Im not saying thats what happened\ is happening with the universe, I just fail to see how the two contradict each other...

[Ned]

Originally posted by Giancarlo
I'll answer the original question. No god cannot exist because it contradicts logical argumentation. The notion of god is a figment of human imagination.

Perhaps.

But the search for understanding of the origins of the universe is, no pun intended, universal among mankind. I think the better road to this understanding is through science, rather than through logic.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by LulThyme
Suppose something doubles in size every year in the future and halves in size every year in the past.
It will always have a size and always grow.

Once the shrinking universe reaches a given mass/energy density then it collapses to a singularity and it doesn't really make sense to think of it as anything else at that point, because the laws that govern our universe don't apply in any meaningful sense (as far as we know) to the singularity. I suppose that we could still think of the singularity as "the universe," but even so we'd still be dealing with two entirely different entities -- the "normal universe," and the "singularity universe" -- when we make any statements concerning either. F'rinstance, we could no longer say "the universe is causal," because for all we know the rules governing a singularity are acausal. That's why it doesn't make sense to have both an eternal and expanding universe -- we'd be making the term "universe" pretty meaningless if we equated a singularity to what we're living in.

[Ben Kenobi]

Nope. Assuming your God is omnipotent, neither would give him any trouble.

Not so. Just because he can do something doesn't necessarily mean that he will do something.

If you are willing to concede to me that God can be responsible for these things, then that's all I'm asking.

Establish that he has intervened before first.

What source will you accept? Remember scientists cannot prove such a causal relationship because it is beyond the scope of science.

[Ben Kenobi]

There are plenty of people who have just as much "evidence" for the existance of, say, Vishnu. Why don't you believe in that?

Like I said earlier, I believe there is some truth in the Hindu accounts of Vishnu, but that the Christians have had more revealed to them of the character of God.

[Ben Kenobi]

So you've seen actual pictures of him, you've talked to people that have seen him witht heir own eyes,

No, I'm claiming to have talked to him myself. I'm claiming a personal relationship, rather than only knowledge garnered through authority.

you've seen TV news from him, you've seen news about him, you've talked to people born next to him?

Well, he doesn't reveal himself in that manner, but I have read about him, and accounts of him, just like I have read accounts about New York.

I can read descriptions of New York, that tell me what it's like, and I can read the same, in theology, that tell me about God.

I see you conveniently missed the second part of my argument. You can read about Atlantis, see symbols of it, etc., but because I haven't seen it, or heard accounts from it, I don't presume it to exist.

I don't ignore that part at all. This is why I claim a personal relationship, rather than just hearing about God from authority.

From my perspective, you really have two choices. You can accept the truth that the vast majority of what you trust is on authority, and to also come to accept God in this manner, or you can choose to only believe in what you see, and what you know by personal experience.

Which will it be, Drogue?

Plus you have seen New York, on TV. I would have thought someone claiming how useful philosophy was for logic would have seen the analogy as flawed from the start.

Yes, but I can feel the Holy Spirit. I can't feel New York. So tell me why one sense should trump another. Why should I trust my eyes more than touch?

If there wasn't a New York, you wouldn't be able to buy a ticket there, without some *huge* scam.

So? You can 'buy' a ticket to God. You just have to wait awhile, since the next flight schedule hasn't been released.

It isn't conceivable that it couldn't exist, given the sheer weight of evidence for it. Not only would 9/11 have been a scam, so would the Yankees, The Republican Convention, Will & Grace, etc. It's a silly argument

Don't you see that I feel the same way about God? You see all this evidence around you that New York exists, and I feel the same way about God.

[Giancarlo]

There is no way you can talk to god (you are trying so hard to believe in something, and make something talk to yourself... you are hearing voices in your head). The notion of god is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.... I can't believe people choose to believe in god(s), there are so many better things in life then a human imagined being.