Does God exist?

[Ben Kenobi]

I've never seen much point in trying to prove the existence of god(s) unless that proof also entails that god(s) must take a given form or have a given set of (dis)likes or whatever. I mean, otherwise the proof of the existence of god(s) doesn't really get you anywhere meaningful, unless you're willing to resort to some fantastic leaps of logic, e.g., "God is the First Cause, therefore, God hates fags," or "There can be nothing greater than God, therefore, I shouldn't eat pork," etc.

Well, consider what we have in this thread already.

If there is a God, the he should be omnipotent, omniscient and eternal. There should be only one.

That narrows the field rather considerably.

We are left with other things like whether or not God must be loving, or whether he must be merciful, and what does he think of humanity.

And we haven't even shown any differences between a deist, and a more active God, who does works here on Earth.

I think that you can show him to be loving. If he were responsible for the creation of life on Earth, then why would he do so if he were cruel? If he hated life, then why would he seek to create life?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If there is a God, the he should be omnipotent, omniscient and eternal. There should be only one.

That certainly isn't entailed from the "first cause" argument, which is the only one that holds any water.

We are left with other things like whether or not God must be loving, or whether he must be merciful, and what does he think of humanity.

You evidently got bored with our last debate on these subjects, so far be it from me to bore you a second time.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Some people are so set in their ways because they have this psychological attachment to their ideas, which is a little pathetic really imo.

I view those who have no beliefs and no passion about their beliefs to be pretty boring, and not as interesting as others (and generally don't take very much time for them).

Jon Miller

[Ben Kenobi]

You evidently got bored with our last debate on these subjects, so far be it from me to bore you a second time.

Then PM me, ok?

What happens is that the threads get buried and I miss them.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I don't have time to compile all the requirements for life on Earth, but this should give you an idea of the difficulties of the chance forming life.

Now, this is just one tiny part of the evolution of animals.

So if there is a 1 in 10^6900 chance of forming life randomly, then you have a question as to how this can happen when you only have

10^79 atoms in the universe.

There are only three ways that people have gotten around this.

1. They postulate an infinitely large universe.
2. They postulate an eternal universe.
3. They postulate an infinite number of universes.

All three are mere evasions and speculations from the hard truth that chance is very unlikely to be responsible for the things that we see in nature.

http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/hoyle.htm

All irrelevent, because there could be processes that favor something arranging into such a sequence. It's like asking "what's the probability of a bunch of matter ending up in a clump big enough to start nuclear fusion and radiate light?" - quite high, because of gravity.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
If there is a God, the he should be omnipotent, omniscient and eternal.

BS. Did you read the big long thing I posted (it's from Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)?

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Then PM me, ok?

What happens is that the threads get buried and I miss them.

The first few times that you left a debate hanging I went to the trouble of hounding you into responding, and to your credit you did make a couple more posts before you got bored again. It was more trouble on my part than it was worth, though.

[problem_child]

Religion is the ultimate expression of human ego.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I don't have time to compile all the requirements for life on Earth, but this should give you an idea of the difficulties of the chance forming life.

Now, this is just one tiny part of the evolution of animals.

So if there is a 1 in 10^6900 chance of forming life randomly, then you have a question as to how this can happen when you only have

10^79 atoms in the universe.

There are only three ways that people have gotten around this.

1. They postulate an infinitely large universe.
2. They postulate an eternal universe.
3. They postulate an infinite number of universes.

Actually there's another. That atoms don't fall in random patterns. As has been shown by Roger Lewin, these things aren't random, but have chaotic attractors, making some things *far* more likely than mere randomness would suggest. Life isn't actually that unlikely, and the probability is far smaller than that you posted.

[Kuciwalker]

Such as stars

[Odin]

Originally posted by problem_child
Religion is the ultimate expression of human ego.

If you could hear the fundies around here you would believe religion is the ultimate expression of human ignorance. These fundies are the kind of folks who think fossils are creations of Satan to decieve us.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Drogue

Actually there's another. That atoms don't fall in random patterns. As has been shown by Roger Lewin, these things aren't random, but have chaotic attractors, making some things *far* more likely than mere randomness would suggest. Life isn't actually that unlikely, and the probability is far smaller than that you posted.

[Ben Kenobi]

All irrelevent, because there could be processes that favor something arranging into such a sequence. It's like asking "what's the probability of a bunch of matter ending up in a clump big enough to start nuclear fusion and radiate light?" - quite high, because of gravity.

Actually, it's not that simple in this case. Can you say that there is a reasonable process that facilitates this sort of reaction?

[Ben Kenobi]

It was more trouble on my part than it was worth, though.

Well, if I'm remembering that thread, and we've had many, that was the one on how much of my body can I lose and still be me?

It was a very good question, and I had to spend some time working on it before I could make a reasonable reply.

And you got me reading a book that I had forgotten I had read some time ago.

So thanks for asking that question.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Actually, it's not that simple in this case.

Yes it is.

Can you say that there is a reasonable process that facilitates this sort of reaction?

Yes. Ever heard of chemistry?