Prove God exists!

[Nikolai]

God can't be proven. This is faith we're talking, not science. Either you believe or you don't. Proof is not part of the equation.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

you need to start a new thread, you are derailing this one into another one of those 500+ posts of "my blind belief into god is better than yours blind belief that there are none" which most of the religous threads descend into...

Your belief is based on something, either experience, or tradition or whatever... typically saying "I believe" without proof, is really "I believe in a tradition that my parents/community embeded into me as I was growing up, and I because i am fine with it, you should be as well"...

Well I am personally fine that you are OK with that position, but it has nothing to do with "prove God exists" type of thread... and will simply derail it into "pink unicorn vs his noodly godness" contest

[Nikolai]

No. I have my reasons. But they can't be proven and they are rational like scientific proof is. It's not blind faith, but proof and belief operates on different levels. It is about feelings, a confident belief in a reason for existence beyond mere survival and being. It is about thinking blind belief in science and the world emerging from virtually nothing as being more bizzarre than the belief in God. A God I have met and who have proven himself to me. Not met and proven as a human to another physical being, but a meeting beyond the mere mortal. Prayers being answered, and believing these answers to come from God rather than yet another coincidence.

I have a lot of reasons, but none of them can be proven in an experiement or through sheer convincing by rational arguments.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Ok, so your proof is your personal experience...

I'd say that instead of saying "God can't be proven" you should be saying: "The proof of God is though personal experience"... and reflects your view of reality a lot better than the previous one... at least from where I am reading...

so while you will not necesarrily prove much to gribbler that way, at least you will describe your position on why your think God exists a lot better

[Nikolai]

When I read the word "proof", I think of scientific proof. Perhaps it's only me.

[Jon Miller]

Nikolai, I agree that it isn't scientific proof. It isn't blind arbitrariness or 'this is what I was taught' either, which is all that was in your initial reply.

Neither answer is the correct one, you have to respond differently.

Look to Christ, when he was asked about taxes/etc, he sent Peter to fish. I hope to have a small portion of the same wisdom.

JM

[OneFootInTheGrave]

"the coffee smells good"
can this be scientifically proven?

it is a personal experience, not sure why religious guys constantly mix god and math, would you want to mix coffe and math too to support your views...

it is simply - here is the coffee, and let me know what you think, and this is the case with God as well... share your experience and if anyone is interested - they can give it a shot... saying "this coffee smells good cannot be scientifically proven" is shooting your own experience down as a starting point of the discussion.

[MikeH]

Nikolai, I agree that it isn't scientific proof. It isn't blind arbitrariness or 'this is what I was taught' either, which is all that was in your initial reply.

I bet most people couldn't prove they exist, let alone God.

[Nikolai]

"the coffee smells good"
can this be scientifically proven?

it is a personal experience, not sure why religious guys constantly mix god and math, would you want to mix coffe and math too to support your views...

it is simply - here is the coffee, and let me know what you think, and this is the case with God as well... share your experience and if anyone is interested - they can give it a shot... saying "this coffee smells good cannot be scientifically proven" is shooting your own experience down as a starting point of the discussion.

Quite often when I talk to non-believers, they ridicule my position for not being provable, ie provable scientifically. Same here in previous discussions. My second answer has been posted before in essence, and it is not accepted, as it is not proof as scientist use it. So I've become accustomed to proof being something objective or not valid in their eyes.

[Nikolai]

Nikolai, I agree that it isn't scientific proof. It isn't blind arbitrariness or 'this is what I was taught' either, which is all that was in your initial reply.

None of that was in my initial reply.

[Docfeelgood]

Is he his own buttplug!?

MOBIUS! Please, have respect for those who do believe.

[Robert]

God can't be proven. This is faith we're talking, not science. Either you believe or you don't. Proof is not part of the equation.

There's the issue about the existence of God and the issue about the nature/trustworthiness of God.
Christians have faith in God's nature / in who he is.
Faith is not about his existence.
We should not mix that up. So in this thread faith is not an issue.

But of course, it seems to be impossible to proof God's existence according the 21th century scientific terms. The question is if God's existence should be proven by the scientific rules of nature? Those are good rules, but I do not believe that those rules apply to God (or at least they do not necessarily apply to God).

[Robert]

Regarding your rather poorly chosen examples:

Both the car factory and the car follow the same natural laws. Man follows it as well. His alledged "creator" obviously does not have to.

I do not need something bigger to explain my universe. I have my set of laws. Mystical? No. Unfinished ? Yes.

Those are conceptual examples.
Saying that examples are poor because these examples come with elements that weren't used for the example anyway is a bit silly.
I did not incorporate the 'laws of nature' in my example. Neither did I incorporate that both the factory and the car need people to work there who once have been born out of a woman who sometimes aren't even married. Just because it's irrelevant to the example.

The example is only there to make clear that the cause and the effect do not always have to share the same properties or live up to the same rules. That's it.

But I'm glad that you god the purpose of my example anyway

Good that you state that your explanation is unfinished. Fair to say. And I think it's a valid and logical form of reasoning for which I salute you. I think it's as valid as my position, which is unfinished as well. Your position is a more optimistic position though because you can still hold on to the idea that you may get more proof for your position later. I do lack that optimistic idea. Unfortunately.
On the other side though, I do think that my position is a bit more realistic. You have faith that our ratio/science/knowledge will one day be able to explain that we are an effect without a cause, despite that everything within our reality screams: 'every effect in our reality needs a cause'. It's a bit faith in science that science will find the unimaginable. It's close to faith in God.

So dG < 0 is god. You opened my eyes now. I bet this is what Gibbs was thinking about.

Yeah, I didn't understand that.

[Lancer]

I disagree. If it could be proven that God exists then that would eliminate faith since only knowledge would be required to believe. One point of existence seems to be faith and if that is the case proof would also be fallacy. Since God is perfect there can be no proof imo.

[Robert]

MOBIUS! Please, have respect for those who do believe.

Why?