Does God Exist?

[Psycho Circus]

Yes.

1.  God is perfection

2.  in order for something to be perfect,  it must exist.  you couldn't say something is perfct if itn't not there to be perfct.

3. therefore, because god is perfect, god MUST exist.

Saint something or other figured this out in like 800 ad

How do you know that god is perfection though, who says?

[lester1/2jr]

ghouk circus -    because that's the definition of perfect.



if you were to make a really long dictionary entry about what the word "perfect" meant, part of it would be that it existed.


god is the embodiment if you willo of the thing known as perfection.


IF god is perfect as we've defined him then he must exist because if he didn't then he would no longer be perfect!!!

[Psycho Circus]

IF god is perfect as we've defined him then he must exist because if he didn't then he would no longer be perfect!!!

But you could use that to descibe almost anything as long as you believed it to be perfect.

Like cheese, or diamonds or "Electric Ladyland" and Angelina Jolie

[ghouck]

I have no doubt that the WORD 'perfect' exists.

The Jolly Green Giant is perfect. .

Did I just cause the Jolly Green Giant to zap into existence?

[schmendrik]

Yes.


1.  God is perfection

2.  in order for something to be perfect,  it must exist.  you couldn't say something is perfct if itn't not there to be perfct.


3. therefore, because god is perfect, god MUST exist.

Saint something or other figured this out in like 800 ad

Thomas Aquinas. He had a number of "proofs" along those lines.

Using Aquinas' logic from another "proof":

1. The Great Spaghetti-Monster is the most supreme being possible.

2. If the GSM existed only in our imaginations, he would not be as great as a being which existed independently of us.

3. Therefore the GSM must actually exist, not just in our imaginations.

Lather, rinse, repeat with "Xenu", "Zeus" or deity of your choice.

[ghouck]

ghouk circus -    because that's the definition of perfect.

What did I say that that was supposed to be a reply to?

[ER]

Faith aside, I don't think humans can concretely know if there is a God, but Saint Thomas Aquinas, a man with a brain the size of a small planet and a stomach so large the king of France cut a wedge out of his feast table so Aquinas could fit there at dinnertime, disagreed with me for some reason on that subject. Aquinas saw science and religion as reconcilable, and in a nutshell here is one of his examples...

I recall in theology classes in Catholic school, the Jesuits made us study Aquinas A LOT, and while he was not whatcha call light reading, he did have the occasional burst of brilliant insight. In Summa Theologica he made the argument that everything, everywhere, everywhen exists because of a prior causative agent---your chair exists because someone made it out of wood or metal, etc., the tree existed because it was planted or fell from another tree, the moon exists because....etc.

Well, Thomas Aquinas, Saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church, argued that if you trace the whole of existence backward, effect following cause, logically you arrive at a thing which had no prior event to set it into being. This was what the rotund 13th century Dominican called the uncreated creator, which in his view was a force so powerful it had no start, no creator, no causative agent, it simply existed throughout the entirety of time and reality, and this uncreated creator, the force which set all else into motion without ever having its own beginning, could only be God.

Considering what science is coming to understand about time being both real and seemingly circular, devoid a start and ending, I find Aquinas' theory more interesting than ever. Are there counter-arguments? Plenty. Are there apparent holes in Aquinas' argument, yeah... but it makes for interesting contemplation, especially when you're seventeen and the other things they make you study in theology class are even drier than that!

[Psycho Circus]

I went to a Saint Thomas Aquinas college, they wanted to make everyone play folk music and pray twice a day - I left after a week or two.

[ghouck]

People attribute everything in existence including existence itself to god. I have yet to hear a decent explanation of how it could be WITHOUT everything and existence. Existence is because there is no other way.

[schmendrik]

Well, Thomas Aquinas, Saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church, argued that if you trace the whole of existence backward, effect following cause, logically you arrive at a thing which had no prior event to set it into being. This was what the rotund 13th century Dominican called the uncreated creator, which in his view was a force so powerful it had no start, no creator, no causative agent, it simply existed throughout the entirety of time and reality, and this uncreated creator, the force which set all else into motion without ever having its own beginning, could only be God.

Big Bang theory is much like how you describe Aquinas' reasoning backward. We trace back what we see the universe doing, and we get to a hypothesized state where all the matter was compressed into a small volume and was so incredibly hot that matter couldn't even exist, only particles. Go back further and all that energy was contained in an infinitesimal point.

I remember being awestruck when I first learned this stuff as a physics student. We're talking about the literal moment of creation, and we can put a date on it. Physics is telling us there was such a moment. But what started it? Where did that point-full-of-everything come from? What was before that? Physics has no way to answer those questions. They aren't even exactly meaningful, since (I'm getting out my depth here) time and space themselves came into existence then.

Then later I learned about the cosmic background experiments of George Smoot, looking for tiny variations in the radiation in the sky that are essentially footprints left over from the first instants of the universe. And they're out there. I still get a chill thinking about that. We can point our telescopes into the sky and literally see the fingerprints of Creation. Whether you believe in God or not, the fingerprints are there for all to see.

[Psycho Circus]

People attribute everything in existence including existence itself to god. I have yet to hear a decent explanation of how it could be WITHOUT everything and existence. Existence is because there is no other way.

I totally agree, the only thing that bugs me is space - where does it end? How did space come into being? Here's hoping they get that damn collider working again.

[ghouck]

IF god is perfect as we've defined him then he must exist because if he didn't then he would no longer be perfect!!!

"If god is perfect". .
I don't believe god exists, therefore there is nothing for me to believe is perfect.

This is the typical "I believe in god, and you don't, therefore I will always be right, so I am right in my belief that god exists" arguement. Create a self-supporting logical loop, swear it is correct due to it's own insistence that it is correct, , repeat. Once you get by whatever illusion was used to draw attention from the fact that one needs to take "Saint something or other's" word for it, it looks pretty transparent.

[Psycho Circus]

"If god is perfect". .
I don't believe god exists, therefore there is nothing for me to believe is perfect.

This is the typical "I believe in god, and you don't, therefore I will always be right, so I am right in my belief that god exists" arguement. Create a self-supporting logical loop, swear it is correct due to it's own insistence that it is correct, , repeat. Once you get by whatever illusion was used to draw attention from the fact that one needs to take "Saint something or other's" word for it, it looks pretty transparent.

Amen to that. 

[schmendrik]

Amen to that. 

But... but.. I really do believe in Angelina Jolie. And the perfect cheese, for that matter.

[ghouck]

Ok, what cheese is perfect?