Does God Exist?

[Psycho Circus]

Ok, what cheese is perfect?

Applewood cheese. Bet god doesn't taste this good?

[ghouck]

Oh my, , only an immoral, uneducated, unenlightened applewood lover would think like that. There is SO MUCH proof all around us that Havarti is the best, most perfect cheese, you just choose not to admit it because of your own rampant ignorance and greed. It's applewood lovers like you that make me glad to love havarti, you're really proving my point for me, since only an applewood lover would think like that. But, I still love you. .

Hahahha, , you shoulda seen that coming. . .

[ToyMan]

...the only thing that bugs me is space - where does it end?

as far as i'm concerned, space does not end. furthermore, it doesn't matter to me if it does or not.

both religion and science, two sides of the same coin, are used to obfuscate and distract us from the reality that we live in. science can give us a greater understanding of our world, and religion, for some, can give us a greater understanding of ourselves, but they're both pushed way too far in the aim of creating a purpose for our being here, and all of that takes away from our actually BEING here, existing, and enjoying life.

to paraphrase nietzsche, once we understand something in our minds it is dead in our hearts.

[Patient7]

Pepperjack is the perfect cheese, end of story.

[ER]

Try this one on for size:





Ten Ways I know God exists....


Without God we would not have buttercups, therefore God exists...

I know God exists because I pray to him...

God exists, because the Bible says God exists...

I know God exists because atheists and agnostics are a bunch of stupidheads...

I know God exists because the devil exists, and God made the devil...

God exists, because Jesus said we no longer have to keep kosher...

God exists, because a million churches full of believers can't be wrong...

God exists because without God's design, our earthly home would be a barren rock in lifeless space...

God exists, because he gave us the Republican Party, Wal-Mar, and NASCAR...

God exists because he made me so special...






Hmm, I wonder if I should duck now?

[indianasmith]

I agree with one of those, ER -

God made you special all right!

[AndyC]

My dog enjoys an occasional bit of cheddar, making it Dog's chosen cheese.

Sadly, there has been endless fighting between the old, medium and mild cheddar factions, not to mention all the bloodshed over white vs. orange cheddar.

And yet, if one is willing to see, it is obvious that we all have a common enemy. Velveeta, the anti-cheese.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Ok, what cheese is perfect?

Rogue River Blue!

http://www.roguecreamery.com/pilot.asp?pg=RogueRiverBlue

If there was a god of cheese, he would eat this.  Unless he was allergic.
-Ed

[JJ80]

Does god exist? Mess with me if you want to find out! 

[ghouck]

My dog enjoys an occasional bit of cheddar, making it Dog's chosen cheese.

Sadly, there has been endless fighting between the old, medium and mild cheddar factions, not to mention all the bloodshed over white vs. orange cheddar.

And yet, if one is willing to see, it is obvious that we all have a common enemy. Velveeta, the anti-cheese.

My dog loved Velveeta, , used to give it to him then leave, it gave him horrible gas.

[Rev. Powell]

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

It's called the Ontological Argument, it originated in this form with St. Anslem around 1100 AD.  As you might guess, subsequent philosophers haven't exactly embraced it as an airtight argument. 

It doesn't make sense to me.  I can't accept the premise that whatever we can conceive must exist somewhere outside or minds.  It seems more likely to me that some of our "absolute" concepts, like infinity or perfection, are simply features of our consciousness, our frame of looking at things, and they don't bear much reference to ultimate reality. 

The Aquinas argument that ER mentions (the argument from causation) is to me the most convincing.  The only problem is, if you accept it, it only proves the existence of a first cause, not the existence of the Christian God.  Aquinas makes a rather startling leap when he says at the end of his argument "this all men recognize as God."

When I was younger I used to love arguing back and forth with my friends about these proofs.  Then one day I realized that for centuries people much smarter than me had been arguing the point back and forth, and getting nowhere.  I can't claim to be as smart as either Aquinas and Descartes on the one hand or Nietzsche and Hume on the other, yet they all reached different conclusions.  That's all the evidence I need to show that the existence or nonexistence of God is not something that can be established through brute reasoning.   

Nowadays, I'm more interested in the psychological angle, in seeing how different people approach the question.

These arguments are a nice way to sharpen your mind and your debating skills, but that's about it.

[Patient7]

Proof of God's existence

[Menard]

Does god exist? Mess with me if you want to find out! 

Really?

[Menard]

Bet god doesn't taste this good?

Ohhh....how did I miss that?

Not only does that leave itself open to so many potentially coarse replies...


Oh, for example:

Put your faith where your mouth is

or

That's one way to get ahead in church (say it aloud)


...I could also concurrently offend every believer in this thread.


Ohhh...how did I miss that?

Oh my, , only an immoral, uneducated, unenlightened applewood lover would think like that. There is SO MUCH proof all around us that Havarti is the best, most perfect cheese, you just choose not to admit it because of your own rampant ignorance and greed. It's applewood lovers like you that make me glad to love havarti, you're really proving my point for me, since only an applewood lover would think like that. But, I still love you. .

Hahahha, , you shoulda seen that coming. . .

You go bro

Havarti Rules!!!

Not only is it the best cheese in the world, it's got a damn cool name too.

[Jack]

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!

I've always found that stuff rather mind boggling.  Like, the big bang - what came before that?  Obviously there must have been something that caused it.  I've heard theories about planes of different dimensions coming into contact with each other and releasing gigantic amounts of energy, i.e. the big bang.  Maybe there are trillions of universes, they're just too far away for us to detect.  But why is there anything?  Why does matter and energy, or some more basic form of the stuff, exist in the first place?   And what would there be if there was no matter, energy, space, time, etc?  Not only nothing, but no space for the nothing to not occupy.  Is that even possible?  My imagination runs into a wall there.

I guess I don't take it as a proof for the existence of god, just because of the way my brain works.  If god exists, then obviously there must have been something that caused him as well.   Besides, it's infinitely more interesting to try to figure the whole thing out than to just write it off to god.  We've really only been studying astronomy in any serious sense for a few hundred years, and the same with advanced mathematics and physics, chemistry, etc.  A mere tick of the clock in human existence.  We're only grasping at the most basic of knowledge at this point.  Imagine a thousand, or a million years from now.