How to know that God exists.

[stiggy wiggy]

That the universe is necessary.

For what?

If time and space began at the BB as many physicists think then the universe has existed for all time, just not eternal time.

For 13.8 billion years, but that doesn't explain where it came from.

 

[CrowCross]

There's certainly a failure of imagination here, for example, have you never thought that the universe might have a natural explanation beyond that which you can understand?

Oh, and have you ever though the universe has had a supernatural explanation?

 

[Whatsisface]

For what?

I didn't mean it in that way, I meant it has to exist.

For 13.8 billion years, but that doesn't explain where it came from.

It's not a full explanation but it means that there was never a time when the universe didn't exist. If true, asking where it came from doesn't make sense because it didn't come from, it has always been.

 

[yrger]

Speculations, and imaginations, and presumptions, opinions, conjectures, are good for nothing. Your thinking is from a human perspective, a stumblingblock, not from GOD's perspective.
Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with speeches wherewith he can do no good? Conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepares deceit.

Hi Oseas, you mean that we you and I are humans, but we must not think from a human perspective?

I ask you, then from what perspective must man think - considering that we are humans, it cannot be otherwise than that we think from a human perspective.

Okay, so you claim to think from a divine perspective, did you get a lobotomy by which your human brain became a divine brain?

Then, please change water into wine, okay?!

 

[Whatsisface]

Oh, and have you ever though the universe has had a supernatural explanation?

This doesn't answer my question.

However, to answer yours, yes, but I see no reason to conclude it but would change my mind if the evidence showed it. One reason I think it is because there are many examples of things once thought supernatural that we now have natural explanations for. It's never been the other way round.

 

[CrowCross]

This doesn't answer my question.

However, to answer yours, yes, but I see no reason to conclude it but would change my mind if the evidence showed it. One reason I think it is because there are many examples of things once thought supernatural that we now have natural explanations for. It's never been the other way round.

But you forget beliefs such as the BB still don't have a natural explanation. You simply assume (have faith that) the universe self created from nothing...and have no explanation for that belief (faith).

The answer is the universe needed an uncreated creator. Can you provide another answer? We already know the universe created itself from nothing argument fails.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

I didn't mean it in that way, I meant it has to exist.

Why?

It's not a full explanation but it means that there was never a time when the universe didn't exist.

That's the same as saying there was never a time that time didn't exist, which is tautological and thus not worth saying. What caused the advent of time?

 

[Whatsisface]

But you forget beliefs such as the BB still don't have a natural explanation.

Right, but it doesn't have a supernatural explanation either and everything we do know about the universe and the BB has natural explanations.

You simply assume (have faith that) the universe self created from nothing...and have no explanation for that belief (faith).

I have already said in reply to you that I don't, nor do most atheists, think that the universe self created from nothing.

The answer is the universe needed an uncreated creator. Can you provide another answer?

This is the classic fallacious argument from personal incredulity, ie, you can't provide another answer, therefore God. Do you have any actual evidence for God creating the universe, rather than a faulty argument?

We already know the universe created itself from nothing argument fails.

I agree, which is why I don't think the universe created itself from nothing. It's theists who think atheists must think that, but they don't.

 

[Bob Carabbio]

There are three ways man comes to know the existence of God:

1. By man's intelligence and his rational faculty and his reasoning process.
2. By reading the Bible for Christians and Orthodox Jews, and the Koran for Muslims.
3. By meditation.


I know God exists by the No. 1 way.

Very briefly:
a. Man is a transient entity i.e. he is here today and then after some years of life like as much as 90 years plus, he dies.
b. The transient existence of man inevitably implicates the existence of God as the permanent self-existent creator and operator of man and the universe and everything transient.
d. Therefore God exists.

A MUCH simpler way is to Die physically. Then everything will be clear.

 

[Whatsisface]

Why?

I don't know why, but it's a possibility. I'm giving you alternative possibilities to God.

That's the same as saying there was never a time that time didn't exist, which is tautological and thus not worth saying.

Is that a tautology? Could you explain that better?

What caused the advent of time?

I don't know.

 

[5wize]

Hi 5wize, tell me, is there existence anterior to the Big Bang?

There is always existence. You just don't know what its characteristics are prior to, and anterior to the Big Bang (also referred to as Planck time), so why would assume you know it's a sentient being with thoughts and a will? Beings don't show up with thoughts and wills until organisms developed brains very posterior to the Big Bang.

 

[5wize]

...and it was complete nothingness. Go that? Nothing....

Nope. There was existence. You even agree with that. The concept of nothing is silly. What was before the BB wasn't nothing, it just wasn't this. You define everything we cannot experience in this universe as nothing? How do you figure that?

from which your so-called universe, what??? Popped into being?

Yup.

5wize...your theory even sounds ridicules.

Timeless and space-less existence is far more plausible than a timeless and space-less sentient being. That is just ridiculous in its very definition.

The truth, no God = no universe.

The truth... Man made up a transcendent God from the scraps of his own transcended experience. Terms like being, designer, creator.... you can't get there from here, but you try. It just doesn't work.

I for one don't disallow for the supernatural. That simply means it is above the nature we can currently measure and define. But this is what you've done.... you took something that is undefined and beyond the nature we experience and measure and decided it contains a sentient disembodied being with a brainless mind, a will, and a design and can create stuff with words..... all things that in isolation are time and space bound and not supernatural at all - until you try to weave them together into some kind of Frankenstein's bride impossibility - and then declare it as timeless and space-less. It's really kind of nuts.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

I for one don't disallow for the supernatural.

I'm sure the supernatural is very grateful for that.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

Is that a tautology? Could you explain that better?

Sure. It's like saying that there is no space in which space does not exist.

 

[Whatsisface]

Sure. It's like saying that there is no space in which space does not exist.

Ok, what do you propose by it?

 

[stiggy wiggy]

Ok, what do you propose by it?

Nothing, since I, unlike you, never proposed anything that tautological and absurd.

 

[Whatsisface]

Nothing, since I, unlike you, never proposed anything that tautological and absurd.

Why was it absurd?

 

[yrger]

A MUCH simpler way is to Die physically. Then everything will be clear. -Bob Carabbio
--------------

yrger said:
There are three ways man comes to know the existence of God:

1. By man's intelligence and his rational faculty and his reasoning process.
2. By reading the Bible for Christians and Orthodox Jews, and the Koran for Muslims.
3. By meditation.


I know God exists by the No. 1 way.

Very briefly:
a. Man is a transient entity i.e. he is here today and then after some years of life like as much as 90 years plus, he dies.
b. The transient existence of man inevitably implicates the existence of God as the permanent self-existent creator and operator of man and the universe and everything transient.
c. So, we are the evidence for the existence of God.
d. Therefore God exists.
------------

A MUCH simpler way is to Die physically. Then everything will be clear. -Bob Carabbio


Hi Bob, don't be foolish, when I am dead - I won't be around anymore to see things clearly.

 

[yrger]

. . . . . .


I for one don't disallow for the supernatural. That simply means it is above the nature we can currently measure and define. . . . . . .

Hi 5wize, you are an advocate of nature, which man can measure and define.

But you don't deny the existence of supernature, which man cannot measure and cannot define.

So, it seems certain from your exposition that you admit nature which man can measure and defined: is contained in supernature which man cannot measure and define.

That supernature that man cannot measure and define, it is God.

Now you ask me, why should nature be contained inside supernature?

Simple: because nature is limited, man can measure and define it - but God/Supernature is unlimited.

Wherefore, an ancient wise man says: "In God/Supernature we live and move and have our being."

 

[5wize]

Hi 5wize, you are an advocate of nature, which man can measure and define.

But you don't deny the existence of supernature, which man cannot measure and cannot define.

So, it seems certain from your exposition that you admit nature which man can measure and defined: is contained in supernature which man cannot measure and define.

Good so far.....

That supernature that man cannot measure and define, it is God.

Oh no! How disappointing. You were doing so well. That super-nature is definitely not the God you define.

How is it that you say in one sentence fragment that man cannot measure super-nature and then you go on to describe it anyway in the next sentence fragment? You are really not too aware of your own contradiction. Read it again and try to understand its folly for your own sake.

Now you ask me, why should nature be contained inside supernature?

Simple: because nature is limited, man can measure and define it - but God/Supernature is unlimited.

It's also beyond your capacity to define, but you try it anyway. Why?

Wherefore, an ancient wise man says: "In God/Supernature we live and move and have our being."

Not so wise. The wise man says "The language and nature of God is found in silence, the rest is bad interpretation."

The less you say the better you display what you actually know about the supernatural.