How we know God exists

[Oli]

if I throw 100 stones from space, what are my chances statistically speaking that I will hit an atheist.

Well according to that report if you aim them at the more societally-healthy countries the odds look fairly good.

 

[nubianconcubine]

Problems?

yes.

A pompous attitude? Thanks. I think I'm usually referred to as "overbearing" though. Lots of people have perceptual errors when they talk to me, I get used to it.

why did you have to go and say something like that? now i like you...dammit.

 

[Oli]

why did you have to go and say something like that? now i like you...dammit.

People get used to me... eventually (or move away )

 

[S.A.M.]

Well according to that report if you aim them at the more societally-healthy countries the odds look fairly good.

What I'm trying to say is, what is the percentage of atheists in these countries?

 

[Oli]

Aargh, sorry. And I've closed the window with the report in. IIRC around 40% give or take. (I'm not skimming the damn thing again ).

 

[KennyJC]

But the US is the country with the education and standard of living comparable to the best. Do you see people leaving in droves or arriving?

The US is not excluded. Europe out-performs the US as far as social ills mentioned go... But not only that, they voted George W Bush into office. I can't think of a better example of one huge social ill for the world.

Sure I would like to live in America and actually I will likely be moving there in about a year because it does have a good economy and would be a pleasant place to live - Christian right withstanding.

The point is, how can you have a stable healthy society when religion is rampant? America stands out as the only one that made it to a developed nation, however by European standards, it suffers as a result of it's intolerable religiosity. This article will explain it for you:

Edit: No, America is not the only developed nation with high religious beliefs, but you know what I mean... I'm working on no sleep.

 

[c7ityi_]

seriously, the way it goes is, he gave us life. he made our world. we are suppose to thank him for it.

I didn't want him to give me life. Should I thank him that he made this hell?

 

[nubianconcubine]

I didn't want him to give me life. Should I thank him that he made this hell?

well, if you don't believe you will go to hell, since you don't believe in that sort of thing, why don't you take it away from yourself?
sorry. that was uncalled for.
btw, i read the article kenny, and i find i can't argue with it. i see the way my country is degrading and i see that a self-proclaimed "christian" is using some kind of "divine appointment" theory as his excuse to act on his stupidity. i know that religion has been the driving force behind practically every war that ever was and that religion will continue to be the basis of future wars. religion has become a set of cliques rather than the reason to come together and do good it was supposed to be, and all the cliques are hyped up on some testosterone driven pissing contest.
i suppose religion is like communism. it works great in theory but falls apart as soon as you put mere mortals in the position to have all that power. but religion in its most basic form, without all the trappings of politics and wealth (as stated in the article) on a personal level is a good thing. the ills of the world are not really caused by religion itself but by the people that would use it as a tool for their own ends.

 

[Lawdog]

Lawdog,
So, we should believe them because they said so? That doesn't sound very credible to me. So, what stops everyone from believing what other religious organizations just because they said so?

Everything you said can be used by other religious organizations. What separates them? I bet you'll just go back to saying God endowed only the Roman Catholic Church. And I'll know what I'll say, other organizations probably say the same darn thing about their own god(s).

Your argument is based on someone saying so and everyone else is wrong. There is no logical discussion here. Just you using the old, "Because I/they/he/she said so."
[Renrue]

All christian groups were ones that broke off from the Catholic. Study of history will demonstrate this for you. As for pagans, buddhists, and the like, they are very interesting and one can learn much from them. They are not however of divine origin, though they might surely make that claim.

If you were deathly sick and presented with ten doctors all of whom claimed to experts and appointed by the authoritative organizations of medicine, how would you choose the best doctor? Would you choose the most experienced one in a major hospital with all the paperwork and degrees, or the young ones in a shack of a clinic?

 

[Sarkus]

If you were deathly sick and presented with ten doctors all of whom claimed to experts and appointed by the authoritative organizations of medicine, how would you choose the best doctor? Would you choose the most experienced one in a major hospital with all the paperwork and degrees, or the young ones in a shack of a clinic?

That's the point, Lawdog, the ONLY degrees, and the ONLY paperwork (to continue your analogy) that the Catholic Church accepts are those that it has given to itself. Hardly credible, is it!

 

[Lawdog]

Belief in God is naive at best, craven most often, and a sinister calculation at worst. Mere acceptance will do.

If the gods have determined about me and about the things which must happen to me, they have determined well, for it is not easy even to imagine a deity without forethought; and as to doing me harm, why should they have any desire towards that? For what advantage would result to them from this or to the whole, which is the special object of their providence? But if they have not determined about me individually, they have certainly determined about the whole at least, and the things which happen by way of sequence in this general arrangement I ought to accept with pleasure and to be content with them. But if they determine about nothing- which it is wicked to believe, or if we do believe it, let us neither sacrifice nor pray nor swear by them nor do anything else which we do as if the gods were present and lived with us- but if however the gods determine about none of the things which concern us, I am able to determine about myself, and I can inquire about that which is useful; and that is useful to every man which is conformable to his own constitution and nature. But my nature is rational and social; and my city and country, so far as I am Antoninus, is Rome, but so far as I am a man, it is the world. The things then which are useful to these cities are alone useful to me. Whatever happens to every man, this is for the interest of the universal: this might be sufficient. But further thou wilt observe this also as a general truth, if thou dost observe, that whatever is profitable to any man is profitable also to other men. But let the word profitable be taken here in the common sense as said of things of the middle kind, neither good nor bad.​

Marcus Aurelius does not deny that the gods exist. He calls into question the usefulness of worshipping them. The very fact that he is considering and writing about these things identifies him to be a just man, though being human he made errors in his judgements. He was right to say that "the gods" that is, the demons, dont care.

Our faith is revealed by God, Marcus Aurelius' faith was of human origin. He did not have the advantage of revelation.

Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations" (6.44)​

Humans invent their gods, and it is a testament to the depravity of human resignation that we should invent such gods as our largest religions describe:

Yes you are correct, and many christians try to create a Jesus that suites them, but who never existed.

That is why I depend on the Church's definition of who Jesus was, so that I am certain that I am not creating my own gods. I recieve God as he revealed himself, I dont create my own Jesus using passages from the bible.

Religion, the dominion of the human mind .... Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
Emma Goldman, "Anarchism: What it Really Stands For"​

This is rot. Why should you take her word for it? Religion lifts protestutes out of degradation, puts theives into paradise (like the theif on the cross), consoles the dying, prays for sick and gives hope to the imprisoned. You better toss that book.

 

[Lawdog]

That's the point, Lawdog, the ONLY degrees, and the ONLY paperwork (to continue your analogy) that the Catholic Church accepts are those that it has given to itself. Hardly credible, is it!

Then I suppose you will just have to die in your sickness....

 

[Sarkus]

Then I suppose you will just have to die in your sickness....

As we all eventually do.
But in response, I will go with the medical people that have corroborative evidence to support their degrees and paperwork.
Unfortunately the Catholic Church has none.

 

[Lawdog]

What do you mean? Perhaps you need to take a trip to Rome and see the Vatican Archives.

 

[baumgarten]

It is interesting how much argumentation has come over Lawdog's opening post, which was logically irrefutable. Most who took issue with his statement appear to have neglected the part where he states that his God is entirely spiritual; by including this provision, any argument that takes a logical or physical basis is actually irrelevant because it addresses a completely different "God" from that initially mentioned. It is in fact impossible to argue against his position, only a position similar to but not exactly like it.

What Lawdog offers in his opening post is a perspective on his world view and a description of what he calls God. You can ask yourself whether such a thing actually exists, but I'm afraid should your answer be no, the most you can do is disagree. At least that's how I have interpreted it.

 

[Giambattista]

We can be certain that God exists because the Roman Catholic Church says so.

Stupidest thing I've heard in quite a while.

 

[Sarkus]

It is interesting how much argumentation has come over Lawdog's opening post, which was logically irrefutable. Most who took issue with his statement appear to have neglected the part where he states that his God is entirely spiritual; by including this provision, any argument that takes a logical or physical basis is actually irrelevant because it addresses a completely different "God" from that initially mentioned. It is in fact impossible to argue against his position, only a position similar to but not exactly like it.

What Lawdog offers in his opening post is a perspective on his world view and a description of what he calls God. You can ask yourself whether such a thing actually exists, but I'm afraid should your answer be no, the most you can do is disagree. At least that's how I have interpreted it.

While I initially agreed with what you are saying - the RC "God" can NOT be "pure spirit" - as he created a son to walk on the Earth - and as such there must be some interraction between this "pure spirit" and the material world.

If the RC Church taught about a God that was logically consistent with "pure spirit" then what you say, and what Lawdog states in his opening post, would be irrefutable, if somewhat irrelevant - like saying "The Sarkus God exists because Sarkus says so - but he exists outside of this Universe and can never be known by any means other than through Sarkus."

Also - if this God is "pure spirit" - how can it interract with the supposed Divine Authority?
It is in this immaterial / material boundary of interraction that such a definition of God falls down - as logically a purely immaterial being can NOT interract with the material in any way.

 

[Lawdog]

It is true that God the Father, is pure spirit. The Son is incarnated in the flesh. Do not forget what you know about the Roman Catholic dogma of the Trinity.

Why do you say that immaterial cannot interact with material? The higher order governs the lower, interaction happens constantly. The very fact that you are right now thinking thoughts that no one else can see is proof of this activity.

 

[Sarkus]

Why do you say that immaterial cannot interact with material? The higher order governs the lower, interaction happens constantly. The very fact that you are right now thinking thoughts that no one else can see is proof of this activity.

Please explain HOW they can interact.
And bear in mind that thoughts are entirely physical, as are emotions, as is pain etc, as is consciousness, as is personality - albeit that we use abstract words to describe the physical processes.

It is because thoughts (and all brain activity in general) are physical that we can "read" (at a redumentary level) the activity in the brain, and why we can stimulate parts of our body through direct manipulation of the brain (with electricity, for example).

 

[baumgarten]

But when you "read" activity in the brain, you are not experiencing that person's thoughts. The experience itself is relegated to an immaterial plane. "Mind over matter" is a common phrase; what it really says is that these immaterial experiences are the hierarchical parent, or the "cause," in a way, of the brain activity. In Roman Catholic cosmology, the spiritual realm is transcendent, i.e. it is beyond all other realms but still encompasses and permeates them. So a spiritual phenomenon could affect physical reality, but not vice-versa.