Proving the existence of God?

((((hugs)))) He does exist!

"You ask me how I know He lives
He lives within my heart!"

I have some more ideas, but I was afraid that I was eventually going to offend someone. If you guys don't mind, I will keep posting on this thread.

the argument from experience:

P1) i have the experience of god
P2) in order to experience something the object of your experience must exist
_________________________________
C) god exists!

Just something I was pondering.....What about our own beliefs and thoughts....

One way or another, we 'worship' something. There is always a purpose, cause, person, or philosophy that gets the lion's share of any given person's time and energy. Some people worship themselves, their thoughts and energies are mostly devoted to 'taking care of number 1'. Some worship being loved and adored by the people around them (though, not necessarily loving and adoring those people in turn. They crave attention.) Some worship the acquisition of material wealth. Some worship relationships and put great value on the people who are most important in their lives. Some may dedicate themselves to helping those around them who are less fortunate. All of these things can be worship, and like most things, some worship is constructive and some is destructive. As a person, I think that it's very important to understand what it is that you worship in life, because where your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure (and most treasured things).

Very few people, even exceptionally good people with high morals and standards of conduct, social conscience, and honesty, truly worship God. They may believe in the concept of God, they may believe that there is life after death, but they don't live their lives as if there is life after death, or as if their life belongs to God as their creator. I'm not saying that it is a bad thing to fall into that category, as I am not going to waste my life judging how others spend theirs. What I am saying is that to worship God is to choose to dedicate everything to God. Anything else isn't worship. You don't worship money if you get a job so that you can support your family. You can make money without worshiping it, and so too, you can praise God, believe in God, and even love God and still not worship God. Martin Luther said that a dairy maid could milk cows to the glory of God. I believe that is true. I think that anything that you do as if you are presenting it to God as a gift is worship of God (be it the way you take care of your family, fulfill the duties of your job, participate in charity, or even just mowing your lawn). Appreciation of a beautiful sunset can be worship of God, it just means that you have to have the right frame of mind, and the feeling of God inside of you as a real presence, rather than a theoretical concept.

To me, the only way that I can experience God is to experience God as a real and living part of my life. Worship of God isn't a part of my life, like mowing the lawn, washing the cars, filling my wife's car with gas so she doesn't have to, going to church, participating in charity, going to work, or watching TV. All of those things are a part of my life, and can be done as part of my worship of God, but it is my life itself that I consider my worship of God and the way I do every task is a part of that worship. When I do something, I try my best to do it like I was doing it FOR the one who created me, and who created the world. After all, if my body and all of the things of the world already belong to God, then I can't very well give him anything EXCEPT for how I take the life he gave me and live it.

So maybe you are more comfortable with keeping God at a distance, and thinking of God as being a Shepard over a flock, and delighting or feeling sorrow with the flock as a whole. Maybe worship is something that you can do on a semi-regular basis in your life like brushing your teeth, taking out the trash, or mowing the lawn. And perhaps you are OK with the concept of belief in God and even love of God without the worship of God. That's OK, because we are all different in our concepts and understandings. I think that to worship God though is to LOVE God with the same devotion of self that you put into the love you have for those people that are closest to you (be it your kids, significant other, or other family and friends). You don't have to preclude such relationships if you form that same relationship with God. If you have two kids, can't you love one without loving the other less? To quote CS Lewis, if you shoot for heaven, you get earth thrown in for free.

To use the biblical story of the Shepard, if even ONE lamb strays the Shepard will seek it and celebrate finding it. I like to think of God as being a constant companion, and that he is with me individually (as well as being with the whole flock) and that when I communicate with God, it's not an email to a friend that he'll read and think about in some remote place and time. It's a direct and personal communication, which is the result of a direct and personal relationship. I don't feel that this subtracts from my life at all, in fact, it provides clarity and drive that makes all aspects of my life better and fuller. That's just me, and my own experience.

One might argue that if one believes in such a thing as God, and that the belief itself drives the person to positive goals and positive achievements, then it doesn't matter if God exists or not, because the belief alone is making the transformation in that person's life. Do I succeed in life because I think that I believe in God, and that drives my life in positive directions, or do I succeed and thus attribute it to God, and the success itself feeds the belief. Or, and it may sound silly, is it possible that God does exist and my success and belief are just a natural expression of the truth? Obviously, there is no way to tell for sure one way or the other, but then again, that's why belief in an afterlife and a supreme being like God is based on the concept of faith. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, and if you believe in God, and that belief is true, then you have to look at your life and decide if you live it as if you believe in God as a fact, or as a theoretical concept. The proof is in what you do, not what you think about as a theory that isn't put into practice.

I know that this may make a lot uncomfortable or it might just be boring. I am sorry for that. I am just voicing my opinion.. cool?

Way cool, thanks for sharing :-)

I have trouble with the phrase 'worship' I guess, though it got a lot clearer as you went on...

I don't think I worship anything...

But there are certainly things I value.

Did God create everything that exists?

Does evil exist?

Did God create evil?

A University professor at a well known institution of higher

learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create

everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil.
And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define
who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet and did not answer the professor's

hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself,

boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the

Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question,
professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you

never been cold?" The other students snickered at the young man's

question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the
laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat.
Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy,
and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy.

Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes
inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist.
We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist
either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study,
but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light
into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You
cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of
darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is?
You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a
term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said.
We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man's inhumanity to man
It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These
manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does
not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like
darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of
God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man
does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that
comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no
light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name - Albert Einstein

! ! ! ! VERY COOL ! ! ! !

What an incredible expression of faith to read!

thank you so much for sharing this with all of us.

Altered State

That is absolutely amazing stuff! I GOTTA memorize that one!!

Thanks Radio Flyer!

The worship of things can be so very subtle that one may not even notice...

It is very cool...

But in order to avail yourself to that response to the problem of evil you need to say that god isn't omnipresent (everywhere) after all (for there to be an absence of him, you see).

But maybe that is the most palatable option?

(Personally, I like it. I don't believe in absolute / intrinsic good or evil I think these terms are better understood as relational...)

I really like this "proof"!!

There is "evil" because without God/Jesus, the Light of the World, there is darkness and cold.

Thanks for sharing that with us, Radio!

You are discussing the aspect of free will, and that's not the same as your purpose in life (not to mention that it didn't come from you). Maybe I'm not explaining it very well, but if you accept certain basic concepts such as the existence of a soul, the existence of a God that made the soul, and that nature is the sum of God's creation, then that leads to questions of 'why?'. Why did God go to the trouble of creating souls to populate a world that he also created?

So it's not a question of do you have control over what you do with the life that you have, even the Bible states that all of mankind has perfect free will to do as he/she pleases. The question that is asked by philosophers and holy men over the centuries is 'why are we here, what is the meaning of being alive?'

I am reminded of the story of Russian Novelist Andrei Bitov. He grew up in a communist country that actively tried to wipe all religion out. Atheism is the official 'state' religion of most Communist countries, as they want the 'State' to be the religion of the masses. When he was 27 he was riding the metro in Lenningrad (St. Petersburg) and became overcome with a great depair. He had come to the realization that existing in just the material world, in the 'here and now', in the idea that above him was no heaven, and that life under such parameters had neither future nor purpose. As he sat brooding over this thought, a phrase appeared to him (novelists are funny that way). "Without God, Life makes no sense". In his words "Repeating it in astonishment, I rode the phrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro, and walked into God's light."

That's a pretty powerful transformation, however, it isn't meaningful at all unless you accept that there are aspects to this experience we call 'life' that are not explained by what you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, can touch and feel with your skin, smell with your nose, or taste with your mouth. If you think that all aspects of life are covered by the biology, then that is your 'peace', but there are many people that simply can't be satisfied that the biology represents all that there is.

I don't think we are free to do anything / everything. For example, I am not free to flap my arms and fly like a bird.

I think it is possible to find meaning without belief in the supernatural.

What is the meaning of life?
What is meaning?

What things are meaningful to you?
Those are the meaningful components of your life.
Religious belief might be meaningful to you in which case it is a meaningful component of your life but I do think it is possible to have a meaningful life in the absence of religious belief / faith / practice.

I find interacting with others meaningful so that is part of the meaning of my life. That isn't all though, it is good to diversify and partake in many different meaningful projects...

We know quite a lot about *how* we got to be here.
Biology doesn't really tell us about *why* we got to be here, however.
Some people attempt to envoke physics for the *why* but IMHO you only get more in the way of *how*.

I like relational ideas.
There isn't any such thing as intrinsic bad or intrinsic good, but there is relational bad and relational good.
If we ascribe a telos (purpose, function) then we can say that an organisms good is what enables it to achieve a purpose or function (or to florish) and an organisms bad is what hinders it in achieving its purpose or function.
So we can say that poison is bad or evil for people because it prevents their flourishing. Etc.

Ascribing telos is tricky though... One wants to say that the function of genes is to copy themselves. Why is that their function? This seems both trival and wrong: If they didn't copy themselves they wouldn't be here. But... We seem to ascribe them this function often enough (though perhaps we don't state it explicitly). Thats what enables us to talk about genetic mutations as *malfunctions* and if they interfeare with human flourishing then they are harmful dysfunctions (aka diseases).

But the function of a person is hard...

We are here because our anscestors survived long enough to replicate... And there is a historical chain to us...

But social darwinism is clearly false as the interests of the vechile (us) diverges from the interestes of the genes because they gave us this higher cognitive capacity so as to better achieve real time interactions in rapidly changing environments...

Dunno...

I believe the natural / physical facts are only a subset of all the facts and the natural / physical entities are only a subset of all the entities.

There are logical and mathematical facts, for example...
There are facts about aesthetics (that aren't merely sociological) and there are facts about ethics (that aren't merely sociological). I also believe that fictional entities exist in some sense (as ideas) and that there are other abstract objects that exist in some sense (e.g., numbers and fictional characters and other possible worlds)

Wittgenstein said something along the lines of:

The question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' is a question that does not have an answer'.

I agree.

For those who think the answer is 'Because God decided to make the world' then you have shuffled the question back one step to this:

'why is there something (i.e., god) rather than nothing (i.e., no god, no world etc'?

I think about this sometimes...
Sometimes... It fills me with wonder that there is anything at all...

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I am not free to flap my arms and fly like a bird.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

My belief, and I'm sure it is others belief, that the Free Will we were given is the ability to make our choices; good or bad, intelligent or ignorant. We certainly CAN flap our wings and try to fly like a bird, but since God didn't give us flight feathers and hollow bones, we wouldn't get very far. However, we CAN make that choice. We have the free will to do it!

All of life is a choice because humans all have free will!

Yeah, you are right. We can choose to do that it is just that we won't be successful in the execution.

There can be problems with reconciling free will with God's foreknowledge (aka determinism) though...

I agree </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
problems with reconciling free will with God's foreknowledge

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> and when you add in the "observer effect" one truly must realize they cannot know the mind of God!

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
...then that leads to questions of 'why?'. Why did God go to the trouble of creating souls to populate a world that he also created?

So it's not a question of do you have control over what you do with the life that you have, even the Bible states that all of mankind has perfect free will to do as he/she pleases. The question that is asked by philosophers and holy men over the centuries is 'why are we here, what is the meaning of being alive?'

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

The Bible also answers that question.

I think questions such as those above are, obviously, only asked when one doubts the existance of any, and especially, an "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." - type of being.

Well put, by the way, alphamicky.

Interesting that one would consider Athiesm to be a "religion," as Bitov(?) puts it. This would seemingly be an oxymoron. However, since religion can also include a definition of a "thing that one is devoted to or is bound to," then it is really the power the 'state' seeks to have, instead of to Whom it rightly belongs.

(just an interjection)

Altered State

I do not believe a debate is the intention, either. Please continue.

The original post was not expressed as an issue to be debated. It was simply an expression of a personal opinion to another's thread and hopefully, would continue with other ones, either here or on the original thread that promted this one.

To have a free-flowing discussion like this is excellent! I love it!

Altered State

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
There can be problems with reconciling free will with God's foreknowledge

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Because of God's omniscience (all knowing), He knows how we're going to use our free will, He knows what choices we're going to make and He knows if we're going to ask His guidance in making those choices.

We can choose to ask His guidance or we can choose to bullheadedly, humanly follow our own mind and free will. We may also choose to follow Jesus example, or not.

Choosing to behave like a bird isn't the only action that would have dire consequences. We make choices daily where the execusion isn't successful at the very least, and at worst, would have the same consequence as trying to fly.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
AlteredState01 said:
I do not believe a debate is the intention, either. Please continue.

The original post was not expressed as an issue to be debated. It was simply an expression of a personal opinion to another's thread and hopefully, would continue with other ones, either here or on the original thread that promted this one.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I, for some strange reason, cannot find the original thread that you speak of. What is the title of this illusive thread?

I don't know how to converse on this topic without it looking like a debate. Alexa, you wrote </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
the argument from experience:

P1) i have the experience of god
P2) in order to experience something the object of your experience must exist
_________________________________
C) god exists!


</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

But don't schizophrenics, and others of us who experience hallucinations, counter this?

Radio flyer... If one uses the Bible as basis for belief, then God created everything and saw that everything was good. He didn't create anything that was evil...it was because of the angel's free will that evil came, imo.

And... hmm yes, we can flap our arms like a bird, that is free will... to fly like a bird is physics and not part of the equation, imo. (though aircraft travel would perform the same task )

Hi Sky.... I just liked the way it was stated.. that Evil is simply the absence of God. Which makes a lot off sense.. Yes, the Bible says God did not create anything that was evil and yes it was because of the angel's free will that evil came... So therefore the angel's free will separated him from God....So evil can be explained by "the absence of God"...

I am just learning and growing.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
_Sky said:
I don't know how to converse on this topic without it looking like a debate. Alexa, you wrote </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
the argument from experience:

P1) i have the experience of god
P2) in order to experience something the object of your experience must exist
_________________________________
C) god exists!


</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

But don't schizophrenics, and others of us who experience hallucinations, counter this?

Radio flyer... If one uses the Bible as basis for belief, then God created everything and saw that everything was good. He didn't create anything that was evil...it was because of the angel's free will that evil came, imo.

And... hmm yes, we can flap our arms like a bird, that is free will... to fly like a bird is physics and not part of the equation, imo. (though aircraft travel would perform the same task )

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

It's ok Sky, there aren't too many people in this world that can 'truly' grasp the concept of god.

It is mistakenly imagined by some that belief in a Supreme Being as the Creator and Controller of the universe is a mere emotional aspiration, a superstition of ancient times, irrational and illogical, and exploded by modern science.

It is believed that scientists (physicists, biologists and others) have erected some theory which both refutes and replaces the traditional belief in God. Such ideas have only a very superficial grounding, and are the result of ignorance or an indifference to both the fundamentals of religious faith and the scope of the physical sciences. It is a significant fact in the history of world thought that very few people have ever made it their business to refute the existence of God.

The views of the universe which are considered to be anti-religious are almost all agnostic, not atheistic, that is to say, they attempt to ignore the existence of God instead of denying it. This is true of certain views of modern science as well as of the ancient non-religious theories. The universe in which we live comprises an evident system of causes and effects, of phenomena and their results, and it is possible to discuss them indefinitely and construct theories about them, giving a superficial appearance of completeness. This is done, however, only at the expense of ignoring fundamentals or claiming that they cannot be known. If one were to search for a convincing statement based on firm principles that the existence of a Supreme Being is impossible, one would not be able to find it.

This is something that I have given great thought into and I would elaborate more, but it would get boring...lol

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
It's ok Sky, there aren't too many people in this world that can 'truly' grasp the concept of god.


</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> I'm not sure what you are thinking with that comment.

I think it would be more enjoyable if you would speak from what YOU believe or hold to, rather than quoting what scientists might believe.