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Proof of God, or the Question of It

Proof of God, or the Question of It
M.G. - Sun Feb 17, 2008 @ 07:48AM
Comments: 4

Does God exist? Isn’t this a question we’ve been trying to answer for at least 10,000 years? I have a number of problems with this question, though in my opinion, I don’t think it can be properly asked in the first place. We don’t yet have enough tangible evidence to properly form the question. Asking, “Does God exist,” is to make too many bold assumptions.

Why don’t we ask, “Does a god or a number of gods exist?” Granted paganism has fallen to the wayside in modern times, but paganism assumed multiple deities, not just one. However, whenever I make this argument among my Christian friends, they scoff at me. They ask how I can be so silly. Of course there is one God, and only one. It only makes sense. Why? It is in the Bible. Skipping over the problems with tautologies, I’ll just say that in asking of God in the first place, we have a problem with numbers. How many gods are we talking about? Where is the certain proof there is only one? I won’t even get into the issue of whether we are thinking of God as a woman or man, or as a black or a white skinned entity when we ask the question. Must the gods be anthropomorphic?

There are believers that agree with what I have argued so far, but still they believe. For them, we can ask the question, “Does God exist?” because they don’t have a problem with plurality or anthropomorphism. God, for them, is the supreme power and creative force in the Universe. God is everything and everywhere. To see God as an old man with a beard, a Santa-type figure, or as a pantheon of beings, is just a metaphor that allows us to better relate to the heavens. Do you see the slippery slope? Now we are asking whether an all powerful, creative force exists. From where does gravity come? What keeps the Earth spinning and revolving around the Sun? There is order here. There has to be! But then I must ask how we know there really is order? I’ve never seen another world or universe to which we might compare this one. So where is the proof of order? The answer might be Geometry! This is proof of order. With imaginary triangles and circles we can compare the real world with the ideal world! O.k. Maybe this kind of argument works for some of us, especially if we are ancient Greeks. However, how do we traverse the gap between geometric proofs and the question of God? I do suppose it is fair to ask, “What is the origin of our ability to conceptualize a triangle?”

We can go on, and on, and on. Not even the real scholars can agree on the nature of God(s) and haven’t been able to for 10,000 years, so why assume we can do it now? My answer is to just admit the absolute complexity of it all. Admit we don’t know enough to ask the question in the first place.

All you can do to convince me otherwise is to make a bold claim of faith. “In my heart I know God is real, for I have had a revelation!” O.k. I can buy it. I’m not pompous enough to assume that just because I’ve not had a true conversion experience they don’t exist and aren’t real. I try to keep my heart and mind open. On this note, I think I’ve suddenly changed my mind. We can ask, “Does God exist?” if we can speak these words from faith rather than logic.

Comments: 4

Comments

1. Kego - Sun Feb 17, 2008 @ 10:05AM

The quandary with faith vs. logic is that faith is blind, while logic must be seen. Faith says you must disprove it, while logic says you must prove it. By default, Faith is the easy way out, no work involved, just blindly believe what you are told, unless unequivocally proven otherwise. With logic, it must be unequivocally proven first before it is accepted.

There are plenty of things that we determine to be truths by logic – the grass is green, the sky is blue, the earth rotates around the sun, etc. Here logic is accepted by almost everyone worldwide. But when it comes to religion, logic is amazingly thrown out the window – replaced with ‘blind faith’. As we advance more in technology and science world wide, logic starts to bleed into the boundaries of faith. And while faith does require its followers to be blind, the inevitability of logic will eventually supersede over the masses – something that a single religion will never be able to do.

It is only a matter of time before science disproves most of what faith requires us to blindly believe. There are always those that will fight it kicking and screaming till the end, but I will be inevitable. I always laugh at how religious organization play ‘catch up’ trying explain why scientific evidence starts to points to the contrary of what their holy books say. How now, for instance, Christian institutions depict Adam and Eve in the Holy Garden with a Tyrannosaurs Rex behind them (I thought it was a lion and a lamb?).

Ignorance is the companion to blind faith, and as we as a people world wide become less ignorant and more educated, religion will falter more and more. This is why, in my humble opinion, extremist religious organizations resort to terror and killing – to cripple order and civility and replace it with chaos and fear is to keep the people ignorant. This is the only way to keep religion alive.

2. Cheezeburger - Sun Feb 17, 2008 @ 11:15AM

Unless you need God to justify your own existence, then it's all just pointless.

From a physics point of view it's simple. Any object that is in motion, must have been set into motion. Our universe is in motion so there must be a prime mover. That prime mover created everything in our universe, including time, therefore it exists outside of our space and time. So this prime mover does not see our universe as a sequence of events, it's omnipotent, and sees everything at once.

To think that this prime mover, or God, looks like us, thinks like us, or even cares about us is ridiculous to me. It created everything in our universe, including emotions, which are just a side effect of our consciousness.

3. Ida - Mon Feb 18, 2008 @ 01:03PM

Cheezeburger -- Your post makes tremendous sense. Nothing superstitious about it, just cold, hard facts. Nice to see someone post something intelligent about religion/god for a change.

4. Kego - Tue Feb 26, 2008 @ 07:34AM

Indeed Cheezeburger, you are correct. Think of all the other universes, star systems, and galaxies that we know exist – and then think of the infinity of those we don’t know about. To say that a ‘God’ chose our tiny little planet, in our little solar system, in our little galaxy, to focus on and have is children on seems so – incredibly naive. Kind of sounds like the way people used to think the sun revolved around the earth…

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