Is god real?

[Farnhamia]

Nice? I never liked him, he always had a chip on his shoulder and a needier son of a bitch I never met. His wife was nice. had the sense to leave him, too.

I guess he just doesn't like women that much.

I guess. He seemed indifferent to her most of the time. She complained about all those burnt offerings stinking up the place all the time.

[The Truth and Light]

I guess he just doesn't like women that much.

I guess. He seemed indifferent to her most of the time. She complained about all those burnt offerings stinking up the place all the time.

You gotta admit, the guy knows how to run a religion.

Anyway, that's enough blasphemy for today.

[Aryan Shield]

It doesn't.(clear this up) Maybe I'm just dense.

Well in that case; just how dense are you? If we turn you to powder and make you into a slurry...
"A slurry of the powder in a liquid of known density can also be used with a hydrometer to measure particle density by buoyancy."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_density#Archimedes.27_principle

Humor; love it!
If you want it explained another way...let's say this:

The religion of Sun worship has been practiced since the dawn of time by cultures world-wide for a simple reason. Without the Sun; life would not exist here. That simple. The Sun is also Representative of the power of the Creator and in all cultures they manifested that Creator in different ways. They give it and other stellar bodies names and attributes; because though they recognized that each was important, they had no understanding of the truth until science shows the way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution
FIND OUR SUN
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Our_Milky_Way_Gets_a_Makeover_%28NASA%29.jpg
That little dot marked by the sun is our little corner of this particular galaxy of which there are countless numbers of. The force behind the creation of all things is God; the force behind the creation of all things. Clear?

[Farnhamia]

I guess. He seemed indifferent to her most of the time. She complained about all those burnt offerings stinking up the place all the time.

You gotta admit, the guy knows how to run a religion.

He got lucky. The Hebrews had already stagnated by the time the Romans arrived. He managed to get to John the Baptist and John's cousin, Jesus, and they collected a good bunch of followers. Really, though, it was co-opting Saul of Tarsus that really put Yahweh over the top. That man could sell mud to a Sumerian.

[Aryan Shield]

The Non-Personified Godhead you speak of is a creation of the mind to explain the things we do not yet understand. I am saying that God is the power behind the creation of all things and is certainly not human; nor to be worshiped and that worshiping anything man made; corrupts man.

That's kind of (read: exactly) what I meant by non-personified.

We are a part of this great creation as much as the stars in the sky; the soil at our feet, and the leaf on a tree. All matter and energy, and all anti-matter and anti-energy as well as all other products of creation are a result of this power I speak of. It is everything and is in everything and the power that created it is to be revered and respected; not worshiped. How can you ignore the wind?

Your point of view might be easier to understand if you skipped the poetry and spoke plainly. Also, there's no such thing as anti-energy.

The universe is a big place and we are so insignificant that it is impossible for us not to be in awe of this power.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/index.html
But the idea that this little blue speck around a typical sun is cause for the attention of God in any way after its creation is astounding. Look up; look outwards for that is the power of this God Eternal and ours to explore and understand. I hope that clears things up.

It doesn't. Maybe I'm just dense.

I'm Sagittarius, we are very poetic.
If there is anti-matter; there is anti-energy of course.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Anti-matter
It's part a theory that for every action there is a reaction, and for matter and energy there are opposites. Just more to discover over time about this universe we are in. There is a balance between all things after all; and the point is that we are just part of the equation. I'll leave it here for now.

[Serpos]

yes...wait...no...

[Farnhamia]

That's kind of (read: exactly) what I meant by non-personified.

Your point of view might be easier to understand if you skipped the poetry and spoke plainly. Also, there's no such thing as anti-energy.

It doesn't. Maybe I'm just dense.

I'm Sagittarius, we are very poetic.
If there is anti-matter; there is anti-energy of course.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Anti-matter
It's part a theory that for every action there is a reaction, and for matter and energy there are opposites. Just more to discover over time about this universe we are in. There is a balance between all things after all; and the point is that we are just part of the equation. I'll leave it here for now.

If there were a balance between matter and anti-matter, we wouldn't exist, it would all reacted and cancelled each other out in the first seconds of the universe.

[Villerar]

If there are universal laws that god cannot change, then there is by necessity aspects of reality god did not create. If universal laws can exist without a god, and the universe formed according to those laws, then the existence of a god is highly doubtable

And the doubt becomes even greater when you consider that there is no observable evidence that "God" ever existed or did anything. Everything the Intelligent Design brigade fires off is so easily countered that it's becoming laughable.

What if those universal laws are the nature of the Deity? Which is the Christian response to the Eutrypho dilemma. These universal laws would then not be able to exist without God.

Also, it is a sweeping generalisation from "universal laws can exist" as in mathematical and logic facts being real to "the universe formed according to these laws". I would say that mathematics is necessary, but that physics is extremely contingent. It is easy to imagine different values for several constants that would lead to non-viable universes and I can't see a way to argue that the physical laws are necessary either. Nor do I think that maths or logic have causative powers, so these necessary laws would not cause anything, but rather limit possibilities.

Whoever was addressed with "the Intelligent Design brigade", I can happily disclose that I am not a fan of the Discovery Institute and I can think of better pastimes than calling certain organic motors irreducibly complex, though I'm not zealously offended if people do spend their time that way.

[Jedi8246]

Of course not, that would be some pomo nonsense. The very notion is logically contradictory. It would be like a circle with two axes of different lengths or a metallic organic compound.

If there are universal laws that god cannot change, then there are by necessity aspects of reality god did not create. If universal laws can exist without a god, and the universe formed according to those laws, then the existence of a god is highly doubtable

He created laws that he can change but won't. These universal laws area unchangeable in a universe without God. These universal laws can only exist in a universe with God.
The fact that we have unchangeable laws that don't change proves God's existence in both ways.

[Farnhamia]

And the doubt becomes even greater when you consider that there is no observable evidence that "God" ever existed or did anything. Everything the Intelligent Design brigade fires off is so easily countered that it's becoming laughable.

What if those universal laws are the nature of the Deity? Which is the Christian response to the Eutrypho dilemma. These universal laws would then not be able to exist without God.

Also, it is a sweeping generalisation from "universal laws can exist" as in mathematical and logic facts being real to "the universe formed according to these laws". I would say that mathematics is necessary, but that physics is extremely contingent. It is easy to imagine different values for several constants that would lead to non-viable universes and I can't see a way to argue that the physical laws are necessary either. Nor do I think that maths or logic have causative powers, so these necessary laws would not cause anything, but rather limit possibilities.

Whoever was addressed with "the Intelligent Design brigade", I can happily disclose that I am not a fan of the Discovery Institute and I can think of better pastimes than calling certain organic motors irreducibly complex, though I'm not zealously offended if people do spend their time that way.

The Christian response assumes its conclusion, that God exists. You'll notice that UE said "if" a great deal in his post. I didn't take him to be making positive statements.

Yes, it is easy to imagine ways in which non-viable universes might arise. It is also easy to imagine ways in which viable but different universes might arise, in which the inhabitants might conclude that things were arranged just right for them. It's the Goldilocks Principle. Things are "just right" not because someone made them that way but because they simply are "just right" for us. If we'd somehow evolved on Mars we would declare our planet too damn hot.

[Innsmothe]

If there are universal laws that god cannot change, then there are by necessity aspects of reality god did not create. If universal laws can exist without a god, and the universe formed according to those laws, then the existence of a god is highly doubtable

He created laws that he can change but won't. These universal laws area unchangeable in a universe without God. These universal laws can only exist in a universe with God.
The fact that we have unchangeable laws that don't change proves God's existence in both ways.

Actually, laws can change, given a different environment.

[Jedi8246]

What if those universal laws are the nature of the Deity? Which is the Christian response to the Eutrypho dilemma. These universal laws would then not be able to exist without God.

Also, it is a sweeping generalisation from "universal laws can exist" as in mathematical and logic facts being real to "the universe formed according to these laws". I would say that mathematics is necessary, but that physics is extremely contingent. It is easy to imagine different values for several constants that would lead to non-viable universes and I can't see a way to argue that the physical laws are necessary either. Nor do I think that maths or logic have causative powers, so these necessary laws would not cause anything, but rather limit possibilities.

Whoever was addressed with "the Intelligent Design brigade", I can happily disclose that I am not a fan of the Discovery Institute and I can think of better pastimes than calling certain organic motors irreducibly complex, though I'm not zealously offended if people do spend their time that way.

The Christian response assumes its conclusion, that God exists. You'll notice that UE said "if" a great deal in his post. I didn't take him to be making positive statements.

Yes, it is easy to imagine ways in which non-viable universes might arise. It is also easy to imagine ways in which viable but different universes might arise, in which the inhabitants might conclude that things were arranged just right for them. It's the Goldilocks Principle. Things are "just right" not because someone made them that way but because they simply are "just right" for us. If we'd somehow evolved on Mars we would declare our planet too damn hot.

The fact it is just right proves intelligent design.
WE DIDN'T evolve on a planet too hot. We evolved on one just right.
Unless you listen to the global warming fools.

[Farnhamia]

The Christian response assumes its conclusion, that God exists. You'll notice that UE said "if" a great deal in his post. I didn't take him to be making positive statements.

Yes, it is easy to imagine ways in which non-viable universes might arise. It is also easy to imagine ways in which viable but different universes might arise, in which the inhabitants might conclude that things were arranged just right for them. It's the Goldilocks Principle. Things are "just right" not because someone made them that way but because they simply are "just right" for us. If we'd somehow evolved on Mars we would declare our planet too damn hot.

The fact it is just right proves intelligent design.
WE DIDN'T evolve on a planet too hot. We evolved on one just right.
Unless you listen to the global warming fools.

That's exactly the Goldilocks Principle and it's a fallacy. Just because we evolved under these conditions does not mean that they are the only conditions under which life, and intelligence, can evolve.

[Victorian coalitions]

or kids its santa and for older people its god... easiest way to put it... {fun fact, u can spell satan with the letters in santa }

[Innsmothe]

The Christian response assumes its conclusion, that God exists. You'll notice that UE said "if" a great deal in his post. I didn't take him to be making positive statements.

Yes, it is easy to imagine ways in which non-viable universes might arise. It is also easy to imagine ways in which viable but different universes might arise, in which the inhabitants might conclude that things were arranged just right for them. It's the Goldilocks Principle. Things are "just right" not because someone made them that way but because they simply are "just right" for us. If we'd somehow evolved on Mars we would declare our planet too damn hot.

The fact it is just right proves intelligent design.
WE DIDN'T evolve on a planet too hot. We evolved on one just right.
Unless you listen to the global warming fools.

Technically global warming is only a part of climate change, with the decreased mass of the caps and the more invigorated weather systems, they are par for par.
And if we evolved on Mars we would have found it 'just right'.
Also, with the seas on Europa and the several discovered 'goldilocks' planets, we in all probability not alone. So we might not be the first among 'God's children'.

[Aryan Shield]

You gotta admit, the guy knows how to run a religion.

He got lucky. The Hebrews had already stagnated by the time the Romans arrived. He managed to get to John the Baptist and John's cousin, Jesus, and they collected a good bunch of followers. Really, though, it was co-opting Saul of Tarsus that really put Yahweh over the top. That man could sell mud to a Sumerian.

Funny. I thought the three Abrahamic religions borrowed from religions that predated them...like Zarathustra. That Jesus of Nazareth...It's hard to tell; but I'm sure he could sell mud to a Sumerian. They were after all Semitic Akkadians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

[Farnhamia]

He got lucky. The Hebrews had already stagnated by the time the Romans arrived. He managed to get to John the Baptist and John's cousin, Jesus, and they collected a good bunch of followers. Really, though, it was co-opting Saul of Tarsus that really put Yahweh over the top. That man could sell mud to a Sumerian.

Funny. I thought the three Abrahamic religions borrowed from religions that predated them...like Zarathustra. That Jesus of Nazareth...It's hard to tell; but I'm sure he could sell mud to a Sumerian. They were after all Semitic Akkadians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

I meant Saint Paul, not Jesus. And no, the Sumerians were not Akkadians and not Semites. You misread the opening of that WIki article.

[Aryan Shield]

If there were a balance between matter and anti-matter, we wouldn't exist, it would all reacted and canceled each other out in the first seconds of the universe.

Interesting isn't it? Mull this over.
Can creation and destruction occur simultaneously?
If you destroy something; are you not creating something new?
If you create something; are you not destroying something old?

[Kylarosa]

The Christian response assumes its conclusion, that God exists. You'll notice that UE said "if" a great deal in his post. I didn't take him to be making positive statements.

Yes, it is easy to imagine ways in which non-viable universes might arise. It is also easy to imagine ways in which viable but different universes might arise, in which the inhabitants might conclude that things were arranged just right for them. It's the Goldilocks Principle. Things are "just right" not because someone made them that way but because they simply are "just right" for us. If we'd somehow evolved on Mars we would declare our planet too damn hot.

The fact it is just right proves intelligent design.
WE DIDN'T evolve on a planet too hot. We evolved on one just right.
Unless you listen to the global warming fools.

That doesn't make sense, if we evolved om Mars somehow then we would have evolved to the environmental conditions of mars and found mars to be just right and earth too cold. Evolution is adaptation. If we don't adapt and change, we die.

[Jedi8246]

Just because there could be other life out there doesn't mean that there is no God. Other life forms could be created by God as well. And we wouldn't have anything about that in the Bible because we didn't exactly have satellites or any other space technology back in the day.
The Bible is not a history book. It is not intended to be a perfect telling of history.
The one undeniable proof that there is a God or Creator is that we have unchanging laws of the universe. A randomly created universe that just happened to spring up can not have unchanging laws. There could be no cycles of life or anything.
That is one proof that can't be disproven.

[Pawn and King]

First, I suppose so.

Secondly, the Old Testament God is supposedly a different one to the New Testament God. Jesus' sacrifice meant God didn't need to dick around with people again; any miracles since 46AD are absolute bullshit, or scientifically explainable; before that, well no valid sources.

Have you read Plantinga's theodicy? It doesn't rely on scripture at all, and isn't really a theodicy, being more a defence. It merely asserts that God can be all omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent and still be logically valid that evil exists. It doesn't rely on scripture at all.

A theodicy doesn't make excuses. It's a logical attempt to explain evil while maintaining Gods attributes. It's literally, a thought experiment with justifying God.

Jesus' sacrifice only meant that God could tolerate the presence of sin, it didn't strip him of his miracle-making properties. There'd be no point in a book of New Testament prophecy if all the rules were natural-order-only, now.

When I say the theodicy is scripturally suspect, I mean it doesn't match with scripture, rather than trying to say something about it being based on it. If you're claiming to talk about the God of the New Testament, but your version is not coherent with the scripture - your argument is a poor reflection of being scripturally Christian .

As for "A theodicy doesn't make excuses.... It's literally, a thought experiment with justifying God." Strikes me as self-contradictory.

But by tolerating sin, he doesn't need to do miracles anymore, as the emphasis is replaced from 'believing in God' to 'having faith God exists', which post-OT God seems to think is more important.

How does it not match with scripture? If we're still discussing Plantinga's theodicy here, it doesn't rely on scripture in the least. It takes the canonical view of God as omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and states it is logically possible that God can have those 3 and exist. Incompatabilists don't like it, but they also don't believe dualism and free will go together. It doesn't use, twist, or change scripture, and most contemporary philosophers accept that Plantinga succesfully reconciled the existence of God and the definition. (Hypothetically, as obviously we don't know if God exists).

My point is, all theodicies are thought-experiments, various philosophers saying "God can exist with these properties because of x, y and z" it's no different to an experiment like Schrodingers cat. You can't verify the claim, that's silly, but you can make the claim and substantiate it with evidence to make a coherent argument, which is scriptually valid, scientifically sound, and logical.

[Farnhamia]

Just because there could be other life out there doesn't mean that there is no God. Other life forms could be created by God as well. And we wouldn't have anything about that in the Bible because we didn't exactly have satellites or any other space technology back in the day.
The Bible is not a history book. It is not intended to be a perfect telling of history.
The one undeniable proof that there is a God or Creator is that we have unchanging laws of the universe. A randomly created universe that just happened to spring up can not have unchanging laws. There could be no cycles of life or anything.
That is one proof that can't be disproven.

Says who, you? You like making declarative statements, don't you? Of course a randomly arisen universe can have invariable laws. To think otherwise is silly. You assume God first and then run about looking for what appears to be evidence of him. You should try looking at things scientifically, collect the evidence and then figure out what it means. You'll find that "God" tends to drop out when you do that.

[Innsmothe]

Just because there could be other life out there doesn't mean that there is no God. Other life forms could be created by God as well. And we wouldn't have anything about that in the Bible because we didn't exactly have satellites or any other space technology back in the day.
The Bible is not a history book. It is not intended to be a perfect telling of history.
The one undeniable proof that there is a God or Creator is that we have unchanging laws of the universe. A randomly created universe that just happened to spring up can not have unchanging laws. There could be no cycles of life or anything.
That is one proof that can't be disproven.

Technically that isn't proof, as your hypothesis cannot be created and observed.
And surely God would have imparted information of our brothers in the sky?

And how could you know the purpose of the Bible, as it has no footnotes or a blurb?

[Aryan Shield]

or kids its Santa and for older people its god... easiest way to put it... {fun fact, u can spell Satan with the letters in Santa }

Are you saying that 'Satan' comes down the chimney on Christmas eve to distribute toys and goodies to little boys and girls in order to take them away from 'Christ'? A bribe equal to 30 pieces of silver? And only Good boys and girls get a visit from' Satan'?

Yup. People will believe what they are told because they 'know' that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't lie to them now would they?

[Jedi8246]

Just because there could be other life out there doesn't mean that there is no God. Other life forms could be created by God as well. And we wouldn't have anything about that in the Bible because we didn't exactly have satellites or any other space technology back in the day.
The Bible is not a history book. It is not intended to be a perfect telling of history.
The one undeniable proof that there is a God or Creator is that we have unchanging laws of the universe. A randomly created universe that just happened to spring up can not have unchanging laws. There could be no cycles of life or anything.
That is one proof that can't be disproven.

Technically that isn't proof, as your hypothesis cannot be created and observed.
And surely God would have imparted information of our brothers in the sky?

And how could you know the purpose of the Bible, as it has no footnotes or a blurb?

Why should God tell us if aliens exist? There is no reason he would have to. He already knows if we shall ever meet ETs and if we will then he found it unnecessary to prep the people of the past of something they would never experience.

True the hypothesis can't be created as we don't have universe making powers. But it is the next best thing. It is pure logic. The very definition of random is something that happens without decision and has no order. A randomly created universe can't have order to it.

And what do you mean how can I know? The Bible doesn't say "The Bible: The History of the World" It says it is the word of God. It is about how to live our lives. If the authors intended it to be a history book, then they would not have bothered with morality or any of that. No Jesus parables or other verses on how we should treat each other.