Is there a God?

[Geneviev]

In the last week or so, I have been wondering about this question. The most common evidence given for the Christian God can also be used to support the existence of other gods and the truth of other religions, or it seems to rely on fallacies. Pascal's wager doesn't acknowledge the possibility of other gods, evolution seems to disprove an intelligent designer, and so on. That seems to indicate that there is no real evidence for God. Instead, it's possible that belief in God requires having faith with no evidence at all, and potentially evidence that contradicts his existence entirely. So why should we believe in God, NSG? Is there any better evidence that I don't know?

In my opinion, I believe in the Christian God but I believe that there is no way to prove his existence and don't know why I believe in him anymore. So, what say you, NSG?

[Salandriagado]

There is absolutely no evidence in favour of such a thing, and mountains of evidence against pretty well every specific god ever proposed, so it would very much appear not.

[Picairn]

I usually shrug when people ask me this question and tell them I don't know, then move on.

[Kiu Ghesik]

I mean that's a big question.

There is absolutely no evidence in favour of such a thing, and mountains of evidence against pretty well every specific god ever proposed, so it would very much appear not.

I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

The most common evidence given for the Christian God can also be used to support the existence of other gods and the truth of other religions, or it seems to rely on fallacies... evolution seems to disprove an intelligent designer...

The most commonly given evidence for the existence of the Christian god is Christ's time on Earth and the miracles he performed. I believe those happened if only because Luke wrote about them from the perspective of a neutral outside observer and returned much the same results as the faithful around Christ.

Evolution doesn't disprove an intelligent designer unless you look at (as an example) the Bible from an anally literal standpoint, and the fact that it uses metaphor and literary devices proves that as kind of dumb. God is literally described as omnipotent. There's no reason that Big G couldn't have just set up the system fourteen billion years ago with expectations it would produce the exact results we see today. Besides, humans are described as being made in God's image (at least in mind), and wouldn't you agree that a perfectly-designed world would be boring?

And you literally can't disprove the existence of something outside of a system from within that system, as you can't observe outside of it. If I'm in a sealed, fixed box I can't prove there's a guy standing just outside the box juggling a ball.

[THE Grob]

What is the point of attempting to argue whether gods exist or not when there is no evidence to support that they do or don't? Both Atheists and the faithful both have a point but most of the time they fail to realize that faith is subjective.
Of course, me being a deist, I probably don't have much room to argue.

[New yugoslavaia]

I don't really care.
But considering no scientific evidence has been produced that I know of which proves a deity does exist, along with the only proof coming from a more than a millennium old book that is could very well be full of bollocks, I don't think there is one.

[Valrifell]

There's no evidence to suggest that some higher power exists, while that doesn't preclude the possibility of one existing or have existed in the past, I think it's more prudent to assume that there's no God or god(s) at all.

But, speaking more specifically, I think we can take all major world religions as mostly false.

[Picairn]

I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

Reminds me of a story where an atheist debates a priest. Dunno the source though, it was a long time ago when I read it. Or I am just making the story up based on fractured memories.

The atheist said: "There is no evidence that God exists because we never see him", or something along the lines, to which the priest responded by pulling his pants down and showed his butt to the atheist, saying: "You have never seen my butt before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"

You do the interpretation.

[Drew Durrnil]

I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

Reminds me of a story where an atheist debates a priest. Dunno the source though, it was a long time ago when I read it. Or I am just making the story up based on fractured memories.

The atheist said: "There is no evidence that God exists because we never see him", or something along the lines, to which the priest responded by pulling his pants down and showed his butt to the atheist, saying: "You have never seen my butt before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"

You do the interpretation.

The existence of God contradicts the existence of other gods. Its evidence! To solve this question of the existence of God, we must look to other faiths and look into their eyes.

[THE Grob]

Ah, this thread should have never been created. It'll just be religious skeptics and the religious arguing back and forth over a question which is futile to think about.

[Aeritai]

Yes I believe God exist He has helped me overcome the difficulties of this world.

[Kiu Ghesik]

Ah, this thread should have never been created. It'll just be religious skeptics and the religious arguing back and forth over a question which is futile to think about.

And that's a religious person saying this. I mean, I'm up for the debate, but...

[Southeastern Xiatao]

There is no such thing as God.

However there is such thing as Bob. Bob is awesome he created the universe and the world. Bob is love. Bob is life.

[San Lumen]

I believe there is some sort of higher power. I find it hard to believe that something came from nothing.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

There is a possibility

[Dumb Ideologies]

Probably not. Historical religions seem to serve a social purpose, psychological comfort may be a significant influence on belief, a lot of stories formally taken literally are now "figurative" because they conflict with science we have evidence for, and people's brains work in erratic enough ways under stress that I'm not convinced people having visions or more vaguely feeling the presence of God is enough to take their word for it.

We can't rule it out, but on the balance of probabilities I'm inclined towards skepticism.

[Sanghyeok]

I do not believe in God. But you can believe in whatever God or Gods you want, as long as you don't use religion to hurt people.

[Valrifell]

I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

Reminds me of a story where an atheist debates a priest. Dunno the source though, it was a long time ago when I read it. Or I am just making the story up based on fractured memories.

The atheist said: "There is no evidence that God exists because we never see him", or something along the lines, to which the priest responded by pulling his pants down and showed his butt to the atheist, saying: "You have never seen my butt before, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"

You do the interpretation.

The fact that the priest was standing and/or sitting is, itself, evidence for his butt.

[THE Grob]

Once again, the thought that there is a god or not is subjective until it is scientifically proven that a god is real or not.
It is futile to argue about this and any of your points will likely get nowhere. It's fun to debate about it, but you will achieve nothing in the process except making somebody slightly more faithful or slightly more skeptical of their religious beliefs.

[Salandriagado]

I mean that's a big question.

There is absolutely no evidence in favour of such a thing, and mountains of evidence against pretty well every specific god ever proposed, so it would very much appear not.

I haven't seen much evidence besides "we can't see it so it doesn't exist," so have you seen something else?

First off, absence of evidence absolutely is evidence of absence (this is a direct consequence of Bayes' Theorem). Secondly: yes, absolute mountains of it. If you pick one god concept in particular, I can give you the specifics, but it very likely starts with "internal logical inconsistencies" and "makes predictions about the universe that turn out to be completely wrong".

[THE Grob]

(accidental doublepost)

[Tranzoria]

I do not believe in God. Religion in my opinion is just a Fantasy for people to explain how things happen or happened to the Earth or them.
However, I do believe that there is some force out there, not as powerful as God, but still powerful enough. Like a ghost, controlling the glitches and luck in the Matrix.
I am a Jew.

[Valentine Z]

Theravada Buddhist here! I have a belief in multiple deities, perhaps. While the scientific evidence has not pointed to such an existence as of now, I believe that we have had multiple worlds before us, our world (the Big Bang) came from another universe's demise, and in a far far future, our universe will be crunched into another new one, in an endless cycle of existence and destruction.

I personally don't believe in a single all-seeing God throughout the multiverse, but perhaps the idea of "Multiple universes, multiple gods."

[Salandriagado]

I believe there is some sort of higher power. I find it hard to believe that something came from nothing.

Oh boy, you're not going to like particle physics.

But also: where, then, do you think this "higher power" came from?

[Picairn]

Once again, the thought that there is a god or not is subjective until it is scientifically proven that a god is real or not.
It is futile to argue about this and any of your points will likely get nowhere. It's fun to debate about it, but you will achieve nothing in the process except making somebody slightly more faithful or slightly more skeptical of their religious beliefs.

That's why polarization kills every debate.