Evidence for God

I find it comical that people need to "prove" the creator.What ever happened to having faith?

Are you a fool. You would not follow the word of G-d if evidence was poking you in the eye. You should admit that you do not want to accept any evidence and just stop arguing. No atheist has ever fooled me by claiming that he is searching for evidence or seeking out the truth. Your mind is manipulated by your bias. Did you ever admit defeat in a debate? If so how many times? If many times, what were the consequences? No consequences could have possibly been as great as admitting defeat in this kind of debate. It is beyond your capability to admit defeat in this matter. Therefore, it is logical to not try to argue with you. As I have said to agobot, atheism was around for thousands of years, and it is even depicted in the Torah. This means that people were atheists long before any scientific research or any searches for evidence. Some people searched for the truth, and others created their own atheistic beliefs. Your beliefs are set in your mind and you are not searching for evidence. You have made up your mind before you even started to search. If you were a true skeptic you would not even believe in the worlds existence. You, however, would accept everything that the scientific community has to say. Did you ever see evidence for the atomic theory, or did you just believe that such an experiment took place? Did you see the evidence of the Big Bang or do you believe that the scientific experiments were done? Did you actually go digging for fossils, or do you believe the scientists with regard their locations? Did you ever do any carbon or other dating techniques, or do you rely on what you hear from the scientists that claimed to have done the experiment? Did you know that the Germans disregarded the Theory of Relativity because it was created by a Jew? How is that for bias. Do you really care about the truth or are you believing what fits your agenda? Are you digesting what I have written, or are you just looking for a retort?

This is the most classical mistake of all time. You did not think at all before writing this one. First of all, I have been showing in this thread that it is only through unjustified skepticism that someone can come up with a potential conspiracy theory for the existence of either the Torah or the Jews. Give it some real thought. There is absolutely no motive for anyone to have formed Judaism on their own. The claim is that 600,000 grown men heard G-d speak. The Jews accepted the most constricted lifestyle of all religions. There is no evidence at all to point to any other origin of the Torah or the Jews. The Jews have been persecuted in huge numbers throughout the years and they are still around today. The Torah says clearly that the Jews will always remain the chosen nation. The Torah challenges anyone to find another nation that has claimed to have heard the voice of G-d and lived to tell the story. No nation has ever made such a claim from the beginning of time until now. The Torah warns of the exile of the Jews, and that is exactly what happened. All of the curses have come true. The Torah tells of the coming of false prophets and gives signs of what they will be like, and this has happened as well. There is only one letter difference in any Torah in the world today. After all of the persecution, only one error was made. Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion in the world, and probably the oldest organized religion as well. When considering all the religions, try to be objective on this one. I would at least remove the word easily from your sentence there.

Is this meant to be a statement or a question? It's not poking me in the eye though, is it? You aren't far wrong though. Even if you could bring compelling evidence of the Jewish God's existence, I would not follow him, on account of his being a genocidal maniac, if the Torah is to be believed. Things like that just upset me a bit.If however, you can provide compelling evidence that he does exist, I will concede my mistake. I admit that I would be dismayed if you were to provide evidence for the existence of the Abrahamic God. I am not only convinced that he does not exist, I am glad that he doesn't.If however, you can provide compelling evidence that he does exist, I will concede my mistake. Forgive me if I don't hold my breath though. Everyone is manipulated by their biases to a greater or lesser extent, you included Op-n M-nd. Yes, in a way, it's my fault that you have been completely unable to make a coherent argument for God's existence. How very wrong of me. Your unwillingness to answer the questions I raised in my last post* is all my fault. I'm so sorry.How about, instead of hurling around your irrelevant ad hominems, you actually answer my questions*, hmmm? Yes, I read that post. Your logic falls down at your assumption that atheism is based solely upon scientific explanations for natural phenomena, when in fact, that is only one aspect of it.I don't believe in God primarily because I have never seen any compelling reason to believe in him. No more rationalisation is required. I would imagine that ancient atheists felt a similar way, although I cannot say for sure. For someone with an open mind, you seem very keen to tell other people what they are thinking. Stop it. It's rude and childish. I fancy that I know what I think rather better than you do. Don't start all that again... More solipsism. Oh dear. I would suggest that it would be rather difficult to personally perform every experiment ever conducted, although I have spent plenty of time searching for fossils and I am yet to find any fossilised Nephilim or pre-Cambrian rabbits.If you wish to argue that the entirity of scientific knowledge is wrong, do it elsewhere. This thread, as I have repeatedly said, is for "Evidence for God". None of the above constitutes evidence for God. Try again. What all of them? WTF has this got to do with anything? I might reasonably ask the same question of you, especially considering that you have not even bothered trying to answer my questions*. A pity.*Unanswered Questions; If you have any intention of answering these questions, or attempting to rebut my points from the last post, go ahead. Otherwise, stop whining and blaming me for the weakness of your arguments.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Maybe I would if G-d (whatever that is) was "poking me in the eye", but the only evidence that is "poking me in eye" is the lack of evidence of any deity G-d or otherwise.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

I think my evidence was fine, and I seriously do not think you said any refutation. The existence of a world proves that there is a creator. This is very simple. It is called cause and effect. Most atheists think the logic of cause and effect does not happen in certain cases. There is, however no evidence for such a situation. Since there is always a cause behind every effect, the existence of the entire universe is evidence of the creator. You like any other atheist will ask: Who created this creator? But, that does not prove the evidence incorrect. A creation is evidence of a creator. No matter how sophisticated you become, you will be forced into the idea that the universe had a beginning and will have an end. The universe is not infinite, and time is not infinite. I realize that you have talked yourself out of this one already so I did not bother explaining myself. You can convince yourself of anything, but you must realize that your premise is that no god can exist. You are challenging others to bring evidence, but you have never tried to give an objective look at the situation.My next proof was the conscious and free will. This is completely obvious. According to the physics of this world, free will is no more far fetched than the existence of a god. There is no evidence that free will exists and there is no logical way of explaining its existence. The problem is that everyone feels the free will. You have probably already disregarded this evidence with your bias mind, and asserted that you do not have free will at all. Also, the existence of a conscious being makes no sense at all in the scientific explanation of the universe. You are aware of your existence and you are having subjective experiences but none of the molecules in your body show any property that would cause such a phenomenon. In fact, such a thing is impossible to explain with the physics of this universe. You have probably already disregarded this evidence by proclaiming yourself a zombie. You may convince yourself that you are not really conscious. Go on convincing yourself.With regard to the Torah, I have already said that 600,000 people accepted the Torah which claims that they all heard G-d speak to them, and they all survived. This claim was never made by any other nation of people. You have probably already asserted that it must be some sort of hoax. You are ignoring the evidence because you do not think it is possible for G-d to exist. There is no evidence that points to any other formulation of the Jewish religion. You of course will create some evidence that is not scientific at all. You may consider it to be a great conspiracy with no motive what so ever. You would be only fooling yourself. I could just as easily claim that all the 600,000 scientists are actually creating a hoax. You have never reproduced any of the breakthrough experiments. You are relying on other people’s word of mouth. Do you believe that men landed on the moon? Many people want to deny this one. They claim the whole thing is a hoax. Do you believe that terrorists were responsible for the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City? Only 47 percent of the world thinks this so. Many think it was the U.S. Government or Israel. Do you believe that the Germans killed a massive amount of Jews during the Second World War? Many "historians" are trying to deny this one even though there are still thousands of eye witnesses around today. It is easy for an atheist to pretend to know about what happened in the world 4000 years ago if it will support his beliefs. Do you believe the scientists about what happened in the world BILLIONS or years ago. The scientists are taking a sample of at most 1000 years and they are using that to extrapolate about things that happened no less than 1,000,000,000 years ago. These same scientists cannot predict the weather in 1 year from now. I do not think these scientific extrapolations are statistically significant in any way. However, because you are an atheist and this information seems to agree with your beliefs, you are willing to accept everything accepted by the scientific community of atheists. Now you may understand why I did not answer any of your rhetorical questions. You are just giving me questions so you can be able to feed me the deception that your biased mind has formulated. Try to think in an objective manner. First think everything is possible. Then see what happens to your convoluted retorts.Edited by Open MInd, : No reason given.Edited by Open MInd, : No reason given.

You give us two pieces of evidence that are outside of the bible. Neither of which has any connection with YHWH. Why does the 'fact' that the world needs a creator (Atheists agree that the world has a creator, they just don't call it 'daddy' they call it by the names of 'the sun' and 'gravity' amongst others) necessitate that it is YHWH that did the creating?As for consciousness and freewill, the same objections apply. Even if we accept the evidence as being supportive of a generic 'god hypothesis' it doesn't irrevocably point to YHWH.The final evidence you try to bring forward is that the accounts in the Torah of the alleged witnesses to God are true, and that there were 600,000 people that all saw it. Obviously, this is not 'outside the Bible' but very much part of that collection of books.

other than your Torah itself?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

This entire line of reasoning is a gigantic non sequitur.You claim:1) all things that exist require a creator
2) the universe exists
3) therefor, the universe must have a creator.But the entire line of reasonign is false.1) All things that exist require a creator.False. Rocks exist, but do not require a creator. They are the result of well-understood natural processes.You interchangeably use the words "creator" and "cause," when the two mean wildly different things. All things within our Universe require a cause, but not necessarily a creator.Further, we don't know if causality exists "outside" of our Universe. Our Universe is a finite, unbounded structure that has a minimum value in the dimension of time. Causality requires time to exist both before and after an event. Since time has a minimum value in our Universe (and indeed, since time is part of the Universe), saying there must be a "cause" for the Universe to exist requires there to be something North of the North Pole - the statement doesn't make sense.There may well be a "cause" for the Universe, but traditional causality does break down into an unknown here. A "cause" for the Universe requires an additional time-like dimension external to the Universe. Without this, there can be no "before" for the "cause" to reside in.We also don't have any other examples of Universes to compare ours to. We have no idea if Universes themselves require causes. Assuming that causality as it functions within the Universe must apply identically to Universes as a whole demonstrates a closed mind, not an open one. This, specifically, is accurate but incomplete. The Universe is finite but unbounded. Think of a globe. Where are the boundaries on the surface of a globe? It has a finite surface area and occupies a finite amount of space, but it has no boundary. Further, time itself is a property of the Universe (a dimension identical to the spacial ones and different for us only due to the nature of our existence), just as a North/South axis is a property of a globe. "North" has no meaning in space, for instance, but only on Earth. The Earth, therefor, exists over the entirety of the North/South axis...in exactly the same way that the Universe, compelte with all of teh matter and energy contained within, exists over the entirety of time. Time may not be infinite, but the Universe could be said to be eternal, existing at every point in time.You can see how these facts bring causality as it pertains to the Universe as a whole into question.1) Time exists inside of the Universe, as part of it, but does not have meaning "outside" of the Unvierse any more than "North" has meaning "outside" of the Earth.2) Causality requires time to exist, because the cause must exist at a point earlier in time than the effect.3) Causality therefor has unknown relevance to the Universe as a whole.The Universe may or may not have a cause, and that cause may or may not be an intelligent designer. We don't know. Assuming that the existence of the Universe proves that a creator must exist is an unfounded leap in logic - you are choosing one of many possibilities based not upon evidence but upon your own subjective opinions.You also mentioned infinite regression, and dismissed it as irrelevant: You're right - infinite regression does not prove that no creator exists.But it's not intended to.The point of mentioning infinite regression is to point out your special pleading.You claim that all things that exist require a cause. You further claim that the cause of teh Universe must be a creator. If all things require a cause, then the creator must also have been caused.This does not prove that a creator does not exist, but it does mean that you must choose between an infinite number of creators creating each other in the past, or a special=pleading circumstance where you claim that all things require a cause except for the creator, which is an arbitrary and baseless point for stopping the regression.I'd be curious to know whether you choose infinite deities or arbitrary self-contradiction. This is easy.Even if science has abvsolutely no explanation for conscious thought and human free will, it is an unfounded leap in logic to claim that this is evidence for the existence of a deity."I don't know" != "Goddidit."There was a very long time when humanity did not comprehend the causes and workings of lightning. Their ignorance did not in any way provide evidence or even necessarily suggest that lightning was caused by a deity. Even had humanity been forever unable to explain lightning, the unknown does not provide evidence of anything. This is an appeal to popularity fallacy, followed by claiming that all of science and history are based on appeals to popularity and authority.It's quite frankly disappointing.We do not believe that the Holocaust happened, or that the moon landings happened, or that 9/11 happened, or that evolution happened (and is happening), or any of your examples because some people tell us it is so. We beleive these things based on objective evidence supporting the assertion that these events are historically factual. I can go right now and see Ground Zero in New York. Telescopes can see the remains of the lunar landers, and lasers can reflect off of the man-made reflector left there. Fossil evidence (among other things) shows us a pattern identical to what the Theory of Evolution predicts.The number of people who say these things are true, and even their credentials, are compeltely irrelevant.You, however, claim that 600,000 people accepting the Torah and claiming direct contact with a deity proves that the deity actually exists.It's irrenevant, and provides evidence of nothing beyond what those people beleived. 600,000 people accepted the Torah and believed that they had direct gontact with a deity. They don't have any objective evidence that proves that they had direct contact with a deity, nothing beyond simple anecdotal nonsense.If I can show you 600,000 people who claim they've had direct contact with one of the Hindu deities, does that provide evidence that thsoe deities actually exist? Or is it simply evidence that those 600,000 people believe they had direct contact with their deities?Assertions are still just assertions, whether they come from 1 person or a million.The basic truth here, of course, is that you have not supplied evidence in support of the existence of a deity. You've made fallacious leaps in logic, nothing more.

Naturally, you think you are right... No. The existence of a world proves only that the world exists. It does not prove that the world was created, in the sense of being deliberately created by a sentient creator. There could be some other cause, that does not require or involve a creator. Indeed, we have a very satisfying description of the universe, going right beck to its earliest stages which does not require a creator.You are seeking to define a creator into existence by describing the universe as " a creation". This is unreasonable and illogical. The universe is created, so there must have been a creator. How do we know there was a creator? Creation. This is shoddy and circular logic. It's also fairly rich, coming from someone who has recently been arguing that there is no evidence that the universe exists. You can't have your cake and eat it you know. False. Particle decay gives every appearance of having no cause. From the Wiki article;

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Particle decay is the spontaneous process of one elementary particle transforming into other elementary particles.

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My emphasis.Besides, even if we accept that an effect requires a cause, there is still no reason why that cause should be a god or gods. There could be some other cause. The fact that you can't think of one or don't like the sound of it is irrelevant . It does however render the creator-based explanation for existence quite staggeringly unparsimonious, in that it begs even bigger questions and leads to an infinite regress. The explanatory power of such explanations is nil. The universe certainly had a beginning, but whether or not it will end is unknown. If you can prove that it will end, please explain how you know this. Also, please explain how you know for certain that the universe is not infinite and that time is not infinite. It's no use just asserting such things out of nowhere. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.That is not my premise. My claim is that no evidence exists in favour of your god, so I do not believe in him. Simple.Also, if you admit that you can't be bothered to explain yourself, you are making a de facto admission of defeat. Explain yourself or don't, but don't try to imply that you have some knock-down argument that you can't be bothered to present. It's very sad. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting. According to you. Please show how physics demonstrates this. No, the problem for you is that people demonstrate their free will on a daily basis. That constitutes evidence for free will. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.As you can see, I believe the opposite of that. I am no determinist. Again, says you. Did it not occur to your that emergent properties of the combinations of molecules might bring about free will, rather than any specific component? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.You go on convincing yourself that you know what I think better than I do.In summation, as regards this point, the existence of free will is not relevant to the existence of God. You may feel that free will has not been adequately explained, but that does not mean that there can be no explanation other than God. This is just a worn out argument from ignorance.Even if you feel that belief in free will is as illogical as belief in God, this does not make the God hypothesis correct, simply because other hypotheses are equally odd. Your argument must stand or fall on its own merit, not on the merit of arguments for or against free will. No, it says in the Torah that this happened. Whether it actually happened or not is debatable. How do you know that a similar claim was never made elsewhere? Have you read every holy book in existence? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.It might not be a hoax, but rather a misunderstanding, gradual process of ongoing exaggeration, or translation error. Or it might be a hoax. It might be true, but simply pointing to the claim in the Torah will not make it true. Have you heard of a thing called Christianity? I believe it is quite popular... Of course you could mean "There is no evidence that points to any other formulation of the Jewish religion, that pre-dates Judaism.", but that would be a tautology. What do you mean exactly? Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting. More solipsism. Yawn. Are you seriously equating the evidence for 9/11 with the evidence for the Torah? I think that you'll find 9/11 to be better evidenced. That is because next year's weather is in the future and relies upon staggeringly complicated and interrelated events.Your "science might be a conspiracy" argument is ridiculously bogus. It is true that I cannot examine all the evidence for every natural phenomenon. It is true that I have to take the word of scientists in many respects, just out of a sheer lack of time. there is only so much that one person can know in one lifetime.On the other hand, the idea that a world spanning conspiracy of fraudulent scientists is so vastly less likely than the alternative, that I feel perfectly comfortable making such assumptions, especially given that whenever I have studied the evidence for scientific claims, it has been entirely consistent with the claims of the scientific establishment. What I do not do is blindly accept the word of scientists as being unimpeachable gospel truth. I am however, willing to give thousands of hard working professionals the benefit of the doubt and not harbour a paranoid fantasy that they are conspiring to deceive me, for no apparent reason. Stop telling me what I think. It's insulting.Since you lecture me on retaining an open mind, yet yourself come out with statements like; that demonstrate that your mind is very much closed with regards to certain issues, you will forgive me if I ignore your sanctimonious nonsense.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

You did not surprise me with any of your answers. I hope you were not trying to. I believe with confidence that I will convince you of nothing. But, you have to admit that this is sort of fun (I am not trying to tell you what you are thinking with this comment; it is only sarcasm). Now I just want to clarify that just because a scientist will tell you that something acts in an illogical manner do not make it logical. An effect without a cause is not logical. The presents of something of this sort in nature would show a lack in the scientific theory, since it defies logic. Also, I know that the world is going to end for two reasons. One, it is part of the Jewish tradition. Two, it is the most widely accepted model for the fate of the Universe. Space is expanding at an increased rate, and entropy is increasing in the Universe. We are doomed no matter who you ask. The same applies to the proof of the beginning of the Universe. Both the Torah and the accepted model of physics hold of a beginning of the Universe. Also, I want to clarify. I meant to say that there is no evidence for any alterative mechanism for the formation of Judaism. You say it is possible that many things happen. But, no evidence exists for any of these claims.

Please explain how free will happens? This one I must hear.

I have a plea to all participants, cut OpenMInd some slack. Please, for quite some time he's the only ID'er that participates in "their" subforum - Faith and Belief. I think the other ID'ers are not participating out of fear that all the atheists will jump on them and overwhelm them. Couple that with the fact that ID'ers are more strictly moderated by the admins and you get the picture. Be more easy on ID'ers, we are not turning this forum to a strictly atheist message board, are we?
You can't really turn a die-hard ID'er to an atheist. We have mounting evidence that shows that the universe does not require a God or that natural processes happen without divine guidance. However we don't have sufficient evidence to turn a die hard religious freak to an atheist. We have enough evidence to convince an unbiased and unprejudiced person that the existence of God is close to zero, but we don't have ENOUGH evidence to fill each and every gap in knowledge to which ClosedMInd will try to hold on and make an ill-supported case that will fit his beliefs.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

I think the feeling is mutual! That's par for the course. People on this kind of forum rarely change their minds dramatically, having already given a great deal of thought to their opinions. It's for the craic as much as anything else... and the lurkers. None of that matters though does it? Even if I were to accept your foolishness about cause and effect being essential and universal, that is still not evidence for God. There could be another cause. You need to provide specific evidence that allows us to differentiate between God and any other potential cause, something that you have monumentally failed to do. Oh, suddenly you accept what science has to say? Hypocrisy at all? As for Jewish tradition, all you have prove is that the Torah agrees with itself. Well done.By the way, God could exist in an unending universe just as easily as any other, so this is, once again, irrelevant. No-one is denying that the universe had a beginning (except you earlier, when you were denying it existed at all). Where we differ is in that you have assumed that a beginning requires a concious creative act and this assumption is where you are going wrong. About the same amount of evidence as for Abraham and Moses then? That wouldn't be much to shut about, even if it were true. You just don't get it. I have no idea how free will happens in the brain. I don't need to know the explanation for everything in order to know that it is real. I don't need to know how my computer works, to know that it does work.Just because I can't explain something doesn't mean that you get to insert God into that little gap.Once again, you have ignored my questions and offered a piffling little post. You really must try harder.Mutate and Survive

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

I have a very good try coming right now. You have fallen into a very bad trap. I assumed that you were one of the clever deterministic atheists, and that is why I tried to give answers along your lines. I was giving you some seemingly valid arguments. However, you are now trapped. I was waiting for you to say this line: You may regret this one. I can give you the same exact few sentences for my explanation of how G-d works. However, you will tell me that there is no evidence for G-d. However, THERE IS ABSOLUTELY "NO" EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF FREE WILL. You have asserted its existence with absolutely no evidence. And no evidence for such a thing has ever been presented. Furthermore, no evidence of such a thing can ever be presented. Free will is not scientific at all. You just happen to like the idea of free will so you think that it must exist. Think about what you are doing. If you get out of this one you will truly impress me.