Does God Really Exist???

And why should I believe that it's repeatable if no one has repeated it? Your say so? Begs the question. If the originals didn't exhibit the same patterns, then the patterns are anomalous coincidences. Heck, they may even be that if the originals DID have them. How would we know? I don't need any. If you can't objectively distinguish your explanation from mine, then we don't have evidence for either hypothesis, now do we? Both of them account for the facts equally well. So what? Most of the methodologies that I've seen didn't use rigorous controls, and those that had controls showed nor more significance than common placebo effects.

Good point, Ned. Many use mathematical probability to believe in aliens from outer space. While the encounter with such creatures is less documented and rarer than the Biblical encounters with Christ, the overwhelming probability of life on other planets bolsters the faith of the ones who vow to someday encounter and commune with the aliens they imagine.(or don't imagine.)Why, however, do people in SciFi circles WANT Aliens rather than Jesus? True and honest, Dan. Reminds me of a scripture: Now...about that robot, Dan... And if Jesus or God were on trial in a court of law, and if the evidence that proved their existance was "Christians" would the evidence be enough to prove the existance or would the evidence be thrown out? P.S. Don't listen to Loki. He is a buster! [This message has been edited by Phatboy, 02-18-2004]

Thrown out, because all their testimony would be hearsay.Otherwise you could confirm the legal existence of Santa Claus based on the testimony of children. But I don't see anyone booking flights to the North Pole.

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Mammuthus writes:
There could be a god,(...)However, there is no way to know, no way to go about knowing, and no way to determine which is correct among the infinite possibilities
Who says that the possibilities are infinite? There is a difference between Monotheistic Omnipotance and Infinite comprehension.

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Who says the possibilities are not infinite? There may be a difference between monotheism and polytheism but there is not way to support or refute the veracity of either. I find niether compelling..so regarding god/gods/supernatural whatevers, why should I care?

Mammuthus,my homie! it is my personal opinion that the metaphor of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was/is about choices. The first choice was easy. Obey/Disobey. Once the fruit was eaten, humanity had essentially partook in a communion. The fruit symbolized the body of the gods. The assertion by the serpent was that we would become like gods. The choice factor is now more complex. It is no longer Obey/Disobey. It is God/Infinite possibilities. Our very right of free thinking is our blessing and our curse! In my Belief, God is one. One way. Jesus is the only way. I have the choice of relationship with Him or I have an infinite number of other choices.

Technically I suppose, your answer should be 'god'. You see, you get it from an Anopheles mosquito injecting Plasmodium when she drinks your blood. The Plasmodium then goes through a series of phases, multiplying and multiplying, gutting then exploding out of countless blood cells, then liver cells, till it's ready to get sucked up by another mozzie. Where they have to get from gut to salivary glands, ready to get injected again.Plasmodium is amazingly well adapted to live in a mosquito and in a mammal; mosquitoes are incredibly good at getting a blood meal from a mammal (or bird). So, if things such as eyes (or pick your own favourite example), in all their amazing complexity, are that way because they were intelligently designed by a creator, then so too must be the intricate relationship between these parasites and their hosts.Hence, if these things were created, the creator is responsible for malaria.Simple, really. And utterly sadistic.

Hi Phatboy,

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I have the choice of relationship with Him or I have an infinite number of other choices.

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I am not denying that you have the right to the choice you made. However, this last statement is wrong. A Hindu for example does not have an infinite number of choices. They have a restricted pantheon of gods they worship. I am an atheist so I have no choices. However, whether you worship one god, many gods, or are merely superstitious, this is not something you arrive at objectively and is not supportable with fact. Hence it is faith. That is why many of us are arguing with CreationMan because he claims god is a self evident fact and that this conclusion is logical..it is also one reason why those of us who do not believe are asking "who cares?" with regard to the topic of the post.

No. Malaria came from a created thing. A Mosquito. Not from a Creator. Inconclusive. Perhaps another event caused the need for the Mosquito to carry Malaria. Unless God so loved the parasites that...He allowed other creatures to die so that they may live. I somehow am not convinced that He did this. Shall we all pray and ask Him?

That was not my point. I said I'd take an interest in him when he starts taking an interest in us. If this is what the world is like while he is taking an interest, then he is clearly relishing watching the vast quantities of death and suffering caused by parasites; or he is unable to help. Either way, this is not the advertised god.This alleged god might not be expected to fix those things that are within our power to fix ourselves -- famine, perhaps, and people being nasty to each other. But those things surely constitute enough causes of misery on their own for whatever purpose suffering is for. But pathogens, earthquakes and cancer are beyond our abilities. Yet he does nothing about these.Worse, much worse: according to creationists, he actually, deliberately created these things. Did he not form the human body louse, so specialised as it is to live on us? And did he not form the Rickettsia parasite that lives nowhere else but in us and these lice? Why then are they so well adapted (fitted to their lifestyle)? And yet Rickettsia is the cause of epidemic typhus, which has killed more people than all wars (which we ourselves might presumably avoid) -- all wars combined.So if he wants to show us some care, he could change R prowazekii to a harmless form, or fix the lifecycle of P falciparum so it didn’t need to destroy our body cells while just doin’ its thing.TTFN, DT

CreationMan says,

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Yes Alexander Fleming did invent penicillin, but who invented Alexander Fleming??? Who gave him the knowledge, who allowed him to be born, who gave him the breathe of life?
GOD

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So who invented people whose achievements aren't so noble? Who allowed Hitler to be born and gave him the breath of life?By your (ahem) logic, should I believe that God exists because Fleming lived, and despite the fact that Hitler lived?regards,
Esteban "You Genic" Hambre

No. Malaria comes from a created thing, a single-celled parasite. Sorry, I guess I forgot to mention Plasmodium.So, like, where did the created thing come from? Might it be from... the creator? You seem to be saying that if I invent a gun that can load itself and fire at people on its own, and set it loose, that I'm not somehow responsible for it.Weird logic! Mosquitoes don't carry malaria. They carry a parasite that is exquisitely adapted to doing its thing, which happens to result in it killing one million people each year, about 3,000 a day: the majority of victims are children under five years of age.You are ignoring the fact that both Anopheles and Plasmodium are very well adapted to their way of living. Whence the mosquito’s hypodermic mouthparts, anticoagulant saliva, and heat- and carbon dioxide-detecting equipment, if not from the creator’s designs? Whence the Plasmodium’s abilities to move from mosquito gut to salivary gland, from saliva to blood cell, from blood cell to lots of blood cells, from blood cells to liver cells, from liver back to blood, back to mosquito... all the while taking what it wants from each micro-environment, and all the while in a body amazingly appropriate to that stage of its life?Perhaps another event caused this stuff, eh? If this other event has the creationary / design capabilities necessary to produce these things, let’s hear what it might be. Because this sure as shit looks like the same sort of amazing design that your god applied elsewhere, in eyes, ears, wings, blood clotting cascades or whatever is flavour of the month with the latest wave of IDiots. By George, I think he’s got it! Oh? Why not? I suggest you look up the life cycle of phorid flies, or ichneumon wasps. How do they do that? Why are they so good at it? I’ll pass, thanks. But let me know what he comes back with. For he stands accused of being a sadistic bastard.TTFN, DT

It also begs the question, if god creates all people ex nihilo..why does genetics so convincingly show that we are directly related to our parents? Why can one do a geneology at all? Maybe CreationMan is yet another Storkist? On the other hand, if all of these discoveries are to be attributed to some mythological being rather than to the actual scientists who made the discovery..does that make patents irrelevant...run on out and copy those drugs CreationMan...god made your viagra just to get a rise out of you.

I think we also should look from how people that don't believe in God point of view.. not just only arguing and attacking from how people who believe in GOD.
If you don't believe that God created us, then you must believe that we are here by chance of random process, right?I just want to add something I got from a website: ( Answers in Genesis )1. A young man approached me at a seminar and stated, ‘Well, I still believe in the big bang, and that we arrived here by chance random processes. I don’t believe in God.’ I answered him, ‘Well, then obviously your brain, and your thought processes, are also the product of randomness. So you don’t know whether it evolved the right way, or even what right would mean in that context. Young man, you don’t know if you’re making correct statements or even whether you’re asking me the right questions.’The young man looked at me and blurted out, ‘What was that book you recommended?’ He finally realized that his belief undercut its own foundations such ‘reasoning’ destroys the very basis for reason.2. On another occasion, a man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied.This young man certainly got the message. If there is no God, ultimately, philosophically, how can one talk about reality? How can one even rationally believe that there is such a thing as truth, let alone decide what it is?

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1.....Well, then obviously your brain, and your thought processes, are also the product of randomness. So you don’t know whether it evolved the right way, or even what right would mean in that context. Young man, you don’t know if you’re making correct statements or even whether you’re asking me the right questions.’

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Random processes can lead to non-random outcomes...the underlying mutations that drive evolution are random..natural selection which drive many mutations (and phenotypes) to high frequency is not. So that argument is pointless. That the orginal replicating molecules on the planet arose by random process does not mean that subsequent evolution was random. I could just as easily say that a Giant Pink Unicorn makes you believe in your god by hitting you with an invisible handgranade full of drugs and it would be just as logical as your example 1.

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2. On another occasion, a man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied.

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How do you know you actually believe in god? How do you know you believe in the right one? How do you know there are not millions of gods....you have absolutely no basis in reality for your beliefs. That is why it is called faith. The atheist does not know that there is no god/gods/all powerful pink unicorns...but there is no evidence for any supernatural beings so he/she does not care....again why should I care about mythological dieties?

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If there is no God, ultimately, philosophically, how can one talk about reality?

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Even if there is a god..one can not be sure they are percieving reality.?

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How can one even rationally believe that there is such a thing as truth, let alone decide what it is?

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Rationally you cannot show supporting evidence or a testable and falsifiable hypothesis that your god exists. Everyone, believer or not determines the "truth" themselves..even among the "true believers" there is a wide range of "truths".AiG...that lovely bastion of misinformation and poor logic...gotta love it.

"I could just as easily say that a Giant Pink Unicorn makes you believe in your god by hitting you with an invisible handgranade full of drugs and it would be just as logical as your example 1."
"How do you know you actually believe in god? How do you know you believe in the right one? How do you know there are not millions of gods....you have absolutely no basis in reality for your beliefs."
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Well, I can only feel God in my private relation with Him which makes me belive in HIM until now. If nobody can feel GOD, how come there are millions of people still believe in HIM? Even smart people still believe in HIM also.I don't want to be Biblical, since I know you don't believe it, but..(Jeremiah 29:12-13) "Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find [me], when ye shall search for me with all your heart."
Also
(Yakobus 1:5-6) "But if any man among you is without wisdom, let him make his request to God, who gives freely to all without an unkind word, and it will be given to him. Let him make his request in faith, doubting nothing; for he who has doubt in his heart is like the waves of the sea, which are troubled by the driving of the wind."Have you asked GOD with that way? If you haven't then you won't find GOD.
That's what I believe and that's why I still believe in Him eventhough there are many people who don't believe in Him.