The Case Against the Existence of God

Faith's point might be that we all accept things on authority. We accept all sorts of scientific ideas on authority, not having the expertise or the time to study it ourselves. I accept the theory of evolution on authority. I have never examined one piece of physical evidence in person, and I would not know how to examine if somebody showed me a piece of physical evidence.Why do we accept so many ideas on authority? Because we think that the authority is credible, that they know what they are talking about. Accepting things on authority is not at all unreasonable.I have never been to Moscow and will, I think, never go. Nonetheless I am quite certain that a place called Moscow exists. I can't deduce that such a place exists. It is not logically necessary that it exist. I just accept the authorities.

One can't test it empirically, maybe, but one might be able to figure it out deductively. Of course. Nothing I think about God affects His existence or non-existence. But it might have an effect on me.

Is there a difference between this and agnosticism? Seems the same to me. There might be. I'm not sure yet.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-07-2006 02:27 PM

So God is this invented Being that we make up to correspond to parents and other figures who protect us. And this reliance on "faith" is something we are used to doing anyway, since we need faith to fulfill our day-to-day life. Faith builds our self-esteem.That may be, but we don't know that for sure.

What makes you so certain?

Ifen, I've been through this idea before with other posters on this thread. There was Dan with Green Lantern and somebody else with Pixies. It will not do.Such entities are not the same type of entity as the God I mentioned in the OP. Such entities are extraneous--very different from the concept of God.There's a 50/50 chance that an eternal Being created the universe. Or at least there is if we take into account only the fact of creation itself.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-07-2006 02:48 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-07-2006 02:49 PM

You might if they have certain definite qualities which contradict existent things.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-07-2006 02:52 PM

You figure out that these qualities would be the only attributes of God that made sense.You could determine if a God as described in the OP would logically have produced such a universe as we see. If not, He does not exist. But it's very tricky.

Not much. But there are different degrees of sureness.I know that I exist a la Descartes. Beyond that the certainty goes down.

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"It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man."--Emerson

Why would it categorically be illogical?

That's it.

Yeah, well, here's the argument:There are 2 types of entities in the world: beings and things. Everything has to be one or the other.Now, there are 2 explanations for the origins of the universe:1. It was created by an eternal Being
2. It has always existed in some form.There are your choices. There are no others.Now let's suppose that #1 is true. What sort of Being would this have to be? It couldn't be a being that came from a thing; if so, it reverts back to choice #2. It could not, for example, be a pagan style-God that arose from Nature. Nature just means the universe. It would again revert to #2.No, it would have to be a Being that did not arise from anything. It would have to be eternal.But not only that. It would have to be a Being that had nothing behind it, no standard that it need to adhere to, for otherwise it would revert to #2.It would have to be an ideal Being, the answer to everything.It would have to be the Being described in the OP.

Ok, if it's a false dilemma, give me the other options.

Nothing can come from nothing. What I did in the OP was ask a question. Was there such a case? But I am tinkering with some ideas. There is the argument for the "lack of design," for example. I haven't got it worked it out yet.

Not unless Green Lantern is another name for God. He would be merely a being arising from Nature. Revert to #2.