What are the odds of God existing?

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1. it was created by an eternal Being
2. The universe has always existed in some form

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As others keep pointing out, this does not exhaust the possibilities. The universe may simply exist without having always existed, without a cause. You keep saying that this isn't possible, but the only reasons you give for your statement is that you cannot comprehend the possibility.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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I don't posit an eternal Being in this context. I have other reasons and evidence for my belief in God.

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That is, I KNOW there is an eternal Being that made it all, but I START there.

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Probably the best response I have ever seen to that question.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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OK, Parasomnium, go ahead and explain to me how something can come from nothing.

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He can't. If he did, then he would actually be explaining what caused the something.If the universe exists without a cause, then it simply exists.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Actually, Dan, this is kind of new:

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Now, if all we consider is the fact of creation (rather than the nature of that creation--problematical to say the least), there is no reason to choose either option 1 or option 2. We might as well flip a coin. The odds are 50/50.

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(Well, John10:10 made a similar claim, but never tried to justify it.)The problem is that it is not possible to figure probabilities unless one has some sort of information with which to justify them.One piece of information is that if there were a god, I would expect there to be more unambiguous evidence that it continues to interact with the universe. Since I see there is no such evidence, I would put the probability of the existence of said deity much, much lower than 1/2.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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There is something standing in the way of something coming from nothing: no causal agent.

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Except that perhaps some things can exist without a causal agent.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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Yes, if eternal. Otherwise, something has to happen to get them into existence.

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Perhaps. But that has not been demonstrated. It is possible that there is something (and that something might be the universe in which we live) that has only existed for a finite time, but has come to exist without a causal agent.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

And, of course, if one believes (as I am sure you do) that one has good evidence that there is a god, then the probability increases to be greater than 1/2.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

What is standing logically in the way of something coming into existence without a causal agent?

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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No, it's not possible.

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That still has not yet been proven or demonstrated.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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What we have to do, in order to get anywhere, is to take logic as a given.

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Well, if you want to provide a logical argument, then by all means do so. In fact, it would be refreshing to see you write a post that contains logic.-

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The universe is this thing that exists.

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Agreed.

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If it came into existence, then that was a happening.

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Um, "a happening" sounds rather vague, but I'll accept it for now.

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If there was nothing to get this happening going, then it would never have happened.

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Unsubstantiate assertian. In fact, this is what I am asking you to prove.

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If there was nothing, there would still be nothing. So there had to always be something (or someone).

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Conclusion not demostrated due to the preceding flawed statement.-

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This seems as plain to me as 2 plus 2 make 4.

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Actually, that isn't all that plain; that, too, needs to be proven. In fact, I can write out the proof, as well as the proofs of the statements used in the proof, if it wouldn't take us too far off-topic.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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you are attempting to step outside of logic, trying to say that our logic is just something we've devised or something like that....

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Not at all. You don't understand what logic is. Logic is a set of rules for determining whether certain statements (called conclusions) are true or false given that other statements (called premises) are true.Given the statement "2 + 2 = 4" is a statement that can be proven using the rules of logic. A good course on symbolic logic will introduce Peano arithmetic, and then that statement can be proven. You may not like that, but mathematicians and logicians are not going to be concerned with what you like or do not like.Now the statement "If there was nothing to get this happening going, then it would never have happened" is something that needs to be demonstrated. If you are going to try to use logic, then you need to derive this statement from premises that we agree on. If you cannot prove this statement using logic, then it is you who are attempting to step outside of logic.You can simply assume this statement as a premise. However, since many of us here do not accept this premise, your whole argument then becomes unsound.-

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I am not going to discuss any topic with anyone who not take logic as a given.

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You can ignore me if you wish. But if you do not satisfactorily answer my objections, I will continue to bring up my objections whenever you repeat your fallacious claims.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

Ugh. I already tried to explain this to robinrohan before, an a long ago thread. He called it "gobbledegook" or something.Edited to add:
Or maybe that was Faith. I can't remember.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 28-Apr-2006 04:51 PM

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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There will always be assumptions even with your Peano arithmetic.

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That's the nature of logic. Statements don't just appear out of no where. They are either derived as conclusion from previous assumptions, or they are simply assumed as premises.But the assumptions in Peano arithmetic are at least agreed upon by mathematicians. That is very different from simply making assertians and insisting on the truth of your assertians over the objections of everyone else.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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Would you say that "every effect has a cause" is an axiomatic assumption?

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I see that in another post you appear to define "effect" as something that has a "cause", in which case it is not an axiom but a definition; then it is true that every effect has a cause by the definition of effect.However, in this thread we are discussing whether or not it is possible for there to be phenomena or objects which exist without a cause, that is, whether there is anything that are not effects. In particular, we are discussing whether there it is possible for there to exist anything that has existed for only a finite amount of time that has no cause.Now, you can assume as an axiom that everything that has not existed for eternity must have a cause for its existence. However, merely assuming it axiomatically does not imply that this is how the real universe behaves; the real universe is what it is regardless of your axiomatic assumptions. One tries to make ones axioms in such a way that they reflect reality, not simply assert what one feels must be true and then insist that the universe must behave accordingly.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)

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I think the axiom that events are effects of causes reflects reality very well, don't you?

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It appears to me that the universe itself might be an example of something that has not existed for eternity and has no cause.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)