What are the odds of God existing?

Responding to how the discussion has developed to this point, it seems to me that the idea of the universe's always existing isn't any more reasonable an idea than that it came into existence out of nothing at some point. They are equally incomprehensible ideas.I think someone could say that as long as a self-existent or self-created material universe is a possibility at all then a Creator is not a necessary idea at all. There is no need to consider a Creator in other words. We can't see this Creator. We have no evidence that any such Being ever existed, but we know that the universe exists, matter exists.{abe: Or, as others have been suggesting, the odds aren't 50/50 as long as there is this intrinsic unlikelihood of the existence of a Creator.}So how do you justify positing an eternal Being at all?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 08:50 AM

No, but we're not talking about reasons for believing in God, are we? My belief in God is completely unrelated to such questions.I'm simply trying to grasp this problem logically, and while I think Robin is right basically that all existence does come down to only two factors, Being and Things or Matter or Stuff or however that should be put, as I thought about it, it seemed to me that the possibility of a Creator isn't equal to the possibility of a self-existent universe, just based on what we know from our own senses.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:24 AM

I think I answered that by saying that there is no real evidence for an eternal Being as there is for the existence of things/stuff/matter/universe.{abe: Or, in other words, of course the idea is equally unreasonable in this context} I mean in the context of this logical problem. I don't posit an eternal Being in this context. I have other reasons and evidence for my belief in God.That is, I KNOW there is an eternal Being that made it all, but I START there. Robin on the other hand is trying to determine from scratch as it were whether there is an eternal Being or only the universe.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:30 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:33 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:33 AM

Thank you but I hope you didn't misunderstand, and maybe you don't since you quoted me saying I have other reasons and evidence for God. I meant I start there in the context of the question this thread is asking, this kind of logical problem, not that I just believe in God out of the blue.

Sorry, I did go back and stick in an ABE that said more directly that of course the idea of an eternal Being is just as unreasonable as the idea of a self-existent universe given the terms of this logical problem. Logically, starting from where Robin is starting, neither idea is intrinsically more reasonable than the other. BUT we have evidence of the material universe, which makes it in some sense MORE reasonable. At least we know it exists.I don't know what kind of reasoning would have to go into showing the necessity of a Creator.ABE: But this is a tangent. I was merely pointing out that I don't get Robin's objection to the idea of the universe's coming into being out of nothing, since it isn't any more unreasonable an idea than that it always existed that I can see.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:50 AM

Yes it was hashed out somewhat, and your contribution as I recall was mostly mocking and trivializing and generally disruptive.

More reasonable than what?
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More reasonable than the existence of a Creator.

I think it's an interesting question, and even if it needs some refining I think the two factors of Being and Things cover the field.And by the way, the question about the angels on the head of a pin wasn't a trivial question. It was part of an investigation into the degree of materiality of spiritual entities. Tediously academic perhaps but the materiality of angels is a reasonable question.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 10:22 AM

How is the idea that something could come from nothing any more incomprehensible {or illogical} than the idea that something always existed, whether things or being?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 10:51 AM

I don't think we're capable of imagining anything at all without a causal agent, so that something or someone's always existing is just as problematic to me as something's coming into existence out of nothing.Especially the universe. I take on faith that God has always existed, since this too is impossible to imagine, although I do think it's easier to imagine {or it's more logical to think of} Mind or Being always existing than things always existing.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 11:03 AM

That's the same point I've been making. Since there is no evidence for a Creator in the context of this logic problem, and there is certainly evidence for the existence of Things, or the universe, I think the odds are far from 50/50.The evidence for the Creator can't come out of contemplating the raw existence of the material universe, which is really what this logic problem is doing.

Demiurge is just another species of god.

Well, in the case of material things, the fact that we've never seen anything whatever that we couldn't impute a cause to.{OK, sorry, not thinking. Not thinking ultimately enough. Life itself even we don't have a cause for. Atoms too for that matter.}Mind or Being is something else. THAT, as I said, I can more easily think of as eternal.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 11:52 AM

Not in the context of this logic problem. It's not the kind of evidence that could be plugged into this problem.Outside of this problem of course, I know the answer already. God is self-existent, beginningless and endless, and He made everything else.

I can't grapple with that for some reason. It sounds meaningless to me that nothing is "standing in the way of" something's being eternal. I don't get it.And there are things we know are not eternal, right? So something is logically standing in the way of THEM not being eternal. My impulsive answer was that we know them to have a cause, implying that all things have a cause. Or maybe I mean a beginning.But I've been here too long and can't think straight any more, getting punchy, must go away for a while.