What are the odds of God existing?

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

It matters to me. I'm just trying to figure it out.

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God does not "exist."---Paul Tillich, Christian theologian

There's nothing standing in the way or something or someone always existing. There is something standing in the way of something coming from nothing: no causal agent.

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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)

Why?
With what evidence do you support your claim?
Can you look at the very instant this universe came into being and define the working physical laws that were operating in that instant. If you can then you will have out done the entirety of Science as even the latest Math and predictions fail at the last few fractions of a second after the big-bang.With those laws defined can you then prove that there was no way for matter and energy to be spontaneously created? No you can’t because we can’t. We simply don’t know how the universe actually worked in it’s first few moments, and certainly we have less idea what happened before then (even if ”Before’ has any meaning)It’s odds on that ”reality’ was very different in those first few moments and if so how can we possibly know what was and wasn’t possible?

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)

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

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

Logic speaketh.

Yes, eternally.

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.

There's nothing else that a "supernatural cause" could be except a god. It certainly wouldn't be a thing; that would be nature. That's all there is--things and beings. And a "supernatural being" is the same thing as "god."This message has been edited by robinrohan, 04-28-2006 10:22 AM

Why couldn't a supernatural cause be something other than a God ? Personally I would consider the Gnostic demiurge to be exactly that - a supernatural cause of our universe that is not a God.

Demiurge is just another species of god.