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Author | Topic: What are the odds of God existing? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
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 What's standing in the way, logically, of something being eternal? True, it cannot be visualized or imagined, but it can be thought in an abstract sense. God does not "exist."---Paul Tillich, Christian theologian
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Robin, your logic is quite apt.
I of course believe that God imagined us long before we were even coherent enough to imagine Him.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3673 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Chiroptera writes: Except that perhaps some things can exist without a causal agent. Yes, if eternal. Otherwise, something has to happen to get them into existence. No, not necessarily. The time-line you are imagining as ordering causality is integral to the universe. The universe just is, whether that internal time-line is infinite or finite.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3673 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Will get back to this, I promise...
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What's standing in the way, logically, of something being eternal? 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
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: 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. "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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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
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.
"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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robinrohan Inactive Member |
Well, in the case of material things, the fact that we've never seen anything whatever that we couldn't impute a cause to. What I meant was, what is standing logically in the way of something or someone not being eternal?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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. 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.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
What is standing logically in the way of something coming into existence without a causal agent?
"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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robinrohan Inactive Member |
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 No, it's not possible. Of course, if one wishes to think romantically, then anything is possible. God does not "exist."---Paul Tillich, Christian theologian
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: That still has not yet been proven or demonstrated. "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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cavediver Member (Idle past 3673 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
No, it's not possible. Yes it is
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
What I meant was, what is standing logically in the way of something or someone not being eternal? 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.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
That still has not yet been proven or demonstrated. What we have to do, in order to get anywhere, is to take logic as a given. The universe is this thing that exists. If it came into existence, then that was a happening. If there was nothing to get this happening going, then it would never have happened. If there was nothing, there would still be nothing. So there had to always be something (or someone). This seems as plain to me as 2 plus 2 make 4.
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