• tim wood
    8.7k
    To the folks who from time to time try to prove that God exists: in this thread, God's existence is granted, being supposed herein to be at the least not any less real than Samuel Johnson's stone (that he kicked) - or for that matter any degree of real beyond that you care to make Him.

    But so what? What can be said about God from just His existence. You-all know who you are; have at it! In this thread at least you have your God; what can you make of it?

    The only rule here is that whatever you wish to attribute to God must be derived from his existence only.

    My bias here is that existence is irrelevant to any concept of God, and that anything attributed to God not derived from his existence as something at least as real as a stone, is not an attribute of God, but instead something attributed to him.

    And for the purposes of this thread, the "reality" of concepts and ideas shall not be argued. The only reality granted is that of a physical reality - of some kind. Nor shall we debate any of the problems such existence might entail - all of these considerations, however true they might be, not being to the point here.

    My own view is that the idea of God is metaphorically like a fir tree in a forest that men, in almost every case men, have come and cut down and removed from the forest to decorate and festoon with streamers and ribbons and ornaments and hangers and lights and symbols and baubles and icons, and so forth until the tree itself is made invisible, but a bare skeletal framework for the hanging on of things that never ever had anything to do with the tree. In short, the tree is taken and killed in sacrifice for mere display.

    So, God provers. here's your God. Make what you can of him. I'm pretty sure you can make nothing of him, and that your efforts will prove as empty as your "proofs" are.

    And if it be the case that existence as a predicate for God turns out to be as useless as I think it is, then may we have no more of attempts to prove that he exists!
  • Jehu
    6
    Hi Tim,

    What precisely do you mean by the term 'existence'? It would seem to me that the term entails all that there is, for we can neither speak nor think of anything non-existent.

    To speak or think of a thing it must have a nature, a set of intrinsic qualities or features (actual or imagined) that are essential to its being the kind of thing that it is. That which is non-existent is necessarily devoid of any qualities or features, be they intrinsic or otherwise.

    It follows then that if God is existence itself, then God is the source of all that there is - past, present and future.
  • hachit
    237
    I think dose God exists is the wrong question. The question should be, should God exists. The reson I think this is that this question is God good for us or not.

    Also it is impossible to convince someone God exists if they disregard the evidence. So I need other ways to convince people.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Please read the OP. For the purposes of this thread God is presumed to exist, at least and not less than a stone is said to exist. Given that, what if anything can be said about God? I'm pretty sure nothing can be said about God, which immediately calls into question the value in asserting or claiming that He exists. If you were then to ask in what the value of God lies, if his existence in itself is productive of nothing, I would answer in the idea or concept of Him. Some people want their God to be. In this thread that is presumed. But just try to draw anything from that existence.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    The only rule here is that whatever you wish to attribute to God must be derived from his existence only.tim wood

    The importance is not in what you derive from God, it is in what you understand when you recognize the need to assume God.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    in this thread, God's existence is granted, being supposed herein to be at the least not any less real than Samuel Johnson's stone (that he kicked) - or for that matter any degree of real beyond that you care to make Him.tim wood

    As I might very well be the most atheist on this forum (at least from what I've read), looking at it as given that God exists, it reminded me of John Wisdom's Gardener tale, here modified by Antony Flew:

    Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves. At last the Skeptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?John Wisdom

    To the question:

    But so what?tim wood

    I would answer, it is irrelevant. If God were proven to be, but not here, not able to interact with us and the world just follows the same physic rules as ever, having us through science and technology tame this nature and universe, without any interaction from that God, then who cares if God is real?

    For me, it becomes a stone in the forest. You believe it's there, its form, you can describe it: it is pale, not black, it doesn't look like any stone and you know, in your deepest, that it is there. You one day go into the forest and you find the stone... now what?
  • hachit
    237
    I'm saying your right. To most people don't think a God would change anything

    But if you want an argument here it is. Is God exists for all intended peposes. Then only thoughts who look for him would have any benefit. God has a plan, this plan gives purpose. Purpose make us able to get thought the bad (man's search for meaning). God is a guide, not a force. He can actually as one but he wants us to trust him despite that. He may go for an intervention but only if it's a part of his plan.

    To the outsider it would look like a blind fath but God would have earned there trust. Those who leave him did not have enough fath.

    He is not irelivent just not visible to the hole
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    The importance is not in what you derive from God, it is in what you understand when you recognize the need to assume God.Metaphysician Undercover

    Not in question, MU. Please read the OP.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    But if you want an argument here it is. Is God exists for all intended peposes. Then only thoughts who look for him would have any benefit. God has a plan, this plan gives purpose. Purpose make us able to get thought the bad (man's search for meaning). God is a guide, not a force. He can actually as one but he wants us to trust him despite that. He may go for an intervention but only if it's a part of his plan.

    To the outsider it would look like a blind fath but God would have earned there trust. Those who leave him did not have enough fath.

    He is not irelivent just not visible to the hole
    hachit

    But this you're attributing to God - or your idea of Him. But that's not the idea of this thread. There's a given, for folks that want it. The task of this thread is for those folks, or any who care to try, to exhibit something, or anything, that can be derived from that fact of existence.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Actually the only thing I can think of right now is that if it were verified that god did exist, there would be lots and lots of people either sucking up to him wanting favors or trying to dissect him to find out how he works.
  • Echarmion
    2.5k


    I think this thread is a clever way to refute the ontological argument. Turning it around shows very nicely that "existence" simply is not an attribute that can be connected to other attributes.

    The best one can do is take the notion that it "exists like a rock does", and conclude that God must therefore have some spatial and temporal extension and some observable attribute.
  • BC
    13.1k


    Never mind larks on the wing, snails slithering over the thorn, Robert Browning. CO2 levels are rising, our celestial orb is heating up, insect populations are crashing, God is in His heaven and the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
  • BC
    13.1k
    And they are not doing that anyway?
  • bert1
    1.8k
    So what if God exists?

    - takes the pressure off life a bit if there is some kind of afterlife (could also be seen as a negative thing)
    - helps with finding value in suffering - good for mental health in adversity
    - good for mental health to believe that one's innermost centre is indestructible
    - helpful in cultivating a sense of oneness with the natural world
    - helpful in developing creatively to believe in an inner spontaneous source of newness, and the imperative to create and express
    - helpful to believe that death is not the ultimate evil - avoidance of death can result in inauthentic living
    - helps in understanding the world as panpsychic

    I don't mean to imply any exclusivity here. Atheists and other kinds of theists also can develop attitudes, values and ways of thinking from which they can derive similar benefits, no doubt.

    I could also come up with a list of negative ones, but most of them would be for a God I did not believe in.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    To speak or think of a thing it must have a nature, a set of intrinsic qualities or features (actual or imagined) that are essential to its being the kind of thing that it is. That which is non-existent is necessarily devoid of any qualities or features, be they intrinsic or otherwise.Jehu

    Couldn't you speak about something you imagine?
  • frank
    14.5k
    My own view is that the idea of God is metaphorically like a fir tree in a forest that men, in almost every case men, have come and cut down and removed from the forest to decorate and festoon with streamers and ribbons and ornaments and hangers and lights and symbols and baubles and iconstim wood

    Look at a random image from the Sistene Chapel ceiling while listening to Mozart's Requiem. Long live the baubles.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    The importance is not in what you derive from God,Metaphysician Undercover

    So would you say that anything can be derived from God's existence alone?
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    Wondering if the O/P is just an invitation to the same old do loop of having someone make a faith based claim, then challenge it based on reason. The argument is not, what God is or is not, the argument is why is there a need to challenge faith based claims with reason? If a theist makes some claim about the nature of God, and says this description of such a being is based on reason - have at them. I will even join you.

    The underlying issue is why does the agnostic/atheist contingent have such a difficult time with epistemic humility? Why does there appear such a need to disparage a belief that one can not muster a reasoned case that it is in fact false. I see no party having any high ground in the an explanation of the creation of the universe. My reasoned arguments for an un-created creator is as valid as you reasoned arguments. Epistemic humility would dictate we value each others beliefs with generosity.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I would answer, it is irrelevant. If God were proven to be, but not here, not able to interact with us and the world just follows the same physic rules as ever, having us through science and technology tame this nature and universe, without any interaction from that God, then who cares if God is real?Christoffer

    I'm not saying this because I believe it, but I'm aware of the views.

    A lot of people believe that

    * We do interact with God regularly during our worldly lives; just not in ways that are detectable scientifically (and they believe that that is on purpose, because faith is important)

    * Our faith in God enriches our lives in many different ways

    * We interact with God after death

    * How we interact with God after death depends on what our beliefs were during our Earthly life.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    None of that actually logically follows from god's existence, though. It only follows if we assume a variety of beliefs about god.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    It's simply a matter of a lot of people not being able to, or not being comfortable with accepting a belief "on faith alone." So when we're talking about beliefs that have no support other than faith, the folks who aren't able to or aren't comfortable accepting anything on faith grounds alone are going to balk at the idea. Curious people are going to ask questions about it, they're going to wonder how others can be comfortable with it, etc.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    So would you say that anything can be derived from God's existence alone?Terrapin Station

    No, I don't thing anything can be derived from God's existence alone. What can be derived from one premise? "God exists", alone, without any defining statements, is just a statement of ambiguity.
  • Echarmion
    2.5k
    The underlying issue is why does the agnostic/atheist contingent have such a difficult time with epistemic humility? Why does there appear such a need to disparage a belief that one can not muster a reasoned case that it is in fact false. I see no party having any high ground in the an explanation of the creation of the universe. My reasoned arguments for an un-created creator is as valid as you reasoned arguments. Epistemic humility would dictate we value each others beliefs with generosity.Rank Amateur

    It is difficult to hold a belief and not have that belief influence your actions in some way. Not everyone accepts that faith has some unique epistemic standing alongside reason. One might argue that faith is merely a label used to hide - and therefore sustain - cognitive dissonance.

    Now the question "why do you care" is justified. And I think that in the case of many theists, there is no reason to care, and humility is the most healthy reaction. On the other hand, religions are a real and powerful phenomenon, and so are various "cult like" groups. Contrasting faith and reason and asking for reasonable arguments to support beliefs is an important step towards curtailing the power of these groups. After all, if basing your beliefs on reason is not important, what are we all doing here?
  • bert1
    1.8k
    None of that actually logically follows from god's existence, though. It only follows if we assume a variety of beliefs about god.Terrapin Station

    Oh, I see, sorry that was a prescription of the OP. I didn't read it properly, my bad.

    In that we case we do need to delve into what it means to believe 'God exists'. We need a minimum set of characteristics or properties of God that the OP has granted. As it stands, the term 'God' is an empty variable. It's not clear what the OP has generously granted us theists. Is it just physical existence? That's not enough to capture any concept of God though. Physically, I think God is space, but that's because it fits some other traditionally Goddish qualities, like invisibility, omnipresence, solidity, partlessness, simplicity, immortality, self-movingness, etc.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    * We do interact with God regularly during our worldly lives; just not in ways that are detectable scientifically (and they believe that that is on purpose, because faith is important)

    * Our faith in God enriches our lives in many different ways

    * We interact with God after death

    * How we interact with God after death depends on what our beliefs were during our Earthly life.
    Terrapin Station

    There are no signs at all of interacting with God, a cake enrich my life and it wasn't made by God, you cannot confirm that you will interact with God after death and how we interact is also not confirmed because of the first unconfirmed.

    And, because of all that, John Wisdom's gardener-analogy applies, because Correlation does not equal causation - a common fallacy and one that believers make every day.

    If we accept God as real, there are no signs of God, so the most logical conclusion is that if God existed, he's the gardener in the analogy. The only reason many people believe those things is because they were taught so, not by observing it. And if observing something they couldn't explain, they would get answers from religion based on other observations in history that also didn't get a rational explanation.

    The only rational conclusion, if we were to accept God as existing, would be that God doesn't interfere or involve with us at all, which of course then leads us back to the gardener-analogy.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    There are no signs at all of interacting with God, a cake enrich my life and it wasn't made by God, you cannot confirm that you will interact with God after death and how we interact is also not confirmed because of the first unconfirmed.Christoffer

    Again, the idea is that this is "just not in ways that are detectable scientifically (and they believe that that is on purpose, because faith is important)"

    People who believe these things DO believe that there are signs of interacting with God. It changes their lives in their view, changes their mental/emotional states, their relationships with others, etc.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    No issues with that at all.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    People who believe these things DO believe that there are signs of interacting with God. It changes their lives in their view, changes their mental/emotional states, their relationships with others, etc.Terrapin Station

    Wasn't the point of this to evaluate what's the point if there was a God? And if there was a God, based on the common arguments that only points to a God that is so detached from us and our world, it becomes absurd to rely on that God or think we see causation where there is no correlation?

    And as a side-note, I would argue that those people invite disaster, per my irrational belief argument in another thread. It breaks epistemic responsibility and is in my opinion unethical to apply to the world, since it only benefits the self, which, by almost all moral teaching equals immoral behavior. And even if God existed it would still be so, since it opens the door for murder in Gods name because of such irrational belief. Perhaps this thread may give me some thoughts on how to improve that argument since it actually is detached from any causality argument for God.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Wasn't the point of this to evaluate what's the point if there was a God?Christoffer

    I wasn't addressing the "overall point" of the thread. Just the one small bit that I quoted from your post (in relation to beliefs that are common among theists).
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    I wasn't addressing the "overall point" of the thread. Just the one small bit that I quoted from your post (in relation to beliefs that are common among theists).Terrapin Station

    In that case, I would regard the points on what people believe outside causality arguments to be unethical, per my other thread.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    It is difficult to hold a belief and not have that belief influence your actions in some way.Echarmion

    agree

    Not everyone accepts that faith has some unique epistemic standing alongside reason.Echarmion

    I would argue, that we all face situations continually that require our full commitment of something important, and have incomplete information on the possible outcomes. Proceeding in these situations to one degree or another requires a faith based action. Are these some type of epistemic knowledge or not - I think more semantic than important.

    One might argue that faith is merely a label used to hide - and therefore sustain - cognitive dissonance.Echarmion

    I would counter as above that it is a natural part of the human belief system that is required when the application of fact or reason is insufficient, yet action is required.

    On the other hand, religions are a real and powerful phenomenon, and so are various "cult like" groups. Contrasting faith and reason and asking for reasonable arguments to support beliefs is an important step towards curtailing the power of these groups. After all, if basing your beliefs on reason is not important, what are we all doing here?Echarmion

    agree - with a small change. Religion, is a man made institution with all that that entails. And there is no argument that there has been many awful things done in the name of God. Challenging religion is always healthy. Faith is not by definition either good or bad, it is just a belief that is not supported by fact or reason.
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