Is there any proof God exists?

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Only Adam was made from 'dust', and the 'dust' is being used as metaphor for nothing.
Dust in the wind, a flower quickly fading, a wave in the ocean, all metaphors for nothing or noting how brief our lives are.

I completely agree. I'm not anti-science. I'm not trying to steer the discussion into useless solipsism here. I don't have an issue with the method or the artifacts of it. I don't have a problem with accepting that the senses are sufficient for adequate perception.

Dent is right in one regard, and that is my issue with science is a philosophical one. And it's not with science as a whole, but rather a particularly narrow view of it. The view that science is the only reasonable answer to anything breaks down into circularity, which means THAT view is flat wrong. Despite Dent's reluctance to have this discussion with me, I happen already know that he's aware of this and would never claim to hold that view, hence why I'm not committing a straw man to say this is what he believes--rather, I'm not saying that, nor do I mean to even hint at it.

But neither would it be appropriate to give science a higher place than it deserves. The reasoning is inherently circular. If one is to accept science as a means to do anything, one must philosophically deal with a system that is logically flawed. There are ways to do that. However, that creates another problem...

We depend on science for so much though, and there are so many different branches of science without which we could not function: from chemistry to biology, zoology, botany, geology to name just a very few... the very basis of many of our professions.

Oddly enough I never questioned the reality of evolution (although I never discussed it) because though my parents were Baptist fundamentalists, they bought me a set of Young People's Science Encyclopedia which I spent much time devouring. As far as I'm aware my stepfather is an Old Earth creationist, which means he accepts that the Earth itself is much older than the Genesis story.

We can't deny that there is a sixth sense, or non-physical dimension which is much more difficult to pin down scientifically.

Meh…I'm not really prepared to go there. The senses are certainly enough to get the job done for most people, and people without one sense or another tend to develop other senses to a higher level, such as with blind people (sense of sound) or deaf people (sense of sight). Some people have impaired sense of touch, while others may be lacking in smell and/or taste. I lack the sensus divinitatis that many folks claim to have, i.e. it's rare for me to "feel" God the way some claim to. For me, I experience this 6th sense a little like many deaf people can perceive SOME sound or at least feel vibrations, or like many blind people who are able to detect light even if they are unable to process it in a meaningful way as compared with normal-sighted people. In one way, you might say it would be easier for me to disbelieve than to believe for lack of evidence. But at the same time I don't think God is compelled to limit His revelation of Himself to a "6th sense." I most certainly have experienced the Divine in palpable ways. And while I'm never immune to skepticism or doubts, I do feel compelled by my experiences to believe what I know. While I honestly do make the effort with Dent and others, those experiences have made it especially difficult to suspend disbelief when taking on their objections.

Try convincing a biologist that evolution never happened. A biologist could probably rattle off any number of examples where rapid speciation is known to occur. He has seen it in action. So if one were, for the sake of argument, actually CORRECT that evolution doesn't happen, he'd still be hard pressed to convince the biologist. As it is, the biologist doesn't have to concern himself with this actually happening, as the scientific community is quite confident in regards to evolution. My experiences, likewise, are undeniable. It would be foolish for me to behave otherwise.

Also, bear in mind I have no need to attack science. That's never been what it's about. The problem is the needlessly high pedestal some tend to place it on…and worse yet, the high pedestal has a pretty deep crack in it.

Ok. The scientific method is not a hypothesis, it is not a law of nature, it does not prove anything. So what is it? It is a system of verification of hypotheses, laws of nature, theories ect. Take an idea (hypothesis) test it against observation (experiment) try to make predictions about future experiments, repeat and verify original data. In a nutshell that is it. It says nothing about the hypothesis, nothing about the experiment and nothing about the data. The only constraint it has is that the hypothesis must be able to be observable in nature, in this it cannot determine anything supernatural. That is it.

Now because it cannot test the supernatural does not mean it cannot test and falsify claims of supernatural phenomena. For example lets go back to the primitive belief that thunder is the visible and audible displeasure of the gods. We now have the ability to predict thunder, lightning, cyclones etc now to the incredibly obstinate this does not disprove gods involvement, but I would say the ability understand how these climatic events occur and be able to predict these events days into the future should be enough to show they are not of gods making.

When it comes to the claims of spiritualists, ghost hunters, clairvoyants etc, once again science cannot prove that which cannot be tested, yet when tests are done to determine if information can be sought from the spirits of the dead we get a big fat zero. The trouble with this is that the proponents invariably move the goal posts out of the testable realm. Just the other day my sister in law told me I was closed minded and that is why I cannot see the ghost in front of me (I resisted the urge to quote G.K Chesterton)

The main canard of the science deniers is that they claim science does not no everything. This is a canard because the concept that we "know everything there is to know" has long since been abandoned. Science brings us the best approximation of the reality, by approximation I do not mean wild guesses. For example Newtonian Physics are perfectly ok when building the tallest buildings, flying aircraft etc, but it is not ok when we get into space, there we need General relativity which is a closer approximation to reality. Both Einstein and Newton break down when we get to the very small or very cold. At the moment the standard model linking 3 of the four forces of nature is standing up incredibly well to experiment.

So the point of all this is to show that although science cannot prove or falsify the supernatural when it is placed outside of the observable realm it most certainly can prove and falsify things that are natural. The scientific method is the best tool we have for sorting out data and verifying evidence, this does not mean it is the best tool and no-one worth the moniker scientist would ever claim it was.

Lastly Rho you talk as if you are reasonable, that you accept findings of the natural world, that your only issue with science is that it cannot falsify and therefore has no place, in the ethereal world. From memory you are a believer in Biblical creation, and as such refute nearly every scientific paradigm. If my memory is correct you are clearly delusional and are using this pilosophical argument to deny the observable world in place of one presented in the bible.

OK, but the inability of science to detect the supernatural is not the issue. How do you account for the inherent circularity of science?

Avoiding more questions...


I said nothing about the "ethereal world." Straw man.


Don't change the subject. This has nothing to do with creationism.


Ad hominem.


Straw man.

You're preferring to attack me rather than confront the issues I've raised, and that is interesting coming from someone who makes a claim towards rationality. If that is your position, it's alarming because it's an untenable one.

Is this your way of giving up? I mean, I understand nobody likes losing an argument. Winning isn't that important to me as much as it is to others. From where I'm sitting, nobody really "wins" these debates, anyway. But lashing out at me is unnecessary. And not to worry…I've been visiting PPR for years now from back when there were tougher and more erudite debaters than you. It doesn't upset me. But it is an emotional display that doesn't help your case. If I'm hurting your feelings, I'll withdraw. It's not worth you getting hurt over. That's not what I do.

I Have addressed your issues. The scientific method is the best tool we have yet divised to accumulate knowledge. Simple.

It is not a theory, nor even a hypothesis and therefore its value and affirmation is its success in helping push the boundaries of human knowledge to its present state. IE it does not need empirical verification, it does not need a different methodology to validate it. What you are trying to present is the need for a "first cause" scientific method to determine what is "real" or some kind of infinite regression where each validating method requires its own validation. This is absurd.

The reason I bring up your ideological beliefs is to show why you need to think this way in the first place. Without some fundamental philosophical opposition to science you, as a thinking person cannot hold onto your deeply held religious beliefs. Therefore you are inventing a controversy where this is none.

No true Scotsman fallacy.

^Very true and thankyou for pointing it out. I get frustrated at times with the level of deceit some religious people seem prepared to go in defence of their beliefs, and let myself get carried away sometimes.

We all think, we just don't all agree.

Honestly, I have no idea. I only know that everytime I go into a church I get migraines.

There is no proof that anything exists, except your own mind. Everything you see, touch, eat, breathe, hear, smell, including your own body - all of it may be a hallucination, or a dream. Other than the existence of your own consciousness, anything you accept as true, is something you choose to believe.

That said, you need to specify to what "god" you are referring. There are and have been hundreds (at least) of deities worshiped by human beings, some local nature spirits, some said to be the lord of this or that natural phenomenon, some lauded as the one and only, gen-u-wine, original Creator-of-the-Universe. Even within a single religion, you will find different experts disagreeing on the qualities of their accepted divinity.

Since you reference Heaven and refer to this god as HE, I assume you're talking about Yahweh, the god of Abraham and the supposed progenitor of Jesus Christ. You talk about "Heaven" in the same way most Sunday School children and adult fundamentalists do, as though it were a physical PLACE, with pearly gates and streets of gold. That may be pablum fit for the dimwitted masses, but no serious, intelligent seeker after truth believes that. It's like autistic kids who take metaphors literally. To imagine that the creator of the universe lives in cloud city, sitting on a throne, growing a long white beard and watching for sinners to spank is just stupid, just as the extremists who believe that the same Creator of all Men wants them to murder their brothers and sisters for not belonging to the correct cult, and they'll be rewarded for this fratricide with 72 virgins. What they ought to ask is "Virgin what"?

If you want to understand what the concept of "God" actually means, you need to study Quantum Physics and String Theory - because all the mysteries unfolding in those fields of study today are the very things that the wisest and most insightful explorers of inner space have been telling us for centuries - but you can't begin to grok what they're telling you, until you start to grasp just what spacetime dimensionality really implies - until you wrap your head around the fact that all matter is vibrating energy and that the world you think you live in is just 4 dimensions out of at least ten and possibly an infinity.

Your five senses can only comprehend width, breadth, height and time. There may be entire universes full of life passing by at the tip of your nose, that you simply don't have the physical ability to perceive. Could "God" or "gods" (or unicorns and fairies) be in one of them? Even more likely, could all those worlds (including this one) be inside of God? Are we characters in God's imagination? Is the multiverse a hologram, conscious unto itself? If God is pure conscious energy, maybe all the physical universes and the life forms in them are simply God's way of gaining experience and learning about itself, by engaging in role playing games.

Now, that said, let's turn to your questions about why God might sit by and allow bad things to happen. First, define "bad." If God is all, then both positive and negative, light and dark, good and evil, pleasure and pain - all of these are parts of God and yet, none of them are real, they are only conceptual constructs. You cannot perceive light without darkness as contrast. If you never felt sad, how would you know when you were happy? If you never experienced rain, why would you care about another sunny day?

Black and white are just opposite sides of the same circle. The world of experiences could not exist without both. Without the choice of good or evil, creation and destruction, we could not have free will - we would all be mindless puppets with only ONE course to follow. To be truly free, you have to have a choice, even if that means one of those choices is a negative one. Any creator who constantly interfered in our choices and forced us to go in a specific direction would not be a loving creator, but a dictator tyrant and we would be toys, not thinking, growing individuals.

I don't believe God "hides" from humanity, I think people often choose to be blind - look at the complexity of the universe we can see (and remember its only one of many), from the orbits of electrons, to living microbes, to visceral, breathing nature, to solar systems, galaxies, black holes and a universe so vast we can't even see the edges of it. As much as pessimistic materialists might like to insist that its all a cosmic accident and we're just bags of chemicals who wink out like a TV screen and disappear when we die, I don't believe that (and there's plenty of evidence to the contrary). I have had experiences that have shown me glimpses of what lies beyond the usually closed doors of our normal perception - and if you think this universe is a big place - you ain't seen nothin' yet.

The truth is, your brain is not the source of your consciousness - your brain is like a radio receiver, and the you that lives in this world is just a tiny fragment of the whole you (like the voice that comes through the microphone), a fragment that's being channeled through that brain and expressing itself as your current personality. When the body shuts down, the ego that goes by your current name may be discarded, that was just your character in the role playing game to begin with - but the totality of conscious energy that was operating the controller will still exist. This world is an amusement park ride and the first rule of admittance is: You must forget what you really are until the game ends, in order to fully commit to your character. As you work through the levels, you'll eventually figure out that its just a game, and begin to regain your memory. You may go through several character roles before you get that advanced.

Now, I don't expect you to believe any of that just because I said it. You owe it to yourself to seek your own answers. The truth is out there. Actually, its in there, but just start looking, you'll figure it out. Start by reading. A lot. And never assume you have ALL the answers, there's always more to learn. Mostly, avoid anyone who's so arrogant that they're absolutely sure they're right and nobody knows any more than they do - those people are always wrong, not to mention unpleasant to be around.

Hope that at least gave you a little insight into some of the things you were pondering and sets you off in a direction where some of your answers lie.

Maybe you have a low tolerance for crowded environments. This is common with autistic people.

God does exist, we know this because we wouldn't be here without him.

Hadn't even crossed my mind, honestly.


So…you're ok with it being logically flawed? It "just works," needs no external validation. Got it.

And you can accept that this is an irrational position?


But my ideological beliefs have nothing to do with it. I'm not the one who has a problem with a foundational element of a belief system being illogical.

To recap: All that is known is known through observation via the senses. This itself is something that is known. It is known through the senses.

You say it needs no external verification.

So if that's logical, I should be able to say: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The heavens and the earth exist. Therefore, God exists.

God "just works," as we can see through such things as moral absolutes which, among other things, ensure our survival as a species (do not murder, honor your father and mother) and allow us to enjoy prosperity through a proper understanding and application of the Golden Rule. As an aside, I do not practice health/wealth gospel. But anyone can observe that "Do more for others than for yourself" is the cornerstone of human relations, and people often go out of their way to support what generous people do. They become wealthy because they can't give away wealth fast enough. But we are aware that we are flawed creatures with an intrinsic desire to reconcile with our Creator. And because we are too weak and too flawed to do this on our own, God did what was necessary FOR us what we were unable to do ourselves. No amount of human generosity, no amount of rich blessings we attain, no amount of self-sacrifice for others will do. But we are saved from destruction because we are loved. And because we are loved, we choose to love. We try to give others peace because we were given peace. We try to heal the sick and feed the hungry because we were sick and hungry in spirit. We show mercy and compassion where it is not deserved because we were shown mercy and compassion when we didn't deserve it.

This all "just works," and can be observed to work. It needs no external verification. Or if it does, then science requires external verification as well…which apparently is impossible and thus is locked forever in question-begging. If you can come up with some ad hoc "no verification required" while everything else, including my own beliefs, DO require verification and give science a free pass, it's only fair and equally intellectually (dis)honest (depending on how you look at it) that my faith get the same fair shake as science.

Calling one "irrational" given the same fatal flaw as the other is itself an untenable position.

utter nonsense. The scientific method is not logically flawed, as I keep repeating and you keep ignoring it is a tool to help determine what is real in the natural world, and as a tool it works extraordinarily well. What is flawed is the concept that a hypothesis can be thought of as fundamentally true without evidence. As for absolute morals give evidence that they exist.

Your faith has no standing in comparison to science, it gives us nothing tangible, it does not give us medicine, increase food production, give us formulas or natural laws which appear to operate throughout the universe. In short it answers absolutely nothing. As far as strawmen go your "science cannot be verified therefore my faith is as valid" has got to be one of the worst I have ever seen.

Last edited by DentArthurDent on 15 Mar 2015, 9:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

evidence please