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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
 Posted - 10/24/2008 : 10:16:17
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The existence of God? Especially the God of the Bible or Koran.
I ask because I can not think of anything. I've reached a point where "supernatural" is an impossibility.
I say that because anything that exists in reality can't be supernatural. If it exists, it's natural. We may not understand it's nature but that does not change the fact.
I can think of no proof of God. Anything that represented itself as God could simply be an advanced life form (Q from Star Trek would be a perfect example of this). Which of course stems right from Arthur C. Clarks remark about not being able to distinguish advanced technology from magic.
Therefor anything representing itself as God would be best described as an advanced life form who's abilities I cannot comprehend....still does not make them God.
To me....however unlikely, and advanced life form is FAR more likely than the existence of a real God. Therefore there could not be any proof of the existence of God.
Now to be clear. I don't expect to ever come across a life form such as Q.
So I guess the bottom line for me is that even if God really did exist.....I could never believe it.
Short version: Natural explanations ALWAYS trump Supernatural explanations.
Therefore - One can never prove the existence of the Supernatural
Therefore - One can never prove the existence of God
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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furshur
SFN Regular
USA
1536 Posts |
 Posted - 10/24/2008 : 10:51:13 [Permalink]
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If little baby Jesus were to come down from heaven and raise my father from the grave - that would prove the existence of the biblical (new testement) God to me. It could be that I was tricked by an alien intelligence or the free masons or something, but I would still be convinced.
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If I knew then what I know now then I would know more now than I know. |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 11:12:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by furshur
If little baby Jesus were to come down from heaven and raise my father from the grave - that would prove the existence of the biblical (new testement) God to me. It could be that I was tricked by an alien intelligence or the free masons or something, but I would still be convinced.
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Really? That's all it would take? For a being such as Q....if one were to exist....that trick would be EASY. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 11:28:27 [Permalink]
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| Sophistry is a bitch and makes all absolute certainty suspect. Or so The Architect told me when I reached The Source. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 11:51:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Sophistry is a bitch and makes all absolute certainty suspect. Or so The Architect told me when I reached The Source.
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So you find my reasoning confusing or illogical?
You did not address the question.
Is there an argument or even possible evidence to convince you of the existence of God? I have already answered that question.....for me. A natural explanation....no matter how unlikely, would trump a supernatural explanation. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 12:06:50 [Permalink]
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Very simple; as 'God' is supernatural, it would require a manifestation of some sort, clearly visible to all, that could be explained only by supernatural process.
In short, a miracle.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 12:12:36 [Permalink]
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Therefor anything representing itself as God would be best described as an advanced life form who's abilities I cannot comprehend....still does not make them God.
To me....however unlikely, and advanced life form is FAR more likely than the existence of a real God. Therefore there could not be any proof of the existence of God. |
Your own mind creating the illusion of having a god presenting itself to you would be even more likely than there being an alien pretending to be said god.
| Is there an argument or even possible evidence to convince you of the existence of God? |
The easiest way may be for the supposed god to simply, through it's divine powers, make me convinced. No arguments or evidence would be necessary. My conviction might, however, still be my mind plaing tricks on me, but I wouldn't care.
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METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 12:37:55 [Permalink]
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Well; yeah, if Q or the Beyonder arrived and started to perform major miracles and claim to be God... I would be inclined to trust him.
Of course, it could then be revealed that his powers were not, in fact, infinite, and that as such he was not the true Judeo-Christian God. I would then change my attitude, of course.
Or maybe, it will never be the case, either because his powers truly are infinite of because we are just to insignificant to see their limits...
In the first case, he IS God. In the second, he might not technically be, but for all intent and purpose, he is. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 10/24/2008 : 13:29:00 [Permalink]
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A portrait of God.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 15:10:25 [Permalink]
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| Classic movie, filthy. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 23:19:36 [Permalink]
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astropin.....
| What would it take to prove the existence of God? |
A physical appearance of Him (or Her or It) - greatly prolonged, before millions of observers; many and multiple manifestations of miracles; dialog, punctuated with miraculous events, with intensely skeptical interrogators (probably with several of them struck dead on the spot before an audience of hundreds of millions); and a invitation to any person or persons to offer any challenge that the Deity could not instantly meet and obliterate!
Multiple televised instances of the Deity instantly meeting and besting such challenges. Many ressurections of famous atheistic dead people - all attesting to the Glory of God! Everybody who has lost a loved one, gets them back for a while!
A few months of this with total world-wide television coverage and a great deal of personal skeptic-busting in front of millions of observers, plus at least one personal miracle occuring for every single inhabitant of the Earth, immediately following a promise to to so - that would begin to persuade me!
Maybe a few major, major celestial events, also! God needs to put the sun out for a week, triple the size of the moon, freeze the tropics, semi-incinerate the arctic regions. turn the sky red - all immediately after proclaiming that that is what He is going to do, and then He does do it, NOW!
The Four Horsemen - Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett, all drop to their knees and acknowledge the existence of and Glory of .....God!
Finally, I've got to die, visit Heaven and Hell, come back and discuss it with quite a few folks, and then go on to a personal interview with the fucking quasshole that's faking all this shit - and come out saying, yes, this fucker is the real article! - then, I'll join the fundies!
I'll cave in, about then!
But I haven't thought about it very long, either!
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| Edited by - bngbuck on 10/24/2008 23:30:21 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2008 : 07:18:24 [Permalink]
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Yes, any miraculous event could always be the doings of an advanced alien race, but I think at a certain point it must come down to reasonable doubt. If every prophecy of a certain religious sect was met with extraordinary accuracy; if prayers to their deity resulted in consistent and miraculous healings while prayers to other gods went unanswered; if the rituals of this group resulted in consistent and scientifically-verifiable violations of physical laws, such as the transmutation or ex nihilo creation of matter; if this deity appeared publicly and vocally or psychically-communicated a clear, consistent message to all human individuals; in short, if even one religion worked the way it claimed to work, then the existence of such a god would have to be considered well established.
Now, no one could rule out that a Q-level alien was simply accomplishing all these things in order to pretend to be a god, but in this case that would actually be the more unlikely scenario. Without evidence that such a thing was occurring, the more parsimonious explanation would be that a powerful supernatural god did in fact exist.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 10/25/2008 07:22:55 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2008 : 20:26:48 [Permalink]
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What would it take for me to believe in an omnipotent deity?
Can't think of anything.
I'm sure, being omnipotent, that it could manage the task though.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 07:09:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
What would it take for me to believe in an omnipotent deity?
Can't think of anything.
I'm sure, being omnipotent, that it could manage the task though.
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I thought my suggestion was fool-proof. The deity would simply make you believe. You would no longer be concerned that the supposed deity is really an advanced alien or that you are on the receiving end of an elaborate hoax or that there are unusual natural phenomena going on. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 10:31:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Hawks
Originally posted by Dude
What would it take for me to believe in an omnipotent deity?
Can't think of anything.
I'm sure, being omnipotent, that it could manage the task though.
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I thought my suggestion was fool-proof. The deity would simply make you believe. You would no longer be concerned that the supposed deity is really an advanced alien or that you are on the receiving end of an elaborate hoax or that there are unusual natural phenomena going on.
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And "God" would not be some sort of an advanced ailen? Or, considering religious texts and too many of their devout followers, a sadly retarded one?
There is no such thing as fool-proof. We fools can screw up even the best of philosophical hoaxes. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 13:32:38 [Permalink]
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Hawks said:
| I thought my suggestion was fool-proof. The deity would simply make you believe. You would no longer be concerned that the supposed deity is really an advanced alien or that you are on the receiving end of an elaborate hoax or that there are unusual natural phenomena going on. |
Well, how do we know it isn't just some advanced technology capable of manipulating you? Of course, to you (in your scenario where you are "made" to believe), it wouldn't really matter since you'd be convinced.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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What would it take to prove…
