Thread: Why God Exists.

Originally Posted by stonedape

Actually this could be an atheistic viewpoint. It could a weak atheist viewpoint, also sometimes called an implicit atheist viewpoint. This viewpoint lacks a belief in any Gods. If you lack a belief in God, you might be inclined to say that we don't how the universe started. But you could also have your own theory of how the universe started that didn't involve a God. In reality the postition could be assosciated with anyone, even a theist. You could believe in a God who didn't create the universe.

An agnostic viewpoint of this situation would be that we can't know how the universe began, whether or not God created the universe.

Good point about agnosticism, although I don't think making a grey area about atheism really makes any difference. I suppose both atheism and agnosticism overlap in such a way.

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

What makes faith a sturdy bridge?

If faith is a bridge, the question of sturdiness is the question of strength of faith. In addition to this, there is also numerous people that have known the Divine reality as confirmation, with great consistency throughout history. Call them saints, leaders, teachers, mystics, etc. All the means for perfect faith are already given.

Originally Posted by Supernova

I'm not saying it doesn't have holes, but it's still an attempt at an explanation. You can't be right if you don't take a stab at the question. And, after all, it all comes down to that question. We can ask "If X came from Y, then where did Y come from..." and so on for all eternity, but suggesting an origin for our universe is more than atheism can do.

Good point. Having rejected not only God, but (often indirectly) any truth beyond the scientific paradigm, the atheist is incapable of making revolutionary discoveries. The belief structure and attitude is what stops any further progression into that ground.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Pascal's Wager. Your argument is invalid.

Please elaborate?

Originally Posted by BLUELINE976

You can't be wrong either. If someone's answer is that they don't know the answer to something, they're not even trying to answer the question. They're stating their lack of knowledge of an answer.

I'm sure atheists don't "state their lack of knowledge" when they are arguing against God, so this wouldn't apply to them, would it?

Originally Posted by really

Good point. Having rejected not only God, but (often indirectly) any truth beyond the scientific paradigm, the atheist is incapable of making revolutionary discoveries. The belief structure and attitude is what stops any further progression into that ground.

If something is beyond the scope of science (read: beyond the scope of objective testing), there are no revolutionary discoveries to be made. At that point, they become extremely unreliable personal experiences. There is no way to tell if your last mindgasmic trip to the center of oneness actually happened, or if you imagined the whole thing.

Please elaborate?

Pascal's Wager states, in essence, that even if there is no god, it is better to believe there is one than not; the idea being that you can't win the lottery if you don't play. The problem with that is there are an infinite number of possible gods, and the equally possible possibility that there is no god at all. Where did the universe come from? I contest it is equally possible that it had no beginning, that the universe is outside of time. We only perceive that it must have a beginning because of the linear causal appearance of time we constantly experience. In other words, there is no grand question of where did we come from.

Note: I don't actually believe this. I have no reason to, along with every other proposal of how the universe began, or if it began. I don't know, and I'm okay with that.