The Probability Of God's Existence

If something occurs repeatedly, over & over, you can safely assume that it will occur again, because there is a large probability that it will occur again, right???

Why can this logic not also be applied to God??? Because Gods have a way of disappearing after a while

Throughout time, God's who once were believed in by many people, lost believers and were dismissed as fantasy, and replaced by new Gods, who in time were also dismissed as fantasy, or just forgotten and replaced by new Gods. We can all say that Zeus, or Hades, are just myths now, but people also used to believe in these Gods the same way people today worship Allah, or The Christian God. The thousands of Gods before Allah, or The Christian God who are now dismissed as fantasy, tell me that there is a huge probabiltity that in time the Christian God will also be dismissed as fantasy. (I dismissed him as such a while ago)

Why believe in something that has almost zero chance of being factual???

God is a way for people to cope. If it makes their life easier then more power to them. When you start talking facts and science you are never going to convince them that there is no god. They operate on something science doesnt account for, Faith. I always find these types of debates pointless because nothing ever results from them. People are going to argue for and against god's existence, but it always ends with..."I just know he exists".

I actually think people have always believed in the Christian God. Not so with other gods such as Zeus, so there is where we differ.

Also, have you considered the possibility that people who have no knowledge of religion in and of itself are drawn to the fact that they must worship some higher power? Consider newly discovered tribes and such. Never is there a case where we have found an "atheistic tribe".

Only recently have we convinced ourselves that God does not exist through so called scientific fact. You cannot believe god exists or that he does not exist through scientific fact for he cannot be derived in that way using our senses or brainpower.

You either have it or you don't.

Also, have you considered the possibility that people who have no knowledge of religion in and of itself are drawn to the fact that they must worship some higher power? Consider newly discovered tribes and such. Never is there a case where we have found an "atheistic tribe".

I've heard that argument, but I consider it absurd... Why should we, a civilized people revert back to our primitive tribal ways???

reply to post by PinealGlandThoth


PGT I could be wrong but I think I detect undercurrents of bigotry in your post.
Alex makes a very fair point - if you are going to speculate about god's existence then you have to take into account all the great many deities that mankind has worshipped/invented down the ages.
Due to a complete lack of evidence of any kind,Zeus sat around a chessboard or Odin with his two pet crows Memory and Knowledge are just as equally feasible and plausible as the abrahamic god with his big white beard.
I think you'll agree that putting aside religious agendas is important if anyone is going to have an impartial,objective,constructive discussion.

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
Also, have you considered the possibility that people who have no knowledge of religion in and of itself are drawn to the fact that they must worship some higher power? Consider newly discovered tribes and such. Never is there a case where we have found an "atheistic tribe".

So then from this we can assume what?
That a lack of knowledge breads illogical beliefs.
Who'd of thunk it.
This is exactly what we need to move on from.
This day in age, we have an overwhelming amount of information at our finger tips.

So what have we learned?
Tribes with next to 0 knowledge of our Universe hold illogical beliefs.
And on the other hand:
Nations with an increasing amount of knowledge also see an increasing amount of atheists through each generation.

It's funny that I was thinking about this today, watching TV strangely enough. I hope I don't sound like I'm proselytizing, but I think it makes sense.

I caught the end of a program about scientists attempting to formulate an adhesive to rival the sticky properties of geckos. Interesting, but the thought that occurred to me is that this illustrates the efforts of science in a nutshell, so to speak. To overcome nature. The nature of disease, the nature of aging, the nature of weather.

The next program was about tornadoes. And things become a bit more subjective. As I watched it became easy to imagine how most humans could see this immense power to be the presence of god. They then talked about the unpredictably. Which lead me to think that the probability of god is the probability of a hurricane, a tornado, rain, clouds, and life itself. There will always be an element of chaos in our universe that our human ingenuity cannot overcome. We can know how the winds are made, but we can't make them blow.

Does this prove god exists? Not at all. But it means god can't be proven not to exist either, in all probability perhaps.

I was only trying to point out the fact that many people desire something more from the world, as if deep down they don't feel satisfied and have the desire to create a deity or all powerful being to explain it all.

Also, (not trying to be a bigot, just supporting the facts), Christianity was the first religion that says we can know God and learn his secrets. It says the we can become like him, basically allowing for all of science to be studied to exhaustion. Some people object saying that mathematics was first invented in the Muslim community, or even with Pythagoras, or the Babylonians. Not so, there religion did not permit them to study ALL sciences to the extent of their curiosity. Christianity supports all science.

Here are some religous scientist to mull over, think about their area of study.

-Albert Einstein (believed in the impossibility of the non-created universe)

-Max Planck (believed in omni-present God)

-Isaac Newton (Found it impossible to believe that the universe just happened)

-Charles Hard Townes - Nobel Prize in Physics (wrote "convergence of science and religion)

-Allan Sandage (Jewish Astronomer converted to Christianity later in life)

just to name a few

You can see many atheist scientists over the years converting to some type of religion after seeing the results of their research. So are you saying that countries that have a large body of intelligent people hold more atheists because intelligent people realize that atheism is the way to go?


[edit on 16-10-2008 by PinealGlandThoth]

[edit on 16-10-2008 by PinealGlandThoth]

I can give a Christian answer to the OP, but, it will not convince but I put it here for information. At least a way of understanding where someone with my faith comes from in considering this question.

I'm not "only" a Christian but come at this with post-graduate degrees in Theology, Comparitive Theology and Egyptology. My thesis for Egyptology was that we should avoid using the term "magic" about so many aspects of ancient Egyptian religious life as it resulted in a chasm of understanding between us and them. The central part of the work dealt with the enormous similarities between the Rites of Osiris at Abydos and the Triduum of Catholicism (i.e. from Maunday Thursday to Easter Sunday.) There is a very definite correlation between them: grain, death, resurrection. Even the liturgical rites of both had startling similarities with "real-presence" processions, mourning and celebration. Whilst people might claim the story of Jesus borrowed from that of Osiris it is impossible for the rites at Abydos to have been copied by Christianity as by the time of early Christianity the rites had been "lost" for over 1,000 years.

To me this indicates that though our knowledge has evolved the human being itself has not evolved in the last 10,000 years and that there remains within each person, as there was, a desire to "look at what is above" (anthropos). That it is definitive of human nature to seek God and that God in turn, as creator, has in various ways revealed Himself to many nations at many times through creation. This is compatible with the first Vatican Council's declaration that God may be discovered by reason alone.
The revelation of Christ completed humanity's quest for God. Humanity had indeed progressed in its discovery of the nature of God. As well as ancient Egyptian religion's proximity to the truth it is interesting to note the "evolution" of faith in the Old Testament where God (from there perspective and approaching closer to the truth) changes from the best God among many to the one and only God and where Incarnation and Resurrection of the dead is discovered. When humanity, specifically the chosen people and those near them, had developed such insights into God it was time for the Incarnation itself which added to reason the completeness of Revelation. Christianity is such a potent faith because its creed is not far from those religions which it encountered worldwide which had, through reason's pursuit of the questions which define humanity, already come close to.

A good example of this is found in Acts 17:22-23 "Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: "You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.' What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you." Here's a nice picture of the roman version ...
External webpage
The old gods served a purpose, they were humanities attempt to answer the most fundamental and deepest human questions, answers which were inspired by reflecting upon the Creator's work and, in many ways, prepared the ground for the Incarnation. They were, if you like, an artist's impression of what was yet to be fully revealed in Christ.

---

By the way, I do like your thoughts in the OP (to a degree!) it is a thoughtful consideration and one which leads me to suggest you might enjoy Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods" a book which presents exactly what you suggest. You might almost feel sorry for the small gods who were once great but which, starved of belief, are reduced to merely faint voices on the breeze ceaslessly searching for a soul to believe in them and restore some of their power.

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
I was only trying to point out the fact that many people desire something more from the world, as if deep down they don't feel satisfied and have the desire to create a deity or all powerful being to explain it all.

Because a lack of knowledge makes us feel vulnerable. So we seek to know the answers even if that means tricking our minds into believing them.

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
Christianity supports all science.

Except for that which doesn't support their beliefs.
Evolution.
Our world being billions of years old.

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
Here are some religous scientist to mull over, think about their area of study.

-Albert Einstein (believed in the impossibility of the non-created universe)

-Max Planck (believed in omni-present God)

-Isaac Newton (Found it impossible to believe that the universe just happened)

-Charles Hard Townes - Nobel Prize in Physics (wrote "convergence of science and religion)

-Allan Sandage (Jewish Astronomer converted to Christianity later in life)

I could name more than a few on the other side.

And the percent of "leading" scientists who hold religious beliefs has been declining from around 30% in 1914 to less than 10% in 1998.

freethoughtpedia.com...

So for every scientist you find who supports religion, I can give you 9 who disagree.

But as an aside:

Albert Einstein:

Einstein was an agnostic, but for a public face he--for practical reasons--wished to keep his lack of faith from the public. The press and the church wanted people to believe that he was a man of faith, and they succeeded.

www.skeptically.org...

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
You can see many atheist scientists over the years converting to some type of religion after seeing the results of their research. So are you saying that countries that have a large body of intelligent people hold more atheists because intelligent people realize that atheism is the way to go?

Not that we hold more atheists, but that we are starting to lean more towards atheism. Each generation sees more and more atheists. As we begin to listen to the scientists and put our Bible down, we see the value in knowledge over blind speculation.
You, however, seem to be looking at the wrong numbers. The majority of scientists are NOT religious, and you seem to be basing your data on people who lived years and years ago. Isaac Newton? He knew nothing about quantum physics as we know today. I already said Albert Einstein was an agnostic. I wasn't aware that Max Planck believed in God, though I knew he was aware of the invisible energy he discusses in his work.
Either way, the MAJORITY of scientists are atheists.
Don't you wonder why?

reply to post by TruthParadox


Whether a majority of scientists are atheist etc is besides the point. Truth is not democratic, if it was then the world once was flat.

Science and faith not being incompatible is a salient point however and I'll add my two most referenced scientists in relation to this question: Gregor Mendel and George LeMaitre. Their work may help you understand that evolution and the age of the universe are not scientific theories incompatible with faith.

Originally posted by Supercertari
Whether a majority of scientists are atheist etc is besides the point. Truth is not democratic, if it was then the world once was flat.

But you left out the main point which I was making. Knowledge is the key to truth.
The belief that the world was flat was a belief that was formed in light of insufficient data.
The belief in a deity is formed due to insufficient data.
I agree that truth is not based on popular opinion, because if it was, God would exist, as the majority of people in the US and other parts of the world believe God exists. But, the truth is usually discovered through knowledge. Scientists make it their life's work to seperate fact from speculation, and they do it through knowledge. They are also constantly pushing the bounds of knowledge to form better theories. The theory of a deity is one which is formed with even less knowledge than the theory that the Earth is flat, and yet you don't believe the Earth is flat. Why would you? You have all these genius scientists telling you why it's not.

Also, besides all that, the only reason I even brought up scientists is because PinealGlandThoth was suggesting that scientists are converting to Christianity because there is scientific bases behind it. In actuality, scientists are becoming atheists at an alarming rate, even though most were born and raised to believe in God.

Originally posted by Supercertari
Their work may help you understand that evolution and the age of the universe are not scientific theories incompatible with faith.

But to a vast majority of Christians, it does go against their beliefs. Also, unless you choose to take Genesis as a metaphore of some kind, evolution absolutely does go against the Bible.

reply to post by TruthParadox


Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of New York cabled Einstein to ask: "Do you believe in God?"(Sommerfeld, 1949, 103). Einstein's return message is the famous statement: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings"( 103).

Although Einstein did not believe in a personal God, he did in fact believe in a higher power, according to the page you referred me to.

"My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God."

I think our Egyptologist has summed things up effectively. We are in fact starting to realize that the no-creation belief is an impossibility, which is exactly what Einstein points to, as did Max Planck. There are various Physicists, (especially Planck) that have realized the impossibility of a non-created universe. If Planck's constant had been slightly bigger, had the radius of a hydrogen atom been slightly smaller, had absolute zero been any lower, WE WOULD NOT EXIST. This has been proven mathematically.

saif..._w.tripod.com/curious/God/scientific_case_of_god.html

Go about a little more than halfway down the page.

HMMM... for some reason it won't let me post that link /\

To get link search on Google "had planck's constant been different universe would not exist the math" the link is the second one down.

It is not the lack of knowledge that makes us feel vunerable, but the knowledge itself that gives us our fear. Our uneducated person could be said to have an intuition. Just as Supercertari said, our early religiosity stems from unguided knowledge.

Einstein believed in a higher force or power but did not trust in the extent of his knowledge to say what exactly that power was.

Just as supercertari said, Christianity does not necessarily go against evolution, what if god was only instrumental in setting things in motion and then letting them do their thing?





[edit on 16-10-2008 by PinealGlandThoth]

[edit on 16-10-2008 by PinealGlandThoth]

reply to post by TruthParadox


Isaac Asimov wrote a short story on Genesis being a metaphor for something else.

www.sumware.com/creation

Also, you could also say that if more and more people are "coming closer to the truth", that the general population is usually wrong and that only a small number of people, such as Einstein or Planck, are actually the closest to the truth and should be followed.

reply to post by TruthParadox


Knowledge is not the key to truth there are, and I hate these moments which make me sound like Rumsfeld, unknowable truths. Truth exists whether it is known or not. The problem with a lot of empirical knowledge is that it is presented as refusing to acknowledge there are truths beyond its capacity to know. That there are things unknown is really what inspires science to try and discover them. There are truths as yet unknown hence the billions spend on hadron colliders etc. and (and here's good old probability again) there are truths which may/will never be known. "It's only truth if we scientifically prove it" is a monstrous mantra of the current era because where does that leave truths such as "love" - which I presume atheists believe in despite the universal inability to dissect it.

The testimony of at least four witnesses to the ministry of Christ is substantial knowledge for me. Reflecting (remembering Locke's principles of experience as sensory and reflective) on the experiences of generations of believers is substantial knowledge for me.

I am sorry if your perception of Christianity is that a majority of its adherents reject the theory of Evolution but, and here's a majority for you, the largest Christian religious denomination (Catholicism) does not reject evolution. What I, and many of my peers, will object to is the consequence of it being presented in the nihilistic manner in which it currently is which caricatures humanity as another animal and hence absolves humanity from its responsibilities with bestial excuses. The harm that the application of the notion of the "survival of the fittest" in various forms has wrought need not be highlighted.

Why not take Genesis as a metaphor? Why not read Genesis in light of St Peter's assertion that "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2Peter 3:8) Indeed I find Genesis to be entirely compatible with the theory of Evolution when read in this light. It's all there: that breath of God and creation of light in the big bang, water coming before life, plant's coming first, complex animal life in the oceans first, animal life on earth, humanity - they are not incompatible. Genesis is not, however, a scientific thesis so the correlation need not be exact and neither should that lack of exactness cause people on either side of the false divide between religion and science reject the writings of the other because they are separate genres written for distinct purposes. It's as foolish as rejecting Shakespeare's "The Tempest" because it's not meteorologically correct or ignoring hurricanes unless Caliban shouts a warning beforehand.

Originally posted by Supercertari
Knowledge is not the key to truth there are, and I hate these moments which make me sound like Rumsfeld, unknowable truths.

Well then we are on the same page.
I believe there are some things humans will never know because we are incapable of comprehending them.
Our Universe's existence for one is an impossibility through our minds.
The Big Bang Theory, which may be correct (though I have doubts), does not describe how matter came to be, just how our Universe was formed.
However, by and large, knowledge is the key which makes the truth known to us.

Originally posted by Supercertari
"It's only truth if we scientifically prove it" is a monstrous mantra of the current era

Don't get me wrong, I have assumptions about the Universe.
I speculate as anyone else does.
But I do NOT hold these assumptions as truths.

Originally posted by Supercertari
because where does that leave truths such as "love" - which I presume atheists believe in despite the universal inability to dissect it.

We can dissect love. I'm very much interested in psychology, and yes we do know why people feel love just like we know why people get sick.
But when you're in love, just as when you're sick, that doesn't really matter anyway, does it?

Originally posted by Supercertari
The testimony of at least four witnesses to the ministry of Christ is substantial knowledge for me.

There are many testimonies of many deities.
What gets me most about creationists is their ability to accept one testimony (which has no evidence of being true) as the ultimate truth, and yet see another testimony (which also has no evidence) as the ultimate deception.
Where is the constant?
I am consistent, so if I were to accept the Bible as an accurate historical account, then I would believe in a variety of beliefs from Apollo to Zeus.
Now some say that it's because the Bible is more plausible and that other fairy tales are far out there.
These are the same people who believe that the impossibilities in the Bible are really just metaphores, yet they do not offer other beliefs the same luxury.
Where is the constant?

Originally posted by Supercertari
Reflecting (remembering Locke's principles of experience as sensory and reflective) on the experiences of generations of believers is substantial knowledge for me.

That's fine, you have every right to accept it as evidence.
But again, if I were consistent and believed in God, I would also have to take every single experience of the supernatural into consideration.

Originally posted by Supercertari
What I, and many of my peers, will object to is the consequence of it being presented in the nihilistic manner in which it currently is which caricatures humanity as another animal and hence absolves humanity from its responsibilities with bestial excuses.

If you disect anything far enough, you will not be happy with the outcome.
I don't care if I'm considered an animal or not; I'm smarter than all the other animals. It's like eating JELL-O, and then someone telling you what it is you're actually eating.
But why does it matter?
We choose to have morals and a sense of decensy, and no word such as 'animal' is going to change that.

Originally posted by Supercertari
Why not take Genesis as a metaphor? Why not read Genesis in light of St Peter's assertion that "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" (2Peter 3:8) Indeed I find Genesis to be entirely compatible with the theory of Evolution when read in this light.

When I was a Christian, I couldn't understand why anyone would take it as a metaphor. It's not written as a metaphor. Nowhere in the text does it imply that it's a metaphor. It's written as an actual event that took place, and it requires assumption to call it a metaphor in my opinion.
And if it WAS a metaphor, then what else is a metaphor?
Is the story of Jesus a metaphor? Might as well be, we have no constant after all, right? Was Noah's arc a metaphor? Must have been, afterall it would be impossible for it to be a historical event.
Hopefully you understand my point.
It just seems like a convenient way for Christians to sweep all the flaws in the Bible under the rug.



[edit on 16-10-2008 by TruthParadox]

Originally posted by PinealGlandThoth
Also, you could also say that if more and more people are "coming closer to the truth", that the general population is usually wrong and that only a small number of people, such as Einstein or Planck, are actually the closest to the truth and should be followed.

I don't believe that anyone should be 'followed' without looking at the information. This is precisely the problem - simply following the leader of the pack. You may not call your belief Einsteinium or Planckism, but if all you do is follow without investigation, then it's the same as any other religion.
My point is that we have an overwhelming amount of information at our fingertips due to scientists. It's up to US to asses this information and make a choice.
From you mentioning Planck and some of the other things you've said, I think our beliefs are not far off.
I simply do not believe that there was a creator as in a conscience being who created the Universe. I believe that we do not understand anything about the existence of the Universe.
Doesn't it seem a bit 'human' to you that we put a face and a name to whatever 'created' us?
Why not a mathematicly precise domino effect which is merely percieved by us to be perfect because we are a part of it?
If we are in the 'circle' then how can we understand or percieve the outside of the 'circle'?
We can't.
And it seems more than absurd to me that we put an identity to our 'creator'.

based on the current scope of basic human knowledge, the probability that a "G*d" exists is 50%.

End of story, there is no way to argue otherwise.

[edit on 10/16/2008 by JPhish]

I think our Egyptologist has summed things up effectively. We are in fact starting to realize that the no-creation belief is an impossibility, which is exactly what Einstein points to, as did Max Planck. There are various Physicists, (especially Planck) that have realized the impossibility of a non-created universe. If Planck's constant had been slightly bigger, had the radius of a hydrogen atom been slightly smaller, had absolute zero been any lower, WE WOULD NOT EXIST. This has been proven mathematically.

No, we probably would be here, but in another form. Our environment didn't evolve to suit us, we evolved to suit our environment.

Just as supercertari said, Christianity does not necessarily go against evolution, what if god was only instrumental in setting things in motion and then letting them do their thing?

That makes no sense, evolution goes completely against christianity, and how creation is described in Genesis.

I think in order to understand gods we need to know more about ancient history. As other posters on different threads pointed out, the heavens in those days mainly referred to the skies. And in the skies we have the sun, moon and stars, which have been shown to have been worshipped frequently as well as other planets.

Theres stories of angels coming down from heaven, is that a primative attempt at describing other beings arriving here from the skies, or is it from drug induced travels of the mind. The ancient pictures found with what looks like crafts of some sort in the skies are also of interest.

There are so many stories that appear to have double or hidden meaning and could quite possibley point to us being in contact with others.

Space is a big part of our planet, as our planet exists within its realm. Have we simply fogotten our true heritage over the millennia?

I have read theories on wormholes, stargates and time all happening at once when viewed from the highest dimension. If it did at all become possible to bend time and space, our children will grow up used to concepts alien to us.

Did life on earth and the only life in the universe really just spring up as the result of a natural experiment, with all the components being in the right place, at the right time to create something unique as in life and intelligent life?

The universe is a vast place and we are just a small part of it, if its sole purpose is not to contain and sustain life, then what the hell is the point of it?



[edit on 17-10-2008 by Horus12]