God exists

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I thought he was glad his dad is alive and that his uncle was there at just the right moment to stop his suicide.

No offense, but you come across as a little arrogant. You don't want to reply but do it anyway because you want to state your opinion, and everybody else are supposed to just shut up? Come on...

yeah and that's why he called his thread "God Exists!"

an obvious provocation

Eh, for some people a declaration is a provocation.

I think something which needs to be appreciated is that if God takes any action in the physical world, it directly violates the free will of every creature within a radius ("speed of light" * "time") after a minimum time of "time" around the site of the action. The change propagating out from the action would influence everything around it, on any level from the superficially imperceptible (God reverses the momentum of a single particle, say) to the all too obvious (God stops a bullet in plain view); either way, it's going to impact the brain of everyone around, and that's an end to free will, and that, as far as I'm concerned, is why God allows us to f* stuff up as much as we do.

Short version: the universe around us runs on a set of semi-random laws and we respond to it with free will. If God does anything to break the laws of the universe, God is exerting a directing influence on our free will, coercing it and making it no longer free.

So God keeps out, and watches only, and might try different rules next time, and if we're lucky may translate the personalities of dead people to some nicer place - though while we keep free will, I don't believe any perfect heaven is possible. But a very nice time is certainly conceivable.

so if I started a thread called "2+2=5!" would you think that I was just happy about my discalculia?

I think there would be less hostility over a mathematical false statement than for a true statement with theological implications.

But it was a very biased statement. If something was said to the effect of "my dad tried committing suicide but my uncle walked in at just the right time, there must be a god" then it wouldnt be as bad, but he said "god exists because a relative happened to visit another relative at an opportune time"

Is it the devil's doing everytime my brother comes by when i'm about to take a big relaxing sh**?

Yes, you can't choose things which is beyond your physical abilities. This doesn't make you a robot. So I wonder why killing isn't beyond one's physical abilities if god was truly good. As it stands now, it looks like the universe is as it is, with no god watching over us, which means that bad things tend to happen.


Miscarriages happen to people who really wanted to put their children into the world, so this seems like a moot point.

He saved my fathers life when he made an attempt of suicide...

For me, aside from personal experience, there is the first cause and teleological arguments. Feel free to search for them, I'm not going to write them out again, though if you want to see where I wrote them, there is the local search engine or digging through the PPR archive.

It's weak, yes.

For me, aside from personal experience, there is the first cause and teleological arguments. Feel free to search for them, I'm not going to write them out again, though if you want to see where I wrote them, there is the local search engine or digging through the PPR archive.

The First Cause, or Cosmological Argument, says that everything has a cause, and, since we supposedly can’t have an infinite series of causes stretching into the past, a god must be the first cause — an uncaused cause. This argument was described by Aristotle, and has at least four problems.

The main problem of the First Cause Argument is the idea that every event has a cause. As we discovered in the 20th century, the universe is actually ruled at the bottom level by quantum mechanics, in which it’s possible for events to have no cause. An obvious example of quantum mechanics in action is the radioactive decay of a uranium atom. There is no previous cause for each such event, and we can only predict it with probability. The averaging of quantum effects gives us the Newtonian experience that we have. However, Newtonian physics does not control the universe; quantum mechanics and Einsteinian relativity do. We now know that the universe has an intrinsic, bottom level of uncertainty that cannot be bypassed. Quantum mechanics also shows us that objects can appear out of nothing and then disappear back into nothing. Even in supposedly empty space, virtual particles are continuously appearing and disappearing. This is a real and measurable process, via what are known as the Casimir effect and the Lamb shift.

The beginning of the observable universe — of all the matter and energy in it and even of time itself — is called the Big Bang. The science of quantum mechanics is only a century old, and already we've been able to get extremely close to understanding the beginning of the observable universe — with no god needed. How close can we get? Approximately a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory is supported by extensive data. Six prominent facts are:


The red shift of almost all galaxies, getting greater as their distance increases.
— This shows that the galaxies are flying away from each other, at greater speeds at greater distances.
The cosmic microwave background radiation.
— This is a remnant of the radiation from the Big Bang, and has cooled over time to the exact temperature predicted.
The variations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.
— These variations fit theoretical predictions, and were caused by quantum differences near the start of Big Bang.
The proportions of the lightest elements and isotopes.
— This helps show that the calculations for nuclear interactions immediately following the Big Bang are correct.
The changes in galaxies as we look further away (and thus back in time), with distant galaxies more primitive.
— This shows some of the changes in the universe since the Big Bang, and confirms the deep time of the universe.
The change in the apparent speed of type 1a supernova as we look back in time, with distant supernova exploding more slowly.
— This shows that the light has been stretched out by the expansion of space over billions of years.
The physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth of MIT has put forth the scientific theory, called Inflation, that the Big Bang was just the result of a random quantum event called a vacuum fluctuation — with no cause, created out of the space vacuum, and with a total energy of zero. Even tho this doesn’t make sense in the Newtonian physics of our experience of the world, it does make sense in quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity. In relativity, gravity is negative energy and matter is positive energy. Because the two seem to be equal in absolute total value, our observable universe appears balanced to the sum of zero. Our universe could thus have come into existence without violating conservation of mass and energy — with the matter of the universe condensing out of the positive energy as the universe cooled, and gravity created from the negative energy. There is also excellent experimental and theoretical evidence to support Inflation Theory. We may eventually determine that Inflation Theory is wrong or incomplete, and we may never be able to completely understand the actual beginning; it could be that we're not smart enough or that the physical science necessary is not possible for us to do. But, that doesn’t mean that a god caused the Big Bang — any more than our past lack of understanding meant that a god caused lightning.

The next problem of the First Cause Argument is the assumption that an infinite chain of events is impossible. This argument is made moot by the Big Bang, which negates the need for considering an infinite chain of events in our universe. Because time started with the Big Bang, any question of what happened before is nonsensical — much like asking what is north of the North Pole. Also, many cosmologists have proposed that our universe could be part of a much larger, super and perhaps eternal meta-universe. In this meta-universe “baby” universes are created by pinching off from “parent” universes — leaving no way to inquire about the characteristics of a parent universe. We certainly don’t know for sure, and may never know. However, this meta-universe would allow infinite chains of events.

Another problem comes from the common definition of God as eternal, perfect and unchanging. If these qualities were true, then why would God need a universe and how could God change from not needing a universe to needing one? This god would have existed for an eternity and then decided to create the universe.

The last problem with the First Cause Argument lies in its assumption that this eternal god exists, something that it is trying to prove. This is known as begging the question. Even a child can ask, “If God created the universe, then who created God?” If the answer is that God is uncaused, then the same answer could certainly be applied to the existence of the universe — that it is uncaused. Besides, which god are we talking about? People using the First Cause Argument always make the assumption that their god did the creating. Muslims think that Allah created the universe. Hindus think that Brahma did it. Christians and Jews think that Yahweh did it. Most religions have a story of how their god created the universe. The idea of a god as creator of the universe makes for a good tale, but it obviously tells us little about the characteristics of that god. What they are doing is explaining one mystery with a bigger mystery, and that is fallacious logic.

The Argument From Design states that the universe is so complex that it requires a designer, like a watch requires a watchmaker. It's just another argument from ignorance.

Many people think that the world looks like it was designed (and by their god, to boot). Of course, the sun also looks like it goes around the Earth. It is only thru science that we know that both of these perceptions are wrong.

To explain the complexity of the universe and life, all we need are the properties of self-organization and emergence that arise out of complex adaptive systems. Stars, galaxies and planets have come into being as the universe has slowly increased in complexity over time — from the simplicity of the Big Bang. Biology and paleontology have shown that life has also slowly grown in complexity over time — dependent only on the the rules of physics and chemistry. No god was necessary.