What created God?

You, good sir (sir?), have contributed nearly nothing to this debate.

Unitarianism was here and they were wondering WHERE THE HELL LUNA LOVEGOOD WENT.

There are things we do not know, yes. I support the first half of this post.

This statement is not undeniable, just as it is not the most logical conclusion to come to. But can you honestly say that Occam's Razor, as a logical theory-esque-thing, takes into account all factors and can definitely say that the Atheist belief is most logical and, therefore, correct? Just because it is simpler?

Oh god I thought I was weird for this

 

I'm gonna say that there is no way to explain it

 

It does mean the atheist solution is more logical, and out of those two, the logically correct choice given the choice of the two.


You have an object that needs its existence explained. Do you:

a)Say that the object is eternal and doesn't need explained.

OR

b) Say that another being we have no evidence of existing is eternal and created the object. This being is also credited with many other actions, and accepting it here will mean accepting its existence for other cases.

 

What I'm saying is is that there may or may not be a God and that we're probably not going to be able to explain it for a WHILE.

 

THANKS, WE GOT IT. I'll be with you this evening, P. Busy atm.

 

This is a solid point in the end. Due to the fact in science, we must approach what we can perceive, account for, etc, and no deity or group of deities happen to be coming forward to prove existence and what function they possess in the universe/multi-verses, etc, we can only go with what we have. The word of men written in books and carried down through generations is hardly enough of a validation when humans can say whatever we really want to and make it seem like it's true. The human condition of saying things such as 'God exists' along with a bunch of collected stories is not science. It is no more science than those who say 'being gay is unnatural' when this point has been proven to be erroneous due to the simple fact that there are countless animals that also show gay behavior, whether some people like to admit it or not.

Often, we confuse also what a scientific theory is. A scientific theory is something that came at first as an idea/concept. It became a hypothesis (which in English regular speech would be a 'theory') that has its merit to be tested in the scientific community. After scrutinizing the hypothesis, trying to -disprove- it in countless ways, racking the brains of many minds to find fault in it, the hypothesis, if it withstands all of this, becomes a Scientific Theory. I don't think anyone debates that the sun is in fact larger than the earth, or that the earth is round, unless they are idiots. They also don't say the moon does not produce its -own- source of light. These are Scientific Theories. So is evolution, despite the desire for those who grip religion so tightly to say otherwise. Their proof it is otherwise? Words in some books written by men.

Some people try to say the world is too perfect in design and therefore it must have had a hand in its work. There is no proof that the world is in fact perfect at all. If anything, there are mutations that transpire that have proven to be fatal to a species. There are environment changes that also occur which wipe out species who cannot adapt. How about also considering the fact that beings are born that cannot survive without extensive help and even then some die off in droves? What about all of the miscarriages that happen? What about the fact that people can be born blind or attain blindness later on in life due to problems with the 'wiring' of the body? How about all of the ailments? We, as humans, have done a lot to ourselves to allow ourselves chances to survive this world and its conditions from early on. We wear clothes to keep warm, we give ourselves shots to prevent diseases ahead of time, we take medicines to get over sicknesses or to level out hormone deficiencies etc. We take vitamins as supplements because we require them to keep healthy and we regulate our intakes of certain natural foods even because they simply aren't so great for us. We have a lot that we do to preserve our lives for a longer extent than nature alone would allow. We go have surgeries when cancer is found or a heart valve is weak, or someone gets an aneurysm, etc. My point in the end is that nature is hardly by a grand design and it is far from perfect by any means. If it was, we humans would not bother with having to create so many things to simplify our lives and withstand the pressures of it. Animals too adapt, as do plants, insects, etc. And these adaptations are also not perfect.

This isn't to say though, that the world is not an amazing place and it really should in some ways be marveled at. I do not see though why such marveling means that it is necessary to say the wonders were created by some deities who do not show their faces and claim what their purposes are etc. If there were a deity out there watching over us all, why is the world filled with such failure as well as success? What makes person A more likely to survive and not just that, but succeed while person B is born with cerebral palsy and must be supported through most of his/her life? What makes person C a miscarriage that never had a chance to live outside the womb? No, the system is not perfect, nor blessed. It simply seems just to -be- there and there is an order to it, but also a fair amount of chance. There are also choices people, animals, etc make that can have positive or negative effects on survival. The world has its beauty and can hold a person in awe, but part of what science does is examine it to make it better understood.

This again, doesn't mean science is out to necessarily prove that gods exist or do not. It means that it goes with what is there and tests it out. Have history and science had to delve into legends and what not because they counter what science attempts to do by expanding our knowledge of our world, space, and life itself? Yes, indeed it has. The reason for this is simple. If a book says 'the world is supported by pillars and is flat' yet the scientific knowledge of the world to include even pictures from space shows otherwise... well yes, the book is suddenly wrong. If we can find and hold in our hands objects from millions of years ago, and yet a book declares the world to be 6,000 years old, that book is again, found to be in error. If we can hold skeletons in our hands of beings who existed as an offshoot of what we can see today... again it suggests that the book is wrong and things were not always as they are today. An anaconda that did not have the ability to expand its jaws to consume food from the past versus the ones we see today that adapted and have this ability shows life progresses and alters. It adapts.

Does this mean science can dispute the that there ever was a deity or group of deities etc? No, not at this time. It can, however, prove that humans have no idea what actually is out there, made up things to work into government systems and to keep people in check and that a good portion of the information they declare as 'true' is able to be scrutinized. It proves some people have vivid imaginations and have used them to control masses of others who simply nod their heads in agreement without testing the validity of the statements. I am one who believes science can examine a lot in the world and nothing should remain sacred from that. Otherwise we would not -know- things today or have the devices we do to make life so much easier. We could not be on the computer, have dishwashers, clothes that can withstand the worst of elements, microwaves to make meals in 3 minutes, fridges that can keep our foods safer longer, etc. We also would not have medicines to protect ourselves, or know of the various creatures of the world, etc. How can we preserve what we do not know of? How can we properly cherish it? How can we understand that the melting of the ice caps could wipe out polar bears because they have a hard time adapting to another way of life when they have been doing what they have for thousands of years?

If there are beings out there, they do a very good job at hiding themselves and again, science isn't out to prove they do or don't exist. It's to examine our world, space, etc and to find out what actually we can prove that -does- exist, be it patterns, circumstances, energies, etc. It is to look back and to look forward and take actual evidence. If we get to the point of understanding even more, perhaps we will find something or perhaps we won't. Again though, even if such beings ever existed, we as humans simply have it all wrong and have borrowed from one another to keep myths going while dismissing others as folly. Just taking a look at Christianity in itself, let alone the other Abrahamic religions tossed in, there's barely a unified opinion on what this hypothetical entity wants of mankind or how we should treat one another. Since I can easily enough establish that the books are false in information and that groups rip away from each other and have even warred over the point of said entity and what it means to them, it's just something that seems rather illogical to buy into. If however, sometime science does find evidence of deities, hey... I am open minded. If the evidence is there, I am not going to dispute it, but rather ask what the purposes of them are and hear what it is they have to say and see what evidence they have to back themselves on. However, what are the likely chances of that happening when it has not happened already? It seems rather slim so for now, I just go with what I can actually examine and don't tend to care about what at least I can clearly discern as fictional.

Would I want more into the secrets of the universe? Sure thing, but I'm not going to believe in something that I can disprove through logic. I'm content to let things I do not know remain open ended questions instead, as are a number of other people, though we are vastly in the minority. I wish more people were like that but it seems that a fair number of humans MUST know the answers now and if there is nothing, they toss in whatever they think fits. That is closing the mind to me. I'll stop going on because I get the feeling I could write more and more and lose myself to this xD

 

Sorry, I forgot this.

Logically correct? Not hardly. Your fundamental problem here is still that Occam's Razor is a tool of logic meant to be used in scientific experiments, to simplify findings and make more sense of scientific findings. Using Occam's Razor in this debate is treating it like a scientific process, which is pretty much the opposite of a religious debate on a children's videogame forum.

Even so, even if the Razor did increase the likelihood of the Atheist Big Bang happening, it would be ineffective as an argument because increasing the probability of an event happening does not mean it happened. In the grade school problem of "There are two red marbles in a bag and four blue marbles in a bag; You draw one," the probability of you drawing a blue marble is not 100% just because it is the more likely solution. You still leave the possibility of there being a god, which you cannot do on the atheist side of a theological argument.

It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God with scientific evidence. Therefore, the best that can be hoped to be done is to support or uproot Its existence with the best logic and philosophy possible. As long as you leave the possibility that there may be a god, I have won; as far as I know it is not in Atheist beliefs to admit that there "may be a god but I don't follow him". On the other side, I uproot your arguments to there not being God by saying they are based on scientific thought processes (which they are).

 

We as humans look for the LOGICAL solution to things and therefore tend to make things up to make things seem more "logical" so God is a topic that has obviously been debated for a long time. In the end faith is the thing that separates creation or evolution. All of us need to believe one of the two blindly since we don't have much proof of either one. I mean just think about it this way. Which seems more logical for the explanation of the universe.
A. An almighty being that has always existed created all things and watches over them even to this day.
or,
B. A random explosion made things magically come into existence and humans came after much adapting.
Also if evolution were true then why are monkeys still here today? If we evolved from monkeys then why aren't any more humans evolving from them and why are they still the same as they were a years ago? When you think about it the illogical becomes more logical then the logical.

 

True, which is why the Greeks, Romans, Mesopotamians, etc. came up with their gods. They could not explain things, such as earthquakes, tidal waves, and whatnot, so they created gods. Since the rise of Christianity and other monotheistic religions, those gods were deemed false.

Faith is blind, you can't see what you're worshipping. Evolution has fossils, relics, etc. There is proof of it.

If there is a god watching over us every day, and this god loves peace and all he created, why is there war, famine, disease, and so on?

It was not random, nor was it magical. It was the intense compression of high-speed atoms that caused the Big Bang, and it was by pure chance that Earth had the perfect conditions for life to form. Venus, for example, is very similar to Earth, except the poisonous gases prevented any kind of life from occuring.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions ever, right alongside the myth that people thought the world was flat. We did not evolve FROM chimpanzees. We evolved ALONGSIDE them. Somewhere, some millions of years ago, we had a common ancestor in Africa. Back then, the land was mainly jungle and savannah; more accurately, "islands" of jungle surrounded by savannah. In order to get from one food source to another, the ancestors would travel from jungle to jungle - some would die because of predators, keep in mind that they have not started walking upright yet.
Somewhere, perhaps from a mutation in a gene, a few started walking upright. This allowed them, when crossing the savannah, to see the predators before they were killed, as well as the ability to carry things, such as food.
The ones that remained on all fours are what eventually became the chimps we know today. The ones that walked upright and travelled are what are now homo sapien sapiens.
And because evolution never stops, we will not look how we do now in say...a million years. We will adapt to whatever we need to, and the ones that don't will very likely die.

 

oh my god, I want to reply to every single post, but there is no way I'm typing all of that.
But I wanted to say somethings.

Which is actually the definition of faith.

Lol Three of the four horsemen.
There's a difference between watching over us and getting involved.

This^
While I do believe in God, I don't disbelieve evolution. I mean, while I still have some problems with it, I believe it.
Monkeys and humans have a recent common ancestor. I have names of a bunch of our ancestors in my Anthropology notes and could probably lecture, but I'm no professor.
One thing that is astonishing to me, though, is that one of the recent ancestors (Aegyptopithecus) had what we call a Y-5 molar. Their molars were divided with 5 bumps and made a Y pattern. We humans still have that, but monkeys have moved to a different dental pattern. In other words, monkeys have evolved further than us, teeth-wise.


Most anthropologists have said that it isn't impossible for evolution and God to both be true.
It's Creationism that causes the drama. I personally think that Creationism can be true, just not the way people said (Adam was the first human God made and was a perfect human. Adam could have been a freaking bacteria for all we know)

 

Oh hai. :lolface:

I don't think it can get much clearer than this:
Fossils. Fossils trump creationism, I'm sorry.

I don't ever remember learning that a God is meant to rescue orphaned baby kittens and huggle them. No, you didn't say that. But my point is God isn't physical, as has been argued, and who/whatever it is isn't there to hold our hands and remove all obstacles to help us to reach the Meaning of Life. War and famine exists because of human error and human indecency. Divine beings don't shake their fingers at people who cheat or kill, then bribe them into being good. It's human nature that creates war and famine. Human nature spawns for science.
Disease: If there was no such thing, there is a big possibility that the Earth would overpopulate uncontrollably. Disease may be something humanity needs.

 

Yes, we've covered the lack of proof, so in the strictest sense, it is impossible to logically be an atheist. The best choice is clearly agnostic. However I use the term atheist for when the best argument for god is "Well you can't prove it's not there", as that can be used to prove the existance of anything. Fairies exist, but they spray special repelling powder so people don't discover them. Electrons are actually little gremlins who play tricks all day by using magic to blow stuff up. The world is actually flat, and all proof of it has actually been tampered with by invisible demons. When all those arguments are equally vallid, I consider the notion no longer worth openly considering. So while I admit that I cannot disprove all of these, so they remain a possibility due to them requiring a devil's proof, I don't see any reason to entertain the notions for anything but theoretical arguments. So to summarise it, I understand that there is a fragment of a single red marble in a bag of billions of blue, but I define that chance as being so small, it's not worth considering. I consider that atheism, but it's agnostic in the strictest sense. You win the battle of semantics, I'm not an atheist, I'm a far flung agnostic.

My goal with Occam has not been to disprove god's existence. It has simply been to shake the foundations of the argument "The universe exists because it was made by god, ergo god exists". Many believe that to be a 100% argument, or as you put it, only blue marbles in the bag. If I can then shake that by throwing some red marbles into the bag, I am satisfied, because the the burden of proof is on the side of god, not mine. So either the side of god needs to come up with evidence of a god, or an argument to which there are no alternatives. I was taking the argument "Universe, thus god" out of the latter category.

God is not scientific, because it makes no predictions. Evolution says "This is how I predict the world is. The fossils will be separated into layers." Then we research, and find it is correct. Evolution gains some weight. It is not scientific to arrive after the findings, then fit in a theory, e.g. "The flood caused the mud banks to sink that way", because if the fossils were out of order, you can equally argue "That's because the flood messed them up". What predictions has the theory of god made? What evidence has been found?

 

Well how do you know that those fossils are from millions of years ago? How does anyone even know how old the earth is? Those fossils can be from fish that died in a tsumani a hundred years ago for all we know. And yes faith is blind but thats what makes it faith. You have to trust what you believe just like you trust that the earth is millions of years old.

Read the first few chapters of Genisis and you'll find out but in case you don't have a Bible i'll make the explanatin quick. Adam and Eve(the first humans) ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil(the forbidden tree) and sinned against God after being tempted by a serpent (Satan a.k.a. the Devil) and they were banished from the garden of Eden. But at that point sin had entered the world and God hates sin and sinners. Since war is killing i'd bet that that's why He doesn't get involved in it. Famine and disease came when they were banished as well. They had to deal with much more after leaving.

 

As for how old the Earth is, I couldn't tell you. I didn't pay attention that much in science class to remember how scientists came to that conclusion.
And because fish wouldn't drown in a tsunami...?
But a fossil from a hundred years wouldn't look anywhere like a fossil from a million years ago.
Carbon Dating, radioactive dating, there are more than one [mostly] proven way that we use to date things.
Bullshitting it? Your best argument would be that people like DPWolf and P probably didn't date the objects themselves and are just trusting what teachers and scientists told them which is just like faith. Unfortunately, if they had the tools and were to date the fossils themselves, they could prove it for themselves.

Pandora's Box. Different version of the same story.

As a fellow Christian (completely ignoring how uncommitted I am), let me tell your right now not to take the Bible so literal. God Himself didn't write the Bible. It's been translated over and over and over again by man (who we know is unperfect) things have been changed, add, taken out. What the Bible teaches you may be absolute, but the stories aren't. God created us in His image, we have no idea what He looks like. Adam and Eve could have been a primitive ape for all we know. Or more likely, the story is a metaphor.

Your parents taught you about the little boy who cried wolf to keep you from lying. Doesn't mean there really was a shepherd boy who lied to the town about a wolf eating his sheep until he finally wasn't believed and was eaten.
Take the lesson from the story, not the story itself.
Oh, and because the Bible is so up for interpretation, the lesson you take may not be the actual lesson. That's my own problem with Christianity.

 

It's called carbon dating.
And if the Earth isn't millions of years old and the fossils we have are not that old...where the hell are the dinosaurs?
Those fossils have been dated back to millions and millions of years ago. Same with ancient humans, like the Neanderthal, Austrialiopithecus (I know I killed the spelling), and Cro-Magnon. There are skeletons of all three; none exist today, but you can see the gradual development into the homo sapien sapien. In fact, the Cro-Magnon skeleton is very close to the modern human.

Lilith and Adam were the first humans. I explained this part of the story a page or two ago.

Yeah this story is like a copypasta from the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the original story, Gilgamesh and his friend were in a garden, searching for immortality. The serpent was never the Devil, it was a god from an older time. Back then, when a new religion rose, it turned all of the old gods into demons. The serpent depicted in the story is a god from an older time, made evil so that the new religion rises.

And yet so many have killed in God's name, killing "infidels" because they do not believe in God. But wouldn't those "holy soldiers" be sinning themselves? Shouldn't God smite them for using his name to kill?

 

You do know that there are ways to find out the age of a fossil, right? One would be radiocarbon dating which most archaeologist use to find out the age of something.

EDIT: Oops, Wolfie got to it before me.

Just thought I would clear this up but God only hates the sin, not the sinner.

 

Then why are there so many stories in the bible of the killing of sinners? If you hate the sin, kill the sin. If you hate the sinner, kill the sinner. Actions speak louder than words in this case.

 

He has no choice but to kill? Give me the powers of a god, and I'll eradicate sin without killing. Don't try to tell me that for one who made the laws of physics, eradicating sin without murder is difficult.

What aspect of sin does god hate? Sin in itself is not considered wrong by human standards. Take homosexuality. We're fine with it, and are not prejudiced. Yet this god is. We have surpassed god in acceptance of others, and in terms of moral. There is no need to have a god as moral support, because as he is now, he teaches us to be less accepting of our neighbours.

But I've already voiced my opinions of this subject several threads ago, and I think in this one too. Look back a few pages for my argument there.

 

No He does not. He hates every aspect of sin and even though we may be a little more accepting of gays and lesbians than He is to Him it's still sin. Morals are a different story though, and WHEN does He teach us to be less accepting of our neighbors? Last time i checked He told us to love everyone no matter what.

 

If he has no choice, he is not all powerful.

'a little more'? He wants to let them burn for all eternity. We want to have them live with us in peace. An all loving god should not have more hate than love.

Morals are the same. We accept masturbation. He does not. We accept blacks to be equals. We accept women to be equals. Morally, we are superior.

My (hypothetical) neighbour is gay.